The Secret Chord Read Online Free PDF Page A

you—”
    But she did not finish the message I was to bring, for David called for her then, and she cast her veil across her shoulder and left me alone in the shadows. I waited there a moment or so, and then made quick work of sorting and gathering my goats. I almost ran them down the hill to home, bursting with my news. By the time I reached the house, I had shaped the story so as to omit any mention of my putting the flock at risk. Still, when my father heard what I had to say, his brow creased.
    That night, all the important men of the village gathered at our house. My mother sent me to pour the wine for them. One must not think ours was an insular community, distant though we were from other settlements. Because of the balsam resin we produced, and the sought-after fragrances we knew how to make from it, our village was well-known in the Land, and prosperous, too; the trade route was well traveled by all classes and kinds of men. So when our leaders gathered to deliberate, they were well informed. Our neighbor Shem, a resin maker, and therefore an important man, was speaking. “I say we pay him what he asks. His men do some service when they are camped in the wadi. They are a wall to us, and keep the young herders, such as your own boy there, safe from wild beasts or passing brigands. They are disciplined; they have not stolen livestock or plundered the date trees—”
    â€œThey are debtors and malcontents and troublemakers.” My father, usually civil, cut Shem off in midsentence. “He that leads them has set himself against our king, who has made it plain enough that he wishes the man dead. If we pay him, we are abetting an outlaw, a condemned man. Do you want to incur the anger of Shaul?”
    â€œI would risk that before I risk angering
him,
camped upon our dooryard.” It was my uncle Barack who spoke, tossing his head in the direction of the hills. “The king is far away in Geba. What will he know of a dozen wineskins and a few bushels from our grain store? It was a good harvest, a good vintage. We can spare these things.”
    â€œAnd if we spare them to the outlaw son of Yishai the Beit Lehemite, what rabble next will we have at our door, demanding the food from our children’s mouths and the fruits earned by our laborers’ hands? Slaves run away from their masters every day, but we are not obliged to abet them. This brigand is no better than they. Worse, I say. There are rumors he serves the Plishtim
seren,
Achish of Gath. You would help him, and abet our worst enemy? I say we send him nothing.”
    â€œThis ‘brigand,’ as you call him—when he was a mere boy he put the Plishtim to flight at the battle of Wadi Elah. The king did not think him a brigand then. Nor when he took him on as armor bearer, or married him to his daughter, or raised him up as leader of his fighters. You know how he fought in those days. How we all thought he had the blessing of the Name upon him, so many victories he won. Kings are fickle. You know that, brother. They say Shaul threw a spear at the boy, in his own hall, at meat, for no reason. Who would not flee, in such a case?”
    â€œWho would not flee? A man who is innocent. A man who is honorable. It is not for us to question the judgments of our king. You would have us put food in a traitor’s mouth?”
    â€œI would put it there, yes. Rather than have him bring his men to take it.”
    â€œIf that traitor and his rabble come here, we will fight them. Somefew of us know how to fight.” My father did not often speak of it, but he and his brother had borne arms against the Ammonites in their youth.
    I loved my father, and I believe he loved me in his turn. I do not think it entered his mind that the denial of goods would put lives at risk. But when I left the room to replenish the emptied wine jug, I bumped into my mother, listening an ear in the passageway. I saw her face, before she had the chance to