The Secret Chord: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

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—”
    “They 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?”
    “I 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.”
    “And 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.”
    “This ‘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?”
    “Who 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?”
    “I would put it there, yes. Rather than have him bring his men to take it.”
    “If that traitor and his rabble come here, we will fight them. Some few 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 arrange it. There was dread in her expression, and also anger. She turned on her heel and led the way to the wine store. As she lifted the lid from the pithos, her hands were trembling.
    “What is it?” I whispered. She shook her head and compressed her lips and would not speak. I reached for the dipper and took it from her. Her hands were too unsteady to fill the jug without spilling the wine. “You think Father errs in denying these outlaws?”
    “It is not my place to say he errs,” she hissed tersely. “Neither is it yours to think it. Go, serve and be silent.”
    “But I met a woman in his camp. One of his wives. She warned me that it would be risky to refuse him. Her