Rise to Power (The David Chronicles) (Volume 1) Read online

  Is this an image of this moment—or else, a premonition?

  “Go already! Go home,” groans the crowned one.

  And as I go into the dark passage I hear him breathe the words, “Oh fucking hell! How I wish I could go home, too…”

  Larger than Life

  Chapter 2

  I keep telling myself, Listen, just hear me out: this is foolish! It is utter lunacy on your part, and can result in nothing but disaster. You would end up lying there, a barely recognizable prostrate figure on the ground, separated limb from limb.

  Oh, you would not know the first thing to do when the time comes, when you set foot on that battlefield, and feel the dirt under your toes sinking, drenched with urine, because other fools before you have lost their nerve right there, in that spot. And so would you, only to find out—by the heavy, pungent stink of it—what it means to be a coward.

  On and on I go, pleading with myself. I say, Stop! Consider who you are: a child, who above all enjoys strumming a lyre, not only because it inspires you—but because it brings everyone else around you so close to tears. They cannot help but worship your innocent look, and the heavenly sound of your voice. Yes, they think you an angel! But of course, you know better...

  Now, wipe that smirk off your face. Admit it: their adoration is something you need. You must have it in much the same way you need air. It fills a void inside.

  So why turn into a fighter, all of a sudden? Beware of yourself. Beware of hasty moves in the wrong direction. War is a bloody game. Not for you!

  But the more I try to reason with myself, the more I know: it is all talk, talk, talk—to no avail. I cannot listen, cannot heed any warning whatsoever, because I despise that voice, the meek, cautious voice in me. What is the value of life and limb, when a larger purpose is here, calling me? Oh Lord, how can I resist this pull, this incredible temptation, when thoughts of facing an enemy—the stronger, the better!—have been swelling inside my head for several weeks now?

  What challenge could be more thrilling than finding a way to come out of this fight not only alive—but victorious? What better way to define who I am, than defining who my foe is—and having done so, defeating him?

  I am lost... I am obsessed. Fame, grandeur, glory!

  Up to now I have been playing my humble part around the royal court. Bowing and scraping down at his feet I have been a musician, a player, a dancer before the king. But then, after each performance, I have been studying him from my corner, back in the shadow of his throne.

  “Here,” he says, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Take this!”

  And with a shriek, his spear comes singing straight at me. Usually I catch the thing. This time I dodge it, letting it hit the wall. It hits hard, then falls bouncing to the stone floor. The entire space fills with echoes of it, ringing.

  “Here,” say I, picking it up, returning it dutifully to his hand.

  “Boy,” he says, watching me with a crazed look in his eye, as I go back to my place behind him. “What would a king do without his jester.”

  Oh God. It is so hard to figure him out.

  I often wonder, what was it in Saul, what quality brought people to their knees in his presence, even in the early years, before he was anointed? What was it that made so many of them follow him, to the point of risking their lives? I have turned this question over and over in my mind, and the more ways I look at it, the more I find it baffling. There must be more to leadership than wearing a crown.

  For now, this is what I have come to believe: people will follow, if they perceive that their leader is larger than life.

  For Saul, this is easy. He is so damn tall!

  But stature is only a part of his power. To make his authority even more visible to his subjects—and discourage anyone from doubting it—he adopted some manners, some symbols of high ranking, which he must have learned from hieroglyphic stone carvings of foreign war memorials.

  These symbols include not just this court, but the walled gardens, too. Looking at the waterfalls pumping here continuously I have to remind myself that it is not the stronghold of some foreign dynasty, dominating the Nile delta or the Babylonian Tigris and Euphrates. Set against the view of a sun-stricken desert in Canaan, where water is scarce, this palace seems entirely out of place.

  And looking at the center of all this, at the king himself, I have to pinch myself. He is a striking figure, and not just because of his royal garb. Just like painted icons—those of the god-kings of Egypt, and of the high priests of Akkadian empire—he has a magnificent beard, the likes of which I have never seen on another man before.

  It is carefully groomed, oiled and dressed using tongs and curling irons to create elaborate ringlets and tiered patterns. Often dyed reddish brown with Henna, it is plaited with an interwoven gold thread. And in place of the ornamental scepter of the Egyptian monarchs, Saul holds the next best thing: his weapon. A spear.

  I collect these details in my mind and examine them at length, all the while growing more restless. It is hunger for success, hunger for what he has, that turns in my guts.

  No longer do I ask, what was it in him that allowed him to become who he is. Instead I wonder, whatever it might be, is it in me? Do I have what it takes to become a leader? A king, even?

  And on my way up, how do I overcome my shortcomings? How does a kid like me—who is too young to grow even a single hair on his chin, let alone a fancy beard like his—find a way to project himself into an iconic role, a role that will become memorable for ages to come?

  In short: how do I become larger than life?

  Did I ask it aloud? I doubt it—but then, who knows? To my surprise, a voice offers an answer, which it does by way of a asking, “Now, how about killing a giant?”

  Startled I say, “Who, me?”

  “Who, me,” he repeats, deridingly. “Yes, you! Not afraid, are you now, to risk your life? To sacrifice yourself for a cause, for something bigger than you or me. I mean, for the nation.”

  “Afraid?” I say, as if this word is foreign to me—but my voice is shaky. “No, never.”

  For a while, Saul glares at me. Then he kicks my lyre to the edge of the stage, clear out of my reach. When at last the strings stop reverberating, he blurts out, “I often spot your eyes, lighting up from the darkness back there, in that corner.”

  “I am your humble servant, your majesty—”

  “Even so,” he sneers. “Can I trust you?”

  And as if to put me into a trance Saul starts pacing to and fro, and drawing circles in the air around me with the sharp edge of his spear. “You think I can’t sense you, how you straighten your back and perk up your ears, just about every time I discuss this or that military maneuver with my generals?” His eyes narrow in suspicion. “Perhaps, you’re spying on me.”

  “Please forgive me, your majesty... I can’t help it: I find everything you do, every word you say so fascinating—”

  “I’m sure you do,” says the king, smiling coldly at me. “Hell, this is one thing about which I have no doubts.”

  Desperate to direct his attention away from me I try acting braver than I actually feel at this moment. “So,” I say, perhaps too casually, “which giant, your majesty? I mean, which one would you want me to kill?”

  In three steps—clang, clang, clang, bangs the dull edge of his spear against the floor—he closes in on me.

  “Which one?” he mimics the way I have said it. “You think I’m going to line them up here, an assortment of giants of all sizes? Shall I point up the one in question—or else perhaps at your leisure, you may take your pick?”

  I slide deeper into the shadows and bow down before him. In this place, music is my best instrument to soothe his spirit. Without my lyre at hand I am unarmed. I better say nothing.

  He warns, “I can sense you, even when you’re silent. Damn it, boy! I know what’s in your heart.”

  Saul is either out of his mind—or else, incredibly perceptive, exactly because of being a luna
tic. Either way, it is best to keep my mouth shut. So I take another bow, closer to the floor than the first one. Sooner or later, the king is bound to find it flattering.

  Unfortunately, the deeper I bow—the more he seems to be towering over me.

  “Well?” he leans over to breathe in my ear. “Hesitation is something I despise. Choose your enemy, boy. And for your own good, choose well.”

  I take a third bow, hoping that this time he may soften—but today the king seems to resist me, more so than usual. Then, something happens that turns his attention away from me, if only for a short while. An unexpected sound of chuckles starts bouncing against the walls, somewhere behind him. Trotting like horses across the floor, here come his two teenage daughters.

  Merav, his oldest, is a lovely, bubbly girl. She is petite—but to compensate for that, her hair and bust point upward. She hops onto the stone stage and prances towards her father. Then she rises to her tiptoes to brush her lips across his cheek, at which time her eyes flutter slightly and turn, almost by accident, to meet mine.

  “David,” she curtsies, spreading her silk skirt with a perfectly dainty move, and in a blink, also winking at me.

  “Enough with that,” blurts the younger, nudging her sister aside. With that, she gives Merav a look, as if to admonish her for a behavior unbecoming of a princess, especially a Jewish princess.

  Like her father, Michal is tall. She is all legs, and has no chest to speak of. It is flat as a board. The back of her hand, when she extends it to me so I may kiss it, is white, and her palm feels clammy.

  Then, without a single remark to me or to her father—as if what she has to say is too heavy for words—she turns on her heels and walks away.

  Meanwhile, Merav releases the spear from her father’s hold, and with a disarming smile she whispers into his ear, “You love me, father?”

  “I do,” he says.

  “Then,” she hints at me, “have mercy on him.”

  She leans the thing against the wall, and a minute later hops off the stage, and races her sister to the other side of the court. They disappear beyond the stone arc, and the sound of her giggles subsides, until finally it is no more than a ghost.

  The king heaves a sigh, raising his eyes. Catching sight of the richly draped, raw-silk canopy over his head, he flicks off the pretty tassels dangling down from it. When they fall back into place, he tears them out with a single rip, at which time he turns back to me.

  “Mercy is useless,” he says. “Merav knows better than to ask this of me. I’ve told her so, many times before.”

  Choose Your Enemy

  Chapter 3

  With the voice of an old man, the king mutters, “Mercy is useless. Worse than useless: it’s a mistake.”

  “Tell me, your majesty,” I plead. “I’m your servant. I’m eager to learn from you.”

  Saul looks up at the stone ceiling, where torch-light is flickering. It seems to be fighting the shadows blow by blow, trying to chase them away, or trap them into corners. Up there, scenes of battle must be playing before his eyes.

  “Tell me,” I repeat, “as if I were your son.”

  And Saul goes, “This was one of the earliest wars: the war against the Amalekites. We defeated them handily. But I was charged with a more—how shall I say it?—more complete mission.”

  “To annihilate them.”

  “Yes. Everyone knew it, my soldiers too. They threw the enemy leader, Agag, at my feet so I could mark our victory, I mean, mark it for all to see—by slitting his throat.”

  “And,” I ask, “did you?”

  “I knew I should’ve shown resolve. Resolve is something that was expected of me,” he groans. “But oh, how exhausted I was! How tired of the sight of suffering, of death! I had no more fury in me. Alas, I made a lousy decision. I spared his life, and why?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Oh, hell,” he cries. Then he tries this for an answer, “Because when your hands are as bloody as mine, it feels good to show mercy.”

  “This,” I say, “must’ve cost you dearly.”

  His brows gather tightly over the bridge of his nose. With a catch in his voice, he says, “Here, boy, is the lesson learned: showing mercy is a mistake. It affected the rest of my life.”

  “How so?” I wonder aloud.

  And bitterly, the king smiles. “My chief advisor and mentor, the prophet Samuel, whom I loved more that I did my own father, accuses me to this day of being soft of heart—and therefore, unfit to rule.”

  Indeed, Samuel is admired, even feared not only by the king, but by all who know him. For my part I think him a moody prophet. Of course, there is no other kind. What he prays for is grace—or so he says. I mean, what grace can you expect of a cruel God?

  Forced, by popular demand, to choose a king to rule over us, Samuel looked far and wide, searching for a candidate. In the end his decision was—in my opinion—not divine, but political. He chose Saul, the meekest, most humble person he could find. Why? Because being a wise seer, Samuel wanted to maintain his power, his own sway over our people.

  I glance at Saul. A sad look sets in his eye.

  “Unfit to rule? No way,” I say, to reassure him. “Everyone knows: Samuel is a man of God—but you, you’re the king!”

  Tormented by doubts, the king goes on shaking his head, till his crown nearly tips over.

  “Is it true,” I ask, “that—just to make an example of you, and to show you how to be ruthless—Samuel cut Agag to pieces with his own hands?”

  The king glares at me, but then takes time to find an answer.

  “This,” he says at last, “is the age of cruelty.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I hesitate to admit.

  He grunts, “Despite my best efforts, neither can I.”

  Then I let slip, “I saw him once.”

  “You did?” For a second, Saul locks eyes with me.

  Which forces me to set up a smoke screen. “Oh, it was such a long time ago, it seems like a haze, complete haze in my mind.”

  Saul is so suspicious of me. There is no need to share with him this secret, which is known only to my family, back in Bethlehem: how Samuel the prophet came to our home, under the cover of night; how, to undermine Saul’s reign, he looked for a future candidate for the throne, one who—in his mind—would be as weak as he had previously thought Saul to be. So he interviewed my brothers, starting with the oldest, and rejected each one in turn—until he found the one he wanted: the one who was merely a child, back then. Me.

  “I see,” says the king. “You can’t recall a thing, can you.”

  “All I remember,” I say, “is his beard. It seemed as white as snow. At the time I wanted to climb up to his knees and brush my fingers through those soft, fluffy curls, and dig in there to find his lips—”

  “Damn!” he bursts out. “The hell with him!”

  “Why?” I ask. “Is he not a king-maker? Was he not the one to anoint you—”

  “This,” he grunts, “is the life Samuel thrust upon me: a life with no hope, no forgiveness. Mistakes are harshly judged, and no rewards given—yet the mission remains: to beat one enemy, and before my wounds can begin to heal, here comes another, then another... There is never peace in sight. Don’t you envy me that.”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  “Don’t you.”

  I counter with silence, so he says, “And now, once again, we’re faced by an enemy: the Philistines, led by that gargantuan freak.”

  I stir out of my corner, looking up at him.

  “Goliath,” he says, as if to answer an unasked question.

  At the sound of that name I rub the palms of my hands together, thinking that laying them on a giant is one way, one great way for me to become what I want. Larger than life.

  So, throwing caution to the wind I say, I stammer, “Let me, let me go out and fight him!”

  “Hell! I can just see that,” Saul folds over and slaps his knees, unable to suppress a sni
cker, as if I have said something incredibly hilarious.

  So I say, “I promise, your majesty, I’ll find a way—”

  “Damn it, boy!” By now he is roaring in bout after bout of laughter. “Goliath will lay his hand upon you, yes he will, before you have a chance to control yourself, control your trembling. For now, while you’re still in one piece, do not allow yourself to grow pale—or else, he’s sure to sense how inexperienced you are in combat. And then, then he’ll mince your flesh with his bare, jagged jaws, and feed it to the dogs...”

  A shudder goes down my spine at the sound of these words.

  The king takes one look at me and says, “Seriously now: you’re a boy, and boys stay behind when men go to war.”

  With that he passes his hand, which is crisscrossed with scars of battle, along the spear. He curls his lips with a strange expression: love, almost.

  “Tonight, as any night before a battle, I feel no fear,” he says. “In a way, we’re lucky to be surrounded by enemies, because otherwise we may realize the worst. We may see that—alas—we have a dog-eat-dog fight right here, amongst us. One man gnawing at another, one scheming against another, and the one to be feared most of all is the unknown enemy. The one within. So now, boy, you tell me: who’s the enemy?”

  I shrug, unsure what answer might satisfy him.

  “Perhaps,” says the king, this time without a hint of teasing, “it is you. Yes, you! Your eyes are on my crown.”

  So I lower my eyes.

  And he demands, “It’s time, boy! Tell me the truth, for once.”

  I bite my lips.

  In a flash, the king picks the spear, as if to throw at me—but then he controls himself enough to let it fall sideways from his hand, and roll across the floor in my direction.

  “Enough!” he cries. “Make up your mind! There are so many God-forsaken, freakish giants roaming this land. Choose, boy, choose your enemy!”

  No longer armed, the king rushes down to the arc at the far end of the hall, where his shield is hung for display. He raises the thing up to his chest, and comes right back to face me, shooting a knowing look at me over its rim. “Don’t,” he grumbles. “Don’t you dare give me that blameless look, as if you don’t get what I mean.”