'Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned. And the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.'
You think I understood everything he was talking about? Blame it on those translators of King James the First. Abishai the son of Zeruiah was incensed by these gloating jeers and loudly said to me:
'Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.'
I firmly refused. And I said unto Abishai, 'Every time you speak, Abishai, you want to take off somebody's head. Tell me this: where is your brother Joab?'
'Do I know?'
'Let Shimei curse,' I said resignedly, in full awareness of my fallen condition, 'because the Lord hath said unto him to curse David. Who therefore shall say to him why he hath done so? Let him live. And it may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day.'
And as I and my men continued downward on our heartsick and tortuous way, Shimei went along on the hill's side with me, and cursed as he went, and threw stones at me, and even cast dust. Until we had gone a good distance and he had fallen behind. We were weary. We rested when we had traveled in our labored descent to the level land of the plain, and we refreshed ourselves there while Absalom and the people strode triumphantly into the city I had abandoned, and Ahitophel, that turncoat, with him. As I sat upon the ground, my thoughts returned to my early patron Saul, dispossessed by God and Samuel in his final days. Of the death of kings I longed to wax poetic, but my servants were too tired to listen. Of the wrath of Achilles I wanted to sing once more, but I didn't feel up to it.
And in Jerusalem, meanwhile, my secret agent, Hushai the Archite, had stationed himself along the king's way to hail Absalom as he passed into the city and greet him loudly, saying, 'God save the king, God save the king.'
Absalom halted when he recognized him. 'Is this thy kindness to thy friend?' he inquired acidly. 'Why wentest thou not with my father?'
And Hushai, who was wily, said, 'Nay, but whom the Lord and His people, all the men of Israel, choose, his will I be, and with him shall I abide.' Hushai did not stop there. 'And again, whom should I serve if thou art now the king? As I have served in thy father's presence, so I will be in the presence of his son.'
Absalom was won over by this tribute and took him into his council, aware of what indispensable value he had been to me in the past, and Hushai kept silent and remained courteous when Absalom sought guidance for what next to do. He uttered no protest when crafty Ahitophel recommended, 'Go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house.'
'All ten?'
'Each and every one.'
'They're his worst ones.'
'But all Israel shall hear then that thou art abhorred of thy father,' explained Ahitophel, 'and the hands of all that are with thee shall be strong, knowing what fate will betide them shalt thou fail. The women are the property of the king, and the people will know that all that pertained to thy father belongs now to you.'
'God save the king,' said Hushai the Archite.
So they spread for Absalom a tent upon the top of the palace, and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines before all Israel in the sight of the sun, somewhat in the manner that Nathan had prophesied. The crowd below was applauding wildly after the seventh and egging him onward toward each of the rest with a mounting roar. There were girls who were cheerleaders.
'Let's give him an A!' they chorused.
It came as no shock to anyone that he was fairly winded when he had done with the ten, and therein lay the seeds of my salvation, in that post-orgasmic fatigue in which he allowed himself to languish.
'What next?' he inquired sleepily, mainly of Ahitophel, whose history of unerring counsel in those days was as that of a man who had inquired at the oracle of God. 'I think I'm pooped.'
Ahitophel was quick with another sensible proposal. 'Then let me be the one to choose out twelve thousand men,' he offered unto Absalom. 'And I myself will arise and pursue after David this night. The men are here. We can depart right now.' Hushai the Archite told me later that he felt his heartbeat grow fainter when he heard this advice and understood the wisdom behind it. Ahitophel went on, saying, 'And I will come upon him while he is still weary and weakhanded, and will make him afraid. And the people that are with him shall flee in the confusion, and I will smite the king only. Thus will the others be brought over to you, there then being no other king to serve. So will I bring back all the people unto thee, and all the people shall be in peace.'
The strategy seemed as wise to Absalom and those others around him as it did to Hushai the Archite, who now was gravely anxious that it might be immediately put into play. This was the moment of truth. He did not let me down.
'The counsel that Ahitophel hath given is not good at this time, I am sorry to have to say.' Hushai spoke very carefully, making sure to nod profoundly as he dissented, after Absalom had called unto him for a second opinion. Tactfully, with a guise of most somber concern, Hushai elucidated why, blending reason and soft soap as delicately as an apothecary mixing balm. 'Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and that thy father is a man of war. He will not lodge with the people'--which is exactly what I was doing--'but is hid right now in ambush in some pit, or in some other place, awaiting thee. And it will come to pass when some of your men be downed at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, "There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom," and he will be filled with fright. And he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt, for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men. Therefore I counsel thee to wait, that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude. And that thou then go to battle in thine own person. Who can withstand thee then, when all Israel has been gathered unto thee? So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground. And of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone left there.'
And Absalom, savoring the picture of himself at the head of that magnificent army Hushai had conjured up for his delectation, and the men of Israel all with him, decided that the counsel of Hushai the Archite was better than the counsel of Ahitophel the Gilonite. But Hushai, who'd been taking no chances, had already sent to Zadok and Abiathar to dispatch couriers quickly, their sons Ahimaaz and Jonathan, to warn me that my enemies meant business and to spur me to go rapidly as far from Jerusalem that night as I was able to travel. The youths were spotted by the watchmen of Absalom as soon as they set out, and they themselves quickly became the quarry of another hunt. It was touch and go with them until they sheered off the main road and came to the house of a man in Bahurim who sided with me and who had a well in his court, and they hid themselves inside it. The woman of the house spread a covering over the well's mouth and put ground corn upon it to deceive the searching party, which, misdirected by the women about the path the two young runners had taken, found no trace where they were sent and returned empty-handed to Jerusalem. Ahimaaz and this young man Jonathan came up out of the well when the coast was clear and continued on their way through the starlit night until at last they came to the place where I had made my stop.
'Watchman, what of the night?' I inquired when alerted by a stir I heard at one of the outposts of my encampment. I had staked out sentries everywhere. Not like Saul was I ever going to be caught napping on the ground by someone like me.
'Two messengers,' my guard reported. 'Ahimaaz is here, and Jonathan too.'
/> Both were hot from sprinting and covered with sweat. Ahimaaz the son of Zadok I recognized first, and I solemnly made inquiry of him.
'How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people?'
'It is full of people again,' Ahimaaz disappointed me with his reply, and filled me in on the events following my hurried exit. He delivered the insistent, dire message from Hushai to arise and pass quickly over the water, saying, in the words of Hushai, 'Lodge not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but speedily pass over, lest you be swallowed up, and all the people that are with thee.'
Who is on my side, who? I had a momentary impulse to cry out in my melancholy and despair, emulating Saul in the depths of his haggard madness. It would have been folly. For all about me were people on my side, and Joab was soon with me too, bringing with him additional cohorts of soldiers he had mustered. I was growing stronger with each hour: I soon would have time to organize. Whereas when traitorous Ahitophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and got him home to his house, to his city of Giloh, and put his household in order, and hanged himself and died. Wise Ahitophel knew before I could what the outcome would be. And he saw he had no future. I lumbered onward to the river in response to the warning from Hushai, and by morning light there lacked not one of my people that had not gone over Jordan.
We were spared. My danger past, I felt no elation. My heart was heavy, my head was bowed with the knowledge of impending tragedy. I knew that Absalom would come after me, and I knew he would die. He had sown the wind. He would reap the whirlwind.
I'll tell you now what wounds me still. 'I will smite the king only,' he listened to Ahitophel advise. While the order I gave was 'Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.' Is it right, I ask you, that a child should so much seek the death of his father, and that a father should so much seek to protect the life of his son? They told me how his face lit up when Ahitophel spoke of smiting me, and when Hushai talked of lighting upon me as the dew falleth on the ground, and of drawing the whole city that had sheltered me into the river until there did not remain even one small stone. When he was small, my son, he wouldn't let me sleep. Now he wouldn't let me live.
In the morning, we arose with the voice of the first bird and traveled north until we came to Mahanaim in Gilead, that same city in which Abner had based himself with Ishbosheth when he was at war against me. And it was in that distant part of Gilead that I was succored with the kindness and loyalty which I would have better enjoyed receiving from my subjects closer to home in Judah and Israel.
While we rested and bathed and ate and drank, Absalom passed over Jordan with his overhastily recruited citizen army of celebrants, who came to war as though to a festival and flocked to his banner to do battle against me in Gilead like dancers attending a beheading and a coronation. Absalom had Amasa as captain of his host, while I, thank God, had Joab. Inexperience was evident from the start, when they pitched in the land of Gilead with their backs to the wall of the wood of Ephraim, into which they could not withdraw in adroit maneuver if they wished to or retreat in an orderly fashion if they had to. Their numbers were large; they could have pitched on two sides of us. We wondered why they did close themselves in just there, before the wood of Ephraim, which still remains a trackless jungle affording no certainty of escape. And it did come to pass that when their lines broke, as many of their men were devoured by the wood as were devoured by the sword. They withheld no one in reserve to divert us on the flank. I watched their obvious mistakes with ambivalent feelings. They did not know what they were doing. I did not want to see my son lose. I did not want to see my countrymen who were with him routed. I divided my army in three, and the enemy was dumbfounded. They had no idea how to cope with us, how to attack or defend.
Even before they had arrived in place, I had numbered the people with me and separated them into equal forces, a third part under the hand of Joab, a third part under the hand of Abishai, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. I planned to set forth with Joab, as in yore. But my leaders did not want me out there at all that day, insisting I was worth ten thousand to the enemy, who could destroy the whole by destroying the one and would ignore all else to fall on me. I agreed to remain by the two gates of the city and wait for word. I stood by the gate as my people went forth in their groups into the field against Absalom. The tension I suffered was terrible. I felt my heart in my mouth.
'Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom,' I gave orders, begging, first to Joab, then to Abishai, and to Ittai. 'Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.'
Prayerfully, I repeated these words a thousand times, to make absolutely certain that all of the people taking the field that day were familiar with the charge I had given the captains concerning Absalom; and that unknown soldier who came upon Absalom first with his head caught in the oak tree remembered my wish and braved the ire of Joab by refusing to put forth his hand against the king's son while he hanged there.
'You saw Absalom and you did not smite him?' Joab had much more mopping up to do and was furiously brief. 'I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle, hadst thou smitten him to the ground.'
And this man, who had backbone, replied unto Joab, 'Not for a thousand shekels would I put forth my hand against the king's son. For in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, "Beware that none touch the young man Absalom." Otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against mine own life. For there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself would have set thyself against me.' I've many times wished that Joab had recorded this man's name.
'Take me to him,' Joab demanded. 'I haven't time to argue.'
The man brought him there to that tree from which Absalom was hanging by his head. Joab tarried not but made short shrift of the matter with the three darts in his hand. He thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. Joab did not withhold from me any of the gory details when he came to my chamber later to rebuke me in contempt and to help me pull myself together after I had gone all to pieces with the shattering news that my son Absalom was dead.
'Then, ' said Joab when I had ended my weeping and sat staring at him in numb exhaustion, 'I had the ten young men that bear my armor surround him, and smite him, and slay him, just to make sure.'
'Joab--spare me. ' I put my hand up weakly.
'Then I had him cut down and cast into a great pit in the wood.'
'Please--I pray you.'
'And laid a very great heap of stones upon him.'
'My son, my son.'
'Don't start that again.'
'No burial? No prayer?'
'He had lifted his hand in revolt against God's anointed.'
'No more, I beg you, no more.'
But that was after the minor mix-up with the messengers from the field that gave me the first false hope that all the news was going to be wondrously good. Joab showed judgment in selecting someone other than Ahimaaz to tell me the worst.
The fighting itself was almost perfunctory. The people of Absalom were quickly slain and routed and scattered over the face of all the country about the wood of Ephraim. And Absalom also fled when he met my servants. He rode away in flight on a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth, and the mule that was under him continued away, leaving him hanged in that oak, helplessly alive, until Joab strode to that spot and finished him off with those three darts he took in his hand. The war was over. And Absalom was dead. But I didn't know.
Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok spoke up eagerly, saying to Joab, 'Let me now run and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies.'
Here Joab was sensitive and instinctively guessed that the young man should not be the one to be sent to bear me the whole truth. 'Thou shalt not bear tidings this day,' Joab said unto him soberly, 'but thou
shalt bear tidings another day. But this day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king's son is dead, and thou shalt not want to be the one to go to him with that.'
He sent Cushi the Ethiopian instead to run to me and tell me what he had seen. But Ahimaaz could not stand still and begged leave a new time, to run after Cushi and give his report too.
And Joab said, 'Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast now no new tidings ready?'
'But howsoever,' the excited youth pleaded in his dither of freshness and enthusiasm, 'let me also run. I came to the king with sorry news when he was departed out of Jerusalem. Let me go to the king now with good.'
Then Joab relented. 'Run,' he permitted, positive that the Ethiopian Cushi would reach me first with the horrible news to be broken.
But Ahimaaz was faster and ran by the shorter way of the plain, and he overtook Cushi, and was coming with his tidings first.
I was sitting on a bench between the two gates when the watchman on the roof over the gate called down to the porter that he beheld a man running alone toward us. I almost fell down when I sprang up from my seat to see the sooner, for one of my legs was asleep and the joints of both knees were stiff. I was no longer young. But I was not as old as our revered Judge fat Eli, of whom I could not help thinking during those long hours when I sat on my bench and waited--old fat Eli, penultimate Judge of Israel and mentor to Samuel, no ancestor of mine, thank God. Fat Eli too, I remembered, had sat on a bench at the gate of a city, awaiting news from the field, and fell off his seat backward and broke his neck and died when told of a loss to the Philistines in which the ark of God had been captured and every man of Israel had fled into his tent. Eli was ninety and eight years old when that happened and very heavy, and his eyes were dim. I was younger and had better reason to expect a triumph. My agitation was for something more.