996 BC
Shepherd
An old man stands before David. He is all gristle and stump, lean and bent and worn. He is like an iron weapon left out in the weather, long neglected, utterly rusted, but that might, with enough heat and forging, still take and hold an edge.
“My good sir,” David says, “what might your king do for you?” “Me lord, yer not rememberin’ me, are ya?”
David studies him with cocked head, squinting eyes.
“I fear not.”
“And this from him who fears nothin’. Well, me lord, we both aged some in the meantime, and then you got right famous.”
“Tell me about us.”
“Ha. Well, shepherds we were, you and me, you a wee lad. You’d a voice, oh my heavens, it made all us old men weep. Me, I’d a voice that made us all weep too, for the wrong reasons.”
“Younan?”
“Yeah, me lord. It’s me myself.”
David rises and embraces him. Younan seems taken by surprise, almost reels backward, then holds on like he’s escaping a drowning.
“Sit, Younan. We’ll eat. You must tell me everything.”
David moves to a table and chairs, calls a servant, orders food and drink.
“Now, everything. Out with it.”
“O lord, it’s a long tale, and sad, and not much there to interest anybody, let alone a king. So maybe a short tale. Me life? It’s every day the same, just slower and harder. You knew it well, and got yerself clean out before it did ya much damage. It makes young men strong, and old men weak. The boredom. The fright. Wishin’ by day the sun would go hide itself, wishin’ by night it would come and curl itself up in yer lap. Never noticin’ how bad ya smell until you catch the stench of another one of ya, and it’s all burnin’ in yer nose. Yer eyes too. Or you see it in the face of others, womenfolk mostly, pullin’ away hard whenever ya come near. Eatin’ whatever’s to be et. Drinkin’ whatever’s to be drunk. Hands all cracked, and grime in ’em no lye can make right. Sheep gettin’ themselves into all manner a trouble, like that’s their plan. It’s no life, except there’s none other to be had when it’s all ya known. You were right lucky to go get yerself a throne. I mean this with all respect, me lord.”
David laughs.
“It turns out, Younan, people, some, they’ve no more wisdom than sheep. Maybe less. And twice as stubborn. There are days I’d give up the throne, and all that comes with it, for life back on those hillsides.”
“I’m not pickin’ no fight, me lord, but for an old man like me that’s hard to reckon. You have womenfolk here that make a man’s eyes near pop, and they smell like a whole garden of night flowers. And this food yer man brought here, and wine, this is how God must eat. I never knew a thing could taste so tasty, or look so pretty on a plate. I could go on. How could you have all this and wish otherwise?”
“Oh, I’m thankful. I am. I had some good meals in the wilderness—tables set by Mesha or Achish, or farmers at harvest time. They’re happy memories. But those were rare. Spent many days with nothing, and most scrounging. No, I don’t miss hunger. I miss . . . what hunger brought. Even stale bread tasted like heaven. One time I came to the edge of a canyon. A stream ran through it. Bushes along its sides, thick with wild figs. So ripe they fell into my hand at the touch. Never before, and not since, have I eaten something so perfect. Now, look. Here’s a bowl of them. I haven’t touched a one. A throne can dull a man, Younan.”
“If ya say it’s so, me lord, I believe ya.”
They both fall silent.
“Younan, tell me, what does the kingdom feel like from . . . from where you stand?”
“Might you say yer meanin’ a bit clearer? Me lord.”
“Well, here, people have full bellies. They have work, and fair wages. People seem . . . content. Has this contentment reached . . . you?”
“Ah, now I see now yer meanin’. Yes, me lord, it has. And no, it hasn’t. It feels—well, there’s more air to breathe. That’s for sure. Not always lookin’ behind yer back to see who’s sneakin’ up on ya. That’s a thing. A good thing.”
“But?”
“Well, me lord, that’s what’s bringin’ me here. I’ve come to ask me lord a thing.”
“Then speak.”
Younan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, not with the cotton cloth beside his plate. The veiny skin above his knuckles shines with mutton grease. He smiles a toothy smile.
“What I’ll say is hard to speak, me lord. But all the good yer doin’, for some folk it’s makin’ life harder. The ways you do yer business, with royal agents and all, well, it’s good for people in the city, no doubt. Plain to see. But not so much for those of us in the country. Our animals, our land, yer asking more than God gave 'em to give. You might well remember this, me lord, that a tree or a lamb, it’s only got so much given to give. After, if you ask more, you get less.”
David thinks of Doeg. Lurking in the house of God in Nob, his thin face bladed with shadow. He was once a man whose care for flocks was legendary. It caught Saul’s eye. Saul made him chief shepherd, paid him a handsome wage. Doeg did his work well. The flocks thrived. They grew fat, thick-wooled, abundant.
But Saul grew cruel, and Doeg with him. Cruel to animals. Cruel to shepherds, and to farmers, and to all they loved. Cruel to the earth itself. And then a day came when Saul demanded unnatural cruelty: a whole town of faithful priests put to the sword, hewed like oxen, even infants, and then everything put to the torch.
None but Doeg would do it. Abner, Joab, they refused. Doeg alone was ready. He alone had trained his hands for this. He alone was tutored in the dark art of cruelty. He alone had the appetite to take, not only a thing’s life, but the seed of its life, the life that might grow from its own dying. He alone relished laying waste.
“I remember,” David says.
“Me lord, I knew you would. I just knew. And now look, yer the king, that you are. You of all men you can make things otherwise.”
“Perhaps you’re mistaking me for God, Younan.”
“I never mistook you as such, me lord. But yer God, he’s gone and given’ ya more wisdom and strength than a thousand men, than ten thousand. And, well, as the old men say, God told our first parents, you there, look here, this land, these trees, these animals, you look after them right. Or else. It’s same for us. So I’m saying, this is what God’s askin’. Askin’ you. Me lord.”
“Younan, help me. Join me, here, in the City of David. Be my royal agent.”
“Me lord, I’m right honored. I am. Truly. But I need say no. I fear a year or two here, eatin’ this kind of food, eatin’ it but not growin’ it, I might forget how it got here.”
“Then what is your wish?”
“What I’m askin’, what I’m hopin’, is you don’t make more royal agents, and thin out the ones you already got. Thin 'em like apples. Ease up. You’ll get more from us, up there in the hills, if you take less.”
David kneads his forehead, working the skin like a thorn he’s trying to pull.
Later that evening, he does two things. He recalls half his royal agents. Then he changes his mind, and recalls only a tithe of them.
And he sends for Benaiah, son of Jehoiada. “Find Doeg,” he says. “Do not let his grey head go down to the grave in peace.”
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