The Philistine Warrior (26 page)

“Believe me, sir,” Priest Ibbi put in, “Her Majesty will be better off if she can dwell with the Goddess in Timnath for a while.”

I wasn’t yet used to hearing her called “Majesty.” I looked hard into Ibbi’s eyes. “You’re aware of the possible danger involved in getting her there?”

“Yes, m’Lord,” he replied. “But the omens are good for a safe journey—”

“What the hell do I care about ‘omens’?” I snapped, much to Ibbi’s surprise.

But Delai intervened, tears in her eyes: “Please, Phicol, don’t quarrel. I’m not afraid—and we can go in disguise, so no one will even know…I just want to be alone with the Goddess for a while….” She put her hand on my arm.

What could I say? I agreed to take her request to the Council of Askelon, and she kissed me in gratitude.

We’ll never know the sum total of the suffering which flowed from that agreement on that fatal day. But who is to say that our plans, our dreams, made the future what it came to be? Destiny (or,

as Ibbi would have it, the Goddess) cannot be cheated of its victims by the mere exercise of human will. At least so it seems.

Sheren Maoch was, as usual, given to worry. Zaggi, on the other hand, did not seem unduly alarmed by Delai’s request. He pointed out that our position in and around Timnath was a good one—indeed, I myself had testified as much. And so Delai would be safe enough, provided we gave her a strong escort to that city. In any case, I wondered how much her safety meant to him. Perhaps he loved her as his ward, in his way—but he’d never really liked her very much. Besides, after her engagement to Ekosh, he’d lost control over her; and he resented that.

Zaggi resented even more the fact that Delai now ranked above him according to the rules of court etiquette, because she’d been the wife of our Melek. Indeed, she might have demanded real power after her husband’s death, in the form of membership on a regency council—except that she was much too unassuming and non-political for that kind of ambition. Held in high esteem by the people of Askelon and
Gath
, she was also the mother of a possible future Melek; therefore, she commanded a very important position—both legally and emotionally—in the hearts and minds of all Philistines. Her importance, then, may have increased Uncle Zaggi’s willingness to see her out of Askelon, lest someone (me?) use her prestige against him. For whatever reason, Zaggi advised Sheren Maoch to let her go to Timnath. But Maoch still fretted, so I spoke up with one final point:

“My Lord, it seems to me that this isn’t even a proper issue for us to discuss. It’s characteristic of our Delai that she asked your permission, since she’s a guest here in Askelon. But look at it this way…there’s never been a situation like this before: no reigning Melek, but the widow of a Melek; so I’m convinced that Delai is quite independent of Askelon’s Council. Can we possibly maintain that the Queen becomes subjected to her native city upon her husband’s death?
Gath
would never concede that. And could even

the Council of
Gath
command her obedience? If she takes it into her mind to do so, she can simply go wherever she pleases. Until a new Melek is elected—or a regency declared by Gath’s Council—there’s no one in all Philistia who can tell her what to do or where not to go!”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Maoch allowed.

“And if you try to prevent her from going—like, for example, refusing to provide her with an escort—someone is bound to point out, to the Gathites, for example—someone might point out the legal rights which, because of her youth, she doesn’t realize she has.” That someone, I was thinking, might be Ibbi—or it might be that
Gath
would send for her, furious at Askelon’s attempt to restrict her movements. I myself might advise her of her latent powers. I myself might even enjoy rubbing Zaggi’s nose in the stink that could arise from such constitutional questions—and
Gath
’s determination to keep the Melekship (hence the widowship) in its own hands. It probably irked him to be told that his former ward now had more control over her own life than he did—or anyone else, except maybe the Council of Gath.

So perhaps Zaggi’s willingness to see her out of Askelon—and away from
Gath
—was inspired by the thought that somebody there, that is, in
Gath
, might use Delai’s prestige against him and his faction. I’ll never know; but I’ll always regret my part in convincing Sheren Maoch to allow her trip to Timnath. For my sage observations, by the way, I did receive a very dirty look from our Chancellor.

But Maoch had been persuaded; so, in a few days, Delai started off for Timnath, leaving her son, Akasou, in Askelon in Maoch’s care—because she intended a complete retreat from the world, a total communion with her Goddess, a further and thorough indoctrination in Her rites, several weeks worth, in search of solace and direction.

I saw her off, and provided her with an escort of charioteers. She traveled
incognito,
and it really was quite funny—because we dressed her in the clothes of a Babylonian priestess, and put her in a wagon with Ibbi, himself disguised as a merchant! Only the Councils of Askelon and Gath—and Sheren Ittai of Ekron, in whose territory she would be—were let in on the secret; plus my faithful Jaita, now a

major and in command of her escort. For all anyone knew, Ibbi and Delai were simply travelers in a caravan under a normal-size military escort.

I did not go with her caravan. In the first place, my presence would have drawn too much attention to the caravan. In the second place, I was very busy at that time—not, to my annoyance, at my command post, but rather in Askelon…because internal politics now demanded my attention; and everyone’s, for that matter. Ekosh’s scratched-together army was sitting idly, a ways from the walls of Ekron—Ittai’s truce with Dan forced the army to remain quiescent, though on the alert; besides, every Philistine noble of any importance had now returned to his own city, since the political situation was in a high state of flux.

I took time out from politics only long enough to purchase a sacrifice in honor of Astarte, when I learned of Delai’s safe arrival, without incident, inside the walls of Timnath; her disguise, moreover, had worked. Then it was back to the political mills for me.

The assassination of King Ekosh had caused two developments: one was an argument over the succession; and the other was an intensification of the war against the Judaeans and our own rebel Canaanites. Not just an intensification—a further brutalization of that conflict, under the pretext of avenging the King’s death.

Up until that tragic event, landlords and local militia chiefs on our borderlands had fought the Judaeans, and put down Canaanite rebels, with some discrimination, attempting to seek out and destroy only the truly rebellious and their supporters from the hills. But the inevitable frustrations of such warfare had built up over the months; and the initial bloodbath right after the assassination had not been enough to satiate the Philistine desire to kill. Instead, the massacres got worse and worse.

What had occurred in Azekah now took place throughout the whole land—Philistines of all social levels, in the countryside, in the hamlets, even in the great cities…a rampage. The only major exception was in Ekron, because the destruction of Azekah had satisfied many Philistines there—and, besides, there was Ittai’s precious truce with the Danites to renew and keep going. It was easy enough to commit wholesale murder of Canaanites in the south, but to attempt it in the north, in or around Ekron, would have provoked another serious war with Dan. True, our late King had wanted a major war against the Danites; but, without him, Ittai and his people didn’t have the stomach for another campaign.

Canaanites, men, women, children, were killed, their homes burned, their crops seized by local vigilantes—even crops belonging to Canaanites who had thus far been loyal to us—or at least quiet! Huge numbers were “convicted” in summary fashion of “crimes” and condemned to death or slavery. They were sold to Assyrian merchants, or sent across the ocean to become the slaves of Greeks and other barbarians in the northern reaches.

This was, to be sure, not only revenge—it was also good business, according to Councilor Pai and his money-changers. He pointed out that this exportation of slaves made up, in part, for our declining exports in ordinary commodities; which decline had, in turn, of course, been caused by losses in agricultural production, during the very rebellions of those who were now being sold into slavery. What vicious irony! Except that there was little distinction made between “rebel” and “Canaanite.” And what a price we Philistines paid in our own honor by becoming such brutes.

Yet I had no choice but to serve my city and nation, for the alternative was to stand idly by and see my people destroyed. That is to say, the enemy replied to our atrocities by committing their own—and would have done worse if we hadn’t fought them tooth and nail. The Canaanite rebel guerrillas, the Judaeans—all of them had a long history of savagery behind them.

How many times, in all the years of war I’ve seen, have I come across one particular kind of atrocity, one scene over and over again, which I’ve never really gotten used to? I saw it again during that time

of horror and counter-horror which Uncle Zaggi dared to call a “war.” On this occasion, it was a Philistine woman, large in pregnancy, upended, legs spread apart, and a spear thrust up her genitals far enough to pierce her unborn child—and farther, far enough to pin her to the fence rail upon which she died.

It was the work of Judaeans, but it might just as easily have been that of Danites, or plains Canaanites—or of our own race of Philistines, except that the dead woman would have been, in that case, obviously, herself a Danite, or a Judaean, or a plalins Canaanite. Indeed, in this “war” of civilian murder, the plains Canaanites were most typically the victims. We couldn’t get into the Judaean hill towns, and the Danites were safe because of their truce with Ittai; and our own Philistine villages were usually well enough protected (although not in the case I’ve just described). So it was the plains

Canaanites who paid the heaviest price, slaughtered by the Judaeans when they weren’t being slaughtered by us.

If things keep on this way, there’ll soon be only two kinds of people left in this land: Philistines and Hebrews (counting the Danites as Hebrews). All of the other Canaanites will be killed off by one side or the other. And then what? Will we survive? Or will they? Or can we draw a line at the foothbills and live in peace? Not bloody likely. Those of us who live in palaces by the sea may believe that wars can be fought honorably—and be ended with settled boundaries—but those people out on the frontier, on both sides, they know better than that! They know that war is eternal, that it’s a matter of them or us, and that’s why they hate the next generation even more than they hate the present; and so it’s the unborn embryo which is the
real
enemy after all, and must be spiked!

I know this seems true, but I hope it needn’t be; for if it is, then Zaggi was right all along, and wars are not really for defense but for race murder, and the only objective in life is to murder them before they murder us—to kill and kill some more until they’re all dead. I can hear the bards now as they sing from the
Nomiad
:

…the axe cut a path which ran with blood…shattered all his

Foes…rode Danites down beneath his wheels;

But Nomion’s dark eyes with fury burned; he killed more than

Any on that day, ‘till his thirst was filled!

…the sharp iron of Philistines pierced Hebrew bronze, and

Ephraim’s clan in thousands died; black vultures fed upon

Their gore, and dogs lapped up their blood; but Nomion was

Not content: in blind rage he stalked the Hebrew land until

Their remnants fled into the mountains high.

“Kill them all…” was his battle cry!

But I don’t know how we can consent to such a world, even if it is the real world…and the only world we’ve got.