The Philistine Warrior (10 page)

“She just left to get a priest from town—one with healing charms for you,” Delai answered.

“Charms, indeed,” I managed a weak laugh, and propped myself up on my good arm. “Don’t tell me you believe in such nonsense.”

Delai’s eyes opened wide. “Of course!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean you don’t believe in charms?”

“Forgive my impiety, Priestess,” I answered wryly, and sank back down on the couch. There was a long pause.

“Phicol,” she whispered, “are you asleep?”

“I was, almost.”

“Phicol, was it really necessary to kill that man—in that way?”

“It impresses the Canaanites, I suppose.”

“But Cousin, won’t it simply make them regard us as brutes? They already hate our taxes. Rachel was telling me about that. We want to rule justly, don’t we?”

“That bandit got what he deserved,” I answered wearily. “Although I would’ve contented myself with hanging him. But

Warati regards all Canaanites as slaves; he thinks they have to be cowed. Maybe he’s right.” I closed my eyes as the pain welled up again.

“I set Rachel free,” Delai reminded me. “And she’s loyal. I’ve never punished her….”

“War is different,” I countered.

“Rachel was so upset—more than I was, because she watched.”

“But, Delai,” I protested, “those raiders would’ve murdered the Canaanites here in Eglon with just as much glee as they’d have gotten out of killing us—if they could have! And if that man had been captured by a rival Canaanite clan, his final tortures would’ve been much worse, and lasted longer. I’ve seen some really jolly executions, and I’ve seen our people murdered by them in far more gruesome ways.” Then I laughed—because the joke was on me: “How odd,” I noted. “Here I am defending Warati, when a moment ago I was about to write the Sheren, protesting his flogging of my man. Maybe I will anyway….”

“But now you must rest,” she advised. As I closed my eyes, she laid her amulet on my wound again, saying a little prayer as she did.

There were no further incidents. The next day’s journey, from Eglon to
Gaza
, lasted from an hour before dawn until almost after dark. My wound was healing well, so I could sit up in the lead wagon as we passed through the gates of
Gaza
. The city lay on an isolated hill, easy to defend, and the gates were large and strong. They’d been rebuilt some years earlier, we were told, after Danite raiders from
Hebron
had destroyed them with rams and fire.

Gaza
, of course, was Colonel Warati’s home town, and most of the infantry who’d accompanied us on our journey were also natives of that city—men whom he’d induced to follow him into Askelon’s service. So our arrival was a kind of homecoming: Warati, the local boy who’d made good, proudly presented his Canaanite prisoners to the city government to be sold as slaves—part of the profit going to the Colonel and his troops, as was customary.

There were cheering crowds again—cheering as much for Delai, or more, than for Warati…though he didn’t seem to notice. Decorations, banners, everywhere. Citizens hung out flags with
Gaza
’s symbol: a cross, broken at each end, appearing something like a wheel. Flocks of doves got set loose—for doves, like fish, are sacred to Astarte.

At the
Temple
of
Dagon
, a large megaron in the center of the city, we were met by Amphimachus, our own High Priest. He greeted Delai with much ceremony, and escorted her to the
Temple
of
Virgin Astarte
. Again my cousin presided over the festival of the sacred prostitutes; the latter, male and female, soon began to fill the coffers of our Goddess with their earnings. By their actions, they also ensured the coming harvest’s bounty, for the Goddess would be pleased with them, obliged to bless
Gaza
’s fields of grain. By sexual intercourse, such worshipers imitate the male rain which fertilizes the female earth. Appropriate enough.

But the welcoming and fertility celebrations didn’t last long. The second morning in
Gaza
was our sailing time. Warati departed with his infantry for Ziklag, and my charioteers returned to Askelon, leaving me with only a very small honor guard for the trip to
Egypt
. Amphimachus and I accompanied Delai onto the waiting ship.

“How wonderful to smell the sea again!” she exclaimed.

“You speak as though you’ve been away from it for ages,” I chided her.

“Oh, I know you’re a veteran traveler,” she replied. “But you’ve never been to
Egypt
, so there!” We laughed. “Look, Phicol: it’s just like Askelon’s sea front, only less built up.”

That was true enough. Indeed one Philistine port is much like any other. The docks were laden with wine casks from the famous orchards of
Gaza
, and there was, as in Askelon, plenty of grain waiting to be exported. There were slaves, too, some of them Canaanite, some of other nationalities, all with shaved heads and the figure “8” branded on their cheeks.

Some of these slaves were laborers on the waterfront, carrying beams for ships under construction, or for new docks; others waited to be exported along with the wine and cereals. Some were skilled workmen, while the rest merely toted. They all wore loincloths, or little aprons, and conical caps. Women slaves carried water jugs on their heads while children, wearing those little tunics which barely reach their hips—or dressed in nothing at all—scampered around their mothers’ feet. It was a scene such as we’d witnessed many times in Askelon. Ships with furled sails lined up against the sea wall, gulls flying overhead, guards with long spears bellowing orders to the slaves. The ocean was pale blue, and clouds hovered on the horizon; a good day to sail.

Our ship was a single-masted, two-decked affair, with open galleries for slave rowers, plus an aft compartment on the upper deck, suitable for dignitaries. Both prow and stern were swept up and decorated with images: a bull, representing the storm god, on the prow, and a minor sea goddess, one of Astarte’s maidens, on the stern. A lovely sight, yet I knew Delai felt homesick—and maybe a bit worried about becoming seasick as well.

“I call your attention, my Lady,” I signaled to her, “to the fact that you have just stepped off Philistine soil. So here’s a bag of Philistine earth to take—and the amulet you put on my shoulder’s wound.”

She looked about to weep, but kept up the banter: “You see, Cousin—the charm did heal your wound!”

“
Your
charm, m’Lady, works wonders,” replied with a sly grin.

“Dear Cousin,” she sniffled, “in the past weeks you’ve become my dearest friend—but soon I shall lose you, too….”

I took her in my arms for a moment, while she tried to conceal her tears.

With a flurry of oars and shouts, our ship drifted away from the dock and sail was set; we began our 200 mile journey to the Nile Delta. After that, it would be more hundreds of miles up the
Nile
to
Thebes
, where Prince Ekosh awaited his bride. A few warships followed us as escorts, but we expected no trouble, and none occurred.

Pharaoh Ramses then replied: “Your Dagon we salute, a

Brother god, though we’ve

Heard not His name. Astarte is well known to us, but here

She’s called

Great Hathor; yet it’s all the same. O, King, our son, too

Much of blood

Flows between us here. We do not choose to kill you all;

If land is what you ask,

Land you’ll have. But in return, do for us a task!”

--the
Nomiad
, Stanza XXVII

Our ship and her naval escorts hugged the coast all the way to
Egypt
; we were thankful that Sinai’s desert could be bypassed in this fashion. The High Priest made a good traveling companion—as did Delai and Rachel—and we had many interesting conversations during our journey to
Egypt
.

“It was down this coast,” Amphimachus once remarked; “yes, this very coast…where Nomion and our forefathers landed almost eighty years ago.” He pointed to the mouth of a river, one of the Nile Delta’s many outlets. An off-shore breeze ruffled his silver hair.

I thought: well, even for a man of his age, the Migration is now something in the far distant past—and yet we still think of ourselves as migrants, as newcomers in
Canaan
.

He continued: “We were all allies in those days, the Philistines from Karia, the Zakkala from
Crete
, the Sikal from
Rhodes
. We thought that the prophecies we’d heard had meant this spot to be our new home—until Pharaoh Ramses defeated us on Bloody Beach…over there….” He pointed to the ancient battlefield.

“You know this land well,” I commented. Of course, Amphimachus had traveled to
Egypt
on several occasions, I knew, and probably with his father—who would have remembered the battle itself.

“Ramses the Third called us ‘Peoples of the Sea,’ even though he knew that some of our kinsmen had struggled, some years before, to pass from Karia through Taurus to
Canaan
, on wagon and foot. They took their carts and cattle right over the mountains down into
Syria
, where Ramses gave them a good thrashing near the Phoenician coast.” Although more than a generation removed from those events, he seemed to be speaking of his own experiences.

“You mean Lord Bene’s clan?” I asked, a little puzzled by the chronology. Bene and his tragic fate had fascinated me ever since childhood. As a fellow charioteer, I’ve always felt a certain empathy for him.

“No,” Amphimachus replied, “Bene did come that way, but a bit later, after Pharaoh’s garrisons got withdrawn from
Syria
, because of Danite pressure. That’s why Ramses sent Nomion to
Canaan
—to fight the Danites—and he crushed them with Bene’s help, even though they’d quarreled earlier….”

I thought of a passage from the great epic poem of our people:

…yet Bene, second prince, the Lord

Of battle wagons, square jaw set, refused to be so led:

“My clan

Will not its carts and cattle leave for Phrygian hordes to

Take,” he said.

“Overland I’ll march to Taurus; kinfolk of my wife I’ll join;

An oath we’ll swear

Canaan
’s length to cross. The
Nile
’s Delta we’ll all share!”

Thus did the poet sing of the first quarrel between Lord Bene or Beneshasira, as the Egyptians called him—and his father, King Nomion. I can recall some years back, when the chief bard in Melek Nasuy’s court composed the great
Nomiad
in honor of Nasuy’s birthday—his fiftieth, I believe. He took all of the battle lays and songs which the Philistines had sung for three generations and put them together in one composition of over fifty stanzas. Of course, he left out a lot—mostly genealogical lists—but he ended up with a unified, purposeful song of great beauty. Some people compare it to the poems which the Trojans and the Greeks sing about their great war. That’s hardly surprising, since Nomion fought in
Ilium
; he was a vassal of
Troy
’s king, Priam. Indeed, Nomion’s eldest son was named after that king: Piram (giving the name its Philistine pronounciation):

…King Menelaus raised his sword,

Trojan sons to kill, and ravished
Troy
in jealous rage

Because his Helen fair

Gave her love, and loved too well, love-sick
Paris
there.

Priam, gracious Lord, then called the loyal Philistine, his

Vassal Nomion,

And Nastes, too, fierce brother of our King, to
Troy
’s

Great war. They shook

Their spears…by Hector’s side, Fought before the walls of

Troy; fought…And Nastes died.

…until Ruddy-fingered Dawn in envy spied one redder yet:

The Hawk-eyed King who stands

Soaked in blood, his own and Greek, spear still in his hands!

All in vain it was…
Troy
fell, and Hawk-eyed Nomion led his people in an exodus to
Egypt
, thinking that Dagon wanted us to settle there. “So,” I remarked to the High Priest, “if Bene had obeyed his father and come with him by sea, we might have had enough troops to defeat Pharaoh—and make our home here on this shore…?”

But Amphimachus wasn’t convinced: “No, Phicol,” he countered, “I believe that God intended us to live in
Canaan
. Perhaps it was fore-ordained that Bene should split our forces, and thus insure our defeat here. But, if not, I suspect that we wouldn’t have been able to stay here for long, even if we’d been victorious. We’d have been so outnumbered that we’d have had to leave, sooner or later—or be swallowed up by interbreeding with the Egyptians. As it was, I think that only Dagon’s protection prevented us all from being killed by Pharaoh, right here on Bloody Beach. But, you see, Ramses had enemies all over his realm: us, the Danites, the Libyans, the Nubians, rebellious Canaanites—and the Hebrews, too. So he chose to make us allies, and he sent Nomion to
Canaan
to fight off the Danites and the Hebrews, along with whatever other Canaanites might dispute our title to the coasts and plains….”

That’s all very well, I thought. But, if it was so pre-ordained, then why didn’t Nomion’s High Priest—Amphimachus’s own grandfather (also named Amphimachus)—so inform the King? Then perhaps Nomion wouldn’t have quarreled again with Lord Bene—after their victory over the Danites…because Bene couldn’t have been blamed for following God’s plan! I knew, of course, that priests, high or otherwise, just don’t think in that fashion. Only impious people like my father (and me) even think to raise such questions.

So it was that Bene and his father quarreled again, this time in
Canaan
:

And Bene, smiling, said: “My way is clear to take a port….

But Rusa answered: “All the ports are claimed as fiefs by

Those who obeyed their King—but almost died for want of

Men along the Pharaoh’s coast!”

Then Bene’s eyes grew dark with rage: “Is there no city

Here for me—the

Second son of Nomion?” “None left,” the Black-haired Man

Replied;

…you disobeyed your Lord; me, the King!” he said.

When I asked the High Priest about that second quarrel, he answered: “Indeed, the words they used were strong—my

Grandfather was there when it happened, and he told me about it when I was a child. Bene claimed Rusa’s share, Askelon—but Lord Rusa told him that
he,
Bene, had caused our defeat on
Bloody
Beach
by his absence…and Nomion took Rusa’s side. So Bene rode away and became a general in King Jabin’s army, where they called him ‘Shasira,’ which is the way Canaanites pronounce ‘sheren.’ It was all the work of Mighty Dagon, of course….”

Of course. Well, in any case, recalling the
Nomiad
gave me to think: Clearly we Philistines were once a rude and even barbaric tribe; yet now we’re civilized, sophisticated, urbane—at least those of us who live in the great cities of
Philistia
can so boast. Still, it’s all to the good that we haven’t become soft, effete, like the Egyptians. We’ve struck a happy medium, although our frontier soldier-farmers are a bit rough-cut to this day. Our task is to maintain that balance between overly fierce on the one hand, and too soft on the other.