The Philistine Warrior (39 page)
But when I caught Warati’s eye, his smile disappeared, replaced by an ugly scowl—and I wondered if he’d overheard Delai’s words to Samson about her…that is,
his
…child. In any case, Warati must have heard the Danite’s exaltation over Yahweh’s promise of a child—and perhaps he’d drawn the correct conclusion…namely, that Delai was the mother-to-be of a child to save Dan…. Would Warati hesitate to use that knife on Samson’s child…even before it got born, killing Delai as a traitor? He could argue that she should have informed the Melek and the sherens of her condition, and submitted to their judgment—presumably, that the chilid must be killed at birth, or even during birth!
I drew her to my side and reached for my sword. But Warati ignored us and went to Samson, Zaggi right behind him. The giant
Meanwhile had writhed furiously, alternatively lunging against his bonds and then crashing with his full weight against the pillar. I could see that Warati would have a hard time getting his knife in place against Samson’s throat. He called for guards, I suppose to wrestle the Danite into submission and to bare his throat—but too late! Samson now dashed himself against the pillar once again and, to my horror, I saw it begin to bend and crack!
I pushed Ibbi toward the stair: “
The sightseers on top of the portico now again pushed and rushed to the edge of the roof to see what was going on—they piled up on one another, and their weight caused the weakened pillar to sag—seriously, this time. Samson himself could sense the truth at last; he gave a tremendous victory shout and threw himself upon the bending post again—and yet again!
I pulled Delai down to the ground and covered her as best I could with my body and my cape, up against our wagon’s side, in hopes of avoiding the growing stampede around us. The pillar bowed
out and snapped! The last thing we heard from the portico was Samson’s exalting cry: “HAIL YAHWEH!” And then the roar of the sliding roof, grinding down, blocked out the sound of his voice. Everything, roof and people on it, crashed down upon the giant, and he disappeared amidst the dust, the beams, and the stucco shingles of the roof. There, too, lay the bodies of Samson’s final victims—those who’d been on the roof and those who hadn’t jumped off the porch in time; that is, those who hadn’t fallen upon something soft—like each other!
We looked up. “Holy Goddess!” Delai exclaimed as the crowd set up a wail. Warati staggered back, his scalp cut by a flying shingle. Zaggi picked himself up and shouted orders to the guards to keep the crowd back, away from the high-ranking people (like himself) who still stood, or lay, near the portico—or what was left of it. Some of the portico’s wounded began to crawl out from under the rubble.
Probably more people got killed or hurt from the panic-driven crowd’s stampede than from the collapse of the portico itself.
I saw that Ibbi was safe—his dignity ruffled, but all right, though clearly shaken; and no wonder. He reached my side. “Watch out,” he gasped. “The mob hasn’t finished stampeding yet, the curs!” I helped Delai to her feet. “The crowd might crush us in their superstitious fear,” he reiterated, voice full of anxiety. “Or there might be Canaanite assassins in the crowd! Let’s get into our wagon!”
“Right,” I answered, and together we pushed enough people away so we could mount the vehicle. By this time, I’d collected most of our escort guards. “Clear the way for Her Majesty’s vehicle!” I commanded. We began to drive off, the frightened crowd parting before us, scared back by our horses’ hooves and guardsmen’s spears.
As we looked behind us, the last thing we saw was Sheren Warati, stained with blood from his cut, standing on the remains of the shattered roof. Then he bulled his way into the rubble, uncovered a lifeless Samson—and cut off the giant’s head! He held up his battered trophy by the hair for all the crowd to see: “The sacrifice is finished!” he shouted, finally gaining the attention of those around the
portico. “Dagon Himself has taken revenge on the Danite! Dagon Himself has struck down this fiend!”
Our wagon pulled safely away from the scene of destruction and sacrifice. “Struck down in a rather odd fashion, I should say,” Ibbi noted, calm once again. “I suppose the Canaanites will call the collapse of that portico a species of magic—and the Philistines, too, if they imagine that Lord Warati makes any sense!”
I laughed hollowly: “Why in hell should Dagon kill a bunch of Philistines just in order to get at Samson?” It was a rhetorical question, but Ibbi seemed to think it required an answer:
“Perhaps the mob will imagine that Dagon is mad at
them
for failing to kill Samson sooner,” the priest replied, chuckling.
“Well, our friend Warati was certainly quick enough to convert disaster into Dagon’s Will—and call it a victory,” I said. “Unusually quick—for him.”
“In any case,” Ibbi added, “the Danites—and all of the Hebrews—will
call
it
Yahweh’s
miracle
, just as Samson decreed with his last breath! I daresay this…incident…will be the capstone to the Samson legend.”
How interesting, I thought, that Priest Ibbi can so easily scorn superstition—in others! “Maybe they’ll rest contented with their legend—and not attack us for a while,” I hoped. “Unless they still want revenge—for Mareshah, and now Samson’s death.”
Delai squeezed my arm: “Please stop,” she begged. “Don’t go on and on about it!”
Mighty Samson was dead, yet the Danites remained in their hills—stunned at first, and in dismay, but slowly building up the legend of how Samson had killed us by the hundreds (soon it would be by the thousands) when he brought that roof down upon us Philistines. Actually, of course, the death toll amounted to only about twenty people, including those crushed in the crowd’s panic—and three of
those
were friendly Canaanites, not Philistines! Also, Dagon’s statue remained, intact and immovable, deep in His Temple.
Only the portico roof was destroyed, and that more by the weight of the idiots on top of it than by Samson’s might—although, to be sure, the pillars almost certainly wouldn’t have broken without Samson’s help. But you know how rumors spread, especially among people who want so desperately to believe them.
As it turned out, however, the silly legend of Samson’s death-yet-victory actually did
us
some good! Yes, because the Danites now believed that Samson had magically
achieved
their revenge for the Battle of Mareshah (though at the cost of his own life), and so they were now content to keep the peace, of all things! (Strange how that battle
itself
never got into any of the Danites’ huge supply of legends and myths!) Nor did we Philistines want to resume fighting—and so we left the enemy with their illusion of revenge.
Amazingly, Samson’s family next turned up in
Gath
—under a safe conduct pass given by Sheren Ittai of Ekron—where they asked for an appointment to see Chancellor Zaggi. (Ittai was trying, once again, to renew his old truce with Dan, even though there wasn’t any fighting going on at the moment.) Anyway, Samson’s family had come to ask Zaggi for the giant’s body—and head—and for the right to bury him in the cemetery where his father lay, a man named Manoah. This was in a burying ground near Zorah. Warati, of course, opposed giving up his victim’s remains, wanting to keep at least the Danite’s head as a trophy. But Zaggi—and Melek Maoch, too, from his sick bed—had enough sense to give the Danites their corpse rather than provoke more trouble; even Zaggi had gotten his fill of warfare by then. At least so it seemed. And so he and Maoch managed to persuade Warati to turn over the body (and its head) to Samson’s family. Warati did get to keep some of the giant’s hair as a souvenir—and also the dried up genitals which he’d cut from the Danite some months before.
(Warati pretended that the genitals had been burned long before Samson’s execution, in sacrifice to Dagon; but actually, at Zaggi’s urging, he’d hidden them away during the negotiations over Samson’s body, neatly pickled in a jar…to be brought out for public display only at a much later date…when relations with the Danites would—Zaggi hoped—be fairly well settled, and weren’t likely to be upset by
any Reappearance of the Mighty Man’s Prick and Balls. In this way, our Chancellor’s negotiations with the Danites could proceed.)
Indeed, Uncle Zaggi’s policy during the aftermath of Samson’s death was to make peace with the Danites. As I say, he’d gotten his fill of war—for the time being—and he knew that further fighting would be unpopular among the Philistines. Unpopular…and difficult, since a new war would necessitate a Philistine expedition into the mountains. Thus, he negotiated with the Danites, that is, with their leaders, those who’d seized power after Samson’s capture…and also after the death of some of their other “judges” in the Battle of Mareshah.
These new Danite leaders weren’t at all unhappy to have Samson out of the picture. They’d hated Samson for his capricious despotism—and for his flirtations with Philistine women. Some of them also disliked his worship of Ishtar-Astarte—because (they say) good Danites, like the Levites, should worship only Yahweh. They claim that Yahweh is “jealous” of whatever attentions are paid to the other deities. This queer notion came to them from some of the priests among the Judaeans, who now could use Samson’s death as proof that Yahweh punishes “idolaters,” like Samson himself. But the giant’s “heroic” death also shows, they claimed, that Yahweh rewards those who repent their sins—again, like Samson. To them, that is to say, Samson’s merciful death…and his “triumph”…was a “reward” for repentance.
Well, his death
was
a relief from torture, as Samson must have anticipated—and, again as he obviously thought, in a sense a reward, a vindication, because he took some Philistines with him into the abyss. This whole silly business just goes to show how much the Danites have turned into Hebrews in only these three generations since they migrated to Canaan (as did we) from the Aegean Sea area.
At any rate, although the new Danite leaders had no love for the dead Samson, they now informed Melek Maoch and Chancellor Zaggi that they would have a hard time holding on to power if they made too many concessions to
Philistia
. And if they lost control of Dan, there could be no peace treaty. But an early peace was what Maoch and Zaggi had promised the Philistine people, especially
Ekron. It was therefore necessary to placate Danite feelings, in particular those of the Danites who
did
remember Samson with (genuine) affection. That was why Zaggi and Maoch, as I’ve recounted, set out to persuade Warati to contribute Samson’s remains, including the head, to the cause of peace. Warati received a promise of another war at a later, more suitable, date.
Returning the body was a small concession in material terms, but it did help to build the Samson legend: after all, the Danite poets reasoned, why should the Philistines surrender such a trophy unless obliged to do so after that “stunning” blow, there on the portico? It could only be that the Philistines now feared Yahweh’s wrath—and so we returned the body!
So the new Danite leadership, face saved, sort of, could sign a “peace with honor” treaty with Zaggi; at least, that was what they—and Zaggi—called it, while addressing their and his public respectively. Melek Maoch, old, sick, and tired, was especially pleased to see the war end at last—in fact, it was only with his help that Zaggi managed to pressure Warati into giving up the corpse, as I’ve mentioned.
Indeed, the greatest decisions were still reserved for Melek Maoch’s kindly, though somewhat ineffectual, will. Yet because of his illness, Zaggi soon put himself more and more in charge of the business of
Philistia
.
A few weeks after the collapse of the portico roof, Zaggi visited me in Askelon. We met in conference with my Council, in the early part of that day, clearing up a host of minor matters. How much it all reminded me of the way things were almost two years before—when Zaggi had been Chancellor of Askelon, and I a mere captain of charioteers. Now I was at least his equal: as Sheren, I could even be said to outrank him, despite his national office. But the court heralds hadn’t figured out the precedence yet, and Maoch wouldn’t rule on the matter until his committee of heralds had finished their report.
