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The prince slipped away in the hottest part of the day. He left everyone else drowsing at the inn; they had had quite a lot of wine at the midday meal, and it would be some time before he was missed. On his way out the prince filched a cloak—he would give it back along his return, of course, along with a coin ten times its worth.

The sky was cloudless, scorched white. He pulled the cloak up to shield his face as he left the drowsing village behind and climbed up into the hills. His retinue and guards would be beside themselves once they realized he was gone, but with any luck he’d be back by nightfall with his quarry in tow.

The cloak did not improve in the hot sun. It smelled of old sweat and sour wine and, over it all, of sheep. Still: shrouded in its dirty folds he would not stand out so much, and maybe someone would talk to him. Certainly no one had that morning. He was not sure the retainers had even noticed the evasion, but then they were idiots. The prince was not an idiot. No one at court was better at keeping his eyes and ears open, except maybe his brother, and his brother had not spent the past several years studying with the scholars at the temple.  That was where the prince had heard the rumors that the great prophet Samuel had been shown the future king of Israel by God himself, and the future king was not a son of Saul but a poor man’s son from the village of Bethlehem.

This was excellent news to the prince, who had no desire to be king. He was not so sure his brother would see it that way, so he kept his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open, as always. When the king heard tales of a boy shepherd in Bethlehem who was said to sing so sweetly that the very birds swooned in the trees, the prince volunteered to go in search.  He was the only one not surprised when the people of Bethlehem had nothing to say to the king’s men.

The prince paused at the top of a hill, wiping sweat from his eyes and frowning out at the countryside. It had been an easy enough matter to deduce the general direction to take—he’d noted the men’s eyes sliding that way all morning—but he’d reached the peak of the hill and there was no flock of sheep or angelic singer. Now what? Perhaps the sheep, too, sought shade in the heat of the day? The prince peered around and spotted a strip of green: a stream. Water. Sheep would need water—the prince would dearly like some himself; he should have thought to bring a water skin. Stupid. He swallowed against the dryness of his mouth and set out.

When he grew closer the prince saw a narrow path—barely an indentation in the short dusty grass—and began to follow it, assuming it would lead him to a good watering place. A few trees clustered near the stream. As he rounded a rocky outcrop, the prince heard a new sound, loud in the drowsing heat: a lyre. He stopped.

The life of mortals is like grass,
     they flourish like a flower of the field;

the wind blows over it and it is gone,
     and its place remembers it no more.

The voice was no angel’s. It was not even particularly melodic, but there was calmness in the song that even the prince—a restless soul with no use for peace—found strangely soothing. He peered around the rock. The singer was no boy, either, but more of a young man, older than the prince, with strongly muscled limbs and fine shoulders. He was sturdier than the prince, too, though not so tall.

The singer finished his song, set down the lyre, and took a long drink of water from his skin. The prince’s mouth ached with dryness. The singer lowered the skin and, without raising his voice or turning around, said, “Will you come and drink? The day is very hot.”

The prince blinked. He stepped around the rocky outcrop. “How did you know I was here?”

Now the other youth looked at him. His eyes were very dark blue, cool as water in his tanned face. “I’m a shepherd. It’s my job to know when something is creeping up from behind.”

“Ah,” the prince said. He took a step forward, pushing the cloak back off his head as he came in to the shade where the shepherd rested, and carefully lowered himself to sit at his side. The shepherd showed no sign of bolting—he was watching the prince with mild amusement—so the prince gave up trying to keep the old cloak tucked around him and spread it out on the ground to sit on.

The shepherd passed him the water skin and the prince drank thirstily, draining it before he realized. “Oh—“ he said, disconcerted, but the shepherd only laughed and took the skin back, rising and walking down to the edge of the stream to refill it. The prince watched him covertly, mesmerized by the strength in his lean legs, the golden tan of his skin. He had never been so close to a shepherd before.

The shepherd returned and proffered the skin again but the prince shook his head, slightly embarrassed at having gulped like a child. “So,” the shepherd said, settling himself against his tree again and smiling that slight smile. “What brings you to the grazing lands of Jesse of Bethlehem? Have you lost your way…” a slight ironic glance at Sherlock’s fine linen tunic “…my lord?”

“I have not,” the prince said, deciding to answer directness with truth. “I was looking for you. Word has reached the court of a shepherd with prodigious gift of song.”

“Has it,” the shepherd said. He seemed neither surprised nor alarmed.  “Well, what of that? Surely King Saul has much finer musicians at his court.”

“He has,” the prince said bluntly. “But King Saul has many cares and often finds it difficult to sleep. It is said that the singer of Bethlehem charms even the wild beasts to sleep, so his sheep graze unafraid and grow to be the fattest in the land.”

The shepherd laughed outright.  “The prosperity of my flock owes more to my skill with the sling than with the lyre,” he said. “And King Saul would sleep better if he followed the words of God. A clean conscience is a finer aid to sleep than any music.”

The prince frowned. “King Saul has many prophets, and all say he is most pleasing in the eyes of the Lord.” He did not mention that he himself suspected the readers of omens to report only those findings most likely to please their sovereign and keep their heads on their necks.

The shepherd shrugged, unimpressed. “A king is the shepherd of his people. King Saul should look to his many hungry and not spend so much time making war on his neighbors, no matter what the prophets say.”

This subject did not interest the prince overmuch—the business of government did not fascinate him as it did his brother—but war, unfortunately, would always be unavoidable for a king’s son.  “And what if it is the neighbors who wage the war?”

“Well.” The shepherd considered. “If my flock is threatened, I’ll kill the beast that threatens it, that is fair enough. But then I do not abandon the flock to try to claim more grazing lands.”

This was getting a bit off track. “The king does not seek councilors; he has more than enough of those. He seeks a musician.”

“Then he must seek elsewhere,” the shepherd said, standing up and shading his eyes to look out over the valley.

The prince was nonplussed. This response had not occurred to him. “But you would live in the palace! You would have the finest of everything. Fine clothing, an easy life…” The prince adored fine clothing. He could not imagine wearing the shepherd’s coarse garments. “No more hot days on the hillside. Or sheep.” The stench of the cloak was still in his nose.

“Oh, I will come down from the hills eventually, never fear. But not yet. God speaks to me in dreams, you see, and it is not yet time for me to leave.”

This was ridiculous. Rational arguments the prince was more than ready to counter, but there was no arguing with a religious fanatic. “My men could take you by force,” he said.

“They could. But the caged bird loses its song, do you not know? I would bring no solace to the king’s slumber if I go as a prisoner.”

The prince sat silent for a minute, stumped. It was very warm on the hillside, which seemed to make it even harder to think clearly; bees droned sleepily in the low-growing bushes.  “Is there no offer,” he said slowly, “no inducement, that might persuade you to change your mind? The benefit to your family…”

For the first time the shepherd looked at him with something besides amused indifference in his eyes. “What are you offering?” There was the slightest emphasis on you.

The prince blinked, nonplussed. “I don’t—what would it take?”

The shepherd broke his gaze and shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Just asking. I need to be gathering the flock up now. Come along if you’ve a mind, or you’d best be getting back to the village before it gets dark.”

The prince looked around as the shepherd got to his feet, slinging his lyre onto his back. It was only late afternoon, but the shepherd was right—it had taken him a few hours to climb up here, and he would need to hurry to avoid losing his way in the dark. He had the shepherd’s reply; it was unlikely he could be persuaded to change his mind, but still…perhaps the prince might be able to come up with something, given a bit more time.  Besides he found himself strangely reluctant to give up the company of this strange rough youth who spoke to the prince as though he were an equal. “I’ll come with you,” he said, surprising himself.

The shepherd looked back with a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Best put your cloak on then, or you’ll get your fine clothes stained with the dust.”

The prince watched as the shepherd gathered the flock from the green pasture across the stream. There were more sheep than he had realized, but they clustered together in a great woolly mass and obediently trotted along up the hill. They followed the stream, more or less, heading uphill as the shadows lengthened. The prince followed along too, like a more finely-dressed sheep.

The shepherd stopped and looked around, frowning. “One’s fallen behind. One of the ewes. I need to find her.”

The prince looked at him incredulously. “How can you know that?” All the sheep looked alike to him.

The shepherd stared back in equal bewilderment. “They are my flock. Would not your father know if one of his children was missing?”

Probably not. “What will you do?”

“I will go back to fetch her. You stay here and watch the flock.”

The prince opened his mouth in outrage, but the shepherd was already marching briskly off, apparently assuming the prince would simply do as he was told. The prince had not been given an order since he was weaned and for a moment he was too stunned to do anything but stand there, staring at the flock which had been left in his charge. Oh, honestly. What would he do if a lion showed up anyway? Wave his arms and shout? Wait. What if the lion went after him? The prince turned and bolted after the shepherd.

It did not take long to catch him up. The prince rounded a curve and there he was, standing stock still in the middle of the path with a strip of leather held loosely in one hand, an indistinguishable fat sheep nibbling placidly a few feet away. The shepherd put his other hand out behind him in the universal gesture of stop, and the prince stopped.

The shepherd’s eyes were fixed on a scrubby slope of hillside some yards away. The prince followed his gaze, squinting fruitlessly. The prince knew the entirety of each text and scroll in the temple; he could read the schemes and motivations of every man seated at one of the king’s feasts, but he could make out nothing in the gathering twilight. He opened his mouth to demand an explanation but then, for the first time in his life, shut it again.

The shepherd crouched without taking his eyes from the hillside and picked up a stone about the size of his fist. He tucked this into the loop of leather. The prince watched curiously as the shepherd swung the sling a few times, slowly, testing the weight, and then with a movement swifter than thought let fly the stone. There was a thump and then a second, louder thump, this one combined with a crunch of branches. The prince and the sheep both jumped.

The shepherd looked back and grinned and for an instant the prince felt his heart stand still. “Come on,” he said, and led the way over to the brushy slope. The animal lay on the ground, killed by the shepherd’s stone. The prince prodded it with the toe of his sandal to be sure it was dead. A wolf, or a wild dog maybe—something with four paws and sharp teeth, at any rate. “Good shot,” he said.

“Ah.” The shepherd shrugged off the compliment, but the prince could tell he was pleased.  “I’ve had a lot of practice, that’s all.” He suddenly frowned. “You left the flock!”

“I wasn’t going to be much good for them in any case,” the prince protested, but the shepherd was already moving, gathering up the ewe with quick efficiency and heading back up the path again.

Dusk was thickening into darkness when they finally reached the shepherd’s little enclosure, and the prince’s legs were aching from the long climb. The shepherd gathered all the sheep into the fold, running his hands over their backs in the poor light to be sure all the flock was accounted for. “The source of the stream comes out over there if you want to drink and wash,” he said over his shoulder.

The prince made his way gratefully to the spring and drank his fill, taking a few moments after to strip to the waist and wash the sweat and dust away. He thought longingly of his bath at home, the attendants holding towels, the scented oils. This shepherd was mad. Perhaps he had simply never known the pleasures of a bath. Probably smelled like the back end of a sheep, the prince thought uncharitably, ignoring the way his pulse quickened at the thought of getting close enough to find out.

The air cooled quickly now that the sun was down and the prince was glad to see a fire crackling in the mouth of the small cave. The shepherd looked up and smiled, his eyes the deep blue of the evening sky. “Mind the fire while I have a wash, would you? Can you manage that much?”

The prince ducked inside. The cave was little more than a shallow hollow in the hillside, but it was sheltered and dry, with a pile of belongings against the far wall and a good-sized pile of blankets and skins. The prince settled down with a sigh of relief. Was that a lion skin? Surely not.

The fire did not go out, and when the shepherd returned, water sparkling in his hair and warmth in his eyes, the prince felt again that squeeze around his heart. The shepherd sat next to him and shared out his meagre dinner, and the prince ate with a gusto he never showed for the fine dishes at home and thought privately to himself that the shepherd smelled wonderful, not like sheep at all but like the sun and wind and herbs of the hillside.

When they had finished the shepherd took a wineskin, drank, and passed it to the prince. The wine was poor stuff compared to what he was used to, but went down easily, easing the last of the ache in the prince’s legs. He handed it back but the shepherd waved it aside: “You have it. Unlike the king, I can’t afford to sleep deeply.”

“It’s not only the king who finds sleep hard to come by,” the prince said, taking another draught of wine. “The same is true of many in the court. I suppose you have no such difficulty, spending all day at work outdoors as you do.”

“I sleep well enough.” The shepherd pushed another branch onto the fire, not looking at him. “And you? Do you have trouble sleeping?”

“Often,” the prince admitted.

“And have you a musician, to soothe you?”

“I play myself. It helps, sometimes.”

“Perhaps when you marry, you may find rest more easily,” the shepherd suggested.

“I doubt that,” the prince said drily.

The shepherd laughed. “So say many husbands, I am told. Courtesans, then.”

“No.” The prince was surprised to feel the heat rise in his cheeks. His brother had taken him when he was made a man, but all her skills had been ineffectual at rousing the prince’s interest. He did not know what had possessed him to admit this now, even obliquely, and he was glad the darkness hid the burning of his face.

The shepherd did not seem inclined to press the subject, thankfully. He sat back from the fire again, closer than he had been before, so close that the prince could feel the warmth of his body almost touching his side. He held still, afraid almost to breathe.

“Perhaps I could help,” the shepherd said. He glanced up at the prince, a quick flick of the eyes that gave nothing away. “I know other ways of soothing besides music.”

“How…” The word came on a breath, almost voiceless.

The shepherd put a hand on the prince’s thigh, just under the edge of his tunic, and the prince’s heart stopped. So did his breathing.  The shepherd looked up again, that quick appraising glance, and the prince said quickly, “Yes please,” no idea what he was saying yes to, but that hand on his leg, the shepherd’s strong hand, on his bare skin—the hand slid up a little and the prince shivered.

“God,” the shepherd said in wonder, “your skin is so soft—it’s like silk, I’ve never felt skin so soft. You are softer than a girl, how--?” His hand slid higher and the prince suddenly remembered how to breathe, sucking in a great lungful of air.

“I’m not a girl,” he said, his legs spreading of their own accord. “It’s just—the baths, at home—the oils--“  He had to stop, because he could no longer form words that made any sense. Every bit of his attention was on the hand stroking his thigh, higher and higher and closer and closer and then—

“You’re definitely not a girl,” the shepherd said with a hint of laughter in his voice and the cave swam. The shepherd’s other arm caught him, his strong arm, and then somehow the prince was leaned back propped on his elbows with his head flung back and a continuous desperate moan coming from his throat as those strong calloused hands—both of them now—slid under his tunic again. Up the insides of his thighs, oh God, and he spread his legs shamelessly wide to let them touch what they liked: everything.  They skimmed over the fine linen of his loincloth, cupping the soft weight between his legs and smoothing over the hard length above. The prince arched his back, pressing up into those hands, heat radiating out from his groin.

It was so good and yet not enough. More, he wanted more. “Take it off,” he managed, “everything---I want to feel your hands, on my skin—“

“Yes,” the shepherd breathed and pulled at the loincloth, rocking back on his heels. The prince sat up and fumbled with his tunic, clumsy in his haste, and looked up to see the shepherd watching him with darkened hungry eyes.

“You too,” the prince ordered and the shepherd smiled. He made quick work of his own rough clothing and crawled back onto the pile of blankets and skins so that they knelt facing each other. He reached for the prince and ran his hands over the younger boy’s long arms, the light muscles of his chest, his neck and face and hair. “So soft,” he marveled, “like silk, your hair is like feathers. So lovely.” He curled his hand around the prince’s straining cock and his smile turned wicked. “Not all so soft.”

The prince groaned, thrusting a little into his grip. The touch was like heat lightning, sending warmth tingling all the way to his fingertips. He felt as though he were melting and he shifted, spreading his knees wider as the shepherd reached between them with his other hand, cupping his sac and pressing his fingertips just behind and sending a fresh jolt of pleasure up though him. The prince reached out and pressed his own hands to the shepherd’s chest, feeling the firm muscle beneath and staring at the sight of his marble-pale fingers against that golden skin. It reminded him of a story he’d heard a slave tell when he was a child in the women’s rooms. “You are the sun and I am the moon,” he said, running his fingers over the hard muscles. “You will come into me and I will bring forth the world.”

The shepherd drew in a breath and leaned back to look at him, eyes wide. “Do you mean it? Do you want that, for me to lie with you?”

“I want it,” the prince said immediately.  He did. He did not know how it would happen but he wanted it more than anything: this golden being to enter him and fill him, to cleave together, one flesh, inseparable.

The shepherd scrambled over to the wall of the cave and returned with a jar of oil, which he tipped onto his cupped palm. “Lie back,” he said and then his warm slick hand slid over where the prince was most sensitive and the prince felt his eyes roll back into his head. He was afraid for a moment he might spill right then, but the shepherd moved lower, stroking and coaxing, and the prince followed his lead.

The first finger hurt and the prince froze a little although he’d been bracing for it, and the shepherd froze too. “No?” he said worriedly and made to pull his hand back, but the prince caught his arm and said firmly, “Yes.”

The shepherd had been right: his gifts in this area rivalled those he had shown with the lyre. He soon had the prince writhing and panting under his skilled hands. But it was not only the deftness of his touch that made the prince cling to him and lift his hips, spreading his legs wide. “Lie with me,” he pleaded. “Lie with me now; I want to be joined with you.” Give me your warmth, he wanted to say, give me your strength and sureness, fill me with your golden light.

“My beautiful moon,” the shepherd murmured. He lifted, positioned, hesitated, pushed, and the prince bit down on his cry. The pain was nothing, nothing compared to the shuddering breaths of the shepherd as he eased inside. They moved together slowly until the burning lessened and the pleasure began to mount. “Ah,” the shepherd breathed, raising himself to get more leverage as the movement of his hips took on a rhythmic, propulsive cadence. “Ah, ah, ah.”

The prince’s heart, already more full than he had ever thought it could be, swelled further at the realization that the shepherd was about to spend inside him. All his sense of superiority, his disdain for these animal urges, had deserted him; he wanted nothing but to give himself up to his lover’s pleasure. He must have made some sound, for the shepherd opened his deep blue eyes and looked straight into the prince’s, and in that instant they each saw the other’s heart.  The shepherd tried to speak, failed, and pulled the prince into his arms as tenderly as though he were a newborn lamb. The prince had never been kissed before. He thought he might never be able to stop.

The shepherd’s hand curled around him, still slick with oil, and the prince had to break the kiss to gasp aloud. The shepherd’s stubble scraped his cheek as he murmured into his ear: “Let me—oh my love, my love—“ The prince was straddling his lap, the shepherd thrusting up into him as his hand worked, faster and faster, and the prince could only hold on and cry out as everything he felt seemed to gather together and fly to the center of his being in a great rush of bliss.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I know. I don’t want you to.”

They had slept a few hours tangled together, waking in the dark of night as they became aware of each other’s warm presence.  The moon had set and the fire burned down to embers. The prince had never seen such darkness.

“Then I won’t go. I’ll stay here and hide away in this cave forever.”

The shepherd’s strong arms comforted him, stroked his hair. “You can’t. Your father would send men to find you. And even if he didn’t, you’d get bored in a day.”

It was true. The prince sighed. “How did you know?” he asked after a moment.

“Know what?”

“That the king is my father.”

“You weren’t afraid when I said I wouldn’t come back with you. You knew the king wouldn’t punish you.”

“Oh.”

They were quiet a while, lying in each other’s arms.

“I will see you again,” the shepherd said softly. “It won’t be long.”

“I suppose your God told you that,” the prince said, a little waspishly.

“He did.”

The prince began to roll his eyes, but suddenly it all clicked into place. The grazing lands of Jesse of Bethlehem. The Lord’s anointed and the psalmist were one and the same.

The prince turned his face to the shepherd’s. “All right,” he said softly, and reached to kiss him, and they came together again in the dying hours of the night.

In the morning on the way back to the village the prince stopped where the path turned away from the stream, stripped off his clothes, and waded in. The cool water was a relief to his burning backside, but it gave him no pleasure to wash away the smell of sheep.

“He’s no one,” the prince said dismissively. “A shepherd with a homemade lyre. The peasants like his songs well enough, but the king of Israel would find them a poor entertainment.”

“Very well,” said Saul, already losing interest. “Your brother has found me a poet who will do well enough for now; he’s so dull he bores me to sleep. You may go along back to the temple until I have need of you.”

A year later, the prince sat in his father’s tent on a hill above the valley of Elah, where the Philistine army lay in wait.

“They’ve no reason to throw away their advantages of numbers in an offer of single combat,” the king was saying impatiently. ”They must have suffered greater losses than our spies observed.”

The prince’s brother shook his head. “Our intelligence is accurate. They are risking nothing, because we have no one who can defeat their champion. I have seen Goliath the giant. His reach alone renders him unstoppable in a duel, and his strength is prodigious. They mean only to shame us by making us repeatedly refuse.”

“Not that anyone is volunteering to answer his challenge in any case,” the prince added dryly.

“Actually, my lord king.” One of the captains stepped forward. “There is one who has volunteered. A common soldier, a shepherd, little more than a boy. He says he can defeat Goliath with his sling.”

“His sling?” The king was incredulous.

“The shepherds say it is a formidable weapon, sire. This youth claims to have killed a lion and a bear.”

The prince was on his feet. “My father. You must let this shepherd answer the challenge.” They all stared at him and he added in a burst of inspiration, “God has sent me a vision.” Well, only one word of that was a lie.

Saul looked at his elder son, who shrugged, and he spread his hands in acquiescence. “A boy with a sling…at least we won’t be too shamed if he’s killed. He may answer.” He looked at the prince. “Where are you going?”

The prince bowed to take his leave. “To bathe.”

The young hero knelt before Saul and laid the head of Goliath at his feet. The prince stood just behind his father, heart hammering in his ears. The youth was even more glorious than he remembered. What if that night had meant nothing to him? What if it were simply something shepherds did, taking their pleasure in each other’s bodies? (Or the sheep’s.) What if he did not even remember?

The soldier rose. He looked up, straight into the prince’s eyes, and he smiled.

And it came to pass, that when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

I Samuel 18:1