Esther (13 page)

I woke to a shout: “Do not move, lizard.” It was Opi's voice.

In the light of the lantern high up on the wall, I could make out Utanah standing over me with a cushion. When she saw my eyes open she lowered the cushion and said, “I was watching over my mistress. Your safety is my greatest concern. I took the cushion from this conniving Nubian before she could smother you.”

Opi spoke from where she had rushed up beside Utanah. “If I held that cushion you would not have been able to take it from me.”

Utanah ignored her. “She is not faithful like me, she is bitter and full of treachery.”

I yanked the cushion from Utanah's hands. “You are dismissed. Hegai will decide what to do with you.”

The girl's mouth twitched. “Mistress . . .”

I waited, but she did not go on. I flung back the curtain. Bigthan stood outside the door.

“Are not you the one who is supposed to protect me?” Before he could answer, I continued, “Escort Utanah to a guarded cell, and tell Hegai that his loyal servant humbly requests an audience with him.”

Utanah did not protest as she was taken away.

While I waited to hear from Hegai the mood in my chambers was somber. I wondered if I would ever again be able to safely close my eyes. The crying girl was still overfull with wine. She laughed and cried and laughed and cried until I told her to be silent. Then she only cried.

When the servants returned, the girls did not eat much from the platters of dates and almonds or drink the honeyed milk that was offered. I forced myself to eat and act unafraid. Mordecai had told me that a ruler's greatest task is figuring out who to trust. So far only Ruti and Opi could be trusted.

Opi had returned to standing by the door. “Thank you,” I told her. “Your action is worth far more than any empty show of loyalty.”

“It is usually the ones who smile the biggest who mean to do you harm,” the crying girl said.

Opi continued to gaze at the side wall, as if she could not bear to see the girls she was trapped with for the next year. “With me they do not have to smile,” she said.

“Perhaps they do not wish to do you harm.”

“And this is the biggest insult of all. Everyone thinks I am too foreign and ugly to win the king. You yourself do not believe my mother was the king's mistress.”

The other girls looked to see my reaction to this insolence. The girl with a cut lip gazed at me with something no one had ever gazed at me with before: fear.

I forced a smile. “Everyone may return to the harem. All but Opi.”

Once they left I walked toward Opi, trying to intercept her gaze. “I do believe you.”

She turned her head to avoid eye contact. “You are polite. And I do not mean this as a compliment.”

“Because you saved my life, I will allow you one moment of insolence, though you are wrong. If I were polite, Halannah would not have tried to destroy my face and we would not be here now.”

“You are too polite
to me.
I do not like it. You never know what someone who is polite is thinking, you must puzzle over it all the time you are with them. I prefer the girls who spit at my feet. They leave me free to think of my father, what a strong and agile archer he was, and of my mother, who was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. Vashti's spirit killed her, but if Vashti had not done it, some other woman would have.”

“I will not try any longer to talk you out of your anger. Think of all you have lost if it helps you.”

“Nothing helps me.”

“I'll help you if I can.”

“I will not trust you. This way if you do not follow through I will not be wounded by it, if you do I will be happy for a moment. But likely I will never know what you would do, because I do not think you will be queen.”

“In front of the others you will treat me as though I am.”

It was the first time I had spoken harshly to her. She looked me in the eye for only long enough to say, “Yes,
mistress
.”

“When I am queen, you will be able to sit by the pool all day and no one will glare at you or spit at your feet unless they wish to be made into a kitchen servant. I will not forget the debt I owe you.”

Opi turned away and held up her goblet for a servant to refill.

“You may stay as long as you like,” I said, “but you are free to return to the harem if you wish.”

She drank two goblets of wine in quick succession and left without another word.

I had some wine and thought of the person who brought me the most joy: Erez. When Bigthan entered he looked at my chest, frowned, and said only, “Mistress,” before turning to leave. I realized my hand was wrapped around the Faravahar. I tucked it back under my robe, dropped my arm to my side, and rose to follow Bigthan down the hall, through a massive marble doorway, and into chambers that made my own seem a hovel.

Hegai sat on a throne with a golden headrest to match the gold on his fingers. The throne was so large he looked like a child. His feet did not touch the ground, and I could see now that his purple robe was too big. It was gathered partly in his lap and sat limply on either side of him. His she-beast sat beside him wearing only a crown of flowers. Her nostrils flared as I entered the room.

I bowed my head slightly to Hegai, without completely taking my eyes off the beast, and said, “Your humble servant is grateful for an audience.”

“What do you desire, child?” Hegai asked.

“One of my maids wanted to smother me and would have been successful if another of them had not stopped her. I ask that this girl be sent somewhere she cannot harm me. Perhaps to the kitchens.”

“The kitchens. Have you ever been in a kitchen, Ishtar?”

“Of course, my l—”

“Then you must know that food is prepared there. If I do as you suggest, the only choice about your life left to you will be how it ends: by poison or starvation.”

I was not thinking like a queen, or even a clever maid. “Please forgive my foolishness. I trust in your wisdom to find the best place for the girl.”

“She will stay with you. There you can best watch her.”

“And she me!” I quickly bowed my head and added, “My lord.”

“You must learn to be amongst those who wish you ill.”

“Is this why you keep a lioness with you? My lord.”

“You are doing well here with her. I can hardly see how afraid you are, except that you have not taken a full breath since entering these chambers. Know that the higher you rise the more enemies you will have. Every one of them chained only as my cat is, by fear. If you are chosen as queen, many will want you dead before you conceive.”

“But Vashti's son Artaxerxes will succeed. She was queen and her son is the rightful heir to the throne. It is rumored that Xerxes has him hidden somewhere.”

“You are not as quick as I had hoped. The rules of ascension are loose and this remains in peoples' minds. Surely you know that Xerxes is not Darius's oldest son, he's the oldest son of Darius's favorite wife, Atossa. Besides, Artaxerxes' whereabouts are a great mystery. If he is in the palace, without Vashti here to protect him, his life will be short. Especially with the king being a man more easily swayed than the leaves of a palm in a strong wind.” He looked carefully at me. “Perhaps you do not know this about him? If so, you are the only one. Everyone wants their own daughter or sister whispering in his ear. The king's advisers brought Vashti down because she was the one whispering in his ear and she did not favor war.”

“I do not have anything to whisper in his ear, my lord.”

“You are lucky you are fair to look upon.” Perhaps it was the sternness of his voice that brought the beast to all fours. “Or I would not allow your ignorance to go unpunished.”

I was not sure how I had erred but he seemed to be waiting for some response from me so I said, “I will not doubt you again, my lord.”

Hegai raised his palm, as though lifting something, and the lioness sat down again. “Not aloud. But take care you do not doubt me in your mind either. I see through your skin as easily as I see through the robes of the other women. You have no royal blood yet you do not think yourself a peasant.”

Though I was descended from the great king David, I spoke true when I told Hegai, “I was born little more than a peasant, my lord.”

“You will realize this like never before if you are made queen. Only then will you know how cruelly this can be used against you.”

“I have been called peasant many times in the last few days.”

“And yet you do not think yourself one of the girls here, peasant or royal.”

What he said was true. I had not felt that I was like everybody else since my parents were killed. I was an orphan.

“By your unwillingness to show the least amount of fear and by the uprightness of your spine I can see that you are not an ordinary girl,” he said. “But I must tell you: you are not yet royal in rank or disposition. Do not forget your forms of address, and take the rebellion from your face. Your mouth does not sneer, yet if I looked only at your eyes I would not know it. Pretend you are looking down at your feet—”

“But does not one naturally move in the direction in which she looks?”

“Pretend you are looking down at your feet instead of directly up to where you wish to be stationed. When you are with me or the king, look up with your head down, peeking through your eyelashes. The fewer people know where you wish to go, the fewer who will try to stop you.”

“I do not wish to be
stationed.
I wish to be of use. I have already been docile and”—my voice faltered slightly—“this was of no help to anyone.”

“Do not cry. Every tear takes a drop of your beauty with it. Besides, it annoys me. The first ten girls you see crying you take pity upon. Each one after that makes you hate all girls a little more.”

“I have heard that girls are not the only ones who cry, my lord.”

“Unfortunately this is true. It is rumored that Xerxes himself cries. One of his guards said so before he was put upon the gallows for it.”

Though I suspected what his answer would be, I asked anyway, “For what does he cry, my lord?”

“Vashti.”

In the silence that followed she seemed to fill the room.

After a moment, he continued, “I hope this will be to our advantage. You have the same eyes as she had, and after a year of wine and honeyed dates, your body too will be like hers. You are as fierce as Halannah, but you are not as fierce as Vashti. This is for the best. You move with the same pride peeking through a shell of subservience, but Vashti's shell cracked, and that is why Xerxes' advisers turned against her. She should have hidden her influence over the king better, made him think he had decided against the war himself. Your ideas must seem to be his ideas if they are to survive. You will have to find a way to make him think it is his idea to banish Halannah.”

I started to ask him how I could do this, but he cut me off. “I know you will be smarter than Vashti. You will
hold your tongue
until you are perfectly positioned to use it. Do not use it to senselessly lash your enemies, they will learn to see you coming. They will move out of reach. Do not let your feelings be known. It is never safe to do so—there are too many peepholes to keep track of. And do not say what you are going to do, that way no one can argue against it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Now tell me, as future queen, what is to be done with Utanah?”

I thought of Nabat, and how the jangling of her bracelets announced her. “Would my lord be generous enough to give Utanah bracelets for her wrists and ankles with bells upon them that clang together at her slightest movement? Bracelets that cannot be taken off?”

“You are starting to think like a queen. I will adorn her with bronze and silver and it will be fitted so tight to her skin that she will not ever have to be concerned about it coming loose. I will have her sent back to your chamber so you can deliver this good news to her in front of your other maids, who can learn by her example.”

He dismissed me, but as I was leaving he called out, “Do you remember this maid from your first day at the palace?”

“No, my lord.”

“Neither do I.”

Before I could ask him where Utanah had come from he raised his hand to keep me from speaking. “You may go.”

“But my l—”

“You may go.”

When I returned to my chamber I recalled all my maids besides Utanah from the harem room. I wanted Utanah to have to enter alone, with everyone's eyes upon her.

“Mistress,” she said as she entered, “you called for me.”

I did not invite her to sit down. I gazed beneath her thick eyelashes. “Gentle Utanah, I am blessed by Ahura Mazda to have you in my service. You are devout and I wish to reward you for watching over me this past night. You will be given many bracelets of bronze and silver. They will wind tightly around your wrists, ankles, and neck.”

Utanah's smile shook a little at the edges.

“Each bracelet will be adorned with bells that will sing for us whenever you move, a joyous song to announce my loyal servant.”

“Thank you, mistress. You are fair and kind and I will serve you with all my heart and body.”

“Yes, you will.” I held my hand out. When Utanah neared I lowered it so she had to bow deeply to put her lips upon it.

“Now you must go at once,” I said. “I have picked out some bracelets for you and Bigthan will take you to the forge.”

Her eyes widened at the word “forge” and I was overcome with pity for her. But I did not show it. “Do not delay,” I commanded. “The forge's fire grows hotter each moment.”

And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women's house, to know how Esther did, and what should become of her.