Esther (16 page)

His head tilted up ever so slightly. “Do not come any closer.”

I started to apologize, but he cut me off. “And do not look scared when the king or anyone else tells you of an accusation against you. Laugh. It is the safest sound you can make besides ‘Yes, my king.' Never forget for a moment that all these problems are better than the ones Halannah will give you if you fail to become queen.”

“But without you I will not have to worry about any of this. Without you I may as well leave this room and go directly to the soldiers' barracks.”

“You will become queen if you heed this advice, which is more important than anything else I have told you: when you are taken in to see the king make certain he sees your hair and face, even if you have to take your veil off without being invited to.”

I understood how desperate the situation must be for him to advise me to do something so dangerous. In which case I needed him even more than I had thought. “If anyone can fight his way out of this, Hegai, it is you. Suspicion is not enough to remove you from the king's favor.” I fell upon my knees in front of him, and this is when I saw that he held a sword with both hands. The point was against his stomach. He took a deep breath and extended his arms to better position the sword for a hard plunge.

“Stop,” I commanded, throwing the little man onto his side and knocking his sword away. I yelled for the guards, not realizing men were already rushing toward us. We were yanked apart and I felt arms wrap tightly around me. Another guard held Hegai.

“Your time is up, little girl,” one of them told him.

“Step back and I will end it then,” Hegai said. He was not begging. It sounded like an order and for a moment it seemed the guard was going to follow it.

But then he grunted and said, “Be silent. Your games are for women.”

The arms of the guard who held me loosened for a second and I broke free and ran toward the corridor. I tripped over a body slumped on the floor.

“Please,” I begged as the guard grabbed me once again, “my friend needs a physician. She saved me from the lioness.”

“The one who died with her head in the lion's mouth?”

“No, she is still alive.”

The guard turned me to face him, and his tone softened. “Your friend is a hero, unlike many who have trained their whole lives to be heroes—most especially the men who were supposed to guard you. No one will acknowledge that she died bravely, but you will know: she valued your life more than her own. Often the most heroic do not live long.”

He brought me back to the virgins' sleeping chamber. “Your chamber is only a lioness's grave now,” he told me. “Your friend has been taken away.”

One of my maids was near the door. Without meeting her eyes I asked, “Crier?”

She whispered so quietly I almost did not hear her. “No.”

Bigthan came for me the next morning. I did not ask where we were going. As we neared Hegai's former chamber my feet grew heavy. It would be hard to see another man sitting on Hegai's throne, but I knew I must make a good impression.
The man does not matter, but to the throne I must show respect.

I heard my ally's voice before I saw him. “My most humble servant,” Hegai said to Bigthan as we entered. My heart swelled. Hegai sitting regally upon his throne was the most welcome sight in the world.

I did not permit myself to cringe at a strange odor that hung in the air. Hegai's face glistened with sweat and the bags beneath his eyes were swollen larger than the day before, but his eyes themselves were calm.

He held out his hand for Bigthan to kiss, and my happiness fell away.

“My lord!” I cried.

“Wait your turn,” Hegai jested.

Each of the fingers of his left hand was shortened by a knuckle. He wore no bandages yet he did not bleed. The strange smell was that of flesh that has been sealed with heat.

Bigthan pursed his lips so hard that his mouth disappeared as he lowered his head to Hegai's freshly cauterized hand. He kept them pressed together even after he rose. Hegai waved him away with the maimed hand and Bigthan shuffled backward, nearly tripping on his crimson robe as he hurried from the room.

I could not keep my gaze from Hegai's hand.

“You are wise not to ask your question directly.” A bead of sweat rolled down his face. His cheeks were so flushed that they nearly matched the robe of the eunuch who had just rushed away. The drop of sweat caught for a second on the end of his chin, then fell onto the large shelf of his belly.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

He leaned toward me. I thought he might chastise me for asking such a foolish question. But then his mouth collapsed at the corners. “Child.” He took a wobbly breath.
“I cannot tell you how much it hurts.”

I wanted to comfort him, to tell him I was sorry for what had happened to him and that I wished I could have somehow prevented it. I knelt in front of him and placed a hand on his robe where it covered his knee.

“Is there anything you wish me to do to help you?” I asked.

“Yes. Do not forget your place
, nor mine.
Take your hand from my knee.”

I yanked my arm back as though he had bitten it. “Forgive me, my lord.”

“If you touch the king without being asked you will have committed a crime punishable by death. Even when you are queen.”

When I am queen.
Only moments before I had thought I might go to the soldiers. But I would not go to the soldiers, I would go to the throne if I could. I knew I must do whatever Hegai advised. “Does not the king
want
to be touched?”

“He wants what he has not already had. You will have to be new each night.”

I moved back to look at him more fully. His eyes were not playful. They narrowed at me, as if to pin me in place so I could not draw back any farther. “You asked if you could do anything to help me. Did you ask on a whim? Will you forget to return the favors I have bestowed upon you?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he did not give me the opportunity.

“Because there is only one thing you can do to help me, and that is to become queen and whisper to the king of Halannah's atrocities in the harem, and how he is the only man powerful, kind, and wise enough to stop her. It may take more than one night, and so you must be new as many times as it takes.”

“Who whispered in his ear that he should take the tips of your fingers?”

“The most melodious whisperer of all.”

“I do not know who this is.”

“Yes you do.”

“Why would
you
ask the king to take your own fingertips?”

“I took them myself, before he could decide that he wanted more.”

“My lord, I do not understand.”

“And I have little faith you will figure it out, so I will just tell you.”

Despite that Hegai continued to sweat, and drew in only jagged breaths, light shone in his eyes as he spoke. “When the guards dragged me to the king's chamber I took note of their daggers, but I did not make a move toward them.”

I remembered how I had slipped a dagger from the Immortal who yanked me from my bed. Still, I asked, “How would you have taken one?”

“Very easily. Distract with one hand and take with the other.”

Without meaning to, I again looked at his shortened fingers.

“Yes,” he said, “something I will no longer be able to do.”

“Forgive me, my lord.”

“I have better things to do. Do not waste your pity upon me, I will not waste forgiveness on you. Shall I continue, or do you want to tire me with girlish silliness?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Xerxes sat upon his throne, surrounded by a few of the most despicable men in the empire, including Haman.”

“Have you discovered if he is responsible for”—I struggled to find words that would not hurt or offend him—“your lioness?”

“Yes. He had someone fill my lioness with wine and then provoke her. Unfortunately we are not yet in a position to deal with him. Now be silent so I can continue my story.”

I pressed my lips together and bowed my head to listen.

“The guards stood close to me on either side,” Hegai said, “as if I might wish to harm the king. Haman turned to Xerxes. ‘This rebel set his lioness free with a finger that wears your own ring. I am not surprised. I suspect it was he who bid the concubine Nabat to smother you.'

“ ‘Your highness,' I said, ‘king of all the provinces from India to Nubia, I am your loyal servant. I had no part in the tragedy last night, except that I did not keep watch over my pet as I should have.'

“ ‘Lions are not so wild as most people believe,' Xerxes said. ‘They are never indiscriminate and unplanned in their attacks. When my men marched to Greece, lions came at night and attacked neither man nor beast, except for our camels. So it is strange that your lioness, who is given more meat than any man, killed soldier and harem girl alike.'

“ ‘You are wise, my king. My lioness would not have arbitrarily attacked, except for the wine someone gave her. The Egyptian physicians who examined my beast smelled it upon her breath.'

“I thought the wine on my poor cat's breath might save me,” Hegai told me. “I do not drink wine, and neither did she. Not willingly. My pet and I were of one mind. One alert mind.” His face held nearly as much sadness as it had when he was going to take his life. “But the king's eyes were like stones. His arms gripped his throne so hard as he looked upon me that the veins of his hands grew fat as worms. ‘I did not bid you to speak,' he said.

“I knew he was thinking, as always, of himself, and how I had cost him men, and some of his pride. I did not give him time to decide what to do with me. I grabbed a dagger from the guard beside me and put it to my own throat.

“The guard moved to stop me, but Haman said, ‘Let him.'

“This angered the king. My life is his, not Haman's. ‘Hegai,' the king said, ‘take the blade from your throat.' ”

“I lowered it, but I did not give it to the guard who reached for it. I spread my hand wide across the tiles I knelt upon. Instead of proclaiming my loyalty with pretty, hollow words, I pressed the dagger just above the knuckle of my littlest finger. I put my full weight upon it and bit my tongue to keep from crying out. But my flesh would not give way. I summoned all my strength and strength I did not have. I cut off the tip of my finger. After one I did not stop. I only paused to look up and see that the king was not satisfied, and then I took another.
It is this or worse,
I told myself so that I would not hesitate despite the agony searing my flesh. A red river rushed from the new, abrupt ends of my two fingers. Again the king did not seem satisfied. After this one I did not pause to look up. I went on to the next one and then arrived at my pointer finger. That one hurt more than all the rest combined. Without a second's hesitation, I raised the blade up over my thumb. I could not keep from thinking that if I lost my thumb I would be even less a man than I am now. Yet I knew I could not take time to think about it, because then Xerxes too would have time to think. He may have considered having me sway upon the gallows, but he was not yet certain, so he reacted as I had hoped. ‘It is enough,' he cried out. ‘Four fingers is enough. I command you,
no more.
' ”

I was holding the Faravahar as I listened to Hegai, tightly pressing my fingertips against it to reassure myself they were still there.

“And then afterward,” he continued, “how could he ask for me to be more severely punished when it was he who had stopped me in front of all his chamberlains? What is the lesson here?”

“Forgive me, I do not know.”

“That you should never go into a meeting uncertain. And so, little flower, what is it you want?”

“It is you who called me here.”

“Do not go into a meeting uncertain, even a meeting you did not arrange. Think what it is you want, what is your plan, because from now on you must always have one.”

“I want to hear your tale.”

“And I want to tell it, so you would be wiser to act as though listening is a favor you are bestowing upon me. I ask again: What do you want
that I do not want to give you
? You do not need to waste time trying to get the things you will already be given. You can only call upon so many favors.”

I bowed my head. “Yes, my lord.”

“You are playing at a game that still does not come naturally to you. You truly are lucky I did not die.” He fell silent, and after a moment I looked up at him. “And I am lucky you did not let me, though it is unwise of me to say so. But I wonder if perhaps your innocence is a game, and you are wiser than you seem.”

“I am not fit to play any game with you, my lord.” I realized that I did not know if my words were fully true. He was teaching me many things, including how to charm and fool someone, perhaps even him. I feared that there would come a time when I did not even know I was doing this.

Because I knew it would delight him, I added, “Not yet.”

He laughed. “You enchant me. It is hard to focus on my story with you undulating back and forth between innocence and boldness. I feel almost as though I never trembled beneath the knife in my youth.”

I tried to stop the blood from surging into my cheeks, but I had only learned to control my words, my blood still did as it wished.

“Now tell me, why did Xerxes stop me and order me back to my chamber?”

“Because he knows you would never loose your lioness upon the palace.”

He frowned, and—too late to take it back—I heard the ridiculousness of my answer. It was too obvious. He did not give me a second chance. “I knelt upon the floor in front of Xerxes,” he said, “as you are now kneeling before me. But I did not sit motionless. I moved too quickly, and this caused our king more unease than he could withstand. Because I was the one wielding the knife he panicked, though I doubt he knew why. He was not in control. He wanted only for everything to stop for a moment so he could think. But once he stopped me he could not let anyone know he had done so because of his confusion. Kings are not supposed to be confused. But our king is easily confused. He could not think with me there—strange and bleeding upon the tiles—and so he dismissed me.