Esther (45 page)

“ ‘What need do you have of them?' I asked him.

“ ‘You are hiding something. Have you reached your own hand into the empire's riches?'

“I ignored his accusation. My hut and all my possessions are no greater than my salary affords me. I stepped back and signaled to my treasury guards to close the doors.

“Haman stepped in the way of the doors and yelled, ‘What need do you have to keep them from outside eyes?'

“ ‘The need to perform my royal duty to the king,' I said, ‘which I am certain is not what brings you here.' ”

I interrupted Mordecai. “What
did
bring him, cousin? Did he wish to assess the subjects' taxes in order to see if he might convince the king to raise them?”

“My queen,” Mordecai said, “how I wish that were the case. One of my eunuchs has informed me that Haman has been meeting with other advisers and with high-ranking military officials. He does not simply wish to raise taxes. If he gets hold of the scrolls he will share them with all those whose support he seeks for his campaign. He will tell them of the great wealth a campaign against the Jews will bring them. And then he will convince Xerxes to rid the empire of a dangerous people, a people more loyal to their God than to their king.

“He will avenge the death of the Amalekite king by killing every last one of us, and then he will take all that is ours, my queen.”

“The king will surely not allow such a campaign against his own subjects!” I cried. But my words held more hope than confidence.

“That will depend upon you, Your Majesty,” Mordecai said.

My heart felt as though it had fallen into my belly. “Did Haman say anything more of his plans?”

“He came closer, so close the olive oil in his hair left a stain upon my tunic. ‘Next time my request will bear the seal of the king, and I will not have to ask before I enter.' ”

Mordecai pulled his mantle over his head. “I do not want to be away long. I do not even return to my hut in the evenings. If Haman comes back when I am not there my guards may not withstand his threats and bribes.” He had never initiated any touch before, but now he took my hand between his long bony fingers and squeezed it. “Unless you can stop Haman, he will destroy us.”

I needed someone to answer a question I had been carrying upon my shoulders since arriving in the palace. I found an excuse to send Ruti to the kitchens and dismissed all my other servants except Erez and Jangi. Ruti may have suspected my true motive but she could not disobey my command.

Then I beckoned to Erez.

He came and knelt beside the cushions I reclined upon. Jangi's eyes did not follow him. They never did when I called him to me.

Very quietly, I asked, “Do you think I am still Jewish?”

Erez unbowed his head and looked at me as he spoke. “I have seen you absently praying a few times, Your Majesty. Is your prayer still the one I heard as you tended Cyra on the march to the palace?”

I rarely prayed. But when I did, regardless of what I prayed for, my prayer was always the same. “Yes.”

“What is the name of the prayer?” he asked.

“The Sh'ma.”

“What does
sh'ma
mean?”

“ ‘Listen.' It is a call for our people to recognize the glory of God.”

“And has not your God listened to you also?” When I did not answer right away he continued, “You have the loyalty of a powerful eunuch, a servant who is willing to die protecting you, your cousin is near, and”—his gaze upon me tightened, as though to make certain I took in his words—“you are queen.”

“Why should He listen now? I am fattened not only by wine but also by foods that are not slaughtered according to His laws. I have lost the child He placed in my womb. Who am I to be a leader of my people? If they heard the morning silence in which my prayers go unsaid . . .”

“Your Majesty, we all skip our prayers sometimes.”

“For years?”

“Sometimes for lifetimes.”

“You do not pray.”

“Perhaps I pray like you, without knowing it. I doubt you have gone more than a month without acknowledging the glory of your God.”

“Even so, I tremble at the thought of my people knowing me as I have become. This is why I do not allow myself to think of them. Not when I neglect my prayers, not when I eat unclean foods, and most of all, not when the king's uncircumcised body is on top of mine.”

Erez turned his head away as if I had slapped him.

I quickly went on. “And yet that was my peoples' last hope, that I might bear the king a son and secure my place in the empire and in his heart. Now that I have failed he rarely calls me to him, and each night he is not with me I know he might be with Halannah. The wine cannot rid me of this knowledge, but still I keep drinking it.”

Erez turned back to me. “You have done what you had to, and the king is a fool.”

I was shocked to hear him speak so callously of the king, but he did not take back his words. “He is more fool than king. He does not know who to keep around him, and someday he will die before his time without having truly loved you. It will be one of the many mistakes of his reign.”

Erez came so close that I could see a tiny scar over his right eye that I had never seen before. “My queen, I would not ignore you or leave you because you drink too much, or because you are angry more often than you should be, or because you are sometimes rash and reckless. If you could not bear me a son, I would not love you any less for it.”

I had longed to hear him say that and still it was both sweeter and sadder than I could have imagined. I wanted nothing more than to touch him—with my hands, my lips, my entire body—but I could not. I felt tears forming in my eyes and knew I could not let them fall. Erez moved his body to block Jangi's view and bowed so that his head touched my left hand.

I wanted to touch him with both hands. I drew my left hand away in order to take the plate off my right one. He saw what I was doing and rose up to help me. His touch was so pleasurable I wanted to lay back and close my eyes.

There was gentleness in his eyes as he gazed upon my scar.

“I will bless you,” I said loudly so that Jangi would hear.

Erez lowered his head again and I placed my hands on either side of his head. It was the first time I had touched his hair. I did not spread my fingers and run them through it as I would have liked. I pressed lightly, bowed my own head, and said, “Let integrity and uprightness lead you. May you watch with eyes on all sides of your head—eyes that see perfectly for leagues in every direction. May Ahura Mazda himself guide your dagger and bow. May he guard you as faithfully as you guard me.”

I took my hands away and he raised his head slowly. By the sadness upon his face I knew I would not like whatever he was going to tell me next. “There is talk among the soldiers of a new mission. One for which Haman believes he will soon have the king's approval. I told you once that I would do anything the king commanded. But, my queen, I will fall upon my own blade before using it against your people.”

I felt my lips begin to tremble. Erez reached for my hand but suddenly I noticed Jangi's eyes upon us. I pulled my hand away. “That is all, soldier,” I said.

He bowed his head. “
Courage,
” he whispered and then returned to his post.

I called Jangi to me for a blessing so that my blessing of Erez would not seem strange. His eyes were not as wide and clear as they had once been. They no longer seemed, like a child's, to go directly into his thoughts. Even as he lowered his head it seemed that he was watching me.

“You are too eager to leave, my queen,” the king said one morning. It was not the first time he had said it, but this time when I stepped from his reception hall Erez and Jangi were not waiting to escort me back to my chambers. It took all of my restraint to walk calmly behind the two new Immortals and not command them to hasten their pace. I had to see that Erez was still in my chambers so I could breathe again.

He was not outside my chambers, and he was not inside them.

“Your Majesty,” Ruti said, “you look as though you are possessed.”

“Where is he?” I asked.

She did not have to ask who I meant. “Your Majesty, I do not know. The last I saw him he was escorting you to the king.”

I went back to the doors of my chambers. It was agony to wait while two of my guard opened them. I had brushed past Hathach on my way in, hardly noticing him. Now I did not call him in but marched out to where he stood with the two new Immortals. “Hathach, where are the members of my escort who usually return me to my chambers after my nights with the king?”

“Your Majesty.” He knelt, as he always did when he saw me. He never gave me time to wave away his prostrations.

I did not have the patience for this.
“My escort?”

“The king replaced two of your Immortals.”

I tried not to allow my face to move a hair's width in any direction. I imagined what Hegai might advise:
do not speak, and perhaps, to fill the silence, he will tell you all he knows.

“They are training for a special expedition, Your Majesty.”

I stepped closer to him. If I were not so desperate to know of Erez, I would not have revealed my ignorance. “Tell me all you know of the expedition.”

“Unfortunately, the king did not tell me anything more than that, Your Majesty.”

I wanted to ask him,
What was the king's expression when he told you this? Was there jealousy, cruelty in his eyes? Did he say the word
expedition
mockingly? Did he say Erez's name, and if so, did he say it as though he still cherished him, or as though he would crush him like a fly that has flown too close to a prized horse?

I stared at Hathach so he might offer something further, but he remained silent.

I could not sleep. Fear and anger tossed me back and forth from one side of the bed to the other. I remembered my parents' gasps as a soldier took their lives. I thought of Cyra, and how I had not been able to save her. The many children I had lost moved in a circle around me.

I could not allow another voice to join the haunting chorus in my head.

It does not matter what lengths I must go to. I must figure out a way. I must save Erez and my people.

Over the next month, I came to realize how much thinking of Erez, looking at him, and knowing he was near had helped me through my days. Every fear and unhappiness had been lessened by his unwavering strength. Without him I felt like I was trapped inside a boulder falling faster and faster down a mountain. But it was not his absence that most upset me. What upset me most was not knowing if he was safe.

“Your Majesty, you have not risen to the highest position a woman can in order to pine over a soldier who may have overstepped his bounds,” Ruti told me.

“How would the king have known what he did or did not do?”

“It is hard to completely hide one's feelings, Your Majesty. Perhaps you yourself somehow told the king.”

The look I gave her caused her to take a step back. “I love you like my own kin, Ruti, but do not forget your place or I will be forced to remind you.”

“And do not forget yours. You are a barren queen who may be suspected of the gravest crime of all. One much worse than killing your husband: allowing another man to take what is his and give it back used and soiled.”

“Surely the king must know this is untrue.”

“The king knows only what those closest to him tell him.”

“I am still thinking of how I might get close to him again.”

“Think quickly, Your Majesty. Time is servant to no one.”

All the king's courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king's order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel.

—Book of Esther 3:2

Ruti was massaging my back with a cloth during my bath one morning when I heard her clear her throat. “Haman rises in the king's esteem, Your Majesty. Now all but you and the king must bow to him.” Perhaps she had told me during my bath because she thought the hot water and massage of the cloth upon my back might help me to remain calm. “Parsha and Dalphon are still prisoners, but Haman and his other sons are amassing great wealth. The king allows it because some of this wealth ends up in the royal treasury.”

“How has Haman come upon this wealth?”

“Through plunder, threats, and, according to some, promising favors.”

I was silent.

“You have not figured out how to win back the king.”

“Not yet.”