Esther (49 page)

Beneath the hood I saw Haman struggling to say something or perhaps simply to scream.

“Hang him on it,” the king commanded.

I went to see Haman and his ten sons—Parsha, Dalphon, and their eight younger brothers—upon the gallows. To look at them I had to stare up into the sun. They were just tiny dark spots, the opposite of stars. All the ugliness we had been through illuminated the beauty that lay over us. Where the gallows ended the sky began.

Haman's lands were given to me. I knew they were not only a gift but also a warning. What had happened to the man whose lands I owned could happen also to me. I had seen a second black hood when the soldiers came for Haman. The soldier who held it had carried it back with him as Haman was dragged from the courtyard.

When the king called me to him that evening to give me Haman's lands, he did not seem to sit as tall as usual upon his throne. I fell at his feet and pressed my forehead to the floor. “Thank you, my wise and just king.”

“I am not as wise as I once thought. I knew something plagued you. I thought it was someone. Now I see it was many people—your people, whose weight you carried with you into my chambers and could not set down, even when we were together. I wish I had known sooner. My queen, you should have come to me immediately, instead of fawning over the traitor in an attempt to win him over and save your people.”

He reached down to where I knelt before him and jerked my chin so I looked up at him. “There is only one man's wrath you should fear.”

I knew then that he was only going to warn me; I would not be punished in any way. Perhaps I was spared because of Mordecai's loyal service, or perhaps because if I were punished along with Haman, the empire might conclude that he had been cuckolded by his own adviser.

I looked up at him. “My king, please forgive me. I was desperate and did not want to trouble you.”
You are moody and the truth alone could not be counted upon to sway you.

“I summoned Mordecai after I had Haman taken away. Your cousin wears my signet ring now, the one Haman wore this morning. He is now my highest, most beloved official, and he has vouched for you. He revealed your relation and told me how you were an orphan when he took you in.

“Now we have something in common, my queen. He has saved both of our lives.” His voice held no joy or relief.

“I am honored to share this good fortune with you, my king. But my peoples' fate is still uncertain. They are in great danger. The edict that went out calling for their deaths cannot be taken back, even with Haman gone, because it was sealed with your signet ring. And so I shall do as you command, and bring my plea directly to you.” From where I knelt upon the floor, I tilted my head farther up to him, so he could see the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Their only chance of survival is that a dispatch be sent throughout the empire, declaring that the Jews shall be allowed to fight back if anyone takes up arms against them.”

“My queen, did you not hear what I have told you?” He wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Mordecai wears my signet ring. He will write as he sees fit.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I tried to keep my breathing steady so he would not know how afraid I was of what I must ask next. “There is one more thing. Haman's niece, Halannah—”

“When Haman was tortured he named her and many others who have betrayed me in one way or another.”

I saw the great sadness in the king's eyes. I wanted to tell him I understood the sacrifice he was making. “I know how you loved her.”

“No, you do not. You only saw the worst of her. For a long time she was the only girl who seemed unafraid of me, the only girl who it brought me any pleasure to please. I did not feel alone when I was with her. I liked things exactly as they were and did not wish for anything to change between us, so I did not make her queen, even though I knew that was what she most longed for. I did not give her what she wanted so she took what was mine.” He leaned down and put his hand upon my stomach. “Forgive me. I allowed my love for her to blind me to her cruelty and to the danger you were in.”

“You do not need my forgiveness, my king.”

“She was not half so beautiful nor so kind as you are.” He moved his hands to either side of my head and pressed his face against mine. I thought he might kiss me but instead his great body shook and I felt wetness upon my cheek. “Forgive me that I did not love you as I should.”

I waited for him to say that from now on he would love me, but for a moment he was quiet.

“My foolishness has cost us a son,” he said. “Every time you lay beneath me, he is with us.”

“I am sorry that instead of a child I have given you a ghost.”

“There was a ghost here when you arrived. You and the other virgins were brought here to help me forget her.”

Vashti. Her son was heir to the throne, but the king did not reveal whether she herself was alive or dead.

“The longer you live the more you live among ghosts,” he said. “If I live much longer I will be surrounded by more ghosts than people: the men I have killed with my own hands, the men I have had killed, the people who died because I wanted, always, to rule more of the world than the world allowed.”

“You no longer wish to enlarge the empire?”

“I have suffered defeats, and defeats only, for the last few years. I have learned that my most trusted adviser is an evil man, and I have watched him assault my queen. In a dream, I have foreseen the hour of my own death.”

I tried to pull back to look at him, but he held me tighter. “In fewer than ten years someone powerful will betray me,” he said, “but I know it will not be you, because if I die, Mordecai will die too, and likely you and all your people along with him.”

“Even if that were not so, Your Majesty, I would never harm you or allow anyone else to do so. I am your loyal servant.”

“My little Ishtar, while I have not loved you as much as I should, I have loved you greatly. It just has not been constant. With us there have always been peaks and valleys. Added together and divided by the number of days we have known each other, I have loved you as much as I have loved any woman, perhaps more.”

As his crying turned to sobs he slid from his throne and buried his head in my hair. I strained to hold him. He was so big that he could never be truly held the way other people could, feeling someone's arms wrapped all the way around him. But he gave me some of his weight and cried for a few moments while I held him as best I could.

Abruptly he pulled away and rose to sit again on his throne. “You are dismissed,” he said.

In the coming days my people rose up against those who wished to destroy us and take all we had worked for. We killed seventy-five thousand men and did not lay hands on the treasures of even one. We wanted only our lives.

A holiday, Purim, was made of the two days that followed our victory. Mordecai ordered every Jew to observe Purim each year with feasting and merrymaking.

“
You
commanding people to partake of feasts and parties?” I teased.

He smiled briefly at me. His responsibilities had been increased tenfold. He did not attend the parties very long himself. He always had something else he needed to see to. But I did not let that, or anything else, concern me. I had let life go, and it had come back to me. I had decided I would hold it with more loving hands.

The year following my peoples' victory, I was approaching the banquet hall to join the Purim celebration when I saw Erez. I had not seen him since I had come out of the king's chambers to find him gone. I had so badly wished to see his face that sometimes it seemed if I just turned my head surely I would find him standing guard behind me, or if I would just open the doors to my chambers, he would be on the other side of them.

As I continued to walk toward where Erez stood guard outside the banquet hall, my legs felt strange beneath me; I wanted to run but I could hardly walk. He looked as he always had: calm, watchful, surer of himself than he was of anyone else in the world.

I did not want to quickly walk by and then have to wait another year to see him. I needed something—quiet words or at least a look—to pass between us.

I slowed my pace, almost to a halt. What could I say?
I have missed you with all my senses, my soul has missed yours? I have longed so deeply for you that sometimes I have been certain you were with me?

Besides the slight rise and fall of his chest, only his eyes moved. Without turning his head, I saw him glance in my direction. Then I saw his hand disappear inside his tunic and emerge clutching something so small I could not see what it was. I ordered the two Immortals beside me to move in front of me and continued at a snail's pace so Erez could transfer whatever was in his hand to mine unseen.

I tried not to look into his eyes but could not keep from glancing briefly at their dark centers. I knew that he was watching me in the way I had watched him when he was my guard—watching from the corner of one eye while seeming to stare straight ahead. As I came close I could see his pulse throbbing in his neck. He pressed something into my hand. It was hard not to tighten my fingers around his as soon as they brushed my palm, but I waited an instant and his hand was gone, leaving something in its place. I wrapped my own hand around it, being careful not to grasp it too tightly. I could feel that it was a tiny scroll.

All night I waited to open it. I felt it in the sleeve of my robe and imagined what it might say. He had told me more than once to be strong. That was how he said
I love you.
But surely he knew I no longer needed to be told to be strong.

The dancing, singing, and drinking went into the morning. When I left with my escort Erez had been replaced by another guard. I hurried back to my chambers, dismissed all my servants, and opened the scroll.

I had assumed Erez could not read or write. As I looked at the sureness of the handwriting, and read what was written, I knew I had been wrong.
I was not lying when I said I would have fallen on my own sword rather than raise it against any of your kin. By ending Haman's mission you have saved my life. I await the chance to return the favor.

Ruti died a few years after our peoples' victory. “I thought that if a woman could not bear a child she was of little use in the world,” she said. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, her hand in mine. “But you taught me otherwise, my queen. You have made me more proud than a woman like me has a right to be, and now I can die at peace with the world.”

Not long after Ruti died I summoned Hegai. I had never longed so desperately for a comforting embrace, but he was so formal I could not imagine calling him closer and putting my arms around him. I bid him to rise from where he bowed low before me. “The king told me once that he had foreseen the hour of his death,” I told Hegai. “He said someone would betray him, but he did not know who.”

“He doubts his judgment of character, as he should. You must keep your ear to the ground.”

Artabanus, one of Xerxes' officials, had placed his seven sons in high positions and would surely not be satisfied until one of them, or he himself, sat upon the throne. Xerxes could not remove him from his post without losing the support of some of the most powerful people in Persia. Whenever I saw Mordecai, his brow was so deeply creased with worry that I had the urge to reach out and smooth it with my hand.

“Do you know something?” I asked Hegai.

“Nothing for certain, except that if Xerxes is assassinated, you must flee. If you do not, you will be killed, or worse. A queen's story ends with her son's, unless she has no son, and then it ends with her king's.”

I did not argue aloud. The life I would make for myself would be argument enough. “Hegai, you are now my most trusted friend. We will flee together.”
And Erez will be our guide.

He laughed. “How I would love that, if I were not . . . as I am.” I did not blush or look away as I once would have, and after a moment he sighed and continued. “My queen, I cannot leave. There is nothing for me outside these walls. I would not be satisfied to be merely a servant to a wealthy noble, and that is the most I could hope for if I fled. I am suited only to palace life. And, if you will forgive my lack of humility, I think, perhaps I could even come through a coup with my position intact.”

What I had told him years ago was still true: I did not want to leave him. But if the king was assassinated, I would. “I do not doubt you, my friend. Thank you for all you have done for me.”

He bowed to me, and I bowed back.

465 BCE

For eight years, Erez and I continued to pass little scrolls back and forth on Purim without speaking or looking at each other directly. In the morning, after I read the scroll he gave me, I forced myself to hold it over a flame. I kept the ashes in a tiny gold case I wore near my heart. Though we only saw each other once a year, and I was never able to ask him any of my questions—did he still have the king's favor, was there anything I could do to help him—somehow I still felt as though Erez and I were always together, getting older, wiser in each other's company. I felt closer to him than I had when he guarded me each day.