Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294) (13 page)

The eunuch's eyes flashed in my direction. “Yes?”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but as you listed the royal women, you seemed to forget someone.”

His forehead wrinkled. “I don't know who—”

“Our former queen, sir. Where does Vashti fall in the ranking?”

Harbonah flushed as an uncomfortable silence filled the room and the wide-eyed fly swatters stopped moving their fans. “Um . . .” He cleared his throat. “The woman known as Vashti is queen no longer. But she is the mother of our crown prince, so until the king has another heir, she will be accorded honor in the palace. She is still of high rank.”

“So . . . do we bow if we meet her?”

Harbonah tilted his head, leading me to believe no one had ever asked the question. “You do not have to prostrate yourself—she is only one of the king's women. But you should treat her with respect. And caution.”

What did he mean? I shot a questioning look to the girl next to me, but her forehead was so wrinkled with puzzlement that I
wondered if she understood anything. What if she'd come from one of the outlying satraps and didn't even speak the king's language?

I caught her eye and smiled, giving her an unspoken promise: I would be her friend, and we would help each other through this ordeal.

And after my year of preparation was finished, and after I'd spent my night with the king, maybe Hegai and Harbonah would help me find my way home.

T
O
SINGLE
OUT
H
ADASSAH
in front of all the other women might have stirred up jealousy, so I did not speak to her right away. But as soon as I finished addressing the harem's most recent arrivals, I left the girls in Hegai's care and went in search of Mordecai. I found him at his usual station, standing behind a tall desk, his eyes intent on the ciphers pressed into the clay form before him.

I had not seen my friend in several months, and it seemed to me the accountant had aged considerably since we last met. Anxiety and grief had etched new lines upon his face, and loss shadowed his dark eyes. Were these changes due to the strain of grieving for his wife or missing his adopted daughter?

This interview would require my talents for tact and discretion. I didn't know when the man had last seen his Hadassah, or how she came to be in a slave trader's wagon.

“Warmest greetings, Mordecai.”

He looked up, startled, then a small smile split his graying beard. “Harbonah! How good of you to come see me.”

He stepped out from behind his desk, threw his arms around my shoulders, and kissed me on both cheeks, honoring me with the greeting one man gives an equal. “Come, let us sit and talk for a moment.” He led the way toward a bench by a cold fire pit. “We have much to discuss, as I haven't seen you since your return from Sardis.”

I took the seat he offered and smiled, not sure how to proceed. “I hope,” I began, “this day finds you well.”

Mordecai sat too, bracing himself with his hands on his knees. “Miriam died, as you may have heard,” he said, staring straight ahead, “and two days ago I sent Hadassah away with her betrothed and his father. They will be married in Jerusalem, and they will make the city of David their home.”

So he didn't know. I swallowed hard. “Mordecai, I have news about your daughter.”

Reluctantly, he met my gaze, his lower lip trembling at something he must have seen in my eyes. “You have heard something about Hadassah?”

“I am sorry to be the one to tell you.” I bit my lip, wishing I could soften the blow. “I saw your Hadassah yesterday when she was delivered into Hegai's custody by a pair of slave traders. I didn't know anything about a wedding, but I know where she is now. She is in the king's harem, in the palace of the virgins.”

Mordecai lifted his chin and met my gaze straight on. “Impossible. You must be mistaken. What of her betrothed and his father? They were with her; they were to guard her on the journey—”

“I know nothing of them, and I have not had an opportunity to speak to the girl. But you can take comfort in knowing that Hegai is a friend and your daughter has already won his admiration. He plans to give her the best rooms in the harem, the best of everything. She will lack for nothing.”

“Except . . . her freedom.” Mordecai closed his eyes, opened his mouth, his expression that of a man who had been pushed beyond the bounds of human endurance. For a long moment neither of us spoke. Then a shadow flickered over Mordecai's face. He bowed his head, pounded his breast, and released an eerie cry that sliced across my soul like a keen-edged blade.

The other men working in the room halted and turned toward Mordecai, horror on their faces.

“I had hoped to get her safely away from the king,” Mordecai finally said, his voice breaking. “I knew she was beautiful and bright, but I hoped a marriage in faraway Jerusalem might save her from this fate. She did not want to be married in such a hurry, but she agreed because she is obedient and because she knew it was for the best. And now my precious Hadassah is captive in a pagan king's palace while her betrothed—”

He looked at me, fresh alarm on his face. “Do you know what happened to Binyamin and his father?”

I shook my head. “Slave traders can be ruthless,” I warned, speaking gently because I knew my words would not be easy to hear. “They have been rounding up women of all sorts, knowing they will be paid if they bring an acceptable maiden to the palace. If your daughter's defenders resisted, I would not hold much hope for their survival.”

“Binyamin and his father were scholars, not warriors.” Mordecai's eyes glistened with pain. “I doubt they fought at all, but one can never be sure with young men in love.”

He stared at nothing a moment more; then he scooped up a handful of old ashes from the fire pit. He slowly poured them over his head, then leaned forward again. “I had better organize a search party. If they were injured, they may need my help.”

I nodded my agreement as I helped the grieving man to his feet. “One more thing.” I maintained a tight grip on his arm. “Hadas
sah has called herself Esther. I assumed she had good reasons for maintaining her privacy.”

A certain intentness filled the accountant's eyes, and then he offered me a brief smile. “She is a clever girl. A good girl, and wise. She has done exactly what I asked her to do.”

“Disguise herself?” My thoughts whirled, searching for a logical reason. “Why would you ask her to do that?”

Mordecai's dark eyes glittered above his graying beard. “Because we are Jews. And this king cannot be trusted.”

I released him. And as much as I wanted to defend my beloved master, I knew I could not.

Nearly a week passed before I had an opportunity to check on Hadassah, and even then I worried that I might cause trouble by seeking her out. Many a servant, indeed, many a free man, had been undone by harem gossip, so I resolved to do nothing that might injure Hadassah, Hegai, or myself. Life was too short and the alternative far too unpleasant to risk anything that might arouse a royal temper.

On the pretext of needing to ask Hegai's opinion about a seating arrangement, I made my way to the palace of the virgins and found my friend standing in a doorway. I tapped him on the shoulder, then peered past him into the large courtyard, where another eunuch was demonstrating the proper way to braid hair. “See any good prospects, my friend?”

Hegai lifted his gaze to the ceiling and sighed. “Never have I been more c-c-convinced that beauty is not all a man requires in a d-d-desirable woman. Every virgin in yonder room has a pleasant f-f-face, but nearly half don't speak Persian and another half are as g-g-graceless as oxen.” He paused to take a deep breath, apparently
exhausted by the effort of stringing so many thoughts together. “We have collected c-c-comely girls from everywhere, but n-n-none of them are ready to s-s-speak to the king, let alone share his b-b-bed.”

I dropped my hand to his shoulder, silently showing appreciation for the report. Rarely did Hegai speak so many words at once.

“Surely—” I paused to seek the most delicate phrase—“surely not much is expected of a woman who provides only an evening's entertainment?”

Hegai dipped his head and gave me a skeptical look. “The king wants a w-w-wife. And she must follow V-V-Vashti.”

“And that will not be easy.” I chuckled. “So you must not only make these girls beautiful, you must make them witty and clever.”

“If only . . . I could.” Hegai shook his head. “Some of them . . . are s-s-stupid. But—” his broad face cracked into a smile for the first time—“I have a favorite. And she is s-s-smart.”

I smiled, knowing full well whose name I would hear. “Care to share the identity of this young woman?”

“It is . . . Esther, the one who came . . . with the f-f-farm girls. I have assigned her . . . s-s-seven attendants and arranged . . . special foods because she doesn't eat p-p-pork or shellfish. Whatever she wants . . . I'll get.” He turned, resting an appraising eye on me. “I think . . . you sh-sh-should tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“About her. You know s-s-something.”

I put on a shocked expression. “What makes you think I know anything at all? You heard her say she was an orphan.”

Hegai harrumphed. “Am I supposed to . . . b-b-believe . . . she was born in the desert? No, this rose was c-c-c-cultivated. And you . . . know her.”

I opened my mouth to protest again, but Hegai lifted his hand to stop me. “K-k-keep your secrets, then. But my efforts and my l-l-life . . . will depend . . . on . . . that girl.”

He didn't have to say anything else. Hegai and I had been friends since arriving at the palace together. I knew how to read his silences and the gaps between his words. I knew the horrors that darkened his nightmares just as he knew mine.

And since the idea to audition virgins had originated with me, Hegai and I both knew that our lives depended upon the success of these girls, and one in particular.

I
GLANCED
TOWARD
THE
DOORWAY
and felt my heart warm when I spotted Harbonah with Hegai. The two were chatting in a friendly manner, so they had to be well acquainted. And since Harbonah knew Mordecai, Hegai was another link in the chain that led to the only family I had left. I needed to keep those links in place, for they would be my way home.

The tall eunuch must have felt the pressure of my gaze, because he looked up, caught my eye, and nodded in a wordless greeting. Or did his nod convey something more? I hoped—with all my soul, I
prayed
—that he had told Mordecai where I was.

My heart ached at the thought of Mordecai's despair. He had done his best to keep me safe, and for what? He had prayed for my safety, yet his prayers had gone unanswered. Despite Mordecai's efforts to remain righteous and faithful in a pagan king's city, Adonai had failed my cousin. I could almost believe that HaShem
had abandoned us, but so long as Mordecai believed, I could not abandon my faith. Faith and family were the cords that bound us together.

“And you see,” the teaching eunuch said, using his long-fingered hands to demonstrate techniques of hair curling and arrangement, “a six-strand plait creates a lovely basket on the head. Does anyone want to try it?”

Sighing, I rested my cheek on my palm and dreamed of home. If Miriam were alive, at this hour she would be baking bread. She would send me to the well for fresh water or tell me to make sure the glazed jar contained enough oil. Mordecai would be walking home by this time, reflecting on his work, perhaps adding numbers in his head or rehearsing the report he would give to his supervisor. . . .

“You there—sleepy girl.”

I blinked as the lecturing eunuch pointed a long finger at me.

“Don't touch your face with your hands or you'll pull your skin into wrinkles. Do you want to be droopy and lined before you've spent even an hour with the king? Of course not. So you must keep your hands away from your face at all times, understand?”

I nodded, embarrassed, and kept my head down for several minutes after he returned to his demonstration.

“Don't worry about him.” Artystone, the girl sitting next to me, smiled and lowered her voice. “He's a fussy one, but he has no real power. The only important man here—besides the king—is Hegai. He decides
who
goes to the king,
when
a girl goes to the king, and what she
wears
when she goes to the king. If you want access to the best gowns, jewels, and hairdresser, you'll want to cozy up to Hegai.”

I shifted my gaze to the short, bald man who stood in the doorway. Our stuttering guardian had escorted me to the harem on the day of my arrival, and he had gently washed my chafed wrists and applied salve to my broken skin. He'd also given me a suite of nice rooms and assigned seven handmaids to be my attendants. He had
assured me, blushing, that those seven girls were the most skilled and discreet maids in the harem.

But because he was a friend of Harbonah's, I would have liked him if he hadn't done any of those things.

I smiled at Artystone. “How long have you been here?”

A faint glint of humor shone in her eyes. “I was one of the first to arrive. My father brought me, and now my entire family waits for word that I've been crowned queen.” She hugged her bent knees. “I don't know how to tell them that I'm about as likely to become queen as to sprout wings and fly away. I figure the best I can hope for is to have a royal baby. If I bear a son, I might at least be given better quarters in the harem. But queen? I'm not the type and I never will be.”

I swallowed hard, remembering how Mordecai had declared that the king's virgins would be used and discarded. “If you're not chosen as queen . . . wouldn't you want to go home?”

She leaned back as if to see me better, then laughed so loudly that the lecturing eunuch stopped and glared in our direction.

The teacher—I didn't catch his name—looked so much like the others I would have known him for a eunuch from fifty paces away. Since arriving in the harem, I had noticed that the palace eunuchs held certain characteristics in common. Most had smooth faces and rounded figures, soft in the hips and belly. Many were tall and lanky, with voices as high-pitched as a child's. Unless they chose to shave their heads, their skulls were capped with tresses as thick and shiny as mine. Many of the old ones had developed prominent humps on their backs, yet because they projected certain aspects of femininity, several of the eunuchs could honestly be called beautiful.

When the scowling hairdresser finally resumed his teaching, Artystone leaned closer to me. “You can forget about ever going home. No woman who has slept with the king can ever sleep with anyone else—unless he dies and the next ruler marries you to keep
the royal connections in place. You belong to the king now, as do I, and we can do nothing about it. The only way out of the harem is on a burial bier.”

She spoke so casually, so smoothly, that her words didn't immediately register. When they did, the shock of defeat held me immobile.

No way out?

I swallowed, realizing why Mordecai had worked so diligently to keep me from this fate. I had dreamed of visiting the palace and meeting the king, and I had even dreamed of marrying a prince. Even since being caught by the slave traders, I had entertained the hazy idea I would be auditioned in the king's bed, rejected, and then allowed to go home—a cruel fate, certainly, but not one without hope.

In my innocence I had no idea what being the king's woman entailed.

A memory reared its head—the woman at the bazaar, the know-it-all who scolded me and Parysatis for dreaming of a life in the harem. We paid her no mind, believing her to be old and bitter, but she had given us the unvarnished truth.

Persia might offer its subjects a great deal of personal and religious freedom, but I was a woman, and women belonged to their men. And I, along with dozens of other girls, had become one of the king's women.

For the rest of our lives, we would never belong to anyone else.

After two weeks of living in the harem, I knew that whatever traces of beauty I'd possessed were gone. My smile had become as cold and lonely as my heart, and my eyes had reddened from fits of frustrated weeping. When not required to attend a class on dancing,
music, or cosmetics, I retreated to the garden where I could weep undisturbed and relive my precious memories.

Leaving Susa had been difficult, but I had hoped for a husband's love to console me. Now I lived in the world's grandest palace, yet I sobbed inconsolably at the thought of never seeing Mordecai again.

I was sitting in an alcove built into the garden wall when Harbonah walked along the path with Hegai. After a brief conversation, the shorter man left Harbonah. The tall eunuch turned in my direction.

“I thought you might like to know,” he said, walking toward me with his hands clasped behind his back, “that a certain accountant from the King's Gate walks along the courtyard wall every afternoon. He seems to be in deep contemplation. Perhaps he is concerned about a family member. Perhaps he would like to know how she is faring.”

The eunuch spoke these words calmly, without meeting my gaze. I glanced around, thinking he might be addressing someone else, but no one else was there. I couldn't be mistaken—he had to be talking to me.

I looked at him, confused. “What good does it do me to know this? We are kept under guard, and cannot roam where we choose.”

His broad mouth curled into a smile as his eyes met mine. “You need not go outside the harem. On the other side of this wall a walking path offers a most inspiring view of the distant mountains. My friend Mordecai walks the path every day.”

I brought my hand to my lips. “My cousin is . . . that close?”

“Only a few feet away, child.”

Hope fluttered in my breast like a startled bird, then I sighed. “This is a high wall, sir, and the stone is thick. Since I can't see through these rocks, how will I know when my cousin is near?”

The eunuch chuckled. “My friend walks the path at midday, when the sun is directly overhead. An alcove much like this one
has been cut into the south end of this wall. If you were to rest there and sing quietly, I am sure you would be overheard on the walkway. Since the heat is strong at midday, not many other girls will venture into the garden. Not many men choose to walk in the midday heat, either.”

I smiled as the ice around my heart began to melt. “You are a friend to me, Harbonah, as well as to my cousin. Tomorrow I will sit in that alcove, and I will sing in the hope that I will be heard.”

The eunuch nodded, then glanced at the sky. “Why wait? The sun is nearly at its zenith.”

Overcome with the hope that I might be able to speak to Mordecai right away, I thanked the eunuch and hurried toward the south wall. I found the alcove and sat on the marble bench, concentrating to hear the sound of footfalls on the path beyond. I could hear nothing but the rustle of a nesting bird and the gurgle of a fountain, but hadn't Harbonah suggested that I sing? I would, but if I sang a familiar song, another girl might assume she was free to join in. So I would not sing in Persian. I would sing a tune Mordecai knew. . . .

My tongue picked up the haunting melody as easily as if I'd heard it the night before.

“They will come and sing on the heights of Zion,” I sang in Hebrew, “streaming to the goodness of Adonai, to the grain, the wine, the olive oil, and the young of the flock and the herd. They themselves will be like a well-watered garden, never to languish again. Then the virgin will dance for joy, young men and old men together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, comfort and gladden them after their sorrow.”

“Hadassah?”

The sound of my Hebrew name felt as sweet as a cool mountain breeze.

“Mordecai!” My pulse quickened as my eyes filled with tears. “I thought I would never hear your voice again!”

“Are you well, my daughter?”

“I am very well, cousin. Since coming to the palace, I have been treated with the greatest kindness. But Binyamin and his father—”

“I have seen them, and they have recovered from the attack. They are going on to Jerusalem, so they have agreed to break your marriage contract.”

“Oh.” I brought my hand to my mouth, my throat aching with regret. Even though I hadn't been excited about marrying Binyamin, Mordecai's news still stung. If Binyamin had found me so easy to forget, the king would barely even note my presence.

“You must put that sorrow behind you, daughter. You are in danger here, and you must be ever on your guard.”

I blinked, trying to comprehend what I was hearing. Mordecai sounded tense and worried, but why? I had already resigned myself to being a concubine, and though this wasn't the life I would have chosen, I didn't think it deserved to be called
dangerous
.

“You must not worry about me, cousin. You should eat well and get your rest. Do not let your fears keep you awake.”

I heard his deep chuckle and could almost see him absently tugging on his beard. “It is good to hear your voice. I will rest easier knowing you are well. If you need anything, you have but to let me know. If you need something immediately, speak to Hegai. He knows Harbonah, and Harbonah is a friend.”

“I should have known you'd find a way to check on me.” I hesitated, searching for words that would adequately describe the glorious joy that had flooded my heart. “I will live for the day when I see you again, cousin, whether in this life or the next.”

I thought he would respond with the same sentiment, but instead he said, “Go in peace, Hadassah. May HaShem watch over you until we speak again.”