Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294) (15 page)

“I am.”

“Sit, please.” She nodded at the open space on the curved bench. I sank gratefully onto it, hoping this interview would be quick and to the point.

“Go ahead.” She lifted her veil. “Look me over and tell me what you see.”

I had not wanted to stare, but I was curious about what the years ahead held for an aging concubine. Grateful for the frank and open invitation, I studied her, knowing that I might well be looking into my future.

I was startled to realize that the woman could not yet be forty. Laugh lines radiated from the corners of her dark eyes like cracks, and her teeth, even and white, contrasted beautifully with her olive skin. Traces of humor lay around her mouth, and wisdom shone in the eyes that smiled at me.

Darius's favorite concubine was still a remarkably beautiful woman.

“Hegai has high hopes for you,” she said, her eyes sparkling with spirit.

I lowered my head, uncomfortable with the compliment. “I will try to please him, but I can only do what I can do. Either the king will like me or he won't.”

“And that's where you are wrong, my child.” She leaned toward me and looked up into my eyes. “I have seen many beautiful girls come into the harem, yet the king forgets most of them by the next morning. Women are different in many ways, but basically we are the same: we have two arms, two legs, two breasts, two eyes, two lips, two ears. We are a vessel for a man's pleasure and a nest for his unborn children. But if you would be called into the king's presence a second and a third time, you must be a shelter for the king's heart.”

I stared in silence, stunned by her words. From Hegai's manner I had expected a lesson on how to give a man physical pleasure, but Humusi was talking about a man's heart. I wanted to believe my king had a noble and generous heart, but Babar had not thought so. . . .

“I do not think,” I said, stammering, “that a powerful king, a man full grown, will want to entrust his heart to one so young.”

“And since when do you know so much about kings?” She laughed softly, her eyes dancing inside her veil. “When the king is alone with you he will be, at times, a man, a boy, and a baby. He will be at his most vulnerable with you if he trusts you, and if you would love him well, you will teach him to trust you.” She smiled, and her gaze drifted off to some invisible territory I could not even imagine. “I have never met the son, but I knew the father, and I have seen him weep when hurt. But I never spoke of his tears until today, and I only speak of them now because Hegai believes you are special.”

My heart pounded as her lips curved in a rueful smile. “When you go to the king, do whatever he asks, but never forget that he is a powerful man, and men who command others need a woman to admire and respect them. So listen, little Esther, and hear what is on his heart. Hold it securely and do not share it with anyone. And then, if you can find it in your heart to do so, love him for the man he is and the man he could be. Expect greatness of him. And then, perhaps, he will find it in himself.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“Love him anyway.”

Grateful for this surprising advice, I smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek. “I do not know what will happen when I go to the king. But I promise I will not forget what you have shared with me today.”

T
WO
DAYS
LATER
I
STOOD
AT
THE
EDGE
of the apadana, staring north, the direction from which the king's caravan must come. The mountains stood like sentinels in the distance, their jagged surfaces already dusted with white.

“It is a good thing the king arrives before the frost,” said a familiar voice behind me. I turned and saw Harbonah, his weathered face scanning the mountain range.

I clapped, delighted and relieved to see Mordecai's old friend. “Harbonah! When did you arrive?”

“Not long ago.” He lowered his gaze and smiled. “I rode ahead to see to the preparations for the king's arrival. I've just come from the harem. The king will want a warm body in his bed tonight, and I understand that body will be yours.”

“Ah. You have spoken to Hegai.” I turned back toward the horizon, not wanting the eunuch to see the emotions tugging at my face. “Will the king arrive soon?”

“Later this afternoon. Definitely before sunset.”

“I wish I could know if our meeting will . . . go well. If he will like me.” I gripped the stone railing to steady my nerves and tried to shift the conversation away from talk of my first encounter with the king. “Tell me, Harbonah, how
you
came to the palace.”

He cleared his throat. “The story is long, and certain to bore you.”

“I won't be bored.” I tossed a quick smile over my shoulder. “And I need something . . . to keep my mind off tonight. To keep me from being nervous.”

From the corner of my eye I saw him approach the railing, though he remained a respectful distance away.

“I was born in a little village,” he said, his eyes scanning the landscape, “and my parents died of a fever. I might have been set to work in the fields, but the governor of Assyria gathered up five hundred orphan boys, many from my village, all of us between ten and twelve years of age. We were marched for miles, then put in wagons and brought to Susa, along with a thousand talents of silver, as a gift for Darius, the present king's father.”

I looked at him, searching for signs of resentment in his expression, but I saw no trace of bitterness. “We have something in common, then,” I said. “I, too, arrived at the king's palace in a wagon.”

He chuckled. “Our arrivals may have been similar, but our training was not. You have spent a year in the harem—I was dragged to the ironworker and mutilated.” He hesitated, and his voice had thickened by the time he spoke again. “That day I prayed for death.”

I hung my head, simultaneously ashamed and embarrassed. I could not look at him, but after a moment I heard a wry smile in his voice. “I am sorry to mention such an indelicate subject . . . but you did ask.”

“I never—I never thought about such things before coming to the palace.”

“You thought eunuchs were born as sexless creatures? You are
young, so I suppose you don't know how cruel the world can be. But generations ago some ancient ruler noticed that after being castrated, unruly horses ceased biting, bulls gave up their disobedience, and dogs ceased to abandon their masters while remaining ever faithful and strong for the hunt. So castration, he reasoned, must surely affect men in the same way—they will be more obedient and less unruly, but no less devoted or courageous.”

I gripped the stone railing and gasped. “I am afraid I have lived a sheltered life.”

“You have.” Harbonah crossed his arms, then leaned on the railing, still maintaining a sizable gap between us. “Persian palaces are filled with eunuchs because kings believe no one can be more trustworthy than a man who has no one else to love. And because kings are never more vulnerable than when eating, drinking, washing, or sleeping, eunuchs are employed to guard and serve in the most intimate capacities. So that is what I do. I have served our king since boyhood. We have grown up together, but while my master has grown strong, I have grown . . . old.”

I shuddered in regret for having invited such a story and for what had been done to Harbonah. When I found my voice again, I lifted my chin and turned to meet his gaze. “So . . . do you serve the king out of love? Or have you reason to resent him for your fate?”

He smiled, sunlight glimmering over his narrow face as he turned toward the eastern horizon. “I do not resent our king. What happened to me as a child was regrettable, but if I had remained in my village, I would have died from starvation within the year. Instead I was brought to Susa, where I have risen to a place where I am trusted by the king of all the earth. I have suffered, yes, but I have also overcome.”

He looked directly at me then, and in the cloud-softened sunlight his features were so graceful, so symmetrical, that any more
delicacy would have made him every bit as beautiful as the harem virgins. “And I do love our king. Not in the way a woman loves him, but as one who cares for him from sunrise to sunrise. He has become the center of my world, so how can I help loving him? I rise when he wakes at night. Nearly every thought centers on what he might need in the next hour, the next day, the next week. My life is entwined with his—and now I wonder if yours will be, as well.”

I drew a deep breath, grateful that the conversation had moved to the present day. “I have heard that the king is . . . frightening. But you would tell me if he were, wouldn't you?”

Harbonah's jaw flexed. “He is frightening only to those who have reason to fear him.”

I smiled in relief. “Tell me—what is he like? As a man?”

The eunuch's sandals scuffed the tile as he shifted his weight. “Who can really know a king? Everyone around him is out to gain something; his nobles say what they think the king wants to hear. The king behaves the way he thinks people want him to behave. To his warriors he is strong and mighty; to his people he is regal and imposing. To his servants he is brusque; to his concubines he is virile and proficient. To the Immortals he is the chief soldier; to the seven vice-regents he is the epitome of what a Persian king should be. Vashti knew him as well as anyone, but she will never enter his bedchamber again.”

He looked at me, his brow wrinkling as something moved in his eyes. “I wonder what you will be to him, my young friend.”

I swallowed hard and thought of what Humusi had told me. “I will be . . . if he will let me, I will be a shelter for his heart.”

Harbonah did not respond, but his wide mouth curled in a one-sided smile before he turned and moved away.

With a flurry of trumpets and the rumble of hooves, the royal caravan approached Susa. The other girls and I hurried back to the palace of the virgins lest we be found wandering in the hallways. Several of us gathered in the garden, and Artystone was brave enough to stand in the clasped hands of another girl in an effort to climb up and peer over the wall.

“Do you think?” another girl whispered. “Do you think the king will be too tired to call for a woman tonight?”

“The king has been traveling for days,” Artystone answered, lifting her chin. “Surely he has become accustomed to the pace of the journey.”

“And he is the
king
,” another girl stressed. “He cannot tire like ordinary men.”

I pressed my lips together and stared at the ground, knowing that if the king
did
ask for a woman, Hegai would send me. After sleeping with the king, I would go to the palace of the concubines, overseen by Shaashgaz, another eunuch in the king's service. I would not see these girls again until they too had slept with the king and joined the concubines . . . in the house of the anonymous and deflowered.

“A concubine will not visit the king's chamber again,” Hegai once informed us, “unless he was especially pleased with her and summoned her by name.”

If our future depended upon an aging king's memory, maybe Hegai should write our names on our foreheads before sending us into the royal bedchamber.

The chatter around me silenced as the eunuch rounded a pillar and discovered us in the garden. He glared at Artystone, still peering over the wall, and when she jumped down, he lifted the other girl's reddened hands and made quiet
tsk
ing sounds. “You will ruin your s-s-skin,” he said, his voice high and soft. “You should think b-b-before you d-d-do these things.”

The girls backed away, then Hegai's gaze fell on me. “Esther.” His eyes lit with anticipation. “C-c-come with me.”

Questions rose in a sibilant chorus around me: “Has the king returned?” “Has he sent word?” “Is she the one for tonight?”

As I followed the eunuch, warm palms brushed my arms—gentle touches of envy, encouragement, and disbelief. Hegai led the way up the stairs, then took my arm and patted my hand. My maids stood waiting on the landing, smiling as if I were a bride about to meet her groom.

“You will be fine.” Hulta slipped her arm around my shoulders. “The king will love you.”

Would he? Or would I be one of a thousand other pretty girls who had filled his bed for an hour or so?

As my maids and I followed the eunuch, I couldn't help feeling grateful that I hadn't known about the king's homecoming when I spoke with Mordecai earlier in the day. He would not have been pleased to learn I was about to lose my virginity. He had grown complacent in the king's absence and was probably hoping Xerxes would remain at Ecbatana forever. . . .

Hegai led my entourage to a special robing room, where hundreds of silken gowns, wigs, and veils were piled in baskets, overflowing in sumptuous disarray. Against the back wall, gold and silver jewelry spilled from an immense chest.

“Ch-ch-choose what you will.” Hegai gestured toward the treasures of the harem. “Each g-g-girl is allowed to determine what will make her most b-b-beautiful.”

I stepped back, overwhelmed by the number of choices. “I cannot. Please, Hegai, choose for me.”

The eunuch blinked, then moved forward and rubbed his hands, a delighted smile splitting his face. “I have waited years for s-s-such an opportunity.” He gestured toward a pile of tunics and sent one of my maids scrambling in that direction. “Over there, the sleeveless gowns.”

My maid pulled out two garments, one scarlet and one purple, but Hegai shook his head. “Not for Esther, our virginal star. Stars are b-b-bright and b-b-brilliant. They are pure. The white gown, please, from that c-c-corner.”

The maid pulled out a shimmering silk gown, a one-shouldered design I had never seen before. She brought it to Hegai, who held the fabric up to my skin and nodded in satisfaction. “This one.” He handed the garment off to my dressing maid. “And as for j-j-jewelry . . .”

He ran his finger through a tray of gold chains, silver ropes, mounted gems and precious stones, then chose two clear diamonds, each suspended from a fine golden chain. “These earrings.” He handed them to another maid. “And n-n-nothing around her neck. Let n-n-nothing stand between the k-k-king and her sweetness.”

“What about her hair?” The maid behind me unpinned the braided knot at my neck and pulled it loose. “Should I plait it or curl it or—”

“B-b-brush it,” Hegai said, stepping back. “Brush it until it sh-sh-shines, and then do n-n-nothing. Let it be a r-r-river of black s-s-silk.” He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the gathering dusk. “Our king will think a g-g-goddess has d-d-deigned to visit his ch-ch-chamber.”

I sighed, wanting to ask if the eunuch made these elaborate pronouncements every time he sent a virgin to the king, but then decided to hold my tongue. If my tutor wanted to carry on over a favorite pupil, who was I to deny him this joy? He had showered me with unmerited kindness, so the least I could do was let him take pleasure in his task.

“All right, g-g-girls.” Hegai stepped back. “Begin your w-w-work.”

One of the maids playfully pushed me down on a stool, then all seven of my girls commenced with their preparations: one brushed my hair, two massaged fragrant oil into my skin, another smoothed my feet with a pumice stone. Yet another girl sat across from me
and applied kohl to my eyes and color to my lips. Behind me, two other maids put a pot of water on the fire to steam the wrinkles from my gown.

When they had finished with their tasks, I stood and walked to the bronze mirror against the wall. I wore golden sandals and a one-shouldered garment of white silk. Diamonds the size of walnuts dangled from my earlobes.

“B-b-beautiful,” breathed Hegai.

“Really?” I tilted my head, studying my reflection. “I am not—”

Hegai answered so confidently that he didn't stutter: “You are perfection.”

Perhaps he was right. Over the years, I had grown into my too-large eyes, my face had filled in to frame my nose, and my body had lengthened to better suit my feet. Oil had softened my hair, perfume had sweetened my skin, and the eunuchs' lessons had calmed my impetuous spirit.