Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294) (5 page)

The seven eunuchs who guarded the king filed into double lines and strode out of the chamber. I slinked away from the royal presence, then ran to intercept Biztha in the hallway.

He halted as soon as he saw me.

“What should I do?” He shook his hands as if he would shake off the king's order. “The queen will not want to be summoned, not when she has guests. Every woman in Susa is watching her tonight—will she leave them in order to obey the king?”

“I don't think she will,” I answered truthfully. “But you have not been charged with compelling her, so summon her as the king ordered, and let her answer speak for her. You can do nothing else.”

My stomach tightened into a knot as Biztha hurried after the other eunuchs in the march toward the queen's palace. “Please,” I begged whatever gods might be listening, “please put the queen in an amiable mood.”

Compelled by curiosity, I followed the king's eunuchs to the garden where the queen was entertaining the women of Susa. Even before I entered, I could hear the gentle buzz of feminine voices and smell sweet incense. Behind the vine-covered wall, the wealthiest of Susa's families were enjoying a festive occasion with the poorest—truly a once-in-a-lifetime event. This should have been the grandest night of a week-long affair.

But an intuition warned me that Susa's feast would not end on a positive note.

I slipped into the queen's garden through a low door in the stone wall. Crouching beneath a spreading ligustrum tree, I could see the queen reclining alone on a golden couch beneath a white pavilion. Other couches had been spread throughout the garden, the area lit by soft lamps. Wine had been served at this banquet too, but the women had not drunk nearly as much as the men. Their kohl-lined eyes shone above bright smiles, yet no one in my hearing slurred her words or laughed too loudly.

In the center pavilion, watching with the expression of a proud mother, Vashti appeared to be enjoying herself. From the safety of her couch, she called to guests who sat close by. As I stood and crept forward, remaining in the shadows, I recognized one of the women near the queen: Parmys, the lovely woman who had married Masistes, the king's brother. Their teenaged daughter, Artaynta, sat beside Parmys, and both of them seemed at ease with the queen.

I could only hope that Biztha would feel as relaxed when he relayed the king's message.

I had nearly reached the queen when Biztha and his companions entered through a guarded gate and marched immediately to the pavilion.

“Begging your pardon, my queen.” Biztha dropped to one knee. “But the king commands that you present yourself at the men's
banquet. He would like you to come immediately, wearing your crown.”

Vashti stiffened as soon as she heard the words
present yourself
, but she held her tongue until Biztha completed his speech. Then she arched a brow, shook her head slightly, and smiled at two women sitting just beyond the edge of the pavilion. “See how my husband bellows? He has had too much to drink; they all have, I'm sure. So he expects me to rise, leave my guests, and hurry over there to be ogled like some sort of concubine.”

She offered honeyed, smooth words, but her dark brows rushed together as she met Biztha's gaze. “Tell your master I cannot come. I have guests of my own, and I must attend to them.”

“But my queen—”

“Tell him I will not come.” She spoke now in a voice of iron. “No woman abandons the banquet she has agreed to host. And no woman, especially not a queen, obeys the order of a drunken fool.”

Biztha stood, his arms trembling at his side. “Won't you reconsider?”

“I will not.” Her words were clipped and final. “Tell our king that I will speak to him later. But I am remaining here.”

Biztha went a shade paler as he bowed again, turned, and led his company of eunuchs away through the garden gate.

Still hidden among the shrubs, I inhaled deeply and rubbed my chin, uncertain of what I should do next. The success of these banquets was my responsibility, but what could I do if the king and queen chose to argue in the midst of the festivities? Given time and opportunity, I could soothe the king, but I didn't think anyone had ever managed to soothe Vashti.

I sighed and braced myself to endure whatever would come next. Such was the life of a slave—like dogs, we bore kicks we did not deserve and harsh words we had not earned. And when we did ac
complish something noteworthy, we stood back and watched our masters accept the praise.

As I turned to slip away, I spotted Mordecai's wife and ward near a flowering hedge. A roasted shoat lay untouched on a platter between them, and their glasses appeared nearly full. They were both staring toward the white pavilion, apparently fascinated with the drama playing out before their eyes. Miriam, who might have understood the undercurrents eddying between a husband and wife, wore a troubled expression, but the girl's eyes had gone wide with wonder.

Clearly she didn't realize that the evening had been a disaster.

I shook my head and crept back through the gardener's entrance. News of Vashti's impertinent response would be all over Susa by morning, and on its way to the far-flung satraps by tomorrow evening. The response would be mixed, but one thing was certain: after this report, some people would begin to question whether my master had the strength of will to rule his father's kingdom.

If a man could not command his own wife, how could he hope to control an empire?

By running through an alley, splashing through a fountain, and making use of a secret passage between the harem and the king's residence, I managed to arrive at the king's tent before the eunuchs returned with the queen's reply. With an ease born of practice, I picked up a golden pitcher and began filling glasses, relieved that no one in the king's party seemed to have noticed my absence. Then again, who notices a slave?

When he and his cohorts returned, Biztha had the good sense to step forward and whisper the queen's response to a guard, who then relayed it to the royal ear. The area beneath the white canopy
swelled with silence as the king reflected on his wife's answer to his summons. Then his face went pale except for deep red patches that flared over his angular cheekbones. He stood so suddenly that his guests startled, and then he left the tent and stalked into his chamber, leaving his counselors bewildered.

The vice-regents drew together like frightened children, undoubtedly wondering how they should respond. Shethar, who could barely speak without coughing, wanted to retreat and leave the king alone, but Carshena pointed out that abandoning the king might be interpreted as indifference or disrespect. So one by one, they girded up their courage and stood. The eldest, Memucan, looked at me, then jerked his thumb toward the hall. “You, chamberlain—will you lead the way?”

I lowered my pitcher, bowed to Memucan, and escorted the king's counselors past three guard stations to a private chamber, where the king paced in erratic circles, his hands locked behind his back.

Once they were all inside, I counted heads to make certain we had lost no one along the way. All seven men were considered friends of the king, so my master would do well to heed their advice. They knew every jot and tittle of Persian law, including what a king could and could not do.

“She refused to come!” the king roared, his nostrils flaring as he faced his vice-regents. “What can I do to make her regret this?”

The room filled with a quiet so thick that the only sound was the heavy rasp of Shethar's congested breathing. But Marsena looked at the king with an expression that could only be described as reproachful, and I knew my master would not want to earn the older man's disapproval.

Regaining a measure of control, the king dropped into a chair and rephrased the question: “According to the law, what should we do to Queen Vashti, since she did not obey the order conveyed by my officers?”

The vice-regents stared at each other, silently passing the responsibility of an answer down the line. Finally, wise Memucan spoke in a slow and deliberate voice. “Vashti the queen has wronged not only the king, but all the officials and all the peoples in all the provinces of the king. If this act of the queen's becomes known to all the women, they will start showing disrespect toward their own husbands. They will say, ‘The king ordered Vashti the queen to be brought before him, but she would not come.'”

“The women of Susa are already saying it,” the king muttered. “They were witnesses to her treachery.”

Memucan lifted a hand in silent agreement. “Moreover, the noble ladies of Persia and Media who hear of the queen's conduct will mention it to all the king's officials, which will bring about no end of disrespect and discord in the empire. So if it pleases his majesty, let him issue a royal decree—and let it be written as one of the laws of the Persians and Medes, which are irrevocable—that Vashti is never again to be admitted into the presence of the king, and that the king give her royal position to someone better than she. When the edict made by the king is proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the empire, then all wives will honor and respect their husbands, whether great or small.”

The king stopped fidgeting as anger began to leave his face. “That is sound advice. If Vashti is going to behave like a common woman, let her be one. I have given her honor, I have elevated her above all others, and she is the mother of the crown prince. As such she has been esteemed above all other women in my empire, but if she wants to behave like a concubine, a concubine is what she shall be.”

At my listening post near the doorway, I lifted a brow. The king might think he was demoting Vashti to the lowest position in the harem, but as the mother of the king's oldest son, she would always have power in the palace. She would still reign in the women's quarters.

My master looked around the half circle of sages. “Has anyone a better idea?”

I knew no one would speak. No one would dare suggest that Vashti be executed—as mother of the crown prince and two other sons, the idea was unthinkable. And she could not be given to another man. Once a woman had slept with the king, no other man would dare touch her. The act—the symbolism—would be tantamount to treason.

“Very well.” The king drew a long breath, then turned and gestured to me. “Eunuch, summon a scribe. Let letters be sent to all the royal provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language: every man shall be master in his own house and say whatever he pleases.”

I left the king's residence and hurried to fetch a scribe, breaking into a run as I skimmed the stairs nearest the King's Gate. Nothing in the world traveled faster than the Persian couriers and the royal post. Along the imperial roads, men and horses stood ready for action at all times; a man and a horse for each station until the king's edict reached the farthest point of the empire. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness would prevent the couriers from covering their assigned route in the quickest possible time.

Whether by post or signals beamed by light and mirrors, within only a few days the entire empire would learn of Vashti's disobedience, demotion, and disgrace.

I reached the King's Gate. I called out the king's order and watched three scribes spill out of their small offices, boxes and parchments under their arms. And as I caught my breath and watched them hurry up the stairs to the king's council room, I wondered what would become of our former queen.

The king might strip her of her position, but he could never strip away the power of her influence.

Q
UEEN
V
ASHTI
'
S
REFUSAL
TO
GO
TO
THE
KING
ignited a firestorm of gossip in Susa. Rumors drifted through the air like smoke, some saying Vashti would be executed, others that she would be exiled to India. Still others insisting that nothing would change, that Vashti would remain in the palace with her servants and her three sons. The youngest was still a baby, so who would be so heartless as to separate a baby from its mother?

No one mentioned what I later learned about life in the harem: few royal concubines actually nursed or cared for their babies, for the infants were handed over to wet nurses immediately after their births.

When I asked Mordecai about the queen's fate, he simply shrugged. “Vashti will be queen no longer,” he said, “but women like her always seem to land on their feet.”

I gasped, amazed that he spoke of Vashti as if she were an ordinary person. “Surely someone so beautiful—”

“But the edict,” Miriam interrupted. “I understand the king issued an edict after the banquet.”

Mordecai smiled. “The king's edict stated that a man is to be the ruler in his own home. So I ask you, wife—has anything changed? Women will continue to call their husbands ‘lord' while making all his decisions for him.”

Miriam lifted her gaze to the ceiling, huffed softly beneath her breath, and went back to kneading her bread.

I didn't know what had happened to the queen, but I enjoyed speculating with Parysatis. We would meet at the well or in the bazaar, and after I managed to slip away from Miriam, Parysatis and I would walk arm in arm and talk about the king, the queen, and who we wanted to marry when we were older.

Parysatis wanted to marry a man from one of the seven noble Persian families, because members of the nobility were always received at court. “Just think, one of my daughters might marry the king's son,” she went on, her voice soft and dreamy. “I would be invited to travel with the royal household, summering in one palace, wintering in another.”

“You
are
a dreamer,” I teased, lightly pinching her arm. But I didn't tell her that I had been dreaming too, yet not so much of kings and palaces. Lately I had been dreaming of Babar, Parysatis's handsome brother. He frequently walked with us through the bazaar, and though he caught the eye of many a young woman, he seemed to smile most often at
me
.

Had my uneven appearance finally begun to look at least presentable? Could he possibly love me? Could he find the courage to approach Mordecai to ask about marrying me?

I dreamed of walking arm in arm with Babar, of breakfasting with him, and resting my head on his shoulder, but when I tried to imagine him approaching Mordecai, my daydreams came to an abrupt halt. As valiantly as I tried to imagine a situation where
Mordecai might be indebted to Babar—if, for instance, the young man saved me from a runaway carriage on a busy street—I could not imagine a situation dire enough for Mordecai to agree that I should marry a non-Jew.

Those of us who worshipped Adonai, the one true God, were not allowed to marry anyone who did not believe. We could trade with Gentiles, laugh with them and talk with them, but we could not marry them. Some of our people had broken this law, Mordecai told me, and HaShem was not pleased. If we married people who followed false gods, we would undoubtedly pick up some of their detestable practices. We would find ourselves slipping away from the one true God, and the scattered nation of Israel would become polluted.

Yet when I dreamed of kissing Babar, religious purity was the furthest thing from my mind.

I knew I'd have to be married someday, but every day I avoided the marriage canopy was another day I was free to dream of Babar. Every older Jewish girl I knew had been betrothed as she approached maturity, so I couldn't think of any acceptable objection when Mordecai and Miriam asked if I might consider Binyamin, son of Kidon, to be my future husband. Binyamin and I had known each other since childhood, but we rarely spoke. When our community gathered to worship on the Sabbath, I would glance across the space separating the men from the women and find him staring at me. He would look away quickly, a blush tinting his pale face, and I wondered what sort of man he would become. Would he become a merchant like his father? Or would he serve as an accountant like Mordecai? Would he be loud and rowdy like our rabbi? Or would he be like Miriam, gentle yet capable of shouting in a whisper?

I often caught Miriam watching me the way a cook watches a pot over the fire. When I began to bleed in a woman's monthly cycles, she showed me how to care for myself during the time of
uncleanness and taught me about the
mikvah
, the bath that would restore me once my bleeding had stopped.

“Soon—” she smiled at me through sentimental tears—“Binyamin's father will send someone to negotiate the bride price and the dowry.” She sighed. “You will make a beautiful bride, Hadassah. Like the myrtle you were named for, you will prosper and flower in this land of exile.”

Beautiful? She exaggerated, but she loved me, and love made allowances for imperfections.

I smiled at her, but I remained in no hurry to marry. As the only child in Mordecai's household, I had benefited from the attention of two doting adults who could not believe that Adonai had entrusted them with a baby. Aware of their delight, and grateful for it, as a girl I sat by Mordecai's side and learned—an education that would have been denied me if Mordecai had sons to teach.

My cousin taught me Torah. He also taught me about the history of our people and about the sins that had caused us to be exiled from our beloved land. I learned about my royal heritage: Mordecai and I, descended from the tribe of Binyamin, could count King Saul among our forefathers. Because we had also descended from the tribe of Judah, we were part of the royal line of David, a line that would one day produce the promised Messiah. I enjoyed talking about David and his many exploits, but Mordecai's thoughts seemed to center on Saul. He would often shake his head and murmur that Saul's impatience and pride had brought about his downfall.

One afternoon, when I had lingered at the bazaar instead of going straight home as instructed, my cousin sat me down and illustrated my error with a story: “When Adonai told Saul to attack the people of Amalek and completely destroy everything, Saul promised to obey. But he did not keep his word. He destroyed the people, but spared Agag the king, as well as sheep and cattle and other goods.
He destroyed what was worthless, but spared what was valuable, and thus incurred the wrath of Adonai.”

I blinked up at him, unable to understand what a long-dead ancestor had to do with my lingering in town.

“Samuel the prophet,” Mordecai went on, “reminded Saul that Adonai does not take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices, but in obedience. For rebellion is like the sin of sorcery, and stubbornness like the crime of idolatry. Because Saul rejected the word of Adonai, Adonai rejected Saul as king.”

Mordecai's gaze drifted to some distant field of vision as he finished my lesson: “Adonai warned that if we did not drive out the inhabitants of the land He gave us, those we allowed to remain would become thorns in our eyes and stings in our sides—and He would do to us what He had intended to do to them. And that is exactly what He did.”

I sat still for a long moment, soberly reflecting on my lesson:
do
not disobey
. I inscribed that law on my heart, for I hated disappointing Mordecai even more than I hated the idea of sinning against Adonai.

Though my cousin had a tendency to lecture, I loved spending time with him. As we walked together through the narrow streets of Susa, I realized that Mordecai was highly respected by Jews and Persians alike. Medes, Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians greeted him with the honor due a learned man, while our fellow Jews greeted him with the respect due a
tzaddik
, a righteous man.

As a child, I often asked Mordecai what he did when he wasn't at home with me and Miriam. He replied that he worked for the king. When I asked what he did for the king, Mordecai would smile and ruffle my hair, saying some things were too difficult for me to grasp.

But when I grew older, and my cousin saw that I yearned to
understand the world outside our courtyard, he explained that he was one of many accountants who kept records for the king. Every item brought to the palace as tribute, and every allotment of grain, food, or materials dispensed to a citizen, had to be measured, valued, and recorded. And while an honest man did not grow wealthy working for the king, Mordecai said that one could always accumulate the wealth of a good reputation. “And that, Hadassah,” he'd say, patting my cheek, “is worth more than all the riches in the king's treasury.”

I may never be certain, but I believe Mordecai purposely delayed telling Binyamin's father that I had flowered into a woman. Perhaps he thought me too young for marriage; perhaps he and Miriam wanted to enjoy being parents for a few more months. Whatever the reason, as I entered my fourteenth year I remained in my childhood home, helping Miriam run the household even as I looked forward to evenings when I could sit and learn by Mordecai's side.

By that time, however, I had stopped asking about the kings of Israel and had begun to ask about the kings of Persia. I learned that HaShem had judged Israel and sent our people into exile in Babylon, where many of our young men were castrated and forced to serve a pagan king. One of these youths, Daniel, rose to a position of leadership in the government by interpreting dreams by the power of Adonai. From reading the word of the Lord as revealed to the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel learned that Jerusalem would lie desolate for seventy years. He also learned that great Babylon was about to fall, and it did, the night Darius the Mede captured Belshazzar's kingdom.

As the Persian Empire swallowed up Babylon, Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation allowing the children of Israel to return to Judea, just as the prophet Isaiah had predicted. Not all of us chose to go home, however. Mordecai's people traveled to Susa, where they settled into homes and occupations that would benefit their
families and the tolerant Persian Empire. They still kept the Law, but they did so quietly and kept to themselves as much as possible.

The great king Cyrus was followed by Cambyses II, then by Darius the Great, our present king's father. These Persian rulers had accomplished so many magnificent feats and built such amazing palaces that I imagined them as super-humans. Though they did not worship Adonai, I thought their hearts must sincerely follow truth. Why else would Adonai have told Isaiah to call Cyrus His “anointed one”? And if Adonai could use Cyrus, perhaps He could work a miracle for me and use Babar. . . .

Whenever I spoke of the Persian kings in glowing terms, Mordecai cautioned me against becoming infatuated with people who did not worship HaShem. But King Xerxes's royal banquet for all the citizens of Susa had left a deep impression on my young imagination, and even Vashti's abrupt demotion had done little to dispel the romantic haze that enveloped my memory of the event.

Any nation that could produce Cyrus, I told myself, could produce any number of kings and noblemen who would do good and honor the people who honored Adonai.