Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294) (6 page)

M
Y
KING
SET
ASIDE
HIS
QUEEN
during the third year of his reign, but in subsequent months he had little time to mourn her loss. Confident after quashing rebellions in Egypt and Babylon, he turned his thoughts to the trophy he coveted most: Greece.

My master might never have admitted the truth to his generals, but I understood why he desired Greece so earnestly. His father, the great Darius, had experienced only one military loss: the battle of Marathon, where seven thousand Greeks defeated Darius's army of more than thirty thousand. That loss loomed over the great Darius's career, the one blot upon a spotless record.

I had come to Darius's palace as a ten-year-old, and even then I had noticed how nine-year-old Xerxes yearned for his royal father's approval. Working in the shadows as a fly swatter, an errand boy, and a cook's boy, I watched the young prince grow up in his powerful father's shadow. I saw him skillfully wield bow and sword and spear in an effort to win his father's admiration.

At twenty, I was given to the crown prince, so I was with my master when Darius named his twenty-one-year-old son viceroy to Babylon. I rejoiced with my master when he obeyed his father's wishes and married Vashti that same year.

But on the day my master's first son was born, I shared his outrage and frustration. On the day he should have been elated over the birth of a future crown prince, my master's joy was swallowed up by the news that his father, the invincible Darius, had been crushed at Marathon.

Four years later, when my master ascended to the throne, I knew he would never feel equal to the task of ruling the empire unless he could avenge his father's loss. My king wanted to control Greece, but he especially wanted to annihilate the Greeks at Marathon.

After the king's celebratory banquets in Susa, my master's life filled with preparation for a military campaign. The royal treasury stockpiled grain and weapons, generals conscripted slaves for the army, and captains hired mercenaries as mounted swordsmen. Those who had chosen to serve in the Persian army trained hard, hoping to become one of the king's hand-picked Immortals.

So my king's thoughts turned toward war, not love, and he did not particularly pine for Vashti.

I was not keen on the idea of accompanying my king to yet another war, but I had no choice. I could, however, be grateful that the odds of my standing on an actual battlefield were slim, as my master planned to direct, not fight in, the battle ahead.

After months of preparation, most of the royal household trekked toward Greece. Though we traveled with dozens of the king's concubines, we left his former wife, children, and a skeleton crew of slaves behind to oversee the fortress in Susa.

We would not return until the seventh year of my master's reign.

W
E
DIDN
'
T
HEAR
MUCH
about the king's activities during the months of preparation for his military campaign, but we certainly saw the results of his labor. Regular shipments of food, horses, slaves, and weapons arrived at a depot near the royal fortress, transported on wagons from all over the empire. Hardly a week went by that we didn't glimpse foreigners entering the city, most of them speaking languages I'd never heard. During the hours of early evening we could climb onto our rooftops, gaze out across the plain, and see the glimmer of the soldiers' campfires. Thousands of tents dotted the flatland, occupied by slaves, mercenary soldiers, and the king's Immortals. Every day they trained in the hot sun, and every night they wandered through the bazaar searching for amusement.

Though Parysatis and I were only girls, we couldn't help getting caught up in the fever of war—the city was infected with it. Our devotion to the army only increased when Babar joined the army
as an officer. Parysatis pretended that her brother's position was no great honor, but one day I saw him riding a fine horse next to Mushka, nephew to the king.

I clutched at my throat, amazed to see him in such royal company. The realization that I knew a man who rode only an arm's length from a man who knew the king left me breathless.

Parysatis and I took pride in our loyalty and did whatever we could to aid the king's military effort. We bought silk in the king's colors and wore our blue and gold dresses whenever we thought the army might march in or out for a training exercise. We cheered for the soldiers as they practiced maneuvers on the field; we stood by the city gates and offered dippers of cool water when the weary Immortals entered Susa. Of all the king's men, they were the most impressive—ten thousand highly trained fighters, their beards curled and oiled, their long hair gathered at their necks. They wore brightly colored garments, gold earrings and golden chains, carrying their spears in their right hands, with their bows and quivers hanging from their left shoulders. Rumor had it that if one Immortal fell, another would immediately rise up to take his place, so they were, in truth, an immortal company.

When the commanders and generals stood before a gathering of Susa's citizens to proclaim that the king would soon ride off to extend the glory of Persia and bring liberty to the citizens of Greece, we listened and wept, realizing that some of the men might not return from battle. The thought of beautiful Babar lying dead on some patch of foreign soil tortured my sleep, but Parysatis told me not to worry. “He will not do much fighting,” she said, shrugging. “Mushka has asked him to serve as a messenger for the king.”

The news left me wide-eyed with astonishment and joy. Not only would Babar be safe, but he would spend hours in the presence of the king himself.

The preparation for war awakened a passionate patriotism within
my heart, but Mordecai and Miriam only shook their heads when I reported on the progress of the campaign.

“We are citizens of Persia, yes, but this is not our home,” Mordecai reminded me more than once. “We are children of Abraham. We are of Israel.”

I nodded, but in those days Israel felt more like a concept than a reality, my Jewish friends only a collection of dour, stodgy friends who insisted on tradition above all else.

Nothing short of dire illness could have prevented me from watching the great caravan assemble on the plain. With Parysatis by my side, we sat on a step of the grand staircase and stared at the pageantry of war on full display—bright colors, horses, men, and wagons clad in gleaming metal armor, flashing weapons, and heavily muscled men. The army had been divided into divisions, and for seven days a different division departed for the battlefield. I had never seen anything like it in all my fourteen years.

When the last group of horses disappeared over the horizon, I clutched at my throat, drowning in a flood of adolescent devotion. Those strong warriors, riding off to face noble death—such unbelievable bravery! Such honorable hearts!

Mordecai and Miriam must have sighed in relief when I came home, exhausted, and told them the army had departed. The whirlwind of activity surrounding the royal fortress vanished with them, leaving Parysatis and me bereft and bored.

I
KNOW
NOTHING
OF
THE
ART
OF
WAR
, but my uneducated eye convinced me of my master's conviction that quantity must defeat quality. I found myself traveling in the midst of a huge army, probably the largest ever assembled, while a navy of over a thousand ships sailed parallel to our land route. By placing his faith in intimidating numbers, my master forgot the lesson his father learned at Marathon: the swift little bee can defeat the ponderous lion.

Though I have often prayed to forget that long, arduous journey, my memory has not dulled over time. Most of the king's troops traveled on foot along the Royal Road that stretched from Susa to Sardis while the king and his generals rode in magnificent carriages. The procession was so gigantic that a family seeing us approach on the first day of the week would not see the end of our convoy until sunset of the seventh day. Our men, cattle, and horses drained so many wells and small creeks along the route that those unfortunate
enough to live on the king's highway had to find alternate sources of water.

I worried about the thirsty slaves traveling at the rear of our company, but my master seemed not to care about anything but forward progress.

I had never seen the man so possessed. His eyes held a light that burned like a flame. He slept restlessly, even after enjoying the company of a concubine, and frequently woke before sunrise, eager to break camp and move ahead.

Once we reached Sardis, only the Aegean Sea stood between us and Greece. But too many miles of water separated us, so we turned north, toward the Black Sea, where only a narrow strait blocked our passage.

My master called a halt when we reached the Hellespont, a channel so narrow we could see the opposite shore. The king consulted with his engineers, who theorized that it would be possible to build a bridge using the ships of the royal navy. The king then ordered hundreds of ships into the channel, and the engineers tied them together with ropes. My master believed he had solved the problem, but the gods who rule the wind and waves were not on our side. Before even a single soldier could cross, a sudden storm destroyed the bridge, snapping the ropes as if they were threads.

I have never seen the king so enraged, his eyes so black and dazzling with fury. As I stood trembling at his side, terrified that his anger would turn toward those closest to him, my master ordered that the waters of the sea be whipped and branded with red-hot irons. His troops hesitated only a moment, then leapt to obey, flinging iron fetters onto the roiling waters and stabbing the surface with hot irons. The sea responded with steam and hissing, as if it understood that it was being punished.

“Oh, vile waterway!” the men chanted as they disciplined the treacherous waters. “Xerxes lays on you this punishment because
you have offended him, though he has done you no wrong! The great king will cross you even without your permission, for you are a treacherous and foul river!”

I watched, aghast, for I had never seen any Persian treat a river with such disdain. Persians revered their rivers, for flowing water is a source of life, and in all my travels with the king's household I had never seen a servant so much as wash his hands in a river lest he befoul it. Yet before my disbelieving eyes, Persian warriors and befuddled mercenaries up and down the shoreline expended their frustration on the waterway.

Why didn't they strike at the wind, which had been just as traitorous as the river?

At that moment, in a flash that was barely comprehendible, I realized that my master was not well. Though his muscles gleamed beneath his tunic, though he rarely coughed and never fainted, though he walked with an air of authority and commanded instant obedience, no man punished the river unless he was confused or tormented by an evil spirit. His men knew this too, and though they obeyed him, their wild grins and exaggerated gestures only served to emphasize the absurdity of his command.

Apparently the scourging of the sea did not satisfy the king's need to vent his frustration. He summoned the engineers who created the floating bridge; when they stood before him, shamefaced and cringing, he ordered their execution. The hapless builders, most of them weeping like women, were impaled on stakes outside the camp.

I watched, my flesh crawling beneath my white slave's tunic, as my master called for a second corps of engineers. When no one volunteered, he called for the assistants of the men he had executed and placed them in charge of building a second bridge. More than one tanned face went pale at the assignment, but oil lamps burned in their tents throughout the night.

The next morning the assistants offered a second plan: they
would build two bridges, one for the soldiers and another, farther downstream, for the livestock. They would use thicker ropes to lash the ships together. And as an extra precaution, they would build large windlasses on shore, a winch at each end of the floating bridge to keep the ropes taut.

Knowing their lives were at stake, the engineers labored for weeks, carefully positioning the boats, lashing the vessels together, and securing the ropes with the windlasses. When the bridge finally floated in its place, the engineers strengthened the structure by placing embankments of timber, stone, and packed earth across the ships' decks. I could barely believe my eyes when a veritable road rose from the sea.

And then we crossed.

My master's army marched through Greece, intent upon reaching Athens, the city that had dispatched its men to Marathon to defeat Darius. Fortunately, we did not encounter hostility along the way. Every city we encountered en route submitted, offering my king food and hospitality, content to let him pass through the land until he reached his destination. Every night we feasted on the best Grecian culture had to offer, and every morning our troops gathered up items of value and we moved on.

I felt a little guilty about stripping the populace as we traversed the land, but the practical aspect of my nature reminded me that we had left the people alive and unharmed. If they had resisted, their cities would be corpse-filled ruins, and their children would be marching away with nooses around their necks and fetters on their wrists. . . .

The thought nudged a memory from the dark recesses of my mind. I had once marched along an unending road with my hands tied. My wrists still bore scars where the rope had chafed the skin away, and my neck would never be smooth and unmarked.

But an orphan slave had few prospects, and I had been more fortunate than most.