Hadassah Covenant, The (32 page)

I remember little of the month-long ride itself, except plodding on my mount for what seemed like forever through a scorching desert sun to the very outskirts of Persepolis, symbolic seat of the Achaemenids. Someone had offered me a litter, but given the circumstances of the journey, I knew it would prove a near-death sentence for the carriers. Which, for many in the Persian court, would have been of little consequence.
Let the slaves perish
, they would have said, for this is an important trip. As you know, Mordecai did not raise me to even contemplate such an idea.

If it sounds as though I’m complaining about the severity of the trip and the bleakness of its surroundings, I am not—really. For you see, in my grieving silence I actually found that the featurelessness of the desert and the harshness of its conditions matched my inner climate exactly. The desert’s vastness and spareness soothed me, somehow. Not only that, but the sound of so many people riding together in complete silence was both comforting and highly odd. I recall the sound of hooves striking the brittle sand, the creaking of saddle leather. I remember the blinding glare shining from the solid gold sarcophagus of my dead husband. And the tragic stateliness of my old friend Hegai, standing his ceremonial final sentinel, symbolically guarding a body that no longer required watch care.

What I remember best, however, is the overwhelming sense of loss and disorientation that swept through me time after time during those hours. In a way, even with my twin anchors Mordecai and Jesse beside me, I was glad for the enforced silence of the convoy; for I would have been at a loss for anything to say. What remains most vivid now is the almost physical sensation of being utterly and completely bereft of direction.
Lost entirely
. Had I found myself in a desert, thinking myself within range of an oasis but unable to find it, unable even to ascertain its direction, the feeling would have exactly matched my emotions of those days.

At last we reached the Husain Kuh Mountains and the soaring cliffs of Naqshi-i-Rustam, where Darius already lay buried and where Xerxes’ tomb awaited. I remember glancing up at the great stone ramparts and wishing they would seal me in, too—simply leave me there to die alongside him. But the ritual of the observances kept me distracted, I suppose, from falling back into complete despair. We entered the darkness, with torches blazing and the heat still radiating from Xerxes’ coffin, and we bade him good-bye. I did not weep until the final moments, whether from fear of showing weakness to the coconspirators most assuredly in our midst, or perhaps my well of tears had gone dry from overuse in the previous days. Then Mordecai looked over and caught my eye, and the devastation in his gaze
brought me right back to my old bed in the royal chamber, and the sight of my beloved struggling for his life.

I looked down and let my tears fall through the darkness onto the sand beneath my feet. Then I walked forward for one final caress of the sarcophagus. I bent down, kissed it—
him
—and whispered a faint farewell in Hebrew.

And then I inched my way back through the dark tunnel, and once more into the harsh brilliance of the desert sun.

Of the ride home, I remember two things. One was that it proved much more disheartening than even the ride up. Not really knowing what awaited me back in Susa now burdened my heart like a physical weight. And, two, I recall once turning to Jesse, quite purposely, and letting him glimpse, for an instant, deep into my own misery.

I found myself thinking, strangely out of step with the occasion,
Jesse, what has become of us
? What became of that vigorous, attractive pair of youthful companions who ran so fearlessly through the King’s Gate market on that day so long ago? Where did the blissful promise of our first kiss disappear? Or the innocence of a girl who did not even know such things could be shared between a man and a woman? Or that love could even feel like that?

And I was pondering,
You are no longer even Jesse; why do I continue to refer to you as that
? I willed myself to say it.
It’s Hathach
. But voicing his Persian name only compounded my feelings.

And I was thinking this . . .

. . . it should have been you, Jesse. Had I been given my choice, you surely would have been my husband
.

Instead, here we were—famous and prominent perhaps, but nevertheless, two adults approaching middle age, moving toward a very uncertain and unpromising future.

P
ÂTHRAGÂDA
(P
ASARGADAE
), C
ITADEL OF
C
YRUS THE
G
REAT—TWENTY DAYS LATER

Obviously, the astonishing outcome of the coronation ceremony hardly helped matters, as you might imagine. It certainly wasn’t the
treatment I was accorded, for in fact I moved about very much as a Queen Mother, or at least a Queen Regent. At least until—well, you know what I speak of, as does any well-informed Persian subject. Nor did it surprise me for Artaxerxes to treat me kindly, in the absence of a mother he had never really known.

I remember standing beside Mordecai on the top level of Pâthragâda’s
Tall-i-Takht
, the “throne hill,” awaiting the arrival of the prince, and looking out over the crowd of Persians assembled to watch their new sovereign be crowned. And taking deep, long breaths to keep myself from weeping out loud.

Despite the respectful manner with which I was dealt, the whole celebration seemed at that moment to be little more than a pointed and grandiose way to drive home the fact that another king was about to take the throne. And that I was only part of the past. A relic of history—an honored part of it, to be sure, and a virtual heroine among my fellow Jews of the Quarter. But still, a remnant. And, despite the ever-abiding kindness of Jesse and Mordecai, very much alone.

It was all I could do to keep my mind on the present—too often and too quickly my memories galloped back to the glorious day when my beloved had announced me as his Queen. Indeed, Mordecai and I, and Jesse too, had witnessed some enormous gatherings during our long-past time in the sun. I never thought I would see their like—so huge and sprawling and enthusiastic were these crowds. But clearly, nothing in the life of a kingdom matches the coronation of a fresh young king. Even with Persia’s waning fortunes, her Greek and Egyptian enemies gaining the better of her more often than not, her farflung boundaries shrinking by the year, her satraps complaining of staggering taxation and imperial excess—all troubles of the sort were forgotten on a day like that.

I remember looking out over that sea of heads that filled the plain of Cyrus’ old palace, then past it to the ring of stunning mountain peaks surrounding us on every side. And I wondered if anything more momentous could be happening anywhere on the whole earth on that particular morning.

It was a cloud-strewn, tumultuous day. It seemed as though the elements had absorbed some of the crowd’s seething anticipation and were tossing all forms of turbulence into the heavens. A restless wind
blew into our faces omens of a coming winter. It all seemed fitting, as if the whole world was in transition.

I felt as though I was attending my own execution.

Then at once, in one of the most exquisitely timed and executed entrances I have ever seen, Artaxerxes was walking through us, arrayed in splendor. I shook my head in disbelief, for he seemed to have grown so much in authority that he appeared significantly older than the last time I had seen him. He had recovered amazingly from his wounds. He stood so straight and tall, and strode forward with such a glow upon his face that I could not tell if it was the daylight or the warmth of the people’s cheers. Just then a gust of wind billowed up his robe, great flames leaped up on the fire altars to either side, Artaxerxes threw up his arms in the classic posture of Persian adoration, looking every bit like the Persian god Zarathustra in the Gathas, and a great roar from the crowd blew through us like a whirlwind.

Mordecai turned to me, shook his head, and smiled, and I understood. It was hard not to grin before such blinding beauty and adulation.

And do you know what I was feeling, at this sublime moment? I was feeling that all the glories of Xerxes had been forgotten, that by comparison the reign of my beloved husband and his contemporaries had just been relegated to little more than a shabby, dreary cast-off. Everything about that moment was so perfect, so pure, so ordained, that my own days on the throne seemed dreadful in contrast. I wanted nothing more than a dark place to hide.

Writing this, I know of course how self-centered and self-pitying it all must seem. But then again, that’s why I am taking the time to describe it to you—so you will fully understand the bitter inner journey I have undertaken.

You’re probably chuckling, thinking,
My goodness, if she’s feeling a bit lost right now, I can’t wait to read how she feels after the next ten minutes of the ceremony . . .
.

You’re perfectly right, of course, as usual. Even though you were not present, I know you’ve heard time and time again what took place next.

Chapter Thirty-six

C
ORONATION
D
AY

To begin with, the feelings certainly did not abate while I watched Artaxerxes flawlessly perform the rituals of coronation. He knelt, removed his own velvet robe, and tossed it aside like an extravagance unworthy of him. And then he remained there, looking downward in a solemn expression, while the high priest walked over and draped the very robe of Cyrus the Great, removed from Cyrus’ nearby tomb just for the occasion, across his shoulders. There came another ovation from the crowd—deep and lasting, though not as exuberant as the first because of the gravity of this moment and its symbolism. Everything about the rite was supposed to evoke the humility and simplicity of his great-great-grandfather Cyrus, first and greatest of the Achaemenids.

After a moment, Artaxerxes stood to his feet, and being given a tassel of figs, he raised the humble fruit high for everyone to see and devoured every one. The priest handed him a wooden handle dripping with the boiled sap of a pine tree. Artaxerxes unswervingly placed it into his mouth, sucking the wood dry and forming not even the first twinge of a grimace. Then he was handed a goblet filled with sour milk, raised that high, and drank it. He hesitated, as though savoring
the bitter taste, then handed back the cup and fell abruptly to his knees. He had successfully ingested the Persian symbols for humility and austere modesty.