Hadassah Covenant, The (46 page)

Chapter Forty-nine

I had felt these words coming, yet I dreaded them so profoundly that I decided to risk one last provocation to keep them at bay.

“Is Your Majesty certain? After all, a son of your father knows the value of finding a loyal and completely loving mate, even if her outward credentials may be somewhat lacking . . .”

The king turned on me and snarled, “Is the one-time Master of the Audiences making a veiled comparison between your daughter and my
mother
? Is that an inference you truly want to leave with me?”

I lowered my head again, feeling like someone who has raised a wild animal from birth and suddenly discovered that it has the fangs and the temperament of a fearsome beast. I shook my head abjectly, avoiding his gaze.

“No, no, of course not. I only sought to offer Your Majesty’s wisdom a moment of reflection.”

“I understand.” His tone was now suddenly subdued and even warm again. “I am in a dilemma, my old friend. For I simply cannot name a Jewish girl as my Queen anytime in the future.”

“Why not? For again, I am not remiss in believing that my own daughter served your father well.”

“She served him admirably. Superbly,” he said. “That is not the question. I have no doubt that Leah would make an equally astute and loyal servant. And my problem is keener still, my friend, for the bare truth is that I fear I have truly fallen in love with this girl. I desire nothing more than to spend every night I have left exactly as I spent the last one. And I have indeed considered whether such unlikely bliss is worth abdicating my throne in order to win it for my own. But I require more of that from a queen at this moment. As you know better than anyone, Mordecai, my court is afire with rumor, plotting, and counterplotting against my crown. Some of it is either from my own family—my dear mother Amestris included, and any number of my brothers—or the other noble families of the empire, most notably the members of the Seven Princes of the Face. These factions, as you also know, deeply resented the ascension of an exile girl to the throne beside my father. I feel I must tell you the truth in this matter, even though I am aware that she is your own daughter. Although they came to admire her other qualities and talents in time, they still never stopped chafing at the queenhood of an émigrée over one of their own. And they began to suspect, or at least spread rumors of suspicion, that the Jewish people had used some kind of underhanded ritual, or simply incredibly shrewd maneuvering, to obtain undue sway over my father.”

“And I need not state, just now, that Your Majesty need place no credibility whatsoever in those claims. You can set your mind at ease.”

“My mind is not at ease,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “and may never be again, after the decision I have just made. Yet it is not the result of any mistrust concerning you, your years of service, or the loyalty of your people. Yet you must be careful in the days to come. Word of this will certainly become known. Nor will I deprive the Queen Mother Amestris of the knowledge of this decision. She will no doubt react quite differently and more vindictively than I have. It will be in my interest to appear to side with her and acquiesce to her mistrust of the Jews. It is one of the reasons why I have relieved you of duty this day. Take great care, Mordecai. And use that vaunted wisdom of yours to spare yourself and your people from the fear and bloodthirst of those around them.”

“I will pray for just that, Your Majesty,” I answered with a bow.

“Then go now, Mordecai,” he ordered sharply. “Go carry out my order. And then enter into your richly deserved retirement. I will see to it that you are well cared for and housed. You have served Persia well. Good-bye.”

I did my best to turn on my heels like a young officer and depart the room crisply. However, my ankles ached and my leg muscles failed me, and I managed some sort of a pathetic turnabout, surely justifying his inferences about my age.

In some ways, the exit that followed was the most difficult hour of my life. I left through the room’s large, ornate doors and plunged myself into the thick and fast-moving human traffic of the inner hallway. As usual, everyone parted and bowed their heads in respect for me and my office. And I was forced to nod as always and walk past, knowing inside that very soon most of them would outrank me. The knowledge burned inside of me and caused me to feel like an utter hypocrite. However, I consoled myself in realizing that I could hardly walk through the crowd holding up a sign announcing the news.

And so, as discreetly and inauspiciously as I could, I kept my head up and made my way through the innermost palace out to the courtyard, through its front portico and out into the second, and the third, oblivious to the heat and the sun and its ill effects on unprotected faces.

All I could think of, you see, was your face awaiting me.

I will never forget the moment of telling you the news. In some ways I think you knew already, the moment you saw my countenance as I approached. Your eyes met mine and then fell immediately, and though I attempted a smile, I knew it was one of consolation, not glad tidings.

Yet you waited to hear the actual bad news from my lips. So I walked over to the side of the bed where you were sitting, knelt for the second time that day, grasped your hand as gently as I could and told you in the softest tone I possess of the King’s decision.

You remained utterly silent and motionless for the longest, most cryptic pause imaginable. While it lasted I actually entertained the thought that you had somehow suffered a physical shock so devastating that you would never move again.

Then you began to shake your head with a distant, wistful look in your eyes, focused somewhere out the window. And they began to fill with tears.

You reached forward at that moment and made a choice that in some ways changed my life forever. You leaned in to me and buried your face in my shoulder, grasping me about the torso. Desperate to console you, I squeezed your shoulder and did all I could to cradle you, whispering my best thoughts of solace into your ear.

Yet all I could think of to speak were words to reassure you that indeed, you are a woman of incredible beauty and substance, and that despite his verdict, the King had assured me he believed it equally.

And all I tell myself, with a painful mixture of guilt and ecstasy, was this:
So this is what it feels like to clasp a lovely young woman in your arms
. I am the worst friend and counselor in the world to even entertain such a thought. Yet I cannot escape it. I remain trustworthy, and sympathetic at my core to the pain you were living through. After years of being father to another beautiful woman, that day I found myself graced with another close relationship that other men might have envied. It was the most bittersweet of agonies, to be torn like this between the bliss of feeling the caress of your body against mine and your doelike personality—and the need to preserve complete trustworthiness and purity on the other hand.

It was the first time I knew that, despite their teasing, my daughter and the chamberlain had proven correct. I was not beyond the humanity of desiring human affection and touch.

“Then
why
, Mordecai?” you had then asked me with your lip trembling, bringing me mercifully back to the present reality. “Why
did
he?”

I sighed and decided not to give the truth any pause.

“Because he has learned that you are Jewish.”

“How? I never told him. . . . ”

“In a way, Leah, you did.”

“Oh . . .” Her eyes went blank toward me while she recalled her disclosure. “That. He did not miss it after all.”

“Not in the least, I am sorry to say.”

And then you spoke the words that would haunt you, I know, and all of us for quite some time to come.

“My life is over.”

Chapter Fifty

You indeed lived, if I may call it that, the next few days and weeks as though your earthly existence had ended. And I felt in return as though my own had ceased along with it.

For the first time in many years, I moved out of my palatial and opulent royal apartments right beside those of the king. I took up temporary residence not far from the harem, in the chamberlain’s quarters, unwilling to quit the palace entirely until matters had calmed a bit throughout the royal family.

The last trappings of the offices of Prime Minister and Master of the Audiences were now gone. I no longer elicited bows or salutes or recognition from anyone, unless you counted the accidental bows and gestures of people who had forgotten the announcements.

If only my daughter, who was also my best friend and my finest confidante, had been there for both of us. Our despondency would likely not have been as deep. And I certainly would not have found myself drafting this letter—I would have been compelled to speak my feelings more directly and far sooner, I’m sure. But as you know, she was on a mission to Israel at the time.

I wrote her the most urgently worded letter I could, begging her
to return. All courage had finally quit me, and despite all of my resolve and goodwill, I simply wanted my own little girl back to offer us all some comfort and stability during a difficult time.

And return she did, for great things had come to pass on her farflung mission. She felt as though the good she had offered was now spent, and its usefulness completed. She also, thank G-d, had already felt a tug to return to us and attend to matters here. That is why she heeded our letters and returned to Susa at once.

As you know, she came back to a time of renewed peril for the Jews of Persia. The primacy of our homeland and our faith had just been restored, thank G-d, but for those in exile, matters deteriorated rapidly after my dismissal. I tried to remain a familiar face about the court, merely to keep abreast of the goings-on, and what I learned soon chilled me to the core.

Artaxerxes had been quite correct—in fact, his sobering warning proved only strong enough by half. Our people, as usual, were becoming the scapegoat of choice for the deteriorating condition of the Persian Empire. We had supposedly lulled the King into slumber by some stubborn insistence on preserving our own interests at the expense of Persian sovereignty, weakening his blood feud against the Greeks and his willingness to pursue it, turning him against the rightful heirs to his throne, and blinding him to dangers around him in an effort to restore behind his back a most dangerous potential adversary—our own renascent capital city.