Harvest of Rubies (23 page)

“Teispes has a middleman in Ecbatana,” I guessed.

“That he does, my lady. His brother, to be exact.”

“What does that mean?” Pari asked.

I leaned against the back of my chair. “Rather than sending wages directly to Mandana, Teispes sends them to an agent. This agent then pays the
arassara
. But he pays a fraction of the wages he has received.

“Meanwhile, in the records here, Teispes claims the larger payment and has the receipt from his agent to prove it. There is no one to dispute the difference. The
arassara
has no reason to object to the amount of her payment; she only knows she is being paid as usual.

“The whole story about the twins is a fabrication to make the increased allotments for Ecbatana acceptable in case someone wants to ask cursory questions, which I doubt Lord Darius ever has. As Bardia pointed out before, he, like most landowning aristocracy, is not interested in the details of his accounts. If they seem to make sense on the surface, he is satisfied and leaves the rest to his steward.”

“So Teispes and his brother are splitting the extra money between them?” Shushan asked.

“Precisely. It’s not a sophisticated scheme. We can easily prove their guilt now that we have uncovered the details. Mandana will have her receipts for the lower amounts from the agent.”

“Wait. Doesn’t this only implicate the agent? Perhaps Teispes is as much in the dark as Mandana.”

I gave Pari an approving nod. “Good point. However, as we have established, unlike Mandana, Teispes has been living above his means for a long time. He must be smitten with his courtesan if he refuses to share her with other men. How far would he go to keep her?

“Another detail that points to Teispes’s involvement is that Mandana’s current wages are ridiculous. Any steward would investigate such an enormous irregularity.

“You add to this his secretiveness, and the fact that his agent is not a stranger, but his own brother, and well, the pile of evidence against him grows as high as the tower of Babel.

“Of course Lord Darius will have to make his own investigation and get the local judge involved. But it’s time to make his lordship aware of what’s been going on behind his back.

“Gobry, you have lingered long enough with us. I am most grateful for your excellent work. I could not have found a more capable man in the queen’s own employ.” Bardia blew
out his chest as if I had been singing
his
praises.

“Make your report at the palace,” I went on. “However, come and see us again when you can. In the meantime I will draft a letter to Lord Darius, outlining the case against his steward. If you could help get this missive to Ecbatana, I would be most grateful, Gobry, as his lordship also will be, no doubt. Any courier would do; you need not ask for any special favors that would send you all the way up there again. We simply need a missive delivered to Lord Darius.”

The letter to my husband proved complicated. I decided to draft it as an official document rather than a personal letter. Nonetheless, I had a problem. He was likely to suspect me of trickery, deceit, and thievery by the time he had read the first line. The very fact that I accused his steward would probably turn the man into a hero in Darius’s mind.

I composed fifty different versions of that scroll in my head and discarded every one. At one point I considered making Bardia write it, except that Bardia was not literate.

Four days had already gone by and I still had no letter. To clear my head, I went for a solitary walk along the main avenue of the garden. Out of nowhere, Teispes appeared before me.

“I want my scrolls back.”

“Pardon?”

He took a step toward me, standing too close. I did not want to show how intimidated I was by him and stood my ground.

“The scrolls you stole from me. I want them back.” His breath reeked of onions.

“They belong to my husband, not you. If he asks for them,
I’ll give them back.” I pulled my scarf closer about my shoulders.

“Do not meddle with my business, woman. You will be sorry if you do.”

“Do you dare threaten me?”

He picked at the black substance lodged under one nail. “I will dare more than that. Keep in mind that you are alone here. Who has come to visit you since his lordship deposited you at my doorstep? Who has sent you a letter to ask after your well-being? You are nobody and no one cares what becomes of you, least of all Lord Darius.”

I swallowed hard. I had agonized for hours over the fact that not just Darius, but everyone in my life seemed to have abandoned me. My father, Nehemiah, my aunt, my old coworkers, the queen—none had seen fit to inquire after my well-being these past four months. I could be dead for all they knew.

Teispes could poke my hurt until he turned purple, I decided. I would not give in to his dirty tactics. “In spite of what you think, I have prominent friends.” I was astounded to find that my voice was steady. I forced my lips into a smile. “It is you who will be sorry if you meddle with me.”

He locked his teeth. “Give me my records back.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said and whirled around to walk back to the palace. I did not feel safe until I was within my chamber with Caspian and Pari at my side.

I needed those records to show Lord Darius when he finally came to investigate my claim. He was not going to take me at my word.

My one advantage was that Teispes had no idea of the extent of knowledge I had against him. I certainly would not want to face him once he found out that there were five of us
who had enough evidence to land his head at the end of a very tall pike.

After my encounter with Teispes in the garden I went nowhere without company. I knew Teispes had not exhausted his threats. Caspian, with his usual uncanny sense of timing, developed an intense aversion to the steward, which meant that the very sight of the man sent him into feral snarls and threatening barks. The dog and I grew inseparable.

We took the precaution of stashing the two scrolls in the kitchen. It seemed the safest place. Shushan came up with the idea. She had a faulty bread oven that hadn’t seen the sight of a fire in a year. We wrapped the scrolls in leather bindings and stuffed them in the back of the oven, covering them with wood chips and old ash. I doubt even Caspian could have unearthed them.

Our precaution proved wise. One day when we returned to my chamber after a visit with Bardia, we found the place in complete disarray. Teispes hadn’t even bothered to cover up his search. It took us hours to straighten up the place.

On top of my bed lay the crumbled parchment of the Psalms that Nehemiah had given to Darius on our wedding day. In his rude explorations, Teispes had further damaged the scroll. I unrolled it with delicate care and found to my relief that it could be repaired. Without thinking, I began to read.

To my surprise I found a strange comfort in those verses. I felt as though the man who had penned these words could understand the condition of my own heart. He would know my fears, my sense of insufficiency, my continuous battle not to lose heart.

He had been pursued by a powerful king, intent on killing him. He had lost everything through that incessant pursuit—home, wife, friends, comfort. And yet somehow, through every soul-crushing trial, through every mistake of his own making, he had battled against despair and won. In the end, he had found peace in the Lord. And the Lord had brought him through what seemed impossible odds.

“What’s that?” Pari asked.

“Do you remember the boy David who fought Goliath the giant? He grew up to be a wise and powerful king. But before that, he was a musician, a soldier, a mercenary, a madman, and a poet. This is one of his poems.”

“That’s a man who held many jobs.”

“He made the best of what he was given. Perhaps it was God’s way of training him for the future. Perhaps David needed to learn humility before he could be trusted with great power.”

“Did the Lord rescue him from his enemies in the end?”

“He did.”

“Then we should ask Him to rescue us. I will be honest, mistress; sometimes I think Teispes is too strong for us.”

I knew how she felt. I thought it ironic that a Persian would have to remind a Jew to go to the Lord for help. It was just like God to use Pari to humble me. So I did as she asked, and taught her how the children of Israel pray. It had been a long time since I had turned my face toward God. I found afterward that I was surrounded by an unexpected peace. I picked up Nehemiah’s parchment and placed it lovingly in my chest.

The next day, Bardia reported that his cottage had met with the same fate. While I could bear the intrusion into my own domain, the thought that Teispes had infringed upon my dear friend and reduced his cottage to a shambles outraged me. I had a mind to set the dog loose on that thieving, carousing miscreant. Later I was sorry that my scruples had held me back.

I had now lived in my husband’s palace for four months; over three months had passed since I had risen from my bed of darkness and chosen to live.

Shushan insisted on a formal meal at least once every other day, to keep me in practice of my station, she said. One evening, I was lounging at a priceless gilded table carved by Ionian slaves. I was even more gilded than the table, thanks to Pari. She had insisted on doing my hair in an elaborate concoction of curls. I was overdressed, garbed in one of Damaspia’s royal garments. Deep blue silk had been fashioned to sit tight around the waist and flow into a full skirt made of tiny pleats that looked like waves every time I moved. Cleverly, Pari had used the extra fabric she had cut from the bottom to create a modest panel for the top.

Out of nowhere, Shushan exclaimed, “You look so lovely, my lady. Lord Darius will fall over his feet when he sees you.”

I was swallowing a ripe fig when Shushan made her comment. I spat it out. I was that shocked.

No one had ever called me lovely before. That was my mother. I—well, I was just good with languages and sums.

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I’m not lovely.”

Pari made a small noise in her throat. “Are you blind? Of
course you’re lovely. You always were; you just didn’t know how to take care of yourself.”

I was beginning to grow annoyed. “Nonsense.”

I was aware that I had changed a little under Pari’s constant attentions. For one thing, I had lost weight. My conscious decision to eat healthier meals coupled with the daily exercise that my new routine entailed had caused me to shed the excess weight I had gained since girlhood by my sedentary life. I would never be a Damaspia; I would never gain her narrow bones and long sinews. I was short and I was round. But now that roundness was shapely and feminine. It was acceptable, I supposed. But no one in their right mind would consider me lovely, and I did not wish to build up empty hopes in my own heart.