by Marek Halter
‘Oh, Antinoes!’ Her laughter echoed. ‘Antinoes! No Greek woman, no Assyrian woman, not even a girl from the mountains?’
Antinoes sensed that the eunuchs who were watching him were smiling. He did not move a muscle of his face, sure that whatever expression it showed – whether of fear, composure or anger – would be reported to Parysatis and would be circulating throughout the Citadel by evening.
‘No, my queen,’ he admitted.
‘So,’ Parysatis whispered, ‘you love her.’
Antinoes heard a sound like the cooing of a pigeon, then realized that Parysatis was laughing again.
‘A hero of the King of Kings in love with a Jewish woman! That’s a rare occurrence in these parts! But you’re not a child any more, Antinoes. Childhood promises are doomed to die with childhood.’
There was nothing he could say to that, so he said nothing.
‘It’s true, then,’ Parysatis said, amused. ‘You are brave. You don’t dare say, “Yes, my queen.”’
Again, he said nothing.
‘Do you know that if you marry this Jewish woman, you’ll become the son of a chariot-maker?’
‘Yes, my queen.’
‘Come now, don’t be stupid! Don’t answer, “Yes, my queen.” Say, “No, my queen, it’s impossible. I, a future satrap, cannot marry a Jewish woman.” If you can’t live without her, make her your concubine. A hero of the King of Kings, a future satrap, can have as many concubines as he wishes.’
‘My queen, you speak the truth. I love Lilah. She is my lover, and the woman I have promised to marry.’
‘Oh, how foolish you are.’ There was no laughter in Parysatis’ voice now: it was cold and hard.
Proud as he was, Antinoes could not stop his breathing becoming faster and more irregular. He could not stop sweat pouring down his brow – and not only because of the stifling air.
‘What have you to say to me, Antinoes?’
He closed his eyes. ‘My queen, I obey my king in everything. I have deposited the tablet announcing my marriage, as an officer must.’
On the other side of the screen, there was a long silence. Then a loud handclap. The eunuchs rushed forward and, in the twinkling of an eye, moved aside one of the canvas panels.
Stunned, Antinoes now saw the pool of warm, transparent water, in which half a dozen young girls were swimming. And close to him, on a bed, a pale-faced eunuch massaging Parysatis’ small, oiled body.
She was lying on her stomach, naked, her eyes closed. Pressed against the bed, her face seemed more strangely crumpled and aged than ever. Antinoes bowed low and remained in that position.
‘Not many people, Antinoes,’ Parysatis said caressingly, ‘have seen Parysatis in her bath and lived to tell the tale. Stand up and let me look at you.’
He did as he was told, pressing his hands to his thighs to stop them shaking. Parysatis opened her eyes and looked closely at the young warrior’s face, while the eunuch continued his massage. Then, with a sudden gesture, she pushed him away and sat up, revealing her youthful breasts.
She clapped her hands. The girls hastened out of the pool and lined up next to her. The oldest was not yet fifteen, while some were still children. Their smiles concealed neither their embarrassment nor their fear.
‘Parysatis’ nieces,’ the Queen said, her mouth smiling but her eyes still icy. ‘You may choose. Antinoes – Parysatis’ nephew. I’d like that.’
Antinoes said nothing. Parysatis grunted and clicked her fingers at the girls, who quickly got back in the pool.
‘Since when have warriors talked about love, O hero of the King of Kings? You’ll be the laughingstock of the Apadana if this gets out.’
She stood up and ordered her handmaids to rub her body with scented oils. Antinoes lowered his eyes.
‘You’re a child, Antinoes. You have no idea what’s serious and what isn’t. Fortunately, this Jewish girl of yours has more brains than you do. She knows what it means to be sensible.’
The girls were laughing and splashing each other now. Parysatis frowned angrily and screamed to them to get out. Her command echoed against the vault of the bath-house. The armed eunuchs ran alongside the pool, driving back the Queen’s nieces with the tips of their spears. With squeals of terror, the girls disappeared into a narrow tunnel at the other end of the room.
‘I could feed your Lilah to my lions,’ Parysatis said in a low voice, when calm had been restored. ‘Then you would be released from your promise. But something strange has happened, Antinoes. I’ve started to like this Jewish girl. She pleases me. And she’s sensible enough not to have any desire to keep her promise.’
Parysatis’ cooing laughter mingled with the thick steam of the pool. She pushed away her handmaids, walked up to Antinoes, took hold of his chain and raised his head. ‘Don’t you want to know why?’
Antinoes held the Queen’s gaze and said nothing.
‘Place your lips on mine, hero of the King of Kings,’ she ordered, ‘that I may know what your Jewish girl tastes.’
Carefully, Sarah opened the door of Lilah’s bedchamber. Axatria, who was changing the linen, jumped. ‘You startled me, Mistress.’
‘Isn’t Lilah here?’
Axatria’s face lit up. ‘She ran to Antinoes’ house,’ she said, in a low, conspiratorial tone. ‘She couldn’t contain her impatience. They haven’t seen each other for four days. She has many things to tell him.’
Excited, Sarah closed the door of the chamber behind her. ‘Is that it? Has she spoken to Ezra?’
Axatria stuffed the dirty linen into a basket, and shook her head. ‘She spoke to him, yes, but not in the way you think.’
‘Don’t be so mysterious!’ Sarah said in annoyance. ‘Tell me.’
‘Lilah says Ezra must go to Jerusalem.’
‘To Jerusalem?’
‘Yes, with men from Susa and Babylon, to finish the work of the sage Nehemiah. She says he’s the only one who can do it.’
‘What are you talking about, girl?’
Axatria had to tell her the whole story: Lilah’s visit to the lower town, the encounter with the man named Zachariah and, word for word, or as near as made no difference, what Lilah had said to Ezra.
Sarah had to sit on the bed to listen to the end without fainting. When Axatria finished, she remained still.
Axatria had no intention of allowing anything to spoil her joy. ‘I always knew Ezra would become a great man,’ she said proudly. ‘Lilah says the God of heaven will convince the King to send Ezra to Jerusalem. She knows it. And I believe her.’
Sarah looked at Axatria sadly. But then words broke through the wave of desolation that had submerged her. ‘You aren’t even Jewish,’ she said, with a sharp laugh, ‘but you’re going to teach me what Ezra is worth and what the Everlasting expects of him?’ And with that she left the bedchamber.
When night fell, Mordechai sent for Axatria. She had been weeping, and her red-rimmed eyes showed that she was ready to pick a quarrel. But Mordechai was gentle with her, and she repeated what she had told Sarah.
He listened carefully. Now he, too, fell silent, puzzled by what he had heard. ‘Are you sure of what you’re saying?’ he asked at last. ‘Lilah said that, in spite of everything, she was going to marry Antinoes?’
With a sigh of exasperation, Axatria repeated Lilah’s words. ‘“I shall marry him, Axatria. I promise.” That’s what she said.’
‘Lilah’s mad. We’re worried sick about her marriage, and all she can do is proclaim Ezra the saviour of Jerusalem.’
‘If she says Ezra can do it, she’s right!’ Axatria protested, her voice trembling with resentment. ‘She knows it better than you do.’
Mordechai raised his hand to demand silence. He was smiling. ‘Our Lilah has more than one trick up her sleeve. She’s thought this out carefully. When he’s in Jerusalem, Ezra won’t be too bothered about who she marries.’
Axatria and Sarah looked at each other pensively.
Sarah was not very convi
nced, but she nodded. ‘May the Everlasting hear you,’ she sighed.
Antinoes’ mouth was sweet and warm. Lilah abandoned herself to it. As his hands swept her up in his caresses, the anxieties of the last few days fell away from her, like scales.
With kisses, she led him on the waves of desire. They breathed as one, although he was impatient while she lingered between their embraces, stretching the time as if it should never end.
At last they rolled apart, and lay side by side, catching their breath, hair tangled, hips still touching, lips bruised, hands incapable of ceasing their caresses.
Antinoes’ bedchamber was heated by braziers, and lit by a single oil lamp. Lilah listened to the rain hammering on the leaves in the garden. She heard a door slam and, in the distance, fragments of conversation, a handmaid’s voice. She was not accustomed to the sounds of Antinoes’ house.
‘The other day, at your uncle’s house,’ he murmured, ‘you didn’t tell the truth. Parysatis is refusing to let us marry.’
A shudder went through Lilah, as if the cold air from outside had entered the room. It was over: the truth was out, as clear as daylight. She closed her eyes, as if that could protect her for a few moments more.
‘She sent for me this morning,’ Antinoes said. ‘I was in her bath-house.’ He could see Parysatis’ mocking face behind his closed eyelids.
Lilah turned on to her side, kissed his lips, then placed her fingers over them. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t tell the truth. But how could I tell you? I still felt too ashamed. The way she looked at me! And not only that – she touched me too. I was wearing a tunic that left me almost naked before her. I had to listen to her telling me who I could and couldn’t love. I was afraid of the lions, but there was at least a moment when I thought it would be better to be eaten by them than humiliated by Parysatis.’
Lilah stopped and smiled. Antinoes tried to speak, but again she pressed a finger on his lips to silence him.
‘Then the idea came to me.’ She sat up, leaning against Antinoes’ hip. She stroked the back of his neck, his powerful shoulder muscles. She was still smiling, but without joy.
‘There I was, before Parysatis. “What am I going to do with you?” she said. “What can I do with a Jewish girl?” She threatened me. “I could do anything I like with you. Make you my handmaid. Feed you to the lions. I could make you my slave. That’s something we don’t have in this palace: a beautiful Jewish girl who’s a slave to our every whim. I could give you to my monkeys if I felt like it. There’s only one person I wouldn’t give you to, and that’s the man you chose – that Antinoes you like so much.”’
Lilah was still trying to smile through her tears. Antinoes held her close to stop her shaking. But she continued speaking, forcing out the words as if extracting them from stony ground.
‘It wasn’t only cruel. It was unjust. I wasn’t listening to her. We can’t listen to such things. Hatred closes our ears. We become deaf. What is this kingdom where a mad queen has the power of life and death? I thought. She soils the air we breathe. She soils the very thing that makes us man and woman. She besmirches the love between husband and wife. What is more unjust than the power of the strong when it’s unchecked?’
She shivered, and clenched her teeth. Antinoes sat up, drew her to him and laid his head between her breasts. Through the beating of her heart, he heard the words throbbing in her chest.
Lilah took a deep breath and went on: ‘It was then that I thought of Ezra. Not precisely of him, but of what he’s been saying since he started living in the lower town: that the Everlasting has given us a Law so that His people can live without oppression, so that the sons and daughters of Israel can hold their heads high and not have to submit to the insults and whims of the kings of Babylon and the pharaohs with their false gods. But we have stopped following Yahweh’s decrees. We have broken our vow, broken the Covenant that protected us from the powerful and their idols. Because of that, we no longer have Yahweh’s hand over us but Parysatis’ hand.’
She stopped, almost breathless, and dug her nails into Antinoes’ skin.
‘Parysatis is mad,’ he said softly, ‘but she’s the only one. The Jews are respected in Artaxerxes’ kingdoms. You live among us like any other people. I’m a Persian and you’re in my arms.’
She kissed him and caressed him. No, her words were not directed against him. There was no greater love than theirs. But he had to understand.
‘Antinoes, Parysatis’ power has no limits. It will corrupt everything. You saw her today – don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear it. I can imagine, and what I can’t imagine I sensed earlier in the taste of your first kiss. You, the son of a lord of Susa, who tomorrow will be one of those before whom the peoples of Persia and all Artaxerxes’ kingdoms will bow down, were humiliated by her just as I was. I know.’
Antinoes did not contradict her.
‘As I was saying, the idea came to me,’ Lilah went on. ‘Ezra must go to Jerusalem while there is still time. He must complete Nehemiah’s work, and give us back a land where no one will humiliate us. He must accomplish what he was born for. And we must help him. Nehemiah left with the support of Artaxerxes the First. Ezra must leave with the support of Artaxerxes the Second.’
‘How?’
It was late, but they were still talking.
The clouds scurried beneath the moon. The rain had ceased, but a cold, strong wind had risen and was whistling between the wooden shutters. Antinoes had covered himself and Lilah with a huge bearskin from the Zagros mountains. They were whispering in the shadows as they had so often whispered during their childhood. But their words were no longer childish words.
‘You think Ezra hates you,’ Lilah was saying. ‘He doesn’t, he only hates the life we lead here while Yahweh is waiting for us over there. You alone can teach the cupbearers and eunuchs of the King’s table Ezra’s true worth, and that thousands will follow him when he sets off for Jerusalem.’
‘It will be many days before the King lends an ear to my request,’ Antinoes replied.
‘What does that matter? We can wait.’
‘Do you think Parysatis will wait?’
At that they fell silent, for those words were like ice in their bellies, and they did not yet dare to confront them.
To dismiss them, Antinoes resumed, in a lighter tone, like a true warrior and a hero of the King of Kings, ‘Artaxerxes might be interested in the idea of bringing order to Jerusalem, rebuilding its walls and making it a fortified town. Jerusalem is the weakest point on our western borders. They say Pharaoh has his eyes on it. If Jerusalem fell to the Egyptians, the Greeks would rejoice. It would give them the coast and the ports of Tyre and Sidon. From there they could trade, and also send armies towards the Euphrates. Yes … I’m sure that’s how I need to present things. Some of the generals will be happy to hear it. Tribazes will listen to me, I’m sure. And he’ll be better able to persuade the King than I would.’
Lilah smiled in the shadows, searched for the warmth of her lover’s body so that she could melt into it and inspire him with her strength.
But then Antinoes murmured, ‘Parysatis wants me to marry one of her nieces. She won’t budge, I know.’ He hesitated. ‘She claims you’ve already agreed to break our promise.’
Lilah gave a dry, contemptuous laugh. ‘Parysatis knows nothing about real life. She knows only her own desires.’
‘She’ll kill you if you don’t obey. She’ll humiliate you more than she already has, then kill you in the cruellest way she can find.’
‘Will she kill you, too?’
‘Without hesitation. And no one in the Apadana will protest. Not even Tribazes, who wishes me nothing but good. Parysatis hates him more than the others, if that’s possible, because he led the army that defeated Cyrus the Younger. Parysatis’ hatred is stronger than Artaxerxes’ trust. But I don’t think she’ll touch me. There’d be no point. She’ll kill you and say, “Now, Antinoes, you no longer have a promise to keep.”’
They listened to the wind. The red glow of the braziers danced on the walls.
‘We no longer have a promise,’ Antinoes whispered. ‘We’ll never be man and wife.’
Lilah rolled over and wrapped herself round him. She kissed his neck, chin and temples. She made him tremble with desire again, drew him out of the shadows where he left his thoughts and pride. She made their young bodies dance, skin to skin, as free and untroubled as they had ever been. And when he was again inside her, she whispered, ‘I have only one word, my beloved. And I shall keep it. We will be man and wife.’
‘Lilah!’ Antinoes breathed, trying to restrain the surge of his hips.
‘Who will know it? If you’re brave enough, who will know it? Not even Ezra!’
Master Baruch’s Smile
WITH LILAH’S HELP, Antinoes wrote a tablet in his fine handwriting, asking for an audience with the King of Kings. Ezra’s name was mentioned, as well as the reason for the request. The tablet spoke of Artaxerxes the First, Nehemiah, and peace and order on the western borders of the kingdoms, which were still threatened by the Egyptians and the mercenaries of the Upper Sea.
Antinoes, unfortunately, had spoken the truth. It would take a long time before the tablet, addressed to Tribazes, the head of the armies, was passed to the scribes of the Apadana. There, as custom demanded, it would have to be copied in duplicate, according to the rules of the Citadel, in the Persian language as well as that of ancient Assyria.
Then the tablets would be handed over to the cupbearers of the Council of a Thousand, which, when it had time among all its many tasks, would judge their contents together with the chiliarch, the great lord Tithraustes. The chiliarch himself would then take time for wise reflection, after which he would pass his judgement to the counsellors of the King’s table. Under their supervision, a new, more appropriate request would be written on the huge royal scroll, without beginning or end, known as the Book of Days.
Finally, Artaxerxes the Second, King of Kings, would make his appearance to deal with the affairs of his kingdoms. The scribe of the Book of Days would read the request, Tithraustes would give his opinion, and the King would decide what should be written in response to the petition of Ezra, son of Serayah, an exiled son of Israel living in the lower town of Susa.
