One Night With the King: A Special Movie Edition of the Bestselling Novel, Hadassah by Tommy Tenney;Mark Andrew Olsen

by Tommy Tenney;Mark Andrew Olsen

  He had a vintage volume brought to him, a huge, bulky tome with a cover that resembled a richly jeweled tapestry more than the front of a book. It took the labors of both his eunuch and another aide pulling a specially-built wooden stand to even open it.

  “Do not try to apply your talents at making this interesting,” Xerxes warned Harbona. “I did not call you here to be informed. I summoned you here in order to fall asleep at last. Start at the beginning. By the way, how far back does this volume go? Does it extend back more than four years?”

  Harbona nodded yes.

  “Good, because I need to be able to say that I've `read' the records of what transpired during my absence at war. Proceed.”

  And so the eunuch launched into a mind-numbing list of ancient administrative budget meetings, of endless appropriations and favors given and received. Events that had taken place just before Xerxes' departure for the ill-fated war with Greece. The King's eyelids were predictably starting to weigh heavier and heavier when the reader began an entry that caused them to jerk open again.

  “... that Mordecai of Susa has on this day rendered an exemplary service to the Crown by thwarting an attempt on the life of the King and of his kingdom. Xerxes will be forever in his debt.”

  Suddenly recalling those memory-jolting words, the King sat upright in his bed with an alarmed expression. “Read that again.”

  Harbona did just that.

  “I remember that! Is there any record of us having done anything to reward this man?”

  He peered down and scanned several lines before looking up again. “No, your Majesty. There is none. It is noted that Bigthana and Teresh were executed, but nothing of a reward.”

  “You know, I left for war shortly after that. I would not be surprised if we failed to do anything to recognize Mordecai.”

  On the surface, it might have seemed insignificant, his failure to show the usual extravagant gratitude to a man of little consequence. After all, the lowly scribe had probably gained a great deal of notoriety from the incident. Some might say that was reward enough. But something about the oversight bothered him. How many other matters had fallen through the cracks during his absence?

  To not honor loyalty could weaken the Empire! After several hours of tossing and pondering, Xerxes resolved to do something, something beyond the norm. While he felt strangely calmed by the decision, it was not enough to grant him sleep. The King continued to lie awake, tortured by anxious thoughts, while Harbona droned on.

  n the morning after his sleepless night, the King found that Haman was waiting outside his chambers well before his righthand man's usual hour of arrival. He had no idea, of course, that his Master of the Audiences had arisen early for his own reason-supervising the erecting of the tallest impalement pole Susa's horizon had ever seen. The task had required half a dozen men to accomplish.

  Haman considered the early start crucial to carrying out the plans of the day. He could now gain a head start on Mordecai's execution and move on with his life hours before anticipated. After being summoned to the King's bedside he stood before the monarch, swaying slightly with a good-natured air of anticipation and compliance.

  “How may I serve you this morning, your Majesty? And by the way, I am so glad to see you a bit early, for I had a pressing request to make of the King.”

  “Really. Would you like to go first?”

  Haman made a mock frown. “No, sire. Your assignment comes first, obviously.”

  “Well, Haman, I have a thorny question which afflicted me sorely and kept me from sleep last night,” he answered. “And it occurred to me that you might help solve it.”

  “I, too, was up planning something. But, after you, your Majesty.”

  “Well, I wonder how you suggest that I honor and reward a man who has rendered exemplary service to the Crown and who has gone too long unrewarded.”

  Haman reared back, his eyebrows shot up playfully and a wry smile toyed with his lips. “A man? And who might that man be, if I may ask?”

  The sleepy royal insomniac did not smile, although Haman certainly must have tried to imagine that he could discern the faintest hints of a grin somewhere in his expression. It had to be him the King wanted to reward.

  “Let us keep him nameless for now,” the King replied.

  Haman crossed his arms confidently and looked upward to feign the search for a difficult answer. “Well, your Majesty, if this man has truly rendered valuable service to the Crown and the Empire, I would say. . .” He rolled his gaze all about the room. And he began to describe his own personal dream, full of his seditious desires for the throne.

  “First, take a royal robe, one that your Majesty himself has worn in public, and place it upon this man's shoulders before a large audience of courtiers. Then have a high-level dignitary, a well-known trusted servant of your Majesty-maybe Carshena-place this man upon your most imposing warhorse arrayed in full royal regalia including the royal crest, and have this dignitary lead him through the main streets of Susa for hours, proclaiming at the top of his voice that `here is a man whom the King wishes to honor for great and meritorious service.”'

  Xerxes considered the suggestion with a slow nod. “That would certainly make a lavish show of gratitude. And that is what I need.”

  “Do you?” said Haman, obviously already savoring the sound of his own name as the recipient of this treatment.

  “Yes. Indeed, you have served me well, Haman.”

  For Haman, this statement must have sealed his hopes. He was indeed the man to whom the King was referring. “It is my honor, your Majesty,” he said with a modest bow.

  “So what I want you to do is arrange for all these things-the robe, the horse, the royal proclamation-and make certain it is done exactly as you suggested! The man I wish to honor is a royal scribe here in Susa. His name is Mordecai. But I choose you, Haman, to be my high dignitary and lead Mordecai on a parade of tribute through the streets of Susa.”

  Of all the things I regret in this life, one of those I lament most is not having been in the King's chamber at that moment to see Haman's face. However, having quizzed the King for hours and hours on the subject, I can paint the ensuing reaction with utter confidence and accuracy

  Haman first became completely still. The color drained from his face so swiftly and dramatically that Xerxes blinked several times to make sure some trick of the light was not deceiving him. Haman's eyes first narrowed inquisitively, then furrowed with incredulity, then finally widened with pure shock. The King did not give him the least encouragement with a smile or a wink, for of course he was not being facetious; Xerxes was naturally innocent of any subterfuge. He had no idea of the private feud Haman had been pursuing, nor of Mordecai's Jewish heritage.

  Haman looked around him as if someone had scribbled a solution for exiting this conversation gracefully somewhere upon the Palace walls. Finally he fixed the King with as much irritation as he would dare exhibit.

  “Your Majesty, surely you jest-”

  “And why would I jest on such a matter of import?”

  Haman squinted to see if he could discern any deception in the monarch. But Xerxes' gaze was level and honest. Yet Haman would not, could not, allow himself to even consider what might be the truth: that the King had possessed no foreknowledge of Haman's intentions, that all this had been nothing more than some sort of diabolical coincidence.

  When, of course, it was a “coincidence” of completely different origins. I know it was entirely divine.

  “I said, your Majesty, that your assignment for me is-well, perhaps a jest in a highly ironic sort of way-but given the totality of the issue, well, perhaps not the best chosen ...”

  “What in the name of our god Ahura are you talking about, Haman? I simply asked your advice on a troubling question, and given your most astute reply, I gave you a straightforward assignment. What is ironic or comical in any of this?”

  Haman took a step backward, obviously just beginning to absorb the terrifying tru
th. Xerxes was serious, and he was completely unaware of Mordecai's ethnic origins. Haman would not get his hanging today-nowhere close to it.

  “Nothing, sir” came his eventual reply.

  “Good. Then obey my order at once. And don't go pawning off this task on some subordinate. I want this recognition to come from the King's Master of the Audiences himself. I will meet you at my royal viewing balcony in one hour. And there had better be a crowd below, Haman. Then I will see you at sunset, dressed for tonight's banquet.”

  “Let it be done, your Majesty.”

  Shortly thereafter, an Amalekite guard appeared before Mordecai. I am sad to say that my poppa had lapsed into an even more stupefied state of disorientation, hunger, dehydration and fatigue. His cross-legged form there in the King's Gate appeared to have sagged with time and stillness, like some great statue that the centuries and the elements had mercilessly sculpted and eroded.

  The guard, no doubt aghast at both the identity and the disheveled state of the person they would soon have to exalt, bent down and poked Mordecai with an emphatic finger jab. Mordecai's head only pitched forward a few more degrees.

  The guard called sneeringly to this castoff from society.

  There came no reaction.

  “Are you, sir, Mordecai? Of Susa?”

  The grizzled head rose a bit, and his eyes now bore into the guard's own.

  “Sir, His Majesty King Xerxes wishes to see you. At once. On a matter of the utmost national urgency”

  Mordecai's eyes locked onto a sight across the man's shoulder guard-a sight that turned the blood in his veins to ice. A twisted cross.

  “Yes,” came Mordecai's voice, low and gruff. “Most likely my death.”

  “Hardly,” responded the guard under his breath.

  But Mordecai did not hear the whispered rejoinder; he was in the throes of trying to stand. He grabbed both of the man's hands and pulled himself up, his knees shaking from side to side.

  “No matter, I am ready,” Mordecai said. “It is before the date, but I understand. I am not surprised.” In near delirium he began, "Dear YIIWH, I come to you....

  Mordecai already believed himself on the way to heaven when he opened his eyes and, through a swirling mist of various bodily agonies, glimpsed the King and Haman standing before him. The sight confused him, for he had expected to see them upon the moment of his demise, not after the passing of his soul.

  Maybe I have not yet died, he corrected himself then. Perhaps the moment is at hand.

  And then the figure he had taken for Xerxes bent over and brought a goblet of wine to his lips. That certainly made no sense. The liquid burned a welcome path down his throat and ignited a fire in his stomach that at least brought the sights before him into a clearer focus. He would have preferred food first, but who was he to complain, standing as he did on the brink of eternity?

  It was honey wine, his throat soon told him. Soon strength and alertness began to seep back into his limbs. The man who resembled Xerxes then fed him some goat cheese and a little bread.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked.

  “No,” said the King, or some royal impostor. “But you are in dire need of a bath and a meal. Why are you attired such?”

  “I am in mourning, Your Highness. This is the ritual garment of sackcloth and ashes.”

  “Oh. I am very sorry. I hope today's events help in some way to soothe your loss. Can you stand, my dear Mordecai?”

  And my poppa found that indeed, he could-with the Xerxes person supporting him about the shoulders.

  Mordecai looked out, and the scene below him almost caused him to lose consciousness-a crowd like the grains of sand on a beach stood waiting before him. “Let us give them what they wait for, shall we?” asked the King. He leaned forward and removed from a box at his seat a long velvet robe. A royal robe. He raised the shimmering garment high in the air, and without a second's delay the crowd below roared its approval. Xerxes raised it even higher, turned slowly on his heel and said, “My fellow Persians! Please witness with me the placing of this royal robe upon one Mordecai of Susa, for whom vigilance and loyalty will prove this day to be fortuitous qualities indeed. For let it be known that four years ago, Mordecai undertook great danger to warn me of an impending plot against the royal person. And thanks to his prompt warning, my own life was spared. The perpetrators were duly punished, and now the loyalty is being belatedly rewarded. Let all within this kingdom know that Xerxes rewards those who serve him! Reward delayed is not reward denied. Let this be a sign to all of you! Let the King's gratitude be known, and let honor and respect fall like rain upon the shoulders of this most beloved of servants. Hail!”

  “Hail!” came the shouted reply, a rampart of jubilant sound rolling across the Palace grounds to the astounded ears of the Jew Mordecai.

  nd so it came about that on a certain day many years ago, a ragged Jew was given the ultimate tribute by a grudging Amalekite, their respective races mutual enemies from time immemorial.

  For several hours the streets of Susa bore tribute to one of YI IWI I's most delicious ironies, that the very man who had plotted Mordecai's death the night before now led him on the back of the King's mightiest steed, arrayed as no one had ever seen the lowly scribe-his erstwhile executioner shouting praises and honor to this great friend of the King, this heroic Mordecai of Susa. The streets' fringes grew thick with spectators, especially those of Susa's Jewish quarter-where Mordecai had specially asked to be taken-and where many frowned in utter bewilderment. They had heard of Haman and the decree he had spawned. Their knowledge of it had made their recent days a living hell. Most of them even knew of the conflict that had given rise to this impending doom. And so the sight of these two men even occupying the same proximity was more than they could comprehend. Some of them shouted confused queries at Mordecai, which the dazed man failed to hear or answer.

  As for friends and acquaintances of Haman, most later commented that they had never seen the Palace luminary so glaze-eyed, so mechanical in his steps, so aimless in his direction. The usually keen-eyed Master of the Audiences seemed to have been struck by a heavy wooden beam. Those members of his family and his band of killers who watched the event came away utterly disoriented, unsure of what might arise next. Should they flee for their lives? Preemptively attack the Palace? Rush out and stop the ridiculous charade before them? None of them could marshal the proper clarity to choose a path of action.

  One Night With the King: A Special Movie Edition of the Bestselling Novel, Hadassah by Tommy Tenney;Mark Andrew Olsen

  In fact, Haman's own daughter provided the day's crowning moment. Seeing the impromptu parade approach from her rooftop parapet, and knowing that her father was preparing to execute Mordecai with the King's permission, she decided to do her part. As she had been cleaning out her bedchambers at the time and happened to be holding a full chamber pot with the intention of hoisting the contents out the window, she devised her own form of degradation. She waited and, at the final moment, emptied her container of human waste upon the downcast man pulling the horse-whom she assumed to be Mordecai. Only when the befouled figure glanced up her way just in time to see the rain of slop reach his face and for her to recognize his features did she realize her terrible mistake. The surrounding spectators erupted in shocked yet raucous laughter. It is said she never recovered.

  As the hours wore on, Haman's steps grew slow with fatigue and his voice hoarse from shouting Mordecai's praises, and he began to edge back toward the King's Gate. As for Mordecai, he had now fully regained both his energy and his morale, and he sat as straight as a spear atop the royal stallion. He still did not think too hard about how he had arrived there or what had taken place to bring about such monumental irony. He certainly had no way to discern whether this meant the end of the murderous decree hanging over his people's heads. He had barely grasped that this was reward for a deed he had long thought overlooked.

  He was, literally and figuratively, simply there for the ride. But
it turned out to be the ride of a lifetime. The prayers silently moving his lips were no less full of gratitude to G-d and further requests that He protect His people.

  I did not even hear of Mordecai's baffling afternoon until after it was finished, as I stood busily watching over the final preparations of the banquet and Jesse barged in, panting and laughing at the same time. Jesse told me the story of the parade, of Haman's demeanor both then and at home later when Jesse and Harbona had arrived to escort Haman to the Palace-seeing the man standing forlorn among his family, everyone looking like they had just seen a ghost. Haman's wife stood berating the man in a loud voice, exclaiming that if Mordecai was of Jewish descent, he could not stand against him, that his fate was sealed! And somewhere in a back corner a daughter was cowering, afraid to meet her befouled father.

  When Jesse had softly spoken up to say that it was Haman's time to leave for the Palace banquet, he and his family had turned to the eunuch with openly incredulous looks.