Esther

by Rebecca Kanner

  “What would you have me do to help?” Erez asked.

  “Bring us home.”

  “That is where we are taking you—home. A much better home than the one you came from. Have you not seen the palace at Shushan?”

  I had seen it many times, walked in its massive shadow when I went to the market. Once a woman entered the harem she was never seen outside the palace again. How could Erez believe this was better than the home I came from? I ignored his question and said, “Then there is nothing more you can do. Would you be kind enough to look away? I will have to take off Cyra’s head scarf to see to her wounds.”

  He inclined his head in a slight nod and turned to tend his horse.

  I tore swathes from the bottom of my tunic and bandaged Cyra’s head and back. At the sound of the fabric tearing Erez cocked his head, but he did not turn around. Cyra’s brow was dry as parchment, and sometimes she gasped for air. When I put my hand over her heart it fluttered fast and weak against my palm. I told her she would be well soon. I do not know if she heard me.

  Erez had taken the saddle off his horse and was letting the huge animal drink water from his cupped palm. “May I turn around now?”

  He did not need to ask, just as he had not needed to turn around, and just as he had not needed to help us in the first place. But he had.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you for the kindness you have shown us.” His kindness gave me courage to ask, “How can the king allow this march?” I looked down at Cyra. “What if this is his future queen?”

  “He will never know of this girl or any of the others who have been bloodied by the lash.”

  “Where will they go?”

  “Dalphon.”

  “She will be a wife of Dalphon?”

  “Not a wife, and not just Dalphon.”

  “I do not believe you.” But as the words left my mouth I knew they were no longer true.

  He stepped away from his horse and came to crouch in front of me so that his eyes were level with mine. I dropped my gaze to the winged man that rested at the base of his throat. I watched the words moving beneath his skin, flickering up through his neck to his lips. “The most beautiful must be careful not to look up or slow their steps. And never talk back to any of the soldiers, especially not Dalphon or his brothers.”

  “You are one to talk.”

  He stood abruptly. “I said not to talk back to any of the soldiers.”

  I was shocked that I had said something so foolish. Surely soldiers had killed people for less. “I am sorry,” I said. “Please forgive me.”

  “Forgiveness is not something I am good at.”

  “I will give you no more need.” This time I hoped he would see the flush that had come over my face and know I was ashamed.

  He did not look at me and I could see by the tightness of his jaw that he was angry. I felt flustered whenever he gazed at me directly, but I found that I also did not like when he would not look at me at all.

  “May I try the water once more?” I asked.

  He held it out without looking at me.

  Again the water filled Cyra’s mouth and ran from the corners. “Cyra,” I said. If she did not wake and drink she would not be able to go on. How dare she not fight with all her strength? How dare she move closer to death in my arms?

  I thought of my mother bleeding upon the floor and how I would not let her go until life flowed back into her eyes, and she moved her gaze from whatever far-off place she was staring up at and onto me. That was what scared me the most, more than the blood: I was there and she did not look at me. If I could just get her eyes on me she would have to wake up because I am still here Mother you cannot leave.

  Wake up!

  But she did not move her eyes. The sight had gone out of them when I most desperately needed her to see me. Mother, please, tell me what to do. I had stayed with her while Xerxes’ soldiers continued to storm the city. I had taken her cooling hand in my own, trying to figure out where life went when it left. I will find it, I will put it back. I had to put it back if I were going to go on, because the hut was not my true home. She was.

  And now Cyra too was leaving me. I put my free hand to my brow as though to wipe away a bead of sweat. I was trying to hide my despair, but I knew I had failed when I heard Erez take a deep breath. He leaned down and placed his calloused hand on mine. I had the urge to pull my hand away and also the urge to turn it over and hold on to him. But instead I sat completely still, feeling the kindness of his touch and the pounding of my heart. Then he gently pulled my hand from my brow. “She is not your sister,” he said. “And she is dying.”

  My hand began to tremble and he took the waterskin from me.

  “It is best,” he said. “Dalphon would have made her life worse than death. We will bring her to the palace and I will ask the king to set her upon the dakhma.” The dakhma, or tower of silence, was a high, wide platform open to the sky. Corpses were left there to be eaten by vultures. The bones were then put into a pit at its base.

  “You would leave her upon the dakhma while she lives?”

  “No, we will leave her upon it as she is about to be.” He straightened. “Come now.”

  “How easily you give up. But you have probably seen a hundred people die.”

  “A hundred? I have seen many more than that die in a single battle.”

  “If it pains you to see men die, perhaps you should not have become a soldier.”

  “I am an Immortal, not a soldier. And it is not of my choosing.”

  “You were forced?”

  He was silent. I knew I had angered him again. Still, I believed he would not rush us back to the line if he thought there was hope for Cyra. Her head lay in my lap. I moved my leg slightly. “Ehhhh . . . ,” Cyra murmured.

  “See how she stirs? She says my name.”

  “Your name is unusual.”

  “It is Esther. She is too parched to say it fully.”

  Erez gazed at me and then at Cyra. “Perhaps I counted her among the dead too hastily, Ehhhhsther.” He raised one eyebrow. “But I do not think so.”

  I had no argument except my resolve. “Please.”

  He flinched only slightly, but still I saw it. Hearing me say “please” pained him. “Being a soldier has taught me to do what I am told without thinking too deeply about it. You will learn the same lesson as a harem girl, or you will suffer.”

  I wanted to delay our return to the line as long as possible. “Will you tell me of how you came to be an Immortal?”

  “Esther.” He looked at me with such seriousness that I was not certain I wanted him to go on. “It is likely that you will never, from this day forth, have your way again. But I will grant you this one request, if you agree to accept your new life as soon as I have answered your question.”

  I agreed and he told me of a panther who mauled a girl in his village twelve years before. He had killed it with a single arrow, and that had sealed his fate as an Immortal. Word of his skill traveled and the king’s men had come for him shortly after. He had been seven years old.

  “If you killed her, why does Dalphon call you ‘Kitten Tamer’ instead of ‘Kitten Killer’?”

  “There is only one way to truly tame anything wild.”

  I hoped he was wrong. It was said that lions were kept as pets in the palace.

  “Every hunter knows this is true and all men are hunters of one kind or another,” Erez said. “You would do well to pretend you are not so wild as you are.”

  I willed myself not to blush again. I swallowed without meaning to and coughed from the dryness in my throat. “Have you gotten word to your parents since you were taken to train? Do they know you are well?”

  “Their village was wiped out by plague.”

  I surprised myself by saying, “I am sorry, Erez. I am an orphan too.”

  “I know.”

  Did he mock me? “I do not see how that is possible.”

  “You are too independent for a girl your age—”

/>   “I am fourteen.”

  “—and too stubborn. It is why I fear for you.”

  “For me, but not Cyra? Perhaps you were made an Immortal so you could save people.”

  “Do not be foolish, I was trained to take lives, I do not know how to give them back. Your friend’s life has already been taken. It was the king’s—just as yours and mine are—and now it is Ahura Mazda’s. He will watch over her. Do not ask me to change fate. Not even a king could do it, and I am only a soldier.”

  “Only? Do you not see how lucky you are? I would gladly trade places with you. The king favors you, you have the most beautiful horse I have ever seen, and you have traveled parts of the world I never will. Not now.”

  “I have seen the world, but not as I would have liked to. I see its beauty only as I diminish it. I saw the great temple of Athens as I sacked and burned it. And I have done many things worse, including”—he gestured to where the line of girls had disappeared down the road—“this.”

  “What do you wish for yourself instead?”

  “This is a cruel question, because it does not matter. I only know what I do not wish to do anymore—bloody the earth for the sake of expanding Xerxes’ empire. I do not hate the Greeks who revolt against him because they do not want to be slaves. I hate that I do not have a true home. I hate that I have rarely known the same woman twice. If I had any children they were probably flushed from their mothers’ wombs with herbs or worse.”

  I tried to show nothing in my face. I did not like to think of the women Erez had known, but I did not want to seem a naïve child. “Then why have you done all of these things?”

  “I regret almost everything I have done since drawing back the bow and killing the panther. Yet all that I did for Persia I would do again, if Xerxes commanded. I have been training for most of my life to do exactly as I am doing. If this—being an Immortal—is to be my life, my wish is that I be an officer instead of a common soldier. The cruelest among us have risen to the top and they are eager to spread their misery everywhere they go. As a common soldier I can do little to stop them.”

  “I had hoped you were an officer. I know you would be a good one.” He had said “Xerxes” as casually as though he spoke of a friend or uncle. “Have you ever spoken to the king?”

  “I have spoken to him without beginning or ending each sentence with ‘Your Majesty.’ He cannot trust his own brothers but he can trust a man who fights for him. Each of the six years of his reign he has recalled me to one of his four palaces to ride and hunt with him.”

  “Then you have his ear. If we bring Cyra back you can ask him—”

  “His ear is full. Enough talk of your friend. You must turn your thinking to your own life. It is yourself for whom you should fear.”

  “I am not afraid,” I lied. “I am Esther, named after Ishtar: goddess of love, fertility, war, and . . .” I could not bring myself to say “sex.” Erez’s hand upon mine was as close as I had come.

  “If there were a goddess of bullheadedness that would suit you better.”

  I moved out from under Cyra and set her head gently upon the ground. I stood to try to take the water from Erez. “If there is even the tiniest crumb of hope for her, how can we not help her?”

  “I will show you how.” He tied the water to the saddle and moved to walk around me, toward Cyra. He was going to take her back to the march.

  My heart beat wildly as I stepped into his path. “I will not go.”

  “Then I will retie your hands and throw you both over the back of my horse.”

  He reached for my wrists but I stepped away and yanked my head scarf off. His eyes widened. My hair was long and dark and spoken of throughout the market after one day when my scarf had come undone. Though I could feel that I was blushing yet again, I stood tall and lifted my chin. I began tearing the scarf into long strips.

  “Foolish girl,” he said. “Put your scarf back on. Do you know nothing of soldiers? In war you learn that whatever you see and can take is yours.”

  “Cyra’s bandages have soaked through. I must change them.”

  For a moment he looked at me with a mixture of anger and sadness. Then his face seemed to draw closed. “You would have had a hard time in the king’s harem,” he said. “You would not have been wise enough to hide your insolence. The king’s favorite—Dalphon and Parsha’s cousin, Halannah, is famous for breaking the spirits of even the most willful girls. And the eunuchs would have helped her by pouring endless Haoma wine down your throat to drown your stubbornness.” He came half a step toward me and it took all of my strength not to back away. “But you will like being one of the soldiers’ concubines even less. Perhaps that is the fate you deserve though. Very well.” He turned away.

  I told myself that he spoke in anger and his words were untrue.

  Without meaning to, I began to pray.

  When I finished securing Cyra’s new bandages, I became aware of Erez’s gaze upon me. He had turned around without me noticing. I swallowed the rest of my prayer.

  “I see, much too clearly,” he said, looking down at my naked face and hair, “how dangerous this is for you. You would do better to have some sense.”

  “I must do this,” I said. I shook Cyra. Her eyes remained closed and her head limp. I shook her with greater force and whispered her given name into her ear. “Yvrit. Wake up.”

  “Her fate is in the hands of Ahura Mazda. Shaking her will not wrest it from his grasp.”

  “I have learned not to leave the fates of those I love to God.”

  “Did I not just see you praying?”

  “Perhaps I was only talking quietly.”

  “You were not that quiet.”

  Though I was angry at God, sometimes I still found myself praying to Him. “I pray in the vain hope that He is listening,” I said.

  Erez looked as though he wished to say something more but instead he bowed his head and reached behind his neck. His tunic sleeves started to fall down his arms and he quickly lowered his hands. He used his right hand to turn the chain around and bring the clasp in front of him, beneath his chin. “Unclasp this,” he said.

  To get a good grip on the clasp I had to come close to Erez. My hands began to tremble. I wanted to both step away from him and to tuck my head into the cradle of his neck. I did neither. I was careful not to touch him as I tried to open the clasp. It was slippery with sweat; a few times it slid out from between my fingers before I finally undid it.

  He took his eyes from my face and looked down at the small silver man with wings that hung from the chain I now held in my hand. It was a Faravahar, symbol of the Zoroastrian religion. I lowered it into his palm. He squeezed it gently, then looked back up at me. “Wear this.”

  I knew by the way he had gazed at it that it was of great value to him.

  “I cannot accept it.”

  “I am a soldier, of the ten thousand Immortals, and I order you to take it.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “So that no one besides me knows that you are Jewish.”

  “I am not—”

  “Then you are the only non-Jew I know who prays in Hebrew. If you make it through this march, you will have to learn to whisper more quietly. Eunuchs can hear a moth flap its wings from half a palace away.”

  “I will not even move my lips next time I pray.” I realized I did not fear that Erez would reveal my secret to anyone. I trusted him.

  “Please turn around,” he said, and I obeyed.

  He brought the chain over my head and lowered it until the winged man rested on my chest, right below the rosette of my mother’s necklace. I tried to keep my breathing steady and I willed my hands not to shake as I lifted my hair so he could fasten his chain around my neck. He did not immediately take his fingertips from my skin. Somehow, though I was hot, the warmth of his flesh against mine was not unpleasant.

  No man who is not my husband ought to touch me this way, and this man is not only a stranger but also a gentile. It should not
feel good to be touched by him.

  I stepped away, my heart stuttering in my chest. The Faravahar rested heavily upon my breast. Could this figurine of a false god keep me safer than the One God? And what will the One God think if He sees this around my neck?

  I turned to face him. “Thank you, Erez.” I reached back and undid my mother’s rosette necklace. “Will you also take this, and give it to a man in Shushan? I want him to know I am well.”

  Erez narrowed his eyes. “What man is this?”

  “Mordecai. I live—I used to live—with him. When he heard that the king was gathering virgins he sent me from the heart of Shushan. He thought I would be safer outside the palace city.”

  “Mordecai the Jew? The one who keeps the king’s accounts?”

  “He is my cousin. Before my father died, he asked Mordecai to watch over me.”

  “I will make certain he gets it.” Erez dropped the necklace into his pocket. “And now we must return to the line.” He went to Cyra. Instead of swooping her up he knelt beside her. He put a hand beneath her nostrils and then put his head to her heart.

  “Esther,” he said, turning to face me, “you must be strong. Though you did all you could to save her, your friend is gone.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  THE RIDE BACK

  Erez took Cyra’s head scarf and spread the blood upon it, turning it from blue to an uneven purple. “It is a girl in a blue head scarf who Dalphon said would not return to the line,” he said. “You will wear this one.”

  He did not mention retying my wrists together and I did not remind him.

  I tried not to cry as he put Cyra over the back of his horse. His words echoed in my head. You must be strong, you must be strong, you must be strong . . .

  “Ride with us,” he said.

  “How will I do that?”

  He repositioned his bow and arrows so they hung from his shoulder instead of across his back and held out his hand. I only hesitated for an instant before grasping it. His hand was steady and it felt good to hold it. “You will have to sit sidesaddle,” Erez said. “To maintain your . . . proof of virtue.”