by Tessa Afshar
Opening my eyes, I gazed upon my husband. Darius’s mouth, pressed tight, had grown white with tension as he waited on my response. I realized with dawning clarity that he had more invested in my answer than the convenience of gaining a free scribe. This was a test to him—a test of my nature, my loyalty, my honesty.
I smiled as I gazed on his tense profile. “I would be honored, my lord. To tell the truth, I have been bored half out of my mind. There were days when your whiny heads of state would have seemed the height of entertainment compared to another treatment by one of Damaspia’s makeup artists. I would love to serve you as I served the queen.”
“Are you certain? I would not punish you for refusing.”
“I have no wish to refuse.”
A strong tapered hand wrapped itself around mine as he continued to stare through the window. I pressed his fingers and joined him in his study of the moon-drenched garden. He might not love me, but he missed me through the course of one day’s absence. He might not trust me with his heart, but he entrusted me with the breadth of his wealth and the care of his vassals. He might resent and fight it, but each day, he surrendered another part of himself to me. My smile glowed with satisfaction.
I thought of how the Lord had parted the River Jordan for Israel in order to lead them into the Promised Land. Part his heart for me, Lord. Part his soul for Yourself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
For our journey back, Darius consented to ride along the royal highway with our whole party. The fact that we spent the nights in the king’s stage houses instead of tents, and set our pace at the relative ease that accommodated the covered carts containing Pari and our furnishings, made the trip a tranquil experience compared to our mad dash to Ecbatana. Twenty days flew by in a pleasant haze.
Darius had sent word of our coming to the palace in advance. We arrived after sunset to find the whole place ablaze with lamps in anticipation of our arrival. The sumptuous smell of Shushan’s cooking greeted us before we had stepped out of the stables.
It seemed to me that most of the indoor staff must have assembled to greet us, for lined up before us stood over fifty men and women, many of them strangers to me. Shushan came forward bearing a bunch of late-blooming roses. “Welcome home, my lord. My lady.” She bowed and gave me the flowers.
I threw my arms about her angular shoulders and gave her a proper hug. “I missed you.”
She tried to look disapproving, but even in the lamplight I could see her mouth twitching.
“Where is Bardia?” I cried.
“Here my lady.” Darius was first in line to offer the old gardener a greeting by kissing him on both cheeks. At the court, he would have outraged more than one aristocrat by his behavior, for a commoner was expected to bow to an aristocrat. Kisses were bestowed on the cheeks of men of rank, only. But my husband gave more due to a man’s character than to his rank. My heart melted with approval.
I was home. I had my friends about me. For the first time in long years, I felt that I truly belonged somewhere.
Though part of me celebrated this comforting sense of homecoming, another part of me anguished. This marked the first night I would sleep in a room apart from my husband since my return from the queen’s residence in Ecbatana. The separation stung. Swallowing self-pity, I bestowed a small smile upon Darius before retiring to my apartments.
I knew Pari was as tired and grimy as I from the journey, so I sent her to find a maid who could help with my bath and told her to take the evening off. All the dust of Persia seemed to have worked its way into my hair and clothing. Luxuriating in a long bath, I finally emerged to change into a nightgown and woolen robe before dismissing the new maid.
I crawled into bed alone. Henceforth, I would have to wait on Darius’s pleasure to see him. I could not run to him at will, or seek him out without serious cause.
The silence gathered about me with oppressive weight. If I had not lost Caspian, no doubt he would be with me now, smothering me with his wet kisses.
In the light of the lamps I took in the rich tapestries, the opulent furnishings given me from the hand of a queen, the embroidered linens. How different my life had turned out from even my wildest imaginings!
So many of my dreams had come true. So many had been lost.
This was the nature of life. Loss, grief, sorrow, regret were woven through the fabric of human destiny as uncompromisingly as joy, hope, and fulfillment. If one’s happiness rested only in the capture of one’s dreams, then happiness would prove fickle indeed. There were many things I wanted with desperation that I might never have: Darius’s love, my father’s approval, a child of my own flesh, the ability to go to my husband at will. And what I did have, I might someday lose.
No. If my joy hung in the balance of having everything I wanted, I would always wrestle with unhappiness.
There had to be another way to joy, another highway to happiness apart from gaining all the desires of my heart.
I thought of how King David often spoke like a man who walked on two roads at once. He had one foot placed firmly on the road of suffering, and the other on the road of hope and joy. It wasn’t a case of either, or with David. He had learned to do both at once, when needed. He could grieve while rejoicing.
I remembered one of his psalms, where he began by praising God for His goodness:
You have not handed me over to the enemy
But have set my feet in a spacious place.
While in the next breath he cried out with anguish:
Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My eyes grow weak with sorrow,
My soul and my body with grief.
David knew how to walk the path of affliction while being settled firmly in the joy of God’s presence. I wanted to learn to be like David, to have eyes that saw the loving hand of the Lord even in the midst of unfulfilled dreams.
A soft knock on the door dragged me out of my reverie. Pari slipped inside, her hair still wet from its recent washing.
“What are you doing here? I gave you the night off.”
“I remember. I am visiting, not working.”
I grinned and patted the pillow next to me. She scrambled on the bed and sprawled out comfortably. “I noticed a long line of men waiting at Lord Darius’s door. He’ll no doubt be busy late into the night. I thought you might be lonely on your first night home.”
The best—and worst—quality about my friends was that they knew my insides without my having to explain it to them.
“I’m glad of your company.” I also rejoiced to find out that the reason Darius had not sent for me was not because he had no wish for my presence, but due to his responsibilities.
“Have you had dinner?” she asked.
“Not yet.” I had secretly been hoping that Darius would invite me to eat with him. But if he was as busy as Pari said, he would have no time.
“I’ll fetch some,” Pari said.
She came back with no tray.
“Oh good. Invisible food. Does this mean I will gain no weight when I swallow it? I hope you brought a lot if that’s the case.”
Pari chastised me with a stern look. “His lordship requests your assistance.”
“Ah.” Assistance. It was the scribe he wanted, then, not the wife. I donned suitable clothes and made my way to Darius’s apartments, Pari in tow. We certainly were about to forge some new precedents here. It was one thing being a scribe to the queen. I worked with eunuchs and women most of the time, and being a commoner, my rare interactions with men hardly raised an eyebrow. But I was part of the nobility now and was held to stricter rules of conduct. Darius had stretched many a protocol by this scheme.
I found him in the company of his scribe. His face seemed rigid, his eyes strained. He lit up when he saw me.
“Sarah! Are you too tired to look at these figures?”
“No, my lord.”
“Excellent. Vidarna, my wife shall see to these details. She has ridden far today, so don’t drown h
er with all your reports at once. Show her what seems urgent, and save the rest for the coming week.”
Vidarna’s mouth went down on both sides as his eyebrows went up. He could not hide his dismay as I sat near him and invited him to begin. Within five minutes, I had him sitting straight, his forehead covered in sweat. Other than his initial skepticism toward me, I found no fault with his work, and gave him the guidance he needed for several minor decisions.
Darius stifled another yawn. “Can the rest wait, Vidarna?”
“Yes, lord.”
Darius nodded dismissal. Vidarna gathered the tools of his trade and walked out, followed by Pari and Darius’s man. I rose to follow them. Darius grabbed my arm and pulled me onto his lap where he lounged on a wide couch. “Not you. I didn’t say you could go.”
“I thought you were finished with the scribes.”
“The scribes can go to the moon. My wife, I want.”
I never made it to my room that night. When I awoke, still in his bed, it was late morning and there was no sign of Darius. I decided to go in search of Bardia as soon as I dressed.
An idyllic fall day greeted me with the merest hint of a chill in the air. I had fetched Pari to go with me and we ambled in lazy enjoyment. One of Bardia’s many new assistants told us we could find him in the vineyard.
The sun shone high and bright, sharing the sky with a few fat, white clouds. I found myself laughing for no reason, distracted by the beauty of the day. I was utterly unprepared for the sight that met me when we arrived at the entrance of the vineyard. Row after row of vine, so heavy with grapes that it required a sturdy pole tied to each plant to keep it upright, greeted my astonished gaze.
I gasped with delight. The last time I had stood here, Bardia had pruned the vine with such drastic energy that the place looked more like a stick garden than a vineyard. Now those same plants bloomed with health, bearing so much exquisite fruit, it took your breath away.
“Oh Bardia,” I marveled, when I saw him. “It’s glorious.”
“Try one, my lady. Go ahead.” I gave a small bunch to Pari and popped a few grapes into my own mouth. The juice exploded on my tongue with a mixture of sweet and tangy flavors so complex, I grinned from sheer gustatory joy. The aroma of grapes wrapped around my insides like perfume from Damascus.
“Delicious,” I mumbled. Before I had swallowed, I popped another handful in my mouth.
Bardia laughed. “Take it slow, my lady. Leave some for the king’s table.”
“Let the king come and fetch his own. This is my share.”
“Wait until you taste the wine. This has been a good year, I reckon.”
The sun burst from behind a white cloud at that moment and shone its dazzling light on the fruit before me. The grapes, red and plump, took on a translucent quality.
“Rubies!” I cried. “They look like rubies on the vine. You’ve grown a harvest of rubies, Bardia.”
He gave me a modest smile. “It wouldn’t have been much of a harvest if I had listened to you and stopped pruning.”
His teasing words stopped me short. With new intensity I examined the fruitful vine before me. I recalled standing near this very spot, clutching a severed branch.
How like the vine I had felt that day, stripped almost to the point of death, everything I held precious taken from me. How I had longed for my old life back. And yet, like Bardia, God had intended to do me good by dismantling my world.
I had thought that my work was the measure of my worth. I had made my accomplishments more important than friendships, more important than my heart, more important even than God.
The more I clutched at my achievements, the sicker my soul had grown. And God, in His mercy, in His uncompromising love, had torn the sickness out of my chest.
I remembered suddenly the words of the Lord as spoken through the prophet Hosea:
Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
And speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
And will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
The Lord spoke these words to the kingdom of Israel during her season of intense faithlessness. But He might just as well have spoken them to me.
At a time when I had grown empty and faithless, He allured me away from the riches of court life where I had turned my success into the source of my well-being. Instead He brought me into a desert of hopelessness and loss. He did not bring me into this wilderness in order to destroy me; He brought me here to speak tenderly to me. To speak of His love, which healed the sorrows of my childhood. To restore to me my true self, which had become buried under the weight of my perverse appetites for human acceptance.
Looking back, I now realized I could never have tasted true happiness while I had remained so soul-sick. The compulsions of a hungry heart can forbear no denial. They can taste no joy unless they have what they want. And even having, they are not satisfied. The only way I had known to find a measure of happiness back then was to succeed, to win approval, to avoid failure. And yet all the success in the world could not truly satisfy me. It merely left me hungry for more.
I now knew that only my appetite for godly things could ever be truly satisfied.
In His mercy, knowing I was headed for more sorrow by having what I wanted, God had stripped me of the things that fed my soul-sickness. And that brought me to—the Valley of Achor—The Valley of Trouble. I saw with clarity, that my suffering had paved the way to my healing. My heart no longer grasped hungrily for my old idols. It still wanted them. I could not deny it. But it wanted God more.
Like Bardia’s vine, the soil of my early life had been poor. This world was a fallen place. I had battled loneliness and rejection from an early age. But then, when I turned to Him, I knew that God would not allow these losses to annihilate me. He would use them for good, in the end, though the way to His goodness would sometimes lead straight through the desert and into the Valley of Trouble.
I knew He had directed my path there.
When the season came, the Bardia of my soul had grasped His pruning shears and cut into my already weak frame. He had cut into me to give me more abundant life.
Had I borne a harvest of rubies like Bardia’s grapevine as a result? I thought of the changes in my life. I knew how to be a friend now. How to accept help. How to open my heart. I knew how to live without being a mighty success, without being admired and accepted. I knew how to love my husband without being destroyed by the reality that he did not feel the same about me. I knew how to taste joy, even when life was not perfect. In the desert of my life, I had learned David’s lesson. I had learned to keep one foot on the road of peace while the other remained trapped in pain.
Most importantly, I knew how to cling to the Lord. I had learned how to be satisfied, learned how to trust Him. Well, most of the time. He still had many lessons to teach me. He still had to cover my gaps.
God had given me back my vineyards. He had taken a broken and sickly garden of sticks and turned them into a rich vineyard, bearing jewels. I had my own harvest of rubies.
“You’ve been eating Bardia’s grapes, I see,” a familiar voice whispered against my ear.
I swiveled to find my husband’s amused face, studying me. He reached a finger and wiped away the grape juice clinging to the side of my mouth. He held it up for me to see, a small droplet of scarlet on the tip of his finger, standing out like blood. “Evidence of your thievery,” he said, before licking it clean.
I never would learn to eat without making a mess, I thought with a sigh. “It wasn’t really thievery. Bardia offered it. He was proving how wrong I was.”
Darius’s brows drew together. “About what?”
“Well, I had lectured him on pruning a few months back.”
The long green eyes crinkled in the corners. “You lectured my head gardener on pruning? I am sorry I missed that spectacle. What exactly did you lecture him about?”
“About his drastic measures. He was hacking away at the vine and I advised him to be gentler.”
“I take it he gave you a lecture of his own.”
I threw Darius a suspicious glance. “Did he give you the same one?”
“When I was about seventeen. You are a little slow.”
I laughed. For a moment I deliberated on whether to share with my Persian husband the lessons God had taught me in recent weeks. Could he even begin to understand the world from such a different perspective? I decided that more than anything, I wanted to share this part of my life with him. I wanted him to begin to comprehend my faith. I knew I had to start slow. I did not wish him to think I was pushing my beliefs on him.
“The Lord used Bardia’s words to show me a glimpse of His wisdom,” I said tentatively.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The Lord?” Darius pulled gently on my hand and we began to walk toward a wooden arbor covered by a profusion of late-blooming white roses. “Bardia knows nothing about the Lord.”
“I know. It’s just that God sometimes refers to Himself as a gardener and to Israel as a vine. As Bardia taught me the mystery of the vine, I felt as though the God of Israel showed me how He could use the suffering in my life for my good.”
Darius settled us on the marble bench in the shaded privacy of the arbor. He raised my hand, palm up to his lips for a gentle kiss. “I caused you much pain. I am sorry for it.”
My mouth fell open at his unexpected apology. “You had every reason to be angry with me when we first met. I must have been a terrible disappointment to you.”
He gave a lopsided smile. “Anger and disappointment I knew what to do with. What confounded me was the change in my feelings.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I returned to fetch you to Ecbatana, I was still brimming with dislike for you. Then, to my shock, I found a lovely, composed woman in place of the little monster I had come to expect.
