Hadassah

by Tommy Tenney

  And in the very next moment, two things happened that sealed Haman’s fate—first, the evil one fell in his desperation upon my couch, nearly covering me with his body, and second, my dear Xerxes returned from summoning the bodyguards he had stationed a discreet distance away in the garden.

  I saw only the onrushing form of Haman descending upon me, then heard a voice of animallike rage erupt from across the room. “What?! Will he even assault my wife while I am in the house?”

  Xerxes, the source of the outburst, turned to Harbona—one of the attending eunuchs whom he had apparently summoned during his absence—and motioned toward Haman. The aide pulled a black scarf from his tunic, walked over to where Haman knelt in frantic tears and draped it over his face. The scarf of death.

  Then Harbona turned to Haman. “Your Majesty, were you aware that the tallest execution pole Susa has ever seen now stands in Haman’s yard? Word is he built the gallows pole in order to kill Mordecai upon it. Mordecai—the same man you sought earlier to honor for heroism and service to the King.”

  “And my father,” I added. “The one who raised me.”

  Xerxes shot me a look of greater amazement than I have ever seen on the face of any human being. Then he whirled upon his heels and fixed Haman with a gaze so icy cold that it gave me shivers just being in the same room. It lasted only an instant. He walked over, reached out to grab Haman’s right hand and yanked the signet ring from his finger. Then he turned away, and anyone watching would have known the King would never set his gaze on the man again.

  “Impale him on his own gallows. At daybreak.”

  And on that order soldiers scurried in, picked Haman up and carried him from the room—a once haughty man now whimpering softly like a half-starved newborn.

  50

  The dawn was just a warm glow upon the horizon and the awakening city still largely unaware of the night’s events when Haman was dragged into his yard to stare into the eyes of his own aide—the eunuch he had tormented for these past several weeks.

  My Jesse of Susa, known to the Palace as Hathach the Good Man.

  Haman at this moment was incapable of coherent speech. He had now reached a point of human consciousness capable of evoking pity in even his most enraged victim—sunk to the state of a whimpering, incontinent, jabbering fool. The condemned creature put up little resistance as his clothes were torn from his body and his nudity exposed before not only the whole execution party but his assembled family—who stood nearby, forced to watch. Glaringly, the once secret twisted cross tattoo on his back now announced him to the world as the scheming murderer that he was.

  I will spare you the terrible details of his death by impalement, but you do not need a reminder of the unfortunate souls he had sent to their death in similar fashion.

  The pole’s absurd height, intended to display Mordecai’s fate before the whole city, now helped Susa bear witness to the punishment of its most devious traitor.

  In other quarters, Haman’s remaining foot soldiers began ripping the twisted cross emblems from their uniforms and trying to smear the tattoos on their skin with dyes. Some even scraped their forearms with knives to remove the evidence—for they knew their day of reckoning had arrived.

  Mordecai and I did not watch the execution. We spent the morning on a Palace balcony as far away from the sight as possible. As we talked together, Mordecai hugged me tightly and said, “You did it, my Hadassah. You were faithful to the position where G-d placed you. You were brought to the Palace for this purpose. To save our people.”

  I held him as close as I could and nearly collapsed from sheer relief.

  Later that day, King Xerxes called a grand audience in the Inner Court. There, in front of a packed crowd, he held up the signet ring that he had removed from Haman’s finger and unexpectedly slipped it onto Mordecai’s. I could hardly believe my eyes. My poppa, faithful Palace scribe of so many years, had now risen to the post of Master of the Audiences. He looked again like the Mordecai of old, hardly a young man yet standing straight once more with the old gleam in his eye and the bearing of a Palace veteran.

  Xerxes held out his hand toward him and said quietly, “Years of delayed reward proved you to be truly loyal.” Turning to the crowd the King shouted, “People of Persia and servants of the Crown, I give you this day my new Master of the Audiences, Mordecai, son of Jair, a child of Israel and citizen of Persia! It is my will that each of you obey and treat him in every way exactly as you would regard your King!”

  A deafening cheer went up from the spectators, many of whom had dealt with Mordecai for years. I thought I saw a decade of cares fall away from Poppa’s countenance in the moments that followed.

  Then came my turn. I took both of Mordecai’s hands in mine—hardly a conventional gesture for the Queen, but it seemed everyone was now aware of our relationship—and said, “Master, as the Queen’s gift in your newly installed post, and at the King’s request, I give you all the goods and riches from the household of Haman the Agagite, enemy of the Empire and plotter against its citizens.”

  At those words Mordecai, whom I had not forewarned of this gift, blanched and seemed to sway a little. I had just given him a fortune equal to that of any nonroyal in the Empire. I stepped closer and we exchanged a tight, lingering embrace.

  Making this gesture touched my emotions in a way I had not anticipated. Finally I had been able to do something for him as Queen that he was not able to shrug off or dissuade me from doing like a father scolding his little girl. Between the appointment as Master of the Audiences and the granting of Haman’s wealth, Mordecai’s life had just been transformed forever. And I, his daughter, had played a strong hand in both. He had taken me in when I was young—I had brought him in when he was old.

  And then I turned away from Poppa and steeled myself for an entirely different gesture. I walked over to the King, who was still guarded by his soldiers and their ready swords, and abruptly fell upon my face. Despite my joy of only a second before, I broke into loud sobs. Tears began to flow down my face.

  “Please, your Majesty,” I pleaded, “please thwart the evil scheme that Haman left embedded as law! Please stop this plot against the Jews!”

  From the stunned look overtaking his features, Xerxes was as clearly shocked by the swift turn in my emotions as anyone in the room. He lowered the scepter and my breathing settled a bit. I stood and approached him.

  “I know that even your Majesty cannot change a law of the kingdom sealed by his signet ring,” I said. “But if it pleases the King, and if I have found favor with you, and if it seems proper and I am pleasing in your sight, then let it be ordered to revoke Haman’s order calling for the destruction of the Jews throughout Persia. For how can I endure to watch this awful fate come to my own people? How can I endure the destruction of my own flesh and blood?”

  Xerxes reached out his hand and grasped my arm, his eyes glittering with a powerful intent. “Now listen. I have already approved giving Haman’s goods to Mordecai because of his plot against the Jews. I am not about to let his treachery prevail now. So, you write a letter to the Jewish people, anything you see fit, and you may seal it with my signet ring, and it will be binding law.”

  So I retired to a back room with Mordecai and a hastily called assembly of royal scribes—the same kind of conference Mordecai would have attended as a mere functionary only days before. And as one of their own, he dictated to the staff with a mastery of language and protocol that they had never before seen from a Master of the Audiences. Speaking in the name of King Xerxes, he announced—and the scribes translated into every alphabet and language of the Empire’s 127 provinces—a most audacious proclamation. He declared that on the same day that had been designated for their extermination, the Jewish people would have the right to assemble and defend themselves as a group. They could destroy, kill and annihilate anyone who rose up against them, including women and children. They would even be allowed to plunder their enemies’ spoils—and know that they enjoyed th
e King’s blessing as they did so.

  The sound of Mordecai’s voice slowly echoed into silence in the stone room as his former colleagues scribbled furiously to render his words into the proper form. Then, after a long pause, they approached him one by one while he emphatically stamped the King’s signet ring onto each copy of the new edict. Immediately following the procedure, each one filed out of the room and walked to an outer door where a small army of royal couriers awaited, each one mounted upon an offspring of the King’s own stallions. Immediately, each cavalier grasped his designated copy of the decree and rode out of sight.

  When the last of the scribes had left us, I grasped the King’s robe from a nearby handmaiden and laid it again across Mordecai’s shoulders. And then, to my eternal gratitude, Poppa was able to share with me one of the great sensations of my life—to step out upon a terrace, look out across a sea of faces and know that the roar engulfing the platform was composed of cheers directed at no one else but him—at least until the King and I followed behind.

  The city so recently shrouded in confusion was now engulfed in celebration.

  Oh, I wish you—I wish anyone—could have seen him on that day. My dear Mordecai, who once had to be reminded not to wear the same clothes for a week straight—now stood resplendent in a suit of fine linen and purple Kashmiri wool, a golden crown upon his head, a royal robe of blue and white draped across his shoulders. He was splendid, I must admit. I have never been so proud, and I despair of ever feeling such pride again. I wept with joy to look across and see him brace himself against the wave of love as if it were a stiff desert wind.

  He deserved it, of course, as much as any occupant of the Palace had ever deserved a wild ovation. His loving obstinacy had helped bring about every good thing of that day. He was as great a hero as any soldier of Xerxes’ army. And the crowd was filled with Susa’s Jews, I later learned, for whom Mordecai had just attained the status of liberator.

  He leaned to me and whispered, “Esther, always remember that favor can restore in a day what was stolen over a lifetime.” I felt his hand squeeze something into mine—a strangely familiar shape in a velvet cloth. I unwrapped it and gasped as I held up the old star necklace given to me by my parents.

  Mordecai continued, “I guess now that everybody knows who you are and what you are, you should wear this again.”

  He raised it in trembling fingers and slowly lowered it around my neck. I embraced him with all the strength in my arms. Of all the spectators watching that moment, only he and I knew everything that gesture meant to us.

  Across the Empire, the Jews began to call Mordecai the Exilarch—leader of those in exile. And it appears the title will continue on even now that Mordecai is in his old age. Wherever one of his couriers rode in with Mordecai’s edict held high in the wind, there was feasting and rejoicing such as Jews had not enjoyed in decades. The name of Mordecai was celebrated in word and song.

  And, in the quarters of the wicked, mightily feared.

  After the death of Haman until the counter-edict took effect on the thirteenth day of Adar, Haman’s sons continued their father’s ethnic hatred against the Jews. But as the months passed and the strength of the King’s favor became more apparent, they went into hiding. Of course, the real liberation occurred when Haman’s supposed day of Jewish extermination finally dawned. Mordecai’s subsequent proclamation had produced its desired effect, for anyone with an ounce of political savvy had come to realize that the weight of imperial support now rested on the Jewish side. As a result, none of the government officials, from satraps to local governors, lifted a finger against my people. The only ones who did attack us would best be described as roving thugs, a few remnants of the Riders of the Twisted Cross hoping to strike at opportunistic targets like undefended homes or houses of worship. I am sorry to have to report that Elias, Mordecai’s father’s friend, was killed during the street fighting.

  But the hoodlums met a Jewish people heartened by the King’s support and steeled by the knowledge that Persia’s second-in-command—a man reputedly more influential than any non-royal in recent history—was in fact one of their own. The Jews had planned long and hard for this day and organized themselves into local militias who defended the weak and helpless with a fervor that left the streets littered with corpses and their opponents running away in panic.

  I myself spent that day upon the Palace ramparts flanked by Jesse, who was now Xerxes’ head eunuch, and a contingent of heavily armed bodyguards. Even my limited view gave me a heartening appraisal of the day’s eventual outcome. I saw well-coordinated bands of Jewish men pursue erstwhile attackers down the streets with flying arrows and knives and even flaming clay pots of oil. I gasped as I watched one reckless youth strike an old Hebrew woman only to be beaten to death by a passing band of Jews. It was not pretty, but every time I grew revolted, I reminded myself of the bloodshed that would have taken place had Haman’s edict been carried out. What I saw was nothing compared to what might have befallen my people!

  I was in the King’s bedchamber that night preparing to retire—for indeed, the turn of events had given our marriage another of its periodic revivals—when Mordecai knocked and entered with the day’s tally. I must admit that I startled at the sight of my father entering my marriage bedroom, until I remembered that of all his subjects, the Master of the Audiences had the greatest access to the King’s presence.

  I realized at once that Mordecai was even more startled than I. He stood motionless, his gaze transfixed upon the jeweled star lying against Xerxes’ breastbone.

  “Your Majesty,” he finally said, haltingly, “that is a most—unusual—and beautiful medallion upon your person.”

  “It should be! It was given to me by the Queen herself.”

  Mordecai’s eyes shifted to the familiar medallion around my neck, and his amazement seemed to grow dramatically. I realized instantly that Mordecai had not known of the second one given to me by Hegai. I quickly explained, and he was dumbstruck by the resemblance between the two.

  “So, my most excellent Mordecai,” Xerxes called out in a hearty voice, shattering the silence, “how have your people fared on this day?”

  “Well, of course, being the first eve,” Mordecai answered with a moment’s pause, “I can speak only for Susa and the nearest outlying cities. But in my limited vision, it appears the counter-edict was an enormous success.”

  I breathed out with a sigh so loud that both men paused and turned in my direction.

  “In Susa alone,” Mordecai continued, “we killed and destroyed five hundred would-be murderers and plunderers.”

  Xerxes blew out his breath with an amazed look. “Five hundred men! If you did all that in Susa alone, who knows what your countrymen have done across the kingdom! I hope I have subjects left!”

  “You do, sir,” Mordecai assured with a smile. “And with your leave I took the initiative of ordering that all spoils of the conflict go to your Majesty’s treasury to restore what our valiant war on Greece had, ah . . . withdrawn.”

  “Excellent,” Xerxes exclaimed. “You are a most astute advisor, indeed.”

  “Were all the Agagites killed?” I asked Mordecai.

  “Pardon?” he asked, not quite understanding my question.

  I fixed him with a knowing, intense look. “Were all the Agagites killed?” I repeated, each word distinct.

  And Mordecai smiled again—recognizing the grasp of Jewish history I was now exhibiting. He smiled at my memory of all those bedtime stories he had forced me to endure. “No, my Queen,” he replied. “There remain Haman’s own sons and a group of his gang who escaped retribution.”

  “So Samuel’s ancient order to Saul remains unfulfilled.”

  “I’m afraid that is the case.”

  Upon those words I turned to Xerxes and, perhaps without completely needing to, I fell prostrate before him.

  Xerxes laughed. “Now what is your petition, my Queen? It will be granted you, make no mistake. You have probably
just helped rid the Empire of several thousand undesirables, including the traitor Haman. So name your request.”

  I rose into a kneeling position. “If it pleases the King,” I answered, “let tomorrow also be granted to the Jews of Susa, to follow the edict one more time.”

  I had stretched my royal influence to its limit, yet the King, bless him, agreed despite not quite understanding the ancient blood feud that had provoked my request.

  It was simple—I knew that any remnants of Haman’s followers would probably be hiding among the population of Susa. And I wanted to finish what King Saul, five hundred years before, had failed to do. Exterminate the final ranks of Israel’s oldest and most evil foe. Correct a centuries-old mistake.

  And indeed, across Susa, Jews sought out the men who had worn the twisted cross, gathered around them and slaughtered them. Their foul garments, along with the evil insignia they had tried to hide, were promptly burned.

  By the next day they had ferreted out Haman’s ten sons. When the last one had been captured, Mordecai ordered them to also be impaled on gallows as their father had been. He sent out a pronouncement to all 127 provinces of Persia that the circle was complete and a five-hundred-year-old omission reversed. The bodies displayed on the gallows were the evidence. An ancient enmity upon the Jewish people was purged. Not to mention an entire race saved.

  And a little girl’s grief avenged.

  51

  It has now been many years since these historic events took place. If you are indeed, as I suspect, a Jewish girl, then you heard songs sung in your nursery rhymes recounting the Feast of Purim, the holiday established to celebrate our deliverance from the evil I have recounted here.