Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294)

by Hunt, Angela Elwell

  “Do you think the king will return soon?” I asked Mordecai one night after the evening meal. “Will he hold another banquet to celebrate his victories? Surely he will, don’t you think?”

  Mordecai looked at me, weariness and wariness mingling in his eyes. “It’s not my place to read the future, child,” he said, dropping one hand to my shoulder. “And your destiny has nothing to do with that pagan palace on the hill. We must think about your future, and that means your betrothal.”

  I fell silent, knowing what would surely come next. Mordecai and Miriam had successfully postponed the necessity of my marriage for several years, but time was slipping away from us. If a betrothal wasn’t soon arranged, people would begin to wonder if something was wrong with me.

  Maybe they wondered already.

  Miriam cleared the table, then sat directly across from me. “You know we only want the best for you, Hadassah. You have been the light of our lives—” her eyes filled with tears—“and we will hate to see you go. But the time must come when a woman leaves her home and makes a new home for her husband and children.”

  I squirmed under her sentimental gaze and looked away, though tears stung my own eyes. She was right, and I had been foolish to hope that I could eventually persuade Mordecai to allow me to marry Babar. Mordecai knew best, and without him and Miriam, only Adonai knew what might have become of me. But they had taken me in, and blessed me with so much love. . . .

  Someone rattled the gate outside. I pushed myself up from the table, about to see who was there, but Mordecai held out a restraining hand. “Sit,” he said, a thick note in his voice. “Let me go.”

  He wanted to answer the door?

  I watched him leave, then looked at Miriam. “Are you expecting someone?”

  She said nothing, but sank back onto the bench, keeping her gaze trained on the doorway.

  A moment later, Mordecai returned with three men. I recognized Elihu, our rabbi, Kidon, and Binyamin. One glance at the latter told me all I needed to know.

  “Miriam, Hadassah,” Mordecai began, looking at each of us in turn, “you know these men.”

  Miriam and I bowed our heads and smiled while Mordecai escorted his guests into the room and gestured for them to sit on the cushioned benches by the fire pit.

  “Kidon,” Mordecai continued, looking at me, “would like to arrange a betrothal between you and his eldest son, Binyamin. He has brought the shitre erusin, written by the rabbi, to make sure everything is as it should be.”

  I looked at the rolled parchment in Kidon’s hand—the bride contract. While I had been enjoying the life in the aura reflected from the royal family, Mordecai and Kidon had been planning my future.

  Mine and Binyamin’s.

  For the first time, I looked directly at the young man who would be my husband. Binyamin was my age, a bit taller than me, and pleasant-looking. His eyes held neither snap nor twinkle, but neither did they flash in anger—at least they never had in my presence, and I had known him since childhood. He had the look of a man who would pass quietly through life, doing his duty, maintaining the traditions, and obeying the Law. He was not the man I would have chosen, but neither was he the sort I would automatically refuse.

  I swallowed hard and forced a smile.

  “Hadassah.” Binyamin stood and slid a small wooden box from beneath his arm. “I have brought this for you as the mohar. Our fathers have agreed that it is suitable.”

  Despite my disinclination toward marriage, I leaned forward to see what was in the box. Apparently encouraged by my interest, Binyamin blushed and lifted the lid.

  Inside was a gold necklace, fashioned with care, and a pendant holding a blood-red ruby. The piece was lovely, exquisitely crafted, and obviously of great value. Even Parysatis would have been impressed.

  “You are most generous.” I hesitated, knowing that accepting the gift meant I accepted his offer. “Did you make the necklace yourself?”

  “I did.” Binyamin smiled, waking the dimple in his cheek. “I wanted to make you something no one else had.”

  “And so you have.” I glanced at Miriam, hoping she would suggest a way to postpone this decision, but her watery eyes held nothing but loving approval. She wanted me to marry this boy. So did Mordecai. So did Kidon, and so did the rabbi.

  What could I say against so many?

  I closed my eyes, silently saying farewell to my dreams and fantasies. Despite my close friendship with Parysatis, I was not a Persian girl. I was not able to wheedle favors out of my father, nor could I continue to dream about noblemen and palaces and beauty befitting a queen. Mordecai would cast me off before he would allow me to deny my people and marry a Persian.

  So if I wanted children and to maintain peace in my family, Binyamin should be my husband.

  When I opened my eyes, my thoughts had crystallized into hard reality. I forced another smile, then accepted the box and the young man who offered it. “Thank you.”

  My future husband stood before me, waiting in silence, until his father nudged him. Then Binyamin remembered himself and handed the bride contract to Mordecai. “I want you to know I have done everything possible to protect her,” he said. “If something happens to me, she will never be left without property. I have promised not to make her leave Susa, if she does not want to go, or to exchange a good house for a bad house. Within the year, after I have prepared a home for us, I will come to take her as my bride according to the Law of Moses and Isra’el. I promise to please, honor, nourish, and care for her, as is the manner of the men of Isra’el.”

  Mordecai smiled. “Tell her that.”

  Blushing even more deeply, Binyamin pivoted and offered me the shitre erusin. I accepted it, then handed it to Mordecai, where it belonged.

  The older men laughed at this display of nerves, and then Mordecai picked up a charred stick to sign the document. Binyamin’s father followed suit, and just like that, I was practically married. But not to Babar. Never to him.

  “Elihu and I are witnesses.” Mordecai folded the contract. “Hadassah will remain with us for another year while Binyamin prepares their future home. She will wait until he comes to escort her to the marriage feast.” He turned to me, a strange light shining in his eyes. “From this moment, you shall consider Binyamin your husband in all manner except that which leads to children. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, bereft of speech. I had known this moment was coming and I did not doubt Mordecai’s wisdom, but the full realization of my future left me dry-mouthed and dazed.

  A year from now I would be living in my own home, hauling my own water, cooking for my own husband. I would have to obey him, respect him, sleep with him. I would be expected to give him children and devote myself to them for the rest of my life.

  My carefree days with Parysatis were numbered.

  Chapter Eleven

  Harbonah

  MY MASTER AND HIS ARMY MET NO OPPOSITION until we reached Thermopylae, a settlement only three days’ journey from Athens. The surrounding area was nearly deserted, but an army of eight thousand Greeks had reinforced an ancient wall, blocking a narrow road that snaked between towering cliffs and the sea. Xerxes scoffed when he learned that only eight thousand would stand against his vast army, but he had us make camp and wait on our navy, which was soon due to arrive with provisions.

  While we waited, he sent his nephew Mushka to carry a message to the Greeks: “King Xerxes of Persia orders you to surrender your weapons, retreat to your native lands, and become his allies. In return, he will reward you with more and better lands than you now possess.”

  The response was not long in coming. Before the sun set, Mushka returned with an answer: “If we are to be your allies,” some confident Greek had written, “we will need our weapons. If we resist you, we will also need our weapons. As for the better lands you promise, our fathers taught us to gain land by means of courage, not cowardice.”

  “Fools!” the king roared, tossing the message aside. “They will die w
here they stand!”

  I was certain the king was right, yet I had to admire the pluck of the few Greeks who had answered so smartly. What sort of people were these? Hadn’t they heard that my master ruled the entire civilized world?

  We waited two days, then three, the king’s patience thinning as the hours dragged by. Because we expected our ships to arrive at any moment, no one had rationed our supplies. Food and water were scarce, and the king knew he had to act if he wanted to preserve morale and keep his army strong.

  On the fourth day, he assembled his front line of foot soldiers, composed mostly of foreign slaves. This motley crew charged the ancient wall, but were cut down by Greek spearmen before ever scaling it. Discouraged but undaunted, the king sent in a second line, a corps of skilled mercenaries. They charged the wall with a great deal more skill and valor, but they died as readily as the slaves.

  His eyes narrowing, my master called for his Immortals, ten thousand strong. Courageous, armored, and seemingly invincible, they charged the moldering wall with swords and spears, sliding in the blood of fallen comrades as the sea thundered in their ears.

  But the Immortals proved to be as vulnerable as the slaves and mercenaries. From a golden throne high upon a hill, my king watched as the cocksure Greeks forced his legendary army to retreat. The next morning the king sent the Immortals forward again, and again they suffered heavy losses.

  As the Immortals bandaged their wounds and counted their dead, a messenger arrived in a small ship. He prostrated himself before the king and reluctantly reported that two hundred royal warships had been lost in a fierce storm.

  My master bristled with indignation, and for a moment I wondered if he would again send his army to scourge and curse the sea. One of the king’s counselors managed to escort the messenger away before the king turned his anger on the bearer of bad news, but I feared what might happen next. He could execute his generals, his mercenaries, or his horses; only the gods knew whom the king might hold responsible. . . .

  Fortunately, a disturbance at the edge of the tent caught our attention. A guard shouldered his way through the attendants, leading a stranger by the arm. “A Greek,” the guard said simply, “with news for the king.”

  The Greek prostrated himself before our king. Through an interpreter, he said that he knew of a secret trail through the woods, a trail that would allow the king to reach the enemy camp without having to scale the wall on the road. He would be happy to show the king a path that would enable our troops to get around the wall and surround the Greeks. He expected nothing for this information, but hoped for his life.

  My king leapt from this golden throne, granted the man safe passage, and stalked out to speak to his generals. As the traitorous Greek led the way, we moved out the next day, quietly climbing the mountain trail under cover of heavy timber. At one point we could look down and see the small Greek camp behind the old wall.

  A surprise attack would have wiped out the Greek defenders, but an army as large as ours could not move unnoticed through an area, no matter how thick the woods. As we made our way over the rocky terrain, most of the Greek forces fled the area below, leaving a band of only three hundred to defend Thermopylae. Intent upon proving themselves in this attack, the vengeful Immortals slaughtered all three hundred Greeks and opened the road to Athens.

  Over the course of several days, my master destroyed that city, though it had been largely deserted. He ordered his men to burn and ransack at will, and the soldiers did not hesitate to release their pent-up frustration at the delay in their victory. From his tent, my master looked out across the smoldering settlement and smiled, knowing he had finally avenged his father’s defeat.

  He had only one other goal, and it was personal: to continue on to Salamis and capture the refugee Athenians. He intended to lead them to Susa in chains, then set them to work as slaves.

  And so we marched toward Salamis, a small island off the coast of Athens. We needed the port at that city because our soldiers were hungry and our ships full of food. Three hundred Greek vessels had anchored off Salamis, but seven hundred Persian warships were sailing toward that tiny island.

  In hindsight, I realized that my master should have been content with his revenge and gone home. He should have rested, knowing that he had restored his father’s honor and proven Persia’s strength and might.

  But because he wanted to decimate his enemy, whatever gods there be acted to teach him a lesson. Once again we encountered a bottleneck, and once again the great lion was undone by a small stinging bee.

  Watching from his golden war throne on a high hill near Athens, my king sent a wave of warships into the straits around Salamis. From our vantage point it appeared as though the Greek vessels had decided to flee. But after we had gone deeper into the straits, they turned to attack, ramming our ships and leaving us with little room to maneuver. As Greek soldiers boarded our vessels with flaming torches, my master’s error became apparent—his navy was trapped like flies in a bottle.

  Our wounded ships—disabled, burning, and sinking—blocked the approach of reinforcements, and by day’s end I knew victory would not be ours. My king was so disheartened that the next morning he and his servants boarded a ship and sailed back to Persia, leaving General Mardonius in charge of the army. Mardonius had but one order: fight his way home.

  I sailed away with my master, of course, and as we loaded men and materials onto the ship that would carry us from the carnage, I looked out over our abandoned camp near Athens. Scattered over the rocky ground lay excessive riches, chests of silver talents that would have served as wages for our warriors, the adornments of many a man of high rank, golden goblets, silver bridles, tents with silk flags and golden ropes, gleaming chariots resting askew on the ground and loaded with treasure. The sight of so much glittering waste hurt my eyes, but I found it far more painful to look back at the harbor. The choppy waters outside Salamis churned with bloated bodies, planks, flaccid sails, and so many overturned ships that a man could almost travel from ship to shore by stepping on battle debris.

  Late that night, when most of the sailors were sleeping in their hammocks, my master left his cabin and went up on deck. He stood at the rail, moodily watching the sea. His guards stood to one side, and I waited behind him—close enough to be of use, but far enough to be unobtrusive.

  I can’t say exactly what my master was thinking, but I sensed the darkness that engulfed him. The illness or evil spirit had returned and confused my master’s mind. He wore an expression of mute wretchedness, and I found myself pitying the most powerful man in the world.

  To whom do you turn when your generals have scattered for fear of royal retribution? In whom can you confide when no one dares meet your gaze?

  I spread my feet, balancing on the gently bobbing deck of the rushing ship. The sea whispered in my ear, the black night caressed me with a damp hand, and I felt myself getting drowsy—

  But then the king turned to look at me, and my heart stopped.

  “Folly,” he said simply, then waited as if expecting a reply.

  What could I say? I nodded out of sheer instinct, for a slave must agree at all times, and that response seemed to satisfy him. He turned back toward the sea, and we remained on the deck for another quarter of an hour, but he did not speak again.

  A few months later, the Persian army met defeat on a plain near Plataea, an area northwest of Athens. The splendid Greek campaign was over, thousands of men had been slaughtered, and the empire had not gained even an acre of new territory.

  From my discreet post I studied the king’s face as he received the dire news. On the day he assumed his father’s throne, he had taken the name Xsaya-rsan because it meant ruling over heroes, a name incompatible with defeat. But defeat had confronted him in Greece, and my master did not know how to deal with an unpleasant reality.

  And this reality gnawed at him.

  A king of the Medes and Persians had failed to extend the empire. Months of preparation and toil, alo
ng with tons of gold and silver had been wasted. Valiant and loyal Persian soldiers had given their lives for nothing.

  The defeat needled my master during daylight hours and haunted him during the night, compelling him to thrash and groan in his sleep.

  His appetite waned until he grew thin before my eyes. Streaks of gray appeared in his hair and beard. His temper shortened, as did his patience. Musicians and actors who had amused him for years brought him no joy, neither did hunting or riding. He had always liked the company of his young nephew, but he did not send for Mushka. He spent many quiet hours in his chamber, and I alone knew that he spent those hours lying flat on his back while he stared at the ceiling.

  I saw what no one else did. Because he could not express his shame or regret, I bore those emotions for him. And I have recorded these things, because the world should know that he did not bear loss easily.

  As I sat in my discreet corner with an eye turned to the couch where my master lay silent, I felt the weight of his inherited burden: for over fifty years a line of legendary kings had ruled the vast kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. My master had been the first to experience such an appalling failure.

  Like a looming shadow, we both felt the spirit of the great Darius disapproving from the tomb.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hadassah

  AFTER ACCEPTING BINYAMIN’S BRIDE CONTRACT, I began to dream about my wedding. Wrapped in the shades of night, I would see myself working in the kitchen with Miriam, preparing dinner for Mordecai. My fingers trembled as I lowered a loaf of bread to the table because Binyamin had told me to be ready. I didn’t know exactly when he would come, but Miriam and I had spent the day preparing for his arrival. I bathed that morning and then dressed in a new tunic. As a final touch, I put on the traditional bridal headdress trimmed with gold coins.

  A bridal chest filled with wedding garments waited by the door.

  I carried a platter of fruit and cheese to the table and froze as I heard noise from the street. A great many people were coming, and they were shouting in celebration. This could only be a wedding party.