Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294)

by Hunt, Angela Elwell

  Surely not. Mordecai had met death before, and he had never carried on in the city square. He did not wear sackcloth even for Miriam.

  I rose from my bed and hurried to the room we used as a wardrobe. The walls were covered with garments, fine tunics and cloaks, fine enough for a queen or her cousin.

  “Here.” I drew out a nondescript robe of dark linen. “Take this, and a gold belt, and find some decent sandals to fit a man. I don’t know what ails my cousin, but I can’t have him sitting in the square. Take a shawl, something to cover his head, and see if one of the eunuchs will go with you. He needs to go home, change his clothes, and compose himself.”

  My maids flew into action, knowing even better than I what a respectable older man should wear. Within minutes they had folded a stack of fine garments, a gift any man should be happy to receive.

  Even Mordecai.

  “Hulta and Rokita, please take these at once,” I instructed. “Be firm with my cousin and see that he dresses properly and returns to his post. If he protests, remind him . . . remind him that he is cousin to the queen.” I said these last words in a hoarse whisper, but my maids understood. They drew their veils over their faces and hurried away, intent on their errand.

  I went to the balcony, mentally tracking their steps as I looked over the garden and the river in the distance. Had age begun to affect Mordecai’s mind? Had some trivial loss sent him over the edge and driven him to dress in burlap? He had always been the most dignified of men, the most self-possessed. The thought of him on his knees in the street, pouring ashes on his head while he wailed in some imagined agony . . .

  I shivered as a heavy weight settled in my stomach. I would care for Mordecai no matter his condition, but how could I care for him while I lived in the palace? For all the luxury around me, I lived in a gilded cage. I could not go to Mordecai personally, nor could I bring him to live with me. I could, perhaps, arrange for someone to live with him, someone who would cook for him and make certain he did not hurt himself. . . .

  I gripped the edge of the balcony as an eerie howling rose from the city beyond the royal fortress. Susa, it seemed, had either been taken over by grief or my cousin had developed a hundred agonized voices.

  Hulta and Rokita returned within the hour. Hulta still carried the garments I had sent, and Rokita’s eyes watered with unshed tears.

  “Live forever, my lady,” Rokita said, falling before me. “We found your cousin, but he would not take the clothes.”

  “Nor would he be persuaded to leave,” Hulta added. “He is sound in mind and body, my queen, and he insisted that he has reason to mourn.”

  “But why?” I looked from Hulta to Rokita for an answer, but their faces remained blank. “What has happened to put him in such a state?”

  Hatakh, who had been silently waiting at the back of the chamber, stepped forward. “Shall I go to him, my queen?”

  I blinked, stunned by a glimmer in my chief eunuch’s eye. He knew something he was not willing to tell me.

  “Hatakh, do you know why my cousin mourns in the city square?”

  The eunuch met my gaze without flinching. “I have an idea.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  His eyes remained deadly serious. “I dare not spread rumors, my queen. But I am willing to speak to your cousin and return to you. I will tell you everything he says.”

  I stared, probing his countenance for some clue, but Hatakh had not achieved his high position through transparency. “All right, go at once. And bring me the full story. I must know what has upset my cousin so.”

  I spent the rest of the morning pacing in my chamber. When I wasn’t pacing, I stood outside on the balcony, listening for cries on the wind. Once or twice I thought I heard sustained wailing, but the sounds of music, workmen, and the harem children drowned out most of the city sounds.

  Finally Hatakh returned, and not empty-handed. He carried a leather satchel, and from it he withdrew a parchment scroll. “The king’s vizier,” he said, not wasting time with formalities, “has written a decree in the king’s name. According to the edict, on the thirteenth day of Adar, every Persian has the right to kill any Jew, young or old, and confiscate their belongings.” He unfurled the scroll and handed it to me. “The edict has been published and proclaimed throughout the empire.”

  I skimmed the document and gasped as the words blurred before my eyes. “How can this be? How could the king allow something so senseless and cruel?”

  Hatakh had a servant’s face; almost anything could have been going on behind that blank facade, yet his eyes narrowed with dislike. “Mordecai knew more of the story, my queen. This is completely Haman’s doing. He persuaded the king with half-truths born out of hatred and personal animosity for your cousin. He also offered to deposit three hundred thirty tons of silver into the king’s treasury in order to enact the decree.”

  “Surely the king refused!”

  “He did, my lady, as one will when bargaining, but the money will still be paid and given back to Haman to pursue this evil end. And finally there is this: your cousin directs you to go to the king to beg for mercy and plead for your people.”

  Your cousin directs you . . .

  The words hung in the air, dancing before my eyes. Mordecai had not commanded me in years, not since I left his house, yet now he was commanding me again. As my adoptive father, he had every right to do so, but did he realize what he was saying? Everyone knew that to boldly walk into the king’s throne room meant instant death. I had done it once before to save the king’s life, but his love had given me courage. Things were different now. Yet that’s what Mordecai was asking . . . no, commanding me to do.

  I turned to Hatakh. “Go to my cousin again,” I said. “And remind him—pointedly—that he must know that for me to go to the king means death. He is not asking an easy thing.”

  Hatakh nodded, acknowledging my concern.

  “Furthermore—” my voice broke—“tell him the king has not called for me in over a month. So—never mind. Just tell him; he’ll understand.”

  He would understand that the king’s love for me had grown cool. He’d understand that I was no longer the king’s favorite, so I had no assurance that he’d look on me with favor. If he wanted to be rid of me as he had wanted to be rid of Vashti, it would be easy for him not to extend his scepter and grant me mercy.

  “Go,” I told Hatakh. “I will not move from this spot until I receive your reply.”

  Hatakh returned a short while later—so quickly, in fact, that I wondered if he had only pretended to speak to my cousin.

  But his reply was pure Mordecai. “Your cousin,” the eunuch began, “says you should not imagine that you will escape just because you live in the palace. You are hidden at the moment, but you will not always be secreted away. And do not trust in the king’s protection—if you doubt his loyalty now, you will doubt it after the thirteenth of Adar. If you avoid approaching the king, you will still be in jeopardy. It is as dangerous for you to stay away from the king as it is for you to go to him.

  “Mordecai,” Hatakh went on, “says that if you keep quiet at this time, deliverance and relief for the Jews will come from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. And who knows if you were made queen for just such a time as this?”

  I lifted my head, waiting for something else, but Hatakh had finished. I smiled my thanks, then gestured for him and all the maids to leave the room.

  I needed to be alone. I needed time to think.

  When the last servant had closed the door, I crawled onto my couch and buried my face in my hands. Who was I, and why had I been thrust into this place? I was no obedient Jewish girl; I had not yearned for martyrdom or a prophet’s mantle. I was no brave soldier like Deborah, no prophetess like Miriam, no devoutly praying Hannah. I was a foolish girl who yearned for luxury and lovely dresses and social status. I had been so concerned with superficial things that my first thought today had been to get Mordecai out of embarrassing sackcl
oth and into a proper tunic. To get him out of the dust and back to the King’s Gate.

  And that, I now realized, was why he dressed in rags. He had not resorted to public mourning because he felt responsible for Haman’s edict, for who blames the victim for the injustice done to him? He could easily have sent me a message, so he had not poured ashes on his head merely to get my attention.

  He had dressed in mourning because he knew a public display would spur me to action. That I would promise anything to get him off the street.

  By dressing in sackcloth, Mordecai had held up a mirror, forcing me to see my own superficiality and self-centeredness. I didn’t want to go to the king because I feared losing my life—how could I even utter those words when thousands of other Jews would lose their lives if I didn’t go?

  Moses, Gideon, and Saul, my own kinsmen, had expressed hesitation when Adonai asked them to accept a difficult task, but they had expressed their fears in terms of their unworthiness of HaShem’s call. I had expressed mine as simple cowardice.

  I was terrified. Of watching my husband reject me. Of seeing a hard, cold light in his eyes. Of hearing the swish of a swift sword as it curved toward my neck.

  I paused to take a few deep breaths, to knit the raveled cloth of my courage.

  As always, Mordecai had led me to see the truth, as unpleasant as it was. And since thousands of Persians called me queen, the time had come for me to act like royalty. But how did I do that?

  I closed my eyes and heard Mordecai’s voice on a wave of memory. “HaShem has commanded us to fast on one day only, the Day of Atonement. On this day we consider our unworthiness and our sin, and we repent of our disobedience. We end our fast with thanksgiving and a commitment to live differently, so we will not fall into sin again.”

  A fast? I had not fasted since coming to the palace.

  As a child I had voluntarily fasted with Miriam and Mordecai on various ritual days. But for me the fast had been only a minor inconvenience, for I gorged myself before sunrise and stuffed my empty stomach as soon as the sun set.

  This fast would be different. I would follow Mordecai’s instruction, denying myself food so that I might think of the ways of Adonai and commit myself to His plan, no matter what it might be. I would repent of my shallow self-centeredness, and I would confess that my heart had been set on my pleasures and not His will. I would spend the days of my fast in prayer and contemplation, forgetting about food, cosmetics, frivolous pursuits, and the luxury of my bathing ritual.

  I would send my little dog to stay with the harem children.

  I would wear a simple linen gown and wait alone in my chamber, feeding my soul instead of my body. And when I felt Adonai’s strength flowing through my veins, I would rise, dress, and do my duty.

  I raised my voice and called for my servants. When they had all returned, I met Hatakh’s gaze head on. “Give my cousin this message: Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go to see the king. If I must die, I must die.”

  And that, Hatakh reported when he returned, was enough to persuade Mordecai to go home and change his clothes.

  After explaining my plan to fast for three days, a horrified Hatakh protested that going so long without food or water would deprive me of my beauty, the thing I would need most to win mercy from the king.

  Beauty? I wanted to laugh. As a child I had yearned for it, as a new bride I had been grateful for it, and as a queen I had realized its deficiencies. Solomon was right—beauty was fleeting, and now I wanted the king to love me for the woman I was beneath the cosmetics and perfumes. I wanted him to yearn for my company, my thoughts, and my soul. I did not want to be just another beauty from the harem.

  After giving Hatakh a wan smile, I closed the doors to my chambers, locking myself and my maids inside. I didn’t worry about the king sending for me—the last month had proved how completely I had been replaced in his thoughts and affections. Whether my rival was another woman or a vizier, what did it matter?

  The king no longer loved me like he once did. And I could no longer make excuses for his inattention.

  Thus began the darkest hours of my life. I walked through my rooms with the shutters drawn to block the sun. I did not want sunshine and brightness; I wanted no reminders of the beautiful plain beneath the palace mount. I did not want to look out upon the citizens of Susa, because I had to face a hard truth: over the years, I had insulated myself from reality. I had come to care for my sheltered self more than I cared for my own people.

  By wearing torn burlap and ashes, my cousin had reminded me that we Jews were not like the rest of the world. We walked in it, traded in it, communicated in it, and did acts of kindness for it. To the casual observer, we might have looked like ordinary people, but we were not. About that, at least, Haman was right.

  We were children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and we served an invisible God, who remained close to us no matter where we lived. But our hearts did not—should not—belong to this world.

  Caught up in a flood of memory, I closed my eyes and heard Mordecai reading from Deuteronomy: “What great nation is there that has God as close to them as Adonai our God is, whenever we call on him? What great nation is there that has laws and rulings as just as this entire Torah which I am setting before you today?”

  Though we had disobeyed HaShem’s laws and rulings, and though He had scattered us throughout the world, preserving only a remnant in our beloved Jerusalem, still He had promised never to desert us. Never to abandon us. As long as we did not abandon Him.

  I had done exactly what my people had done. I had grown up knowing about HaShem and His requirements of a holy people, but I had kept His precepts at arm’s length, observing them in my head while my heart exulted in the world around me. I had refrained from work on the Sabbath while dreaming of a Persian boy; I had worn modest gowns while coveting the luxurious silks of the merchant’s daughter. I had been reluctant to marry Binyamin, and I had secretly rejoiced to find myself living in the palace, where I could indulge every hidden yearning while affecting an air of quiet martyrdom when speaking to Mordecai.

  Now my life hung in the balance, as did the lives of my people. And all I could do was pray.

  I had no answers. I had no assurances. I had no children to guarantee my place in the harem. Even if the king chose to spare my life when I went to him, he could very well cast me away or sell me into slavery, and no one would protest.

  But if I did not go to the king, thousands of Jews, possibly thousands of thousands, would not survive the year.

  For two full days and nights my maids and I prayed for courage, for resolve, and for strength. I confessed my sins, my frailty, and my idol worship. Though I had never bowed before a graven image, I had worshipped my love the king, and for a while he had been my everything. And no one but Adonai should hold that place in my heart.

  I wept and prayed, though prayer gave me no answers and no assurances.

  What it gave me was the confidence that I would stand before my God and my king with a clear conscience.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Harbonah

  WHEN YOU ARE A SERVANT—especially if you are a slave and have grown up in service—those who order you about and wait for you to provide food, clothing, and whatever else they may need, tend to forget that you have a mind and feelings of your own.

  On the third morning of Queen Esther’s fast, I stepped into the king’s bedchamber and dragged a young concubine out of his bed. The girl was heavy-footed and sleepy, so it was with great difficulty that I managed to get her into a robe and send her back to the harem. I would let Hegai take care of the concubine; the king was my priority.

  I crept around the room, cracking the shutters so that the morning light could gently wake my master. Haman had remained at the palace until late last night; he and the king had downed many cups of wine before Haman d
eparted and the king sent for a woman. I went to bed after that. The king probably fell asleep before the girl arrived, but she had remained in his bed, undoubtedly to boast to her peers.

  I set out the chamber pot and poured fresh water into a basin, then laid out a towel and a bottle of oil for his hair and beard. A servant brought a bowl of fresh fruit and bread; I set them on a tray near the window. Now all that remained was for the king to wake and begin his morning routine. As soon as he finished, I would be free to check on the queen.

  My stomach twisted as I shooed flies away from the sliced fruit. I couldn’t help thinking of Esther and her maids, who had not partaken of any food or liquid over the past two days. I had been so worried about them that I had found it difficult to eat, counting every hunger pang as commiseration for Esther’s cause. My prayers would have reached no farther than the ceiling, for I was a man without gods, but at least the queen would face the king knowing she had my earnest support.

  The king stirred in his bed, and I retreated into the shadows. Only when he sat up and looked about did I clear my throat, reminding him that I stood nearby if he needed anything.

  “Eunuch—” his voice sounded tired—“do we have a banquet planned for this evening?”

  “No, my king.” I stepped out from behind the sheer curtain. “You may dine privately if you like.”

  “Make it so. I would like to enjoy a quiet night—no guests at all. I have begun to weary of people who hover like flies.”

  I could only hope he was referring to his vizier.

  My sleepy master scrubbed his scalp with his knuckles. “Do I have a full day?”

  “Emissaries from Babylon are coming to speak to you about water rights,” I reminded him, “and three of your generals have petitioned for an audience. They want to discuss plans for establishing trade with a Grecian city.”

  The king sighed and threw back the silk coverlet. “Let’s begin, then. Sounds like we won’t have a spare minute until dark.”