From his perch, the King shook his head with a rueful smile of mock disappointment at the man's folly. Then he held up his goblet as if to say, Too bad-it seems we ruined a nice toast. A eunuch rushed over to him with a riatin from which to refill the goblet.
At once a sea of goblets rose around me, along with the deep clamor of a thousand male voices in unison, shouting out a single word: “Xerxes!” And a thousand goblets tilted to pour wine into a thousand throats-all except mine. I was trying not to vomit from combined disgust and sheer panic. Once again, my own private nightmare came rushing back to me.
Mordecai leaned sideways toward me, more unobtrusive than ever. “It is an offense punished by death to approach the King without his bidding,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Unless he lowers his scepter or gives some sign of his interest in the person, the sentence is immediate.”
His private commentary was interrupted by the hasty arrival of two Palace aides who dragged the dead body away and ran back for the severed head and a quick swab of the floor with sea sponges. Then Mordecai glanced up, and I followed his gaze. The King had summoned a group of men from the platform with an imperious wave of his arm. The men had arisen and gathered around the royal person. Noise in the room seemed to diminish somewhat as the revelers sensed that a subject of some importance was being broached.
“These are the royal eunuchs,” Mordecai whispered to me. “Hadassah, do you know what a eunuch is?”
I nodded his way in the affirmative, only slightly lying. I had a vague notion of men against whom the ultimate affront had been committed.
“These are the special ones,” he continued. “The only ones allowed to move freely between the worlds of male and female. Some say they're the most influential persons in the kingdom even though they're little more than slaves.”
Several moments of intense discussion followed upon the dais, its topic known only to this intimate circle-at least for the moment. Whatever the eunuchs' suggestion, it found favor, for the King finally raised his goblet again and shouted something that I could not discern until it was repeated by the crowd.
“Vashti!” went the echo.
The King threw back his head, appearing to laugh, and the cry rose again, louder this time.
“Vashti!”
Vashti was the name of Xerxes' queen. Legend had it she was the most beautiful woman in the world-and Mordecai had never said anything to dispel the notion. She also was of royal lineage, giving her the additional rank of Royal Consort.
A cluster of men scurried down the steps and made a human wave part before them. The dispersal came within a few guests of where I stood, and I saw them closely. They were middle-aged men, arrayed in so much gleaming filigree that I did not know if they were staggering from the drunkenness that clearly flushed their faces, the weight of their clothing or both. One of them raised another goblet from his side and shouted her name again, as though trying to incite the crowd. They seemed to need little inducement, for soon the chant rose, “Vashti! Vashti! Vashti!” It showed no signs of diminishing.
Mordecai shot a glance of disgust my way and shook his head. He moved closer and whispered, “I told you this was no place for a beautiful young woman.”
“Why are they so anxious to see her?”
“It's not just to see her, young one. It's to see her. Understand?”
I shook my head.
He sighed deeply and shook his head. Apparently he had not wanted to elaborate. “They'll want Vashti to disrobe and parade her nakedness for the crowd. She has been hosting her own banquet for the wives and concubines of the King's officials.”
I suddenly realized that my mouth had gone completely dry, a sign of the nervousness and shock I was laboring against. I tipped my face upward toward Mordecai and asked him where I could find some water. He shook his head and motioned toward the wine table. I had never tasted the fermented fruit of the vine. He had expressly forbidden it. “It's all there is,” he said, shrugging apologetically. He stepped forward with me as I struggled to lift the heavy goblet to my lips. What flowed down my throat was at once entrancing and painful. Even as it burned, I felt my head swim in a delightful way, and a rich, musky aroma overwhelmed my senses.
I lowered the goblet and shook my head with my eyes suddenly as wide as they had been all evening. Then I looked around me in alarm, realizing that I had exhibited a most unmasculine reaction. Sure enough, three large-bellied, tall, middle-aged men began to laugh heartily at my bewilderment.
“How old are you, son?” the closest one bellowed to me.
I started to answer, but a quick movement from Mordecai reminded me of my constant need for silence. As poor as my disguise was, my fledgling attempts at vocally imitating a boy were far worse. So I feigned a knowing chuckle and pointed at my throat, as if some oral malady were responsible for my reaction to the wine.
I turned from the men and stepped away, only to be knocked back by a violent shove-I barely found my footing in time to look up at the one who had struck me. The man was walking as fast as one can without actually running. I immediately recognized him as one of the seven who had gone out to fetch Vashti only moments before. He no longer seemed drunk; in fact, it seemed like every nerve in his body was quivering from some sort of savage inward fright.
“Vashti! Vashti!” several of the men began again upon the sight of him. But the man paid no heed to anyone around him. He bounded up the steps toward the King. The royal guards stepped forward for a cursory reexamination of his face, then parted their axes and let him enter.
Now, dear reader, it is obvious to you that I was not upon the platform at this moment, so I was not privy to the strained conversation that took place. However, having served as Queen of Persia for a number of years, I know my history, and I can tell you with utter confidence what was said next and the subsequent events. Of course, it is also a matter of well-recounted public record, so my telling will be of little surprise to you, I am sure.
arbona of Lydia, the unfortunate eunuch selected to return with the obviously bad news, had already voided his bladder into his clothes by the time he reached the top of those velvet stairs, for he knew that his King was at once an expansive and a capricious host who did not suffer negative tidings gladly. He no doubt silently thanked his Persian god Ahura for the layers of robes he had worn in addition to his gold filigree, then proceeded to choose his words with the supreme effort of not bursting into tears, relieving himself further or both.
Watching him, I noticed at once the strangely feminine tilt of his head, the lilt in his high voice, his soft skin. This conversation was recounted to me thus:
“My King, there has been a most disconcerting turn of events, one which my fellow servants and I have labored mightily to reverse.”
“Speak plainly, my friend. How dire can it be?” Xerxes was standing on the dais at this time, towering over Harbona.
“Well, your Majesty, Queen Vashti refuses to come.”
There was a pause. The King's jaw muscles churned, and his facial complexion turned the color of a ripening apple. “You jest.” But a glance at the face before him confirmed the truth.
“She also refuses to give a reason, your Majesty. But even after lengthy pleas and warnings from myself and my two fellow emissaries, she maintained her refusal.”
The King grew very still, and apart from the hue of his face, he gave no further clue as to his emotions. Then he turned away and stumbled toward the center group of couches.
“The witch turned me down,” he muttered. Only a few heard this, but I learned of it later.
The communal gasp that came from among the King's closest advisers no longer reclining upon their respective pillows held a portent of death. These courtiers were deeply schooled in all matters of law and protocol, and their main function was to keep His Majesty constantly informed on these matters. “According to law,” the King asked in a halting yet deep voice, “what is to be done with Queen Vashti for not obeying the command of King
Xerxes delivered by the eunuchs?”
Memucan, the King's Master of the Audiences, rose shakily to deliver his opinion. “Queen Vashti has wronged not only your Majesty but also all the princes and all the citizens of your Majesty's provinces,” he began slowly, but his words and tone gained strength as he continued. “For Queen Vashti's conduct will become known to all women and cause them to look with contempt upon their husbands and say, `King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to come into his presence, but she did not come!' And today, all the women of Persia and Media who hear of the Queen's conduct will speak in the same manner to all the King's princes, even to every husband in the land, which will result in great contempt and anger.”
I was standing more than forty cubits from the base of the royal stairs as these words were spoken, so I could not hear all that was being said until the end, when his voice became a shout. Yet I was deeply cowed by the great silence that had once more fallen over the crowd. Instinctively I knew that something solemn and earthshaking was taking place. Mordecai stood unusually still and sober, his eyes radiating a fearful alertness. He leaned toward me and whispered, “The man speaking is Memucan, the second most powerful man in the Empire. He is Master of the Audiences. He controls the King's thousand bodyguards, called The Immortals, and decides who can enter into the King's presence. Some say he is the ultimate power in the realm.”
Above us, Memucan finished his oration. “If it pleases the King, let a royal edict be issued by His Majesty and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be rescinded, that Vashti should come no more into the presence of King Xerxes, and let the King give her royal position to another more worthy than herself.”
The gasp that then rose from the royal platform was so loud and exaggerated that I thought some royal pantomime was being performed.
Indeed, the assembled entourage was aghast then awed at the boldness and severity of Memucan's pronouncement. For indeed, Vashti was Queen of Persia at that moment. Had she appeared, even this learned consort of the King would have been compelled to bow low and kiss her outreached hand.
And in fact, I can tell you that Memucan had taken what to any other man was an intolerable risk, especially with a king as given to whims as Xerxes. But perhaps he had accurately read the King's rage and merely given voice to what His Majesty felt unable to express. In either case, Xerxes swerved drunkenly around and bellowed, “Make it so!” Then he pointed to one of the satraps in the corner and spoke in a lower voice. “You. Haman! You're a backstabbing murderer, forgive the slur, but come here!”
And Haman the Amalekite, summoned months before with all the other satraps for the military portion of this banquet, rose warily. His girth unmistakable, he approached Xerxes, and the King draped one arm unceremoniously around the old raider's shoulders. Xerxes leaned salaciously into Haman's ear, as though he were about to anoint him with a kiss. Instead, he whispered, and while no one else but Haman heard the words, nearly everyone on the platform blanched at the hardened sneer that twisted the King's features as he spoke them.
Haman nodded, smiled slyly, bowed once before the King and bounded down the steps into the crowd.
And, dear Candidate, what I will tell you next elicits nearly the same overwhelming fear and revulsion as happened the first time. As Haman rushed past where I was standing, his cloak flew up and revealed just a glimpse of something I thought I had wiped from my memory. My knees nearly gave way as I recognized that cruel emblem I had seen long ago after the murder of my family. The twisted cross! I clung to Mordecai's arm, arguing silently but fervently that I must have been mistaken-it simply couldn't be.
I later learned that Vashti was dragged screaming from the Palace even as I stood there watching her husband squeeze the last dregs from his glorious party. She and her belongings were deposited outside the King's Gate in the swiftest and most sudden reversal of fortune Persia ever had the occasion to witness. And as word of this spread through the Persian provinces, the message to women was indeed clear.
What Haman would do next would result in my life being changed forever-again.
Not long after, on a cold and moonless desert night, a group of eight horsemen rode quietly into the darkness of a wealthy Susa neighborhood not far from the King's citadel. The men, all of whom wore identical twisted crosses permanently tattooed on their backs and on their tunics, tied their horses to a young tree and ran without a sound to a nearby home. The large, white dwelling was flanked like all the rest by a high mud wall. The men vaulted it without a moment's hesitation.
As though they were following some internal map, they ran without pause into the dwelling, padded quietly up the stairs and entered a large bedroom there. In the low bed slept the publicly banished and now privately undefended Vashti, former Queen of Persia.
At once she sprang forward in her bed, her legendary raven hair tousling around her. A dark hand clamped over her mouth. Two more hands grabbed the sides of her heaving shoulders. And then a long blade began to stab-up, down, up, down, up, down....
The King's whispered order had been carried out.
All I could think, when I finally heard the rumor whispered to me by Rachel, was how silent killers in the night had slaughtered my own mother in a similar fashion.
THE ROYAL PALACE, SUSA-THREE DAYS LATER
mere dozen cubits away from the royal bedchamber, the Great Hall stood abandoned, its floors finally swept clean and scrubbed free of the stains and spills that the prolonged revelry had left behind. Even the Inner Court behind it stood empty, save for one lone sentry.
In the King's private chambers languished the reason why. The sovereign of all Persia lay prone upon his giant bed, where he had remained for three days without going any farther than his nearby bathroom. Just outside the room's walls stood a phalanx of servants, courtiers and advisers at vigil, wringing their hands and whispering anxious phrases of bewilderment and frustration, some even daring to advise.
At the end of the third afternoon, Master of the Audiences Memucan slowly pushed open the door and entered. The floor between him and the sleeping platform was strewn with golden food trays, broken dishes and scattered food. Memucan stepped gingerly around them and approached the bed.
“Your Majesty-”
“You, of all people, have some nerve coming in here,” interrupted Xerxes. “You're the one responsible for all this.”
“Responsible for what, your Majesty?”
“For my banishing the Queen, what do you think? And, of course, for what came next.”
“Your Majesty, may I remind you that I did not recommend for anyone to harm the Queen,” he said quickly, “merely banish her from her position.”
Xerxes rose in his bed now, his hair tousled and his beard twisted in three directions. “And what does one do with a banished queen, you idiot? Let her go out and become a symbol of martyrdom? An icon for the very rebellious female spirit that earned her dismissal in the first place? No! I had no choice but to order her dispatched! It's what any king would do in the circumstance!”
“Yet now your Majesty seems quite dismayed at having done just that,” he dared say.
“Being a king is hard, dirty business. You of all people should know that. Sometimes it calls for actions that turn the stomach. I did not invent the rules, you know.”
“No, sir. You did not. But may I point out that the rules also require your Majesty to appear at court, fit and powerful, for all to gaze upon and blanch in fear and respect. Your dismay over Vashti seems to have impaired that capacity.”
Xerxes now stepped from the bed, jumped down the small step to the bedroom's enormous floor and fairly leaped upon Memucan.
“You watch your tongue, do you hear? I'm still King, and with a snap of my fingers I can still have you `harmed,' as you so delicately put it!”
Memucan gently pried the King's fingers loose from around his neck and shrank back toward the entrance.
“What can I do to enhance the King's state of happiness?�
� he finally asked.
The answer came low, almost guttural in its tone. “Nothing!”
“I could find His Majesty a new queen,” Memucan finally offered. “A new Vashti, only more beautiful and far wiser. First we would assemble a new batch of eunuchs, then the finest young virgins from across the land. When Hegai is through cleaning them up and making them presentable, I could bring them one by one to your bedchamber.”
It took some time for the smile to become visible upon Xerxes' face, but soon he was beaming. And nodding his agreement to the idea most forcefully. This would take the attention away from the whole sorry incident and get his people speculating on who the next Queen of Persia would be.
One Night With the King: A Special Movie Edition of the Bestselling Novel, Hadassah by Tommy Tenney;Mark Andrew Olsen Page 10