Esther

by Rebecca Kanner

  There was not much room between him and where Cyra lay across the horse’s flanks. He shifted forward so I could squeeze into the saddle behind him.

  I had never ridden on a horse, and I had never been so close to a man. I pressed my side against him to steady myself, and at the horse’s first unsteady step I put an arm around his waist. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid he might feel it through his armor. With the other hand I held on to Cyra.

  I wanted to beg him to turn around and return Cyra and me to the village. But I knew it would do no good to beg. I was going to the palace, and Cyra was going to the dakhma.

  Please God, do not place so much suffering before me again, unless You have given me the power to stop it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  THE MARKET

  I cannot go on had been Cyra’s refrain. When I slid down from Erez’s horse and was tied again to the line, Cyra’s words walked with me in her place. I finally knew how she felt. I wanted to be strong, but it takes strength to hold on to hope, and her death had left me little. How could I have let her die?

  Before we reached Shushan the sole of my left sandal ripped. Perhaps this is how I will die, from a torn sandal. My foot grew so hot that several times I almost dropped to my knees. When I heard the market not far ahead, I did not know whether to be overjoyed or to despair. We had entered Shushan. If I squinted up over the market square, I would see the king’s huge palace looming just beyond it.

  It would not be much farther.

  Voices boomed in the market square. Mordecai had often said that no deal was made in fewer than two hundred words, and that the best merchants’ voices could travel half a day’s journey in front of them. If a merchant could not send his voice through a crowd he would not survive in the capital. His only hope would be to peddle his wares from village to village.

  While I had always hated how my ears rung after going to the market, at that moment I would gladly welcome the ringing if only I could return home with it, and wait, as I had each day, for Mordecai to come back from the palace to eat the food I had prepared for him. Peeling pomegranates, chopping figs, kneading bread, milking the goat and cleaning his pen now seemed like great pleasures. I thought longingly of my almond honey cakes. Dipped in rosewater syrup they were Mordecai’s favorite dessert. I envied the girl who had made a batch a few days before, as though she were someone other than me.

  As the march got closer to the market, I kept my head down. I could hear merchants shouting the praises of their wares:

  “Look here!” a man with a Nubian accent yelled. “Genuine ivory combs adorned with ostrich feathers! Priceless treasures, yet I will give them away for two sigloi each.”

  “You will give them away if the price is right, eh?” a local merchant asked. “I have vases like those in the palace—handles decorated with winged ibex—for only a few more sigloi than those genuine ivory combs.”

  “Who should spend his sigloi on vases when right here I have beaded curtains that will make every woman who enters a room beautiful?” a man with an Indian accent called out. “Men, string them from one wall to the other and turn your hut into a palace with many rooms. Women, hang them in your huts, and you will receive all of your husband’s love, and gifts even more valuable than that.”

  “I will sell you what no other vendor will,” another merchant yelled. “I offer you courage and long life. Look here! A saber engraved with a man hunting a giant tiger. The length will give you the reach of a god and valor beyond measure.”

  I had been looking at a trail of blood in front of me, where one of the girls’ feet was losing a battle against the ground. But when I heard the sound of cart wheels, I glanced up. Canopies of bright red, indigo, and gold streamed behind the merchants’ wooden stalls as they made way for the march. Will I never see any of this again? I knew that the only women allowed out of the palace were the ones who became concubines to the king’s army and traveled behind the soldiers.

  If I could run, it would be a short journey to Mordecai’s hut.

  Can I run? I had taken so much for granted. Only a few days ago, before Mordecai sent me out to the country, I had been in the market. I had sifted absently through pomegranates, wild plums, and cherries whose juices I had never yearned for as deeply as I did now.

  Now I was returning as a captive.

  Except that I had decided I could not allow the chance at freedom to pass me by, even if the chance was small and the price for failure steep. The only way I would know if I could run was to push off the ground and see what came of it.

  The rope scratched my flesh as I forced it over my knuckles and down the length of my fingers. I draped it over my wrists.

  Most of the soldiers had ridden to the front to clear the marketplace—I did not hear more than a few horses in back of the line. As soon as we got to the emptied market I would run. I would force my bloody feet to carry me through the merchants, past the modest mud huts beyond, and finally to the row of larger huts made of glazed bricks where I had lived with Mordecai. The Immortals’ horses would be too large to follow.

  I looked to the side of the road, let the rope drop, and pushed off the ground.

  I had only taken a few steps when I stumbled and fell onto my hip. Even before I looked up I felt eyes piling on top of me. I pulled my head scarf down to hide as much of my face as possible and stood. My feet still burned and now my hip burned as well. Perhaps I could not run, but if I could quickly walk into the merchants and lose myself among them I might still find my way home.

  A horse rode up next to me and my head scarf was yanked from my head. Parsha’s huge honey-colored eyes stared down at me. “A mouse is small but runs quickly. An elephant moves slowly but is not easily brought down. I was hoping you would be like some combination of these, but that after much chase I would bring you down anyway.” He affected a sigh. “You are a great disappointment. You have left me bored and I will not forgive you for it. Now you will walk uncovered through this crowd, tied to the back of my horse.”

  I could no longer keep the despair from my voice. “Why?” If I were not so parched I knew that tears would have streamed down my naked face. “Why would you do such a thing to me?”

  “Because I am Parshandatha, firstborn of the empire’s foremost adviser and nobleman Haman, and I can.”

  If I’d had a dagger in my hand, I would have summoned the strength to plunge it into his heart. I felt the power of my hatred. It gave me strength. “If you are firstborn, why is it Dalphon who is an officer?”

  “Because he was quicker to take up the spear of a fallen officer than I. And this is as it should be. The officer is the man everyone’s eyes are upon. But me, born only one moment sooner than Dalphon, I always do exactly as I please.” He turned the head scarf over in his palm and held it out to me. “And now it will please me to give this back to you.”

  When I reached for it he ripped it in two and let it fall to the ground.

  “My father did not rid the empire of Queen Vashti so that a peasant could be installed in her place. My cousin Halannah will be queen. If not, the girl who thwarts her will suffer more than anyone has ever suffered before.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  VASHTI

  Queen Vashti has committed an offense not only against Your Majesty but also against all the officials and against all the peoples in all the provinces of King [Xerxes]. For the queen’s behavior will make all wives despise their husbands.

  —Book of Esther 1:16, 17

  Only a few weeks before I was kidnapped by the soldiers, Mordecai had told me of the feast king Xerxes held in the third year of his reign—the one that led to Vashti’s exile. He had been teaching me to read, and he had brought home a scroll of parchment from the palace. We each held one side open upon the high table where Mordecai usually pored over numbers late into the night.

  In the middle of a sentence I was reading, a long number-filled sentence about taxes collected from the
eastern provinces, Mordecai let go of the scroll. It coiled away from his hand like a snake that has been poked with a sharp stick.

  “Hadassah,” he said quietly. He did something he had done only a few times before: he looked directly at me. He was a head taller than me, but because he stooped, his eyes were level with mine. They were shiny in the glow of the oil lamp that sat upon the table.

  “There is a terrible story I must tell you. All the more terrible because it is true. It is more important for you to know than any palace record you will find upon a scroll.”

  He was twenty-four, only ten years older than me, but people often assumed he was my father. Indeed this is how I thought of him. I assumed he thought of me as a daughter.

  He had been the king’s accountant from a young age, and possessed none of the fancifulness of youth. He had a close-cropped beard in the Persian fashion. His brown eyes were small and tired from looking all day at numbers. His lips were perpetually pursed in thought, thoughts he never shared.

  Every once in a while, though, he did like to tell a good tale. But this one seemed to stick in his throat. “I do not like to burden you,” he said.

  I gently pushed the scroll aside, out of Mordecai’s reach, so he would not be able to resume our lesson. “If you do not continue I will be burdened by thoughts of what is too terrible for you to tell me.”

  “A couple of years ago, Xerxes feasted all the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, for one hundred eighty days. I was amongst these men, but I was not one of them.”

  “Because you are a Jew?”

  Mordecai flinched. We did not speak of our religion, even when we were alone. I was not sure why, as it seemed everyone already knew he was a Jew. In fact, in the marketplace he was referred to as “Mordecai the Jew.”

  He continued, “Because they were merrier and more drunk than those responsible for a kingdom should be. They drank wine out of golden vessels until they passed out upon beds of silver and gold. Each time they woke they resumed their drinking with even greater zeal than before.

  “The banquet was a celebration of the king’s abundant riches of food—meat from over twenty different animals, wines from every province. The men enjoyed all of it while girls from across the empire danced for them. Girls barely older than you, Hadassah.”

  I flushed.

  “After this banquet he held another one for seven days in the palace garden, and all the men of the palace, high and low alike, attended. Again girls danced for them. The girls’ hips and the naked flesh of their stomachs helped build the men’s appetites for the women the king provided them. But they could not quell the men’s appetite for the sight of the queen. On the seventh day, a cry came from one of the gold couches, ‘Vashti!’ Soon others joined their voices to the first man’s, and their unified cry was so great that the alabaster columns seemed to shake with their desire.

  “She was the most prized of all the king’s possessions, and every man suddenly realized that it was, after all, her that he had come to see.”

  I had heard of her legendary beauty. She was a Chaldean renowned for an abundance of womanly assets divided by a small waist. Her beauty was spoken of by men and women alike. Sometimes men who were caught trying to sneak into the palace confessed they had been attempting to catch a glimpse of her. Occasionally Xerxes allowed one of them to see her before hanging him upon the gallows.

  “The heart of the king was soaked with wine,” Mordecai went on, “and when his adviser, Haman, bent to his ear and suggested the queen not only come before the entire banquet but come before them in only her crown, he could barely get the words out before the king clapped his hands together and cried ‘Yes!’ ”

  Mordecai was prone to exaggeration, but I did not interrupt to ask if he had been close enough to the king to hear this. I wanted him to continue telling the story.

  “As though the idea had been his own, Xerxes commanded Haman and his six other chamberlains, ‘Bring me my queen, naked but for her crown. My subjects will see that a man who possesses such a perfect vessel is one worth fighting for.’ ”

  Knowing what came of this fighting, I could not help but groan inwardly at Xerxes’ words. The Persians had lost many men and all except a few crumbs of their pride to the Greeks.

  “But not one of the seven chamberlains the king sent to Vashti could rouse her from the silken cushions upon which she reclined with the noblemen’s wives. The women too were feasting, and when the chamberlains appeared the women did not set down their goblets.

  “ ‘The king has sent us,’ Haman said.

  “It is said that at this, Vashti seemed to sober. She set down her goblet and inclined her head at the courtier she hated more than any other.

  “ ‘He commands you to appear before the banquet.’

  “ ‘Get my crown and my purple robe at once,’ she ordered one of her handmaids.

  “ ‘You will not need your robe,’ Haman said.

  “ ‘Out of respect for the king, I, his queen—and also yours—will appear in my royal robe.’

  “ ‘He does not want you to wear your robe.’

  “ ‘Then where is the robe he would like me to wear?’

  “ ‘He does not want you to wear a robe, or anything else, other than your crown. Not even sandals.’ ”

  Only slaves did not wear sandals.

  “She did not raise an eyebrow or react in any way. ‘No,’ she said, and picked up her goblet again.

  “The chamberlains beside Haman pleaded with her. ‘Your life, beautiful queen,’ one cried, ‘is the king’s, and he will take it if you do not obey.’ It was actually his own life that he was pleading for. The chamberlains thought the king was too proud of Vashti’s beauty to harm her, but that they themselves, no matter how close to the king they were, could be replaced. All of them, except Haman. Or perhaps he too worried, but he did not let his worry overshadow his ambition. Because surely he wanted the queen to refuse the king’s request, and that was why he had suggested it.

  “So he must have been happy when Queen Vashti could not be swayed by the chamberlains’ pleading. It wounded her that the king would ask her to parade naked except for her crown in front of a room of drunken men. ‘The king has many concubines; I am not one of them’ she said.

  “Upon hearing this, the chamberlains had a litter brought forth to carry Vashti into the banquet, so she could enter like a queen and not a concubine. But when they ordered servants to lift her onto it, she held out her hand to stop them. ‘Tell my husband that I cannot come to his banquet, while entertaining my own.’

  “Neither the chamberlains nor the noblemen’s wives could reason with her.

  “ ‘If it please Your Majesty,’ one of the chamberlains said, ‘let me go to the king and beg for your modesty, so that you could wear sandals and a beaded scarf across your hips.’

  “ ‘I will not beg for what is rightfully mine.’

  “ ‘Your Majesty—’

  “ ‘Go now.’

  “ ‘But—’

  “ ‘Now.’ ”

  “Surely people could sympathize with her position,” I interrupted. What woman would want to be paraded naked in front of a thousand men?

  “Perhaps they could have, if they had not been so bent on war. Vashti’s grandfather Nebuchadnezzar was killed by Cyrus. This murder was a teacher to her, just as I am to you. It taught her that no victory is great enough to completely wipe away the losses of war.”

  “Nebuchadnezzar destroyed our temple and started the Babylonian Captivity of our people. Should not we be glad Cyrus killed him for us?” I asked. Every Jew knew that a few decades before, when Xerxes’ grandfather Cyrus was king, he had issued a decree permitting Jews to go back to their homelands. Fifty thousand Jews had returned to Jerusalem. “We are too often at war already.”

  “Cyrus has rightly earned the love of our people. I know war is necessary, I wish only to tell you that we as Jews do not make war wi
thout reason, and we do not glorify it. Vashti was like us in this way, and believed the king’s expansion of his empire was not reason enough to justify the many lives that would be lost. She was smart and strong-willed enough to suspect that the king was asking her to come before the men naked because he hoped to win their support for an attack upon the Greeks. The men who write history will hate her for this. To a man with a quill in his hand, murder, war, and heartbreak make far better subjects than peace.”

  “Do not you usually hold a quill, cousin?”

  “Yes, and I do not write of peace. I write down the taxes collected from the peoples who pay for luxuries they will never experience. They will never be invited to the palace to lie upon beds of silver and gold and share in the exotic wines and meat they pay for.”

  I should not have asked him a question. He was always unhappy about one injustice or another. “What happened to Vashti?”

  “When the chamberlains returned without her, it was silent for the first time since the wine had started to flow seven days earlier. As Haman put his lips near the king’s ear, you could have heard a feather floating to the floor. Those closest to the king say that even through the screen they could see his face grow the same red as the sun setting upon the desert sand. They heard his golden goblet break upon the marble floor.”

  “But a golden goblet does not break so easily.”

  “The tale men fashion is as important as what really happened. Until many years have passed. And then it is more important.”

  Is this the lesson he means for me to learn? I could not think of what else I was supposed to glean from this strange tale. It seemed to have nothing at all to do with me.

  “Haman pounced upon this opportunity that he had so cleverly made for himself. He could finally rid the palace of the voice that spoke most loudly against the war. He had a maiden niece whose beauty rivaled Vashti’s—a girl who was as hungry for war as a general.