“One of my maids wanted to smother me and would have been successful if another of them had not stopped her. I ask that this girl be sent somewhere she cannot harm me. Perhaps to the kitchens.”
“The kitchens. Have you ever been in a kitchen, Ishtar?”
“Of course, my l—”
“Then you must know that food is prepared there. If I do as you suggest, the only choice about your life left to you will be how it ends: by poison or starvation.”
I was not thinking like a queen, or even a clever maid. “Please forgive my foolishness. I trust in your wisdom to find the best place for the girl.”
“She will stay with you. There you can best watch her.”
“And she me!” I quickly bowed my head and added, “My lord.”
“You must learn to be amongst those who wish you ill.”
“Is this why you keep a lioness with you? My lord.”
“You are doing well here with her. I can hardly see how afraid you are, except that you have not taken a full breath since entering these chambers. Know that the higher you rise the more enemies you will have. Every one of them chained only as my cat is, by fear. If you are chosen as queen, many will want you dead before you conceive.”
“But Vashti’s son Artaxerxes will succeed. She was queen and her son is the rightful heir to the throne. It is rumored that Xerxes has him hidden somewhere.”
“You are not as quick as I had hoped. The rules of ascension are loose and this remains in peoples’ minds. Surely you know that Xerxes is not Darius’s oldest son, he’s the oldest son of Darius’s favorite wife, Atossa. Besides, Artaxerxes’ whereabouts are a great mystery. If he is in the palace, without Vashti here to protect him, his life will be short. Especially with the king being a man more easily swayed than the leaves of a palm in a strong wind.” He looked carefully at me. “Perhaps you do not know this about him? If so, you are the only one. Everyone wants their own daughter or sister whispering in his ear. The king’s advisers brought Vashti down because she was the one whispering in his ear and she did not favor war.”
“I do not have anything to whisper in his ear, my lord.”
“You are lucky you are fair to look upon.” Perhaps it was the sternness of his voice that brought the beast to all fours. “Or I would not allow your ignorance to go unpunished.”
I was not sure how I had erred but he seemed to be waiting for some response from me so I said, “I will not doubt you again, my lord.”
Hegai raised his palm, as though lifting something, and the lioness sat down again. “Not aloud. But take care you do not doubt me in your mind either. I see through your skin as easily as I see through the robes of the other women. You have no royal blood yet you do not think yourself a peasant.”
Though I was descended from the great king David, I spoke true when I told Hegai, “I was born little more than a peasant, my lord.”
“You will realize this like never before if you are made queen. Only then will you know how cruelly this can be used against you.”
“I have been called peasant many times in the last few days.”
“And yet you do not think yourself one of the girls here, peasant or royal.”
What he said was true. I had not felt that I was like everybody else since my parents were killed. I was an orphan.
“By your unwillingness to show the least amount of fear and by the uprightness of your spine I can see that you are not an ordinary girl,” he said. “But I must tell you: you are not yet royal in rank or disposition. Do not forget your forms of address, and take the rebellion from your face. Your mouth does not sneer, yet if I looked only at your eyes I would not know it. Pretend you are looking down at your feet—”
“But does not one naturally move in the direction in which she looks?”
“Pretend you are looking down at your feet instead of directly up to where you wish to be stationed. When you are with me or the king, look up with your head down, peeking through your eyelashes. The fewer people know where you wish to go, the fewer who will try to stop you.”
“I do not wish to be stationed. I wish to be of use. I have already been docile and”—my voice faltered slightly—“this was of no help to anyone.”
“Do not cry. Every tear takes a drop of your beauty with it. Besides, it annoys me. The first ten girls you see crying you take pity upon. Each one after that makes you hate all girls a little more.”
“I have heard that girls are not the only ones who cry, my lord.”
“Unfortunately this is true. It is rumored that Xerxes himself cries. One of his guards said so before he was put upon the gallows for it.”
Though I suspected what his answer would be, I asked anyway, “For what does he cry, my lord?”
“Vashti.”
In the silence that followed she seemed to fill the room.
After a moment, he continued, “I hope this will be to our advantage. You have the same eyes as she had, and after a year of wine and honeyed dates, your body too will be like hers. You are as fierce as Halannah, but you are not as fierce as Vashti. This is for the best. You move with the same pride peeking through a shell of subservience, but Vashti’s shell cracked, and that is why Xerxes’ advisers turned against her. She should have hidden her influence over the king better, made him think he had decided against the war himself. Your ideas must seem to be his ideas if they are to survive. You will have to find a way to make him think it is his idea to banish Halannah.”
I started to ask him how I could do this, but he cut me off. “I know you will be smarter than Vashti. You will hold your tongue until you are perfectly positioned to use it. Do not use it to senselessly lash your enemies, they will learn to see you coming. They will move out of reach. Do not let your feelings be known. It is never safe to do so—there are too many peepholes to keep track of. And do not say what you are going to do, that way no one can argue against it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Now tell me, as future queen, what is to be done with Utanah?”
I thought of Nabat, and how the jangling of her bracelets announced her. “Would my lord be generous enough to give Utanah bracelets for her wrists and ankles with bells upon them that clang together at her slightest movement? Bracelets that cannot be taken off?”
“You are starting to think like a queen. I will adorn her with bronze and silver and it will be fitted so tight to her skin that she will not ever have to be concerned about it coming loose. I will have her sent back to your chamber so you can deliver this good news to her in front of your other maids, who can learn by her example.”
He dismissed me, but as I was leaving he called out, “Do you remember this maid from your first day at the palace?”
“No, my lord.”
“Neither do I.”
Before I could ask him where Utanah had come from he raised his hand to keep me from speaking. “You may go.”
“But my l—”
“You may go.”
When I returned to my chamber I recalled all my maids besides Utanah from the harem room. I wanted Utanah to have to enter alone, with everyone’s eyes upon her.
“Mistress,” she said as she entered, “you called for me.”
I did not invite her to sit down. I gazed beneath her thick eyelashes. “Gentle Utanah, I am blessed by Ahura Mazda to have you in my service. You are devout and I wish to reward you for watching over me this past night. You will be given many bracelets of bronze and silver. They will wind tightly around your wrists, ankles, and neck.”
Utanah’s smile shook a little at the edges.
“Each bracelet will be adorned with bells that will sing for us whenever you move, a joyous song to announce my loyal servant.”
“Thank you, mistress. You are fair and kind and I will serve you with all my heart and body.”
“Yes, you will.” I held my hand out. When Utanah neared I lowered it so she had to bow deeply to put her lips upon it.
“Now you must go at once,” I
said. “I have picked out some bracelets for you and Bigthan will take you to the forge.”
Her eyes widened at the word “forge” and I was overcome with pity for her. But I did not show it. “Do not delay,” I commanded. “The forge’s fire grows hotter each moment.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
THE WOMEN’S COURT
And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to know how Esther did, and what should become of her.
—Book of Esther 2:11
My maids were loyal and agreeable after that. All but Opi, who never seemed to come all the way into the room. She would stop just inside the door, but I know her head and heart did not come even that far. It pained me to see her so unhappy. Nearly every day I ordered her to go to the harem where she could sit by the pool.
The other person I did not see as much as I would have liked was Ruti. On the second day that Ruti did not come to my chamber, I asked Bigthan if she was unwell. He told me she had been assigned to serve the virgins in the back of the harem. I tried to keep the panic from my voice. “Please tell Hegai that I would like an audience with him.”
“He may grant you an audience but he will not grant your request,” Bigthan said.
When I went in to Hegai’s chamber I bowed my head, forced a little smile, and looked up at him.
“That is the smile the king will like,” Hegai said. “Save it for him.” I had never before seen him in such a dark mood. I thought that perhaps I should save my request for another day. But I missed Ruti too greatly.
“My gracious lord, thank you for granting me an audience.”
“A brief one. There are more important matters than whatever it is you have come to see me about. The king is ever concerned with attempts on his life and lately he has become more suspicious. I wish it were Halannah instead of Nabat that I could have sent to him last night. After he took Nabat and closed his eyes to sleep, he dreamed he was drowning. When he woke his face felt scratched. He gazed into his polished copper mirror and thought that his nose was angled to one side, as though a pillow had been pressed hard against his face. He looked back at his bed and noticed that Nabat was on his left side, instead of the right, where she had been the night before.” Hegai sighed. “He has given me the task of making her disappear and has instructed me to root out any in the harem with whom she kept company.”
“And will you do this, my lord?”
“I am here and not upon the gallows, so that is a foolish question. I will not bring forth any girls who Nabat was close to, but no words will save Nabat herself.”
My tongue felt heavy in my mouth and my palm throbbed as though it were being squeezed by a hand much stronger than my own.
“Do not stand there looking as though you are wetting yourself. Make your request.”
“If it please my lord, I would like Ruti to attend me in my chamber.”
“It does not please me. That one’s mouth is twisted in bitterness and you must believe me—I have been here over twenty years—ugliness can spread from one woman to the next. It is why we keep the most beautiful together. Some girls think that by standing near a maiden who is not fair she herself will look fairer in comparison. She soon finds her own mouth has grown small and wrinkled from frowning.”
“Ple—”
“You are dismissed.”
“No, my l—”
“You are dismissed.”
I had not told my maidens why I went to see Hegai and none was bold enough to ask when I reentered my chambers. While the beaded curtain rustled behind me I took a moment to look at the crying girl. She loved listening to the musicians. Sometimes she even smiled. If she had smiled very wide when she first came to the harem she would not have been assigned to the front section with the most beautiful virgins. She was missing two teeth. Still, she was much pleasanter to look upon when she smiled.
“Mistress, may I comb your hair?” she asked.
“Yes, and talk to me, so that I might forget myself for a little while. Tell me why you cry.”
She gently ran an ivory comb through my hair then put it in tiny braids as she told me of her life as a henna artist. Her father was a quick-fisted man who had punished every mistake and rewarded any good she did with a blow.
She lost her teeth after one of the wives of an Egyptian dignitary did not wait for the henna on the backs of her hands to dry before putting her shawl on. The henna smudged and the woman screamed at her so loudly that her father was awakened from a drunken stupor. The dignitary’s wife demanded her siglos back. The girl’s father came out of the hut and said, “Here, this should give you as much satisfaction as your coins,” and punched his daughter in the face.
“I have been crying ever since one of his blows cost me two teeth,” she told me. “But I think I am done with sadness. You have given me a better life than I could have imagined.”
Her real name was Mena but everyone took to calling her Crier. Her happiness spread to my handmaidens. Except Utanah. She cringed at the clanking of bells every time she moved. She had become very still.
Despite the contagiousness of Crier’s happiness, over the next few months I worried that with all the time the girls spent idly within my chambers they might grow bored and turn upon each other and me. Sometimes I sensed that they were forcing their courtesies. I kept reminding them that they had far greater privileges than the other virgins.
“Is there anything at all that you desire?” I often asked.
They requested things I could easily procure: instruments we had not heard before, delicacies from distant provinces, until one day Crier answered, “Mistress, I would love to see the sun again. And people walking past. And birds! I want to sit in the gardens we have heard so much about.”
If I asked Hegai for the privilege of sitting in the garden and he did not grant it, the fear I had instilled in them by sending Utanah to the forge might be lost. I took a long, slow drink from my goblet while I thought through all of the things I could tell them. I longed for Ruti. How can I talk them out of their desire? I wanted to ask her.
I pictured her speaking as she usually had, through her worried little frown. You cannot. A better question to ask yourself is how you can flatter Hegai like he has never been flattered before. He is bored and his pride is great. Relieve his boredom and feed his pride and he will give you whatever you want.
I had come to understand that in the palace nothing was given freely. Debts and favors owed were as carefully accounted for as the king’s coin. Mordecai would have drowned in ledgers if he had to keep track of the transactions of the harem.
Hegai liked the hands of virgins and concubines alike to massage the knots from his small shoulders and wash the sweat from his feet. Virgins who had been full of fear and bashful at taking their clothes off when they first entered the baths danced so seductively for Hegai that I wondered if they remembered that he had been cut. They filled him with a desire that climaxed in the gift of a trinket of bronze or silver or a privilege which would set a girl above the others in the harem.
But I knew that for a privilege as great as sitting in the garden, simple flattery would not be enough. I could not think of anything that would be worthy of such a reward. I will allow my maids to choose the pathway to Hegai’s favor, so that if our request is denied, I will not be to blame. Not completely.
“How shall we please Hegai, so he will grant us this privilege?” I asked.
The next day I instructed Bigthan to tell Hegai that I requested an audience with him.
“What is this?” Hegai asked when my maids and I entered his chambers.
“My lord.” I bowed and then raised my arms over my head, so that my sleeves fell away from them. Crier had painted Hegai’s face on the undersides of my wrists and hands, including on the gold plate. When I kept my arm straight and tilted back my hand it looked as though he were talking. As I did this my maids began to sing.
“Bold and strong, big of heart and deft of hand,
one man rules the harem with the grace of a god. Robe of royal purple, turban of the purest white, he is just and fair and the beloved of every maiden.”
I tried not to cringe as they sang, but only to tilt back my hands and smile. I knew that if Hegai was the one counseling me in this silly affair he would tell me it did not matter what I actually felt. It only mattered what I appeared to feel. I fought to keep Hegai’s frown from pulling down upon the corners of my smile. After the last note left the maidens’ mouths, we fell to our knees and bowed our heads to the floor. There was silence. I peeked up at Hegai. He was staring at us as though we had laid a pile of horse dung at his feet.
“Do you think I sing my own praises? Do you think I sing like a bunch of girls?” he asked me.
“No, my lord, but they are all I have. We have been practicing for many days.” It was exactly the sort of lie I knew he would have encouraged me to tell, had he been counseling me in how to sway someone above my station.
“I have not been honored so foolishly in all my years as keeper of the women.” He tilted his head slightly, examining me. “What reward do you wish for this strange display?”
“To sit in the court of the women’s house.”
“I hope you do not think to escape, little flower. There is only one escape.”
“I do not wish to leave you, my lord. Not by any route.” It was true. I did not wish to die. I had discovered when I thwarted Halannah’s attack that I would not give up without a fight.
“Those words from your lips are a welcome sound at least. I will do something foolish and grant your wish.”
We had to don veils and wear heavy robes when we sat in the court, because officials often walked past, and sometimes soldiers. “The king likes for other men to see what he keeps for himself,” Hegai had told me. “But he does not want them to see all of it.” I thought of Vashti and perhaps he did too. “Not usually.”
So we sat in the shade of cypress trees, looking out over the bright paradise before us. The courtyard was full of fruit trees and fountains, statues of beautiful women, and the singing of little birds emboldened by the prohibition against harming anything in the garden. A tiny yellow canary flew low overhead and perched on a jasmine branch not more than five cubits from me. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tulips, hyacinths, narcissuses, and crocuses swelled upon their stems. Bees buzzed around the bright flowers, and a peacock strutted tirelessly back and forth. It was almost unbearably lovely, but also, unbearably lonely, because I could not see my maidens’ faces and their voices were muted by their veils. We were completely covered but for our eyes.
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