I took my hands away and he raised his head slowly. By the sadness upon his face I knew I would not like whatever he was going to tell me next. “There is talk among the soldiers of a new mission. One for which Haman believes he will soon have the king’s approval. I told you once that I would do anything the king commanded. But, my queen, I will fall upon my own blade before using it against your people.”
I felt my lips begin to tremble. Erez reached for my hand but suddenly I noticed Jangi’s eyes upon us. I pulled my hand away. “That is all, soldier,” I said.
He bowed his head. “Courage,” he whispered and then returned to his post.
I called Jangi to me for a blessing so that my blessing of Erez would not seem strange. His eyes were not as wide and clear as they had once been. They no longer seemed, like a child’s, to go directly into his thoughts. Even as he lowered his head it seemed that he was watching me.
CHAPTER FIFTY
* * *
TIME IS SERVANT TO NO ONE
“You are too eager to leave, my queen,” the king said one morning. It was not the first time he had said it, but this time when I stepped from his reception hall Erez and Jangi were not waiting to escort me back to my chambers. It took all of my restraint to walk calmly behind the two new Immortals and not command them to hasten their pace. I had to see that Erez was still in my chambers so I could breathe again.
He was not outside my chambers, and he was not inside them.
“Your Majesty,” Ruti said, “you look as though you are possessed.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
She did not have to ask who I meant. “Your Majesty, I do not know. The last I saw him he was escorting you to the king.”
I went back to the doors of my chambers. It was agony to wait while two of my guard opened them. I had brushed past Hathach on my way in, hardly noticing him. Now I did not call him in but marched out to where he stood with the two new Immortals. “Hathach, where are the members of my escort who usually return me to my chambers after my nights with the king?”
“Your Majesty.” He knelt, as he always did when he saw me. He never gave me time to wave away his prostrations.
I did not have the patience for this. “My escort?”
“The king replaced two of your Immortals.”
I tried not to allow my face to move a hair’s width in any direction. I imagined what Hegai might advise: do not speak, and perhaps, to fill the silence, he will tell you all he knows.
“They are training for a special expedition, Your Majesty.”
I stepped closer to him. If I were not so desperate to know of Erez, I would not have revealed my ignorance. “Tell me all you know of the expedition.”
“Unfortunately, the king did not tell me anything more than that, Your Majesty.”
I wanted to ask him, What was the king’s expression when he told you this? Was there jealousy, cruelty in his eyes? Did he say the word expedition mockingly? Did he say Erez’s name, and if so, did he say it as though he still cherished him, or as though he would crush him like a fly that has flown too close to a prized horse?
I stared at Hathach so he might offer something further, but he remained silent.
I could not sleep. Fear and anger tossed me back and forth from one side of the bed to the other. I remembered my parents’ gasps as a soldier took their lives. I thought of Cyra, and how I had not been able to save her. The many children I had lost moved in a circle around me.
I could not allow another voice to join the haunting chorus in my head.
It does not matter what lengths I must go to. I must figure out a way. I must save Erez and my people.
Over the next month, I came to realize how much thinking of Erez, looking at him, and knowing he was near had helped me through my days. Every fear and unhappiness had been lessened by his unwavering strength. Without him I felt like I was trapped inside a boulder falling faster and faster down a mountain. But it was not his absence that most upset me. What upset me most was not knowing if he was safe.
“Your Majesty, you have not risen to the highest position a woman can in order to pine over a soldier who may have overstepped his bounds,” Ruti told me.
“How would the king have known what he did or did not do?”
“It is hard to completely hide one’s feelings, Your Majesty. Perhaps you yourself somehow told the king.”
The look I gave her caused her to take a step back. “I love you like my own kin, Ruti, but do not forget your place or I will be forced to remind you.”
“And do not forget yours. You are a barren queen who may be suspected of the gravest crime of all. One much worse than killing your husband: allowing another man to take what is his and give it back used and soiled.”
“Surely the king must know this is untrue.”
“The king knows only what those closest to him tell him.”
“I am still thinking of how I might get close to him again.”
“Think quickly, Your Majesty. Time is servant to no one.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
* * *
NEWS OF MORDECAI
All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel.
—Book of Esther 3:2
Ruti was massaging my back with a cloth during my bath one morning when I heard her clear her throat. “Haman rises in the king’s esteem, Your Majesty. Now all but you and the king must bow to him.” Perhaps she had told me during my bath because she thought the hot water and massage of the cloth upon my back might help me to remain calm. “Parsha and Dalphon are still prisoners, but Haman and his other sons are amassing great wealth. The king allows it because some of this wealth ends up in the royal treasury.”
“How has Haman come upon this wealth?”
“Through plunder, threats, and, according to some, promising favors.”
I was silent.
“You have not figured out how to win back the king.”
“Not yet.”
The next day Hathach admitted Hegai and my handmaids to my chambers. The girl who stuttered did not even wait for me to dismiss Hathach and invite her and my other handmaidens to recline upon my cushions and partake of some refreshment. “The palace ac-c-c-ccountant is crying out in the c-courtyard, in the city square in front of the palace gate. Hegai said you would wish to know.”
“And there is a certain air about the concubines,” Opi said. “Halannah looks as though she might burst with happy news of some kind.”
Hegai quickly assured me she was not with child. “The harem wine makes certain of it. But your handmaiden speaks true of Mordecai. He has torn his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes.”
My stomach tightened. My cousin had always feared drawing attention to himself, and he would not have abandoned his watch over the treasury for any but the gravest news.
Opi spoke again: “I heard that the accountant would not bow to Haman, and now he cries and has rent his clothes because of some revenge Haman wishes to enact.” From the look upon her face I knew she believed what she had heard. Hathach too looked saddened to hear of the palace accountant’s distress. Perhaps I can trust him.
When it was clear my handmaidens had no more information, I told them to watch Halannah closely and find out all they could in the harem, then I dismissed them.
“Your Majesty, we must get clothes to Mordecai,” Hathach said, “before the king decides that he is a troublemaker.”
The sense of time pressing down upon me caused me to be direct. “Can I trust you? The king said you were his trusted servant, and that you are unwaveringly loyal to only one master.”
“The king is correct. I do serve only one master: Ahura Mazda. He is my king and he is against the killing and plundering of innocent people, even people who do not worship him. Haman has no god but greed. He must be stopped, and I will help however I can.”
I looked to Hegai. He nodded slightly. He
believed Hathach, and so did I. “Have a servant bring clothes to Mordecai,” I told Hathach. Then I put a finger under his chin and raised it so I could look into his eyes. I was surprised by their lightness. “Mordecai, my cousin.”
“You honor me with your trust, my queen,” Hathach said, and rushed away to carry out my orders.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
* * *
THE EDICT
There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws.
—Haman, Book of Esther 3:8
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Hathach reported that evening, “but Mordecai refuses the clothes I sent him. What do you wish me to do?”
“Hathach, you yourself must go to him.”
I could do nothing but pace while I awaited his return. When I beckoned to the servant who bore the wine, Ruti quickly said, “Your Majesty, remember that God has not yet put anything before you over which you could not triumph.”
Nothing except pennyroyal. I fought back the dark thoughts about my womb, but I could not summon any confidence that the king valued me more than Haman. In fact I could not even be sure that he valued me half as much.
Hathach’s eyes were heavy when he returned. Ruti stood close to me as he explained that Haman had offered the king a large payment into the royal treasury.
With a great, knowing dread, I asked, “What does he wish to buy?”
Ruti moved closer, as though she might have to catch me.
“For ten thousand talents of silver he has bought from the king an edict whose words I cannot bear to speak aloud,” Hathach said.
Somehow I held out hope against what was already clear. “Why has my flesh and blood put on sackcloth and ashes? Has Haman bought someone’s death?”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath. “Whose?”
“All Jews, Your Majesty, young and old. Even women and children.”
“No.” It was not me who had spoken but Ruti. Though she had known this day would come she refused to believe it had arrived. My legs felt weak beneath me.
“The edict for the destruction of your people was issued in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the king’s signet ring,” Hathach said quietly.
Anger joined my fear. Haman had not even needed the treasury scrolls to secure whatever support he needed. My people’s lives had been sold cheaply.
“No,” Ruti said again.
I pulled her against my chest and wrapped my arms around her. I had forgotten how small she was. Her body was rigid, and for a moment she did not return my embrace.
“Jews in every province are fasting, weeping, and wailing,” Hathach said. “They too are in sackcloth and ashes.”
Ruti began to weep.
“Your Majesty,” Hathach continued, “Mordecai says you must go to the king and appeal to him. You must plead with him for your people.”
The king had not called for me since the morning I had walked out of his chambers to find Erez gone. Going to him without being called was a crime punishable by death. Perhaps he would seize upon the opportunity to rid himself of me. I had the terrible thought that if the king knew I was Jewish it might strengthen his support of the edict.
I could not tell him I was Jewish. I had to find another way.
“Tell Mordecai that if anyone enters the king’s inner court without having been summoned by him they risk death, and I have not been summoned to the king for the last thirty days.”
When Hathach went to deliver my message to Mordecai, Ruti stepped away from me. “Your Majesty,” she said, yanking off the purple head scarf I had given her, “I did not risk my life for a coward.”
Her lips were not split only lower from upper, they were split diagonally across, so that they were in four parts of different sizes. Bulbous, grotesque. The outer part of her left nostril was gone. It seemed I was not looking at one surface, but many—a face made up of different pieces pressed together. Because she had believed I was worth defending, the pieces would never fit neatly back together again.
I did not allow myself to look away, even though I could not truthfully tell her anything she wished to hear. “You know my favor with the king runs low.”
She spat upon the floor. “And what of your favor with all of the people who have helped you to your throne?” She turned and walked away without even bothering to secure her scarf.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
* * *
GHOSTS
It was not long before Hathach returned with another message from Mordecai: “Do not imagine that silence will save you. Surely you have not risen so high for yourself alone, but for all of our people throughout the empire who will be wiped from the face of the earth if you do not save them.”
Mordecai is done hiding, and he wants me to follow in his footsteps. But he has not disappointed the king as I have.
I did not send back a message right away. I dismissed all my servants, even Ruti, and lay upon my bed in darkness.
As disappointing and full of heartbreak as life had sometimes been, I wanted to keep living. I thought through every possible way I might save my people, attempting to find one that would also preserve my life. I could come up with nothing. I knew of only one way to turn the king against Haman, and it would almost certainly result in my death.
Sobs overtook my body. They strained my lungs and the inside of my head. They shook the bed as though I suffered a terrible fever. For the first time, I saw the childishness of all I had expected from life: a mother and father who would live until I myself was old, a husband who loved me and only me, children, grandchildren that I would live long enough to hold in my arms.
Now that it was coming to an end, I longed for every bit of the life I’d had, even the troubles. I wished for what I already had as though it were a treasure, which I finally saw that it was. It was a treasure I had not realized I would have to return.
I needed time to think of exactly what I would do, so I sent Hathach to Mordecai with a message to assemble all the Jews in Shushan to fast on my behalf for three days, after which, though it is a crime punishable by death, I would go to my husband uninvited. “If I perish,” I said, “I perish.”
Hathach bowed low and did not immediately rise up.
“At once,” I told him.
The night before I went to the king I dreamed of the woman who appeared whenever I wondered What if I had guarded my womb more carefully? The woman I could no longer be, walking beside me holding my dead children’s hands.
She had always been unaware of me, but in the dream she turned her head and stared into my eyes. She looked like me, only larger and her face more creased from smiling. She knelt and spoke quietly to the children, then she let go of their hands and pushed them toward me. I held out my arms. They looked at me. My arms grew heavier as they stared but did not come closer. Finally the woman smiled sadly at me, took their hands, and turned back in the direction she was going, hurrying the children along beside her.
I watched the woman I could have been walk away, hips shifting side to side, children bounding along beside her, all of them getting smaller, smaller, until even when added together they were still smaller than I was.
Goodbye, I said, and let them go.
I thought of telling Ruti of this dream, but pretending that when I let the woman and children walk away I could see more people in the distance—our people, celebrating. I told myself it was not a sin to lie if it put her mind at ease. Selfishly, I did not want her to be anxious during what remained of our time together. I was still holding on, trying to wring life from my last days.
I knew I had to let go, even of the days ahead. My hands had to be free to perform the task before me: saving my people.
By the next morning I had devised a plan.
As Ruti bathed me, she observed, “I have never seen you look so sad or so strong.”
I did
not know if the dead missed the living, but if so I would miss Ruti terribly.
“Do not be gentle. My skin must glow from across the room.”
If God could forgive me for eating meat that was not slaughtered according to His laws, for wearing a likeness of another god against my chest, and for lying with a gentile king, He could also forgive me for what I was going to do in order to win back the king’s love long enough to turn him against Haman.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
* * *
THE GOLDEN SCEPTER
The servants, and even the guards—who were not supposed to move at all unless commanded to—turned their heads toward me as I approached the throne room in my royal apparel. A weight had been thrown from my chest and my heart lifted. I would leave my body soon and so it did not confine me. I no longer had to try to save myself, I was free to think only of my people, and for them I could do things I could not do for myself.
I walked ahead of my escort and stopped where the king could see me. Something lay before the throne and I saw that it was a map of the empire. The king gazed at it while Haman spoke quietly into his ear.
“My king,” I cried. “Behold your queen.” He looked up and I parted my royal robe; only my flesh and the star of Ishtar the king had given me lay beneath it. Even my scar lay bare. I hoped seeing it would remind the king of our first night together, when he had traced it so gently my heart ached, and said, The best soldiers bear scars.
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