by Tessa Afshar
The third thought that came into sharp focus was the realization that Gobry had pronounced my upturned stone odd. “Pleased to meet you, Gobry. What is odd about the stone?”
“My lady,” he said, making a credible though brief obeisance to me. “That stone was not loosened by accident.” He picked up the flat slab and showed me its underside. “See here, this dent? This comes from repeated beating by a blunt instrument. Someone beat this stone out of place.”
“I see,” I said.
“Do you mean someone broke it on purpose to cause a fall?” Pari asked, her cheeks bright red, whether from anger or self-consciousness at addressing a comely young man, I could not tell.
“This is my handmaiden, Pari,” I said.
Gobry turned grave eyes upon my blushing servant. “It would seem a reasonable assumption.”
I bent to play with the ribbon on my shoe. “Teispes may have discovered his missing parchments, I fear. This could be his warning to us to stay out of his business.”
“The steward?” Gobry said. “I will knock his head off. It’s enough that he has mistreated my grandfather, but when he starts plotting to harm the lady of the house—”
I cleared my throat. “We cannot prove it. Not this, not any of it. But you could help us find the truth, Gobryas. Then we could present our case to Lord Darius and leave him to decide the matter.”
He laid his hand flat upon his chest. “I live to serve, my lady.”
Quickly, I explained the tangle of our situation to Gobry. “What I need is someone who can go to Ecbatana and unearth this mystery.” I couldn’t send a royal messenger on a personal errand for myself, of course. I hadn’t the authority. “Is it possible that you might be given a mission in Ecbatana soon? That way, while there, you could perhaps do a bit of extra reconnaissance for Lord Darius’s household?”
“Easy to arrange. With most of the court at Ecbatana, messages are sent there almost daily. What is it that you would like me to do, once I am in the city, my lady?”
I needed no reminding that the court resided in Ecbatana; but for my marriage, I too would be there now.
“We have to find out if Mandana is truly involved with Teispes,” I said. “Does anyone in town know who the father of the twins may be? Bring me back whatever news you can, even if it is only town gossip.
“And meet with Mandana face-to-face. Take the measure of her. Sometimes direct questions are the best way to find information.”
Royal messengers were trained to be discreet as well as fast. While spying was somewhat outside the purview of Gobry’s usual work, I felt certain that he could manage it. But I had also seen that our resident fox had sharp teeth. “Be careful, Gobry,” I said. “This might be more dangerous than we bargained for.”
He flashed a smile. “My lady, that would only improve my journey.”
“Nonetheless, you must promise that if you sense any threat, you will seek out Lord Darius in the palace and tell him everything we have told you.”
I managed to rope the young man into helping me back to my chambers though I had no real need for his assistance. He held me by one arm and Pari by the other as I limped my way forward. I had my reasons for this devious dependency.
I was certain that the steward had watched us from the moment we had left the house. He could not have heard our conversation, but no doubt he had positioned himself where he could see the result of his mischief. He must have been disappointed that I hadn’t landed on my head. Now, I wished him to believe me more hurt than I actually was. The more helpless he thought me, the safer he would feel. Criminals, like wild animals, preferred safety; they proved less dangerous while they felt secure.
I had another reason for drawing Gobry away from his grandfather. I didn’t want Bardia around while I gave his grandson my final missive. In my chamber, I unearthed my modest bag of gold and silver coins, payment from the queen for my years of service. It had been her idea to pay me in royal coins rather than in rations as was common, for she said it would be wiser to have financial resources that required no dependence on others. Three years’ worth of rations needed storage space, connections for a fair exchange, letters, meetings, all of which would have required a steward. Damaspia could have had no notion of Teispes’s dishonesty, yet her instinctive cautiousness had proven indispensable.
I hadn’t many coins left after having discharged my debts to the queen. I gave a few to the young man.
“Gobry, use this during your search if you need to. Try to save what you can. When you return, I want you to buy the necessary materials to fix your grandfather’s cottage if Lord Darius should refuse to do it. The damp is seeping in and I worry for him once autumn arrives. Do you think you can manage?”
He bent low at the waist. “My lady is most kind.”
“One last favor. I don’t want your grandfather to know where the money came from. He is a proud man.”
Waiting on Gobry’s return proved hard for me. I had squeezed as many secrets out of Teispes’s scrolls as they had to give. My ankle was too sore to allow for extensive activity. I felt useless.
“Are you going to mope the day away again?” Pari asked as she gathered my sheets for laundering.
“Leave me be.”
“Why don’t you talk about it? It will make you feel better.”
I groaned. “Go away.”
“I don’t think so.”
I gave a humorless laugh. My servant was unhappy with my choices and disregarded my commands on a regular basis. My husband’s dog was dissatisfied with my performance as a mistress since I had become lame and sedentary. My gardener disapproved of my attitude toward my husband. My cook didn’t think my manners grand enough. The Lord was surely disappointed by the fact that I had barely spared a passing thought for Him. I pleased nobody including myself. “What a life,” I mumbled under my breath. I hadn’t thought Pari could hear me, but she had sharp ears, that girl.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s no point to it. I accomplish nothing. I help no one. I am a great big waste.”
“Help no one? Are you serious? What have you done but help since you got out of your bed?”
“What have I actually achieved? Nothing. Just riled up that crooked steward.”
“My lady, you’ve cared for us, which is the most important thing anyone can do for another. You showed interest in what we needed. You made us feel worthwhile by taking notice. Even if nothing comes of your efforts, we’ve still been cheered by your concern.”
I shook my head and waved her words away. She ignored me, which was an irritating habit she had formed of late.
“Do you remember the willow tree that Bardia showed you? Remember what he said about it: that the master didn’t love it because of its usefulness, but because of what it was. It touches the soul, that’s all, he said.”
“What of it?”
“You’re like that tree, my lady. It’s not what you produce or achieve that makes you lovely. It’s who you are. Your kindness, your caring. The way you consider everyone’s well-being, even a dog’s. The way you make us laugh. The way you get on your knees and clean the home of a servant. The way you face a bully like Teispes without letting fear stop you.
“The sharp mind that teases mysteries out of parchment is only a small part of you. In this house, I have seen so much more of what you are. And my lady, I tell you, you are our willow. We all rest in your shade.”
She turned around with an abrupt move and began to shake the sheets with furious motion. To my amazement, I saw that she was crying. I rose from my couch and approached her, not knowing what to do or say. She noticed me lingering near and dropped the sheets. Without warning I found myself enveloped in a fierce hug. This was so far out of the realm of my experience that at first I did not know what to do. Then I raised a wooden arm and patted her on the shoulder once or twice.
She laughed and stepped back. “You’ll have to learn to hug better than that, my lady.”
I l
aughed too, freed in some inexplicable way from my dark thoughts. In the background of my mind was planted the inconceivable idea that my very presence—not what I could do or how I might serve—but my mere being might be a joy to another.
Chapter Thirteen
That night I dreamt that I still worked for the queen. She burst into my office and screamed, “You aren’t satisfactory. Leave at once.” I had no time to explain or beg. Palace guards stripped me of my clothes and I stood before everyone naked and mortified. Then I was turned out of the palace.
I burst into consciousness with a racing heart, covered in perspiration. I buried my face in the pillow. O God, when would this wound be healed?
Two days later my ankle had improved enough to take a long walk in search of Bardia. He was in the vineyards, a hilly stretch of land situated just outside the estate gardens, beyond the eastern gate. It took us an hour to find him; Caspian chased every rabbit and bird on the way. He terrorized them so thoroughly that I doubt they dared return to that part of the land for a week.
Bardia threw us a cheery wave as soon as he caught sight of us.
“What are you doing?” I cried as I saw the mountain of branches at his feet. He had cut back the vine until there was nothing but a few skinny scraps of bark and puny leaves left. The unpruned plants seemed healthy and robust in comparison.
“Pruning.” I found neither the economy of his speech nor the remarkable calm with which he continued cutting reassuring.
Half of me thought that a man grown on the land knew his job better than a scrivener of letters like me. The other half thought plain common sense could see that the head gardener was going too far. He was ruining the vine. The common sense half of my brain won.
“Bardia, stop!” I demanded. “You’ll kill it.”
The busy fingers went still. “Kill it, my lady?”
“There’s barely anything left rooted in the ground.”
He gave a wheezing chuckle. “That’s what pruning means.”
“It means that you destroy the vine?” I tried to gentle my voice, but it still came out with an edge.
Sighing, the old man laid his short knife on the ground. “The vine doesn’t have enough nourishment to feed all these branches. In two springs, the plant may be bigger, but most of its clusters of grapes won’t even ripen. And the ones that do will be scraggly and of poor quality.”
I pointed to the ground. “Perhaps if you fed them better, they could handle the growth. The soil looks quite bad here.” I don’t know why I was so harsh. I knew Bardia hadn’t enough assistance. How was he supposed to feed this grapevine? He had done what he could.
Bardia didn’t seem offended by my outburst. With calm he said, “Yes, it’s very poor soil. But this is what the vine needs, my lady.”
“The vine needs bad soil?” I raised my eyebrows. “You just said that it doesn’t have enough nourishment.”
He seemed to consider his answer for a few silent moments and I thought I had finally caused him to see reason. Instead he beckoned me to stand beside him. We were near the top of a slope and he pointed below us. “What do you see, my lady?”
I shielded my eyes against the sun. “A vineyard,” I said with a shrug.
“Not any vineyard, but one of the best in Persia. The king himself asks for the wine from this land each year. My lord owns many vineyards, but none produces wine that compares with this one. Its crop is small, but excellent.
“Could it bear more fruit if we fed the land richly? Possibly. But then it wouldn’t taste the same.” He bent down and picked a handful of rocky soil to show me. “This is the secret of the vine. This poor soil, and this sun and this slope.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, beginning to remember that he had exquisite skill and years of experience. With a wince I realized that I had been making a fool of myself trying to correct a man with more knowledge in his back tooth than I had in my whole being.
He gave me a gentle smile, as if he could sense my dawning discomfort and had no interest in gloating. “Let me share with you the riddle of the vine, mistress.
“The vine needs to suffer. Going down into this earth-fighting to survive among the stones, among the lime rock—this is what gives it its aroma. Its taste. Its unique character. These grapes will create a wine few other vineyards can compare with not because their life was easy, but because they had to struggle to survive.”
I grew still. “The vine needs to suffer?”
“To be at its best, it needs to suffer, yes. And fight.”
“I’m sorry for it, then. No creature should have to bear pain.”
“Pain is part of this life. No one can escape suffering. Not the vine, nor we humans, as you well know, my lady. But what if we are like the vine and that affliction only makes us better?”
Bardia was right in one thing; harsh struggle was the order of life. The world I lived in was no Eden; I did not need faith to teach me that. The evidence of my eyes was more than enough. This world by its very nature was full of the bitter brew of sorrow. Had I not drunk of that cup since my childhood? Had I not lost a beloved mother? Had I not known the detachment of a father who could not love me? Had I not, even when I found a calling that fed my soul, spent nights and days in the grip of fear lest I should fail? Had I not lost the very thing I held on to so tightly? Had I not found myself in a barren marriage? Had I not become trapped in the grip of a treacherous man who sought even now to destroy me?
I bent to grab a branch Bardia had recently cut and discarded. It was still green and fresh looking, but in the hot sun, cut off from its stem, it would shrivel and die in a matter of hours. I studied the jaunty, wide leaves and said, “It’s bad enough that these poor plants have to battle the very ground they’re rooted in. Do you have to add to the vine’s pain by cutting off its branches, Bardia?”
Bardia picked up his short knife again and examined it with silent intensity. In the sun, the blade glinted like a shaft of starlight. “Consider my lady, I’m the gardener and I know what the vine needs in order to thrive. You only see the stripping, but I cut the vine in order to restore it. I take away from it to enrich it. You hold in your hand a withering branch and that’s all you see now, but I know that I have given the vine a more abundant life.”
Without his knowing it, Bardia’s words found a rare target in my heart. As a Jew I believed in one God—one Lord over heaven and earth. One Creator with perfect power. And this God, in a metaphor that Bardia could have no knowledge of, sometimes referred to Himself as a gardener and to Israel as His vineyard.
Two things stole my breath as Bardia taught me the riddle of the vine. First, that suffering improved the character of the vine’s fruit. Perfect ease and comfort would only ruin it. If my life were anything akin to the vine, then these calamities I bore need not ruin me. They could very well be my redemption.
Second, come the right season, Bardia, the expert gardener, Bardia, the tender caretaker, Bardia, the one on whom these plants depended in order to survive, slashed and hacked into the vine. He added to its suffering. He stripped it until, from my vantage point at least, there was hardly any life left. Yet the vine needed this implacable care. Bardia had claimed that he cut the vine in order to restore it; he took away from it to enrich it.
I knew that he was selective in what he called the vine’s suffering. He would not allow pests to brutalize the plants, for example, or let weeds anywhere near them. Though he was shorthanded, I had seen no sign of a weevil or beetle near the crop. He knew what to destroy, what to improve, what to protect.
If Israel was God’s vineyard, was I one of His little vines? Was He the Bardia of my soul? Did He shield me from what would destroy me? Was He stripping me now on purpose only to give me a more abundant life? Would I, one day, bear fruit worthy of a king’s table?
The thought brought tears to my eyes. I would not let them fall. I gripped the dying branch Bardia had cut until my fingers grew numb. This was the life I wanted, and God had taken it fro
m me. I did not want more abundant fruit. I just wanted what I’d had before.
While we waited for Gobry’s return, I formed a plan. We needed to find out as much about Teispes as we could. His habits, his connections, and his pastimes could give us clues to the mystery of the mismanagement of the estate. Which led us to Mondays. Where did Teispes go for so many hours? And who did he spend his time with?
The only way to find out was to follow him. I could not take everyone; he would be bound to notice such a crowd. Nor did I dare go alone in case something went wrong and I needed to send for help. In the end I took Bardia with me and convinced Pari and Shushan to stay behind. They could seek assistance in case we failed to return.
I did not sleep on Sunday night. I whiled the hours away questioning the validity of my precarious plan. Teispes was not a man to play games with. I knew him to be dangerous. My scheme placed Bardia’s life in as much danger as my own. And for what? The capture of a dishonest steward? If my husband did not care about the state of his property, why should I?
But it was not about the property or the money. This concerned the well-being of … of my friends. With dawning realization I acknowledged that it had been some time since I had thought of these people as my servants. I saw them as my friends. They had offered me a kind of friendship that I had never known. They had sought my company and called it joy. They had heard my fears and comforted me. They had known me at my worst and abided with me. I had to do what I could to relieve them of their growing distress.
While the horizon was still cloaked in darkness, I dressed myself with Pari’s help and met Bardia outside the steward’s room. We did not have long to wait. He came out looking well rested. There was a spring in his long stride as he headed for the stables. I groaned inwardly, resenting his cheerful expression; resenting his refreshing slumber; and most of all, resenting his choice to ride to his destination.