Hadassah

by Tommy Tenney

  Xerxes could also be incredibly stubborn, subject to raging jealousies and all too quick to fear for his sovereignty. I had been told to expect these things, and I found them. But I did not view them as off-putting—merely another piece of a complex human being. It was the man himself I focused on. Who he was, not what he did or what he owned or what he could do for me. And as someone who wards off opportunists all day long, the King recognized that quality in me instantly.

  I was interested in him—his thoughts, his fears, his memories, his hopes, and I expressed my interest in those matters very quickly. That curiosity, along with my inner confidence, somehow set me apart from all the others. It put him at ease. I truly loved him.

  I have already alluded to the third thing. Out of this confidence, then, out of this genuine passion for him and joy in his company, there must come an attraction from you that is not abjectly submissive or needy or cloying. He must know that your desire is based on every part of him—not just his physical being—that you desire to close the final distance between you, already having bridged every other gap remaining.

  I implore you, when it comes time for your own night with the King, heed these suggestions. I can tell you, no one, not even your own personal Hegai, will impart these to you as a young virgin candidate. G-d and His servants, the wise Hegai and Mordecai, graced me with the ability to discern these things.

  And as sincere as I want you to be in these matters, there is a final dimension I must mention. Every other leverage I ever employed with Xerxes was grounded in this sense of real, many-dimensioned intimacy. Influence flows from intimacy—true influence based on the deepest trust flows out of the richest intimacy. The story to follow would have turned out far differently had I not first nourished true intimacy with Xerxes, along with the influence that emerged from it. I did not demand this influence as my queenly right, although I could have, and certainly many women would have relied on this leverage alone. I did not grasp it out of petulance or aspiration. I did not even ask for it as his bride. Instead, I cultivated it like a delicate flower that wilts from too much watering, just like I nurtured favor with others in the candidates’ harem. (And by the way—I did not forget the other candidates. Over time I persuaded Xerxes to release them to their families, a move that brought him enormous goodwill across the Empire. They returned home rich with the jewels and robes they had chosen for their first nights.)

  I did not leave the King’s arms for hours. We lay like that without counting time or heeding schedules or even speaking over-much to each other. We simply rested together, basking in a feeling of closeness that never waned from the first moment of our union. In fact, the all-encompassing intimacy continued to grow. The tenderness of his embrace meant as much as any additional overture he could have made.

  After several hours—a length of time that seemed to stretch into infinity—we were both startled by the faint sound of knocking on the bedchamber door. Xerxes smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Memucan wants us for the banquets,” he whispered. “We are being called for.” I began to stir and comply with Memucan’s impatience, but Xerxes shook his head and pulled me back. “We do not answer to him. Besides, the less they see of us, the more they’ll want us. I learned that a long time ago. It’s one of those secrets of being a king. And, anyway, I’d rather be here with you.”

  So we lay back and relished a delightful sense of occupying a cozy boat amidst the storm. For the first time in my life, I did not feel the compelling need to answer a door. I needed answer only to him—my husband.

  “Are you ready to be Queen of Persia?” he asked at last.

  I thought for a moment. “I have not had the time to even consider that,” I answered. “But now that you ask, I am more than ready to be your wife and your confidant if I can earn that place with you.”

  “I think you will make an amazing Queen.”

  “Will the people at court despise me for being a commoner?” I asked.

  He sighed deeply and pitched his head back. “Oh, I suppose some will resent you a bit. But I think you will win them over. In time.”

  “It will not matter, my love,” I said. “As long as things are good between us. But I will work to win over your subjects. Maybe not as thoroughly as I worked to win you.” At that we both chuckled. “But hard enough to be loved, I hope.”

  “Speaking of the people,” he said as he sat up and began to dress, “I suppose it is probably time to give them a glimpse of their new queen.”

  And bless my handmaidens’ hearts, they had lobbied Hegai long enough to be summoned for my aid at the Palace—on Xerxes’ signal they poured into the room with squeals of joy and even some weeping, then swept me into an adjacent room, a dressing room of sorts. While the now-dressed King stayed and spoke with Memucan, they converged on me carrying cosmetics and a beautiful new robe for the celebrations. Ever loyal and thoughtful of my needs, they had already begun to move my things into the King’s Palace. I nearly suffocated each one with hugs at the very sight of them, for it seemed their excitement over my coronation nearly matched my own.

  Before I knew it I was as pampered and coiffed as the day I had finally left the candidates’ house. I found Xerxes back in the bedroom, arrayed in royal splendor himself, and we left the bedchamber for the Palace hallway. The cheering began as soon as we crossed the doorsill and did not subside, it seemed, for an eternity.

  Soon we approached the front door, the assembled courtiers parted in anticipation and the most awesome sight yet slowly came into view.

  The courtyard before us—and beyond its walls, beyond a courtyard after that, and beyond the next walls and the vast terrace beyond—was completely covered with people. Thousands. Tens of thousands. If I have the used the term “sea of humanity” before now, I apologize, for it would have been a mere smattering compared to this endless ocean of faces.

  And what’s even more staggering—it seemed that every last one was fixed on us! The force of their attention struck me with an almost physical sensation, causing my knees to weaken and my heart to start racing in my chest. It took several anxious seconds to regain my composure, wave weakly and begin to sense the emotions the crowd was sending our way. It was a mixture of adulation, love and simple joy—and perhaps even a bit of envy—the sorts of emotions every wedding party conveys to the bride and groom.

  Waving and gazing over the intricate variety of expressions below me, I suddenly became seized with a desire to see Mordecai, to throw myself into his arms and celebrate the victory, our victory, on this day. He must be out there, I assured myself. And I found out later that he was indeed. Mordecai had been on the Palace grounds all day, weaving through crowds to gain the best glimpse of me. Jesse was there, as well—in fact, he had been assigned to help move my personal belongings into the Queen’s apartment in the Inner Palace. But I knew nothing of this up there at the door, waving to the crowd.

  All I knew was that I was not quite finished with two decades of life, and I had just become queen of the known world.

  And then, less than thirty cubits away, on the back of one of the guards facing the adoring masses, I glimpsed once again the terrifying shape of the twisted cross and realized that being Queen was not the utterly safe place I had once thought it would be.

  38

  You might assume the amorous king of a vast empire could indulge in a lengthy and extravagant wedding celebration, maybe even for several weeks. Yet despite his great love for me, such was not the case with Xerxes of Persia and his new bride. We had our nights together, but days were spent maddeningly in feverish preparations for war. I bit my tongue and focused on making those evenings together all that they could be. But the lack of time together during daylight hours began to frustrate me immediately.

  I did take the occasion to rescind the Queen’s tax, a widely resented levy that forced citizens to pay for the extravagances of the Queen’s lifestyle. Memucan hailed the move as a stroke of genius, as it instantly made me the most popular Queen in Persian
history. Favor seemed to follow me in those days.

  However, despite my seemingly charmed life, it took a near-eternity to see Mordecai again. Once more, the handmaidens came to my rescue. Most of them had seen me slip out nearly every day of my preparatory year, and when they had asked me, I had told them the truth. After all, it was no great embarrassment that my father worked on the Palace grounds and met me in secret. So Roshana slipped away to the King’s Gate, found Mordecai and delivered my instructions. Another of my girls went out to each of the four watchtowers and delivered the Queen’s order, beneath my seal, that one Mordecai the scribe be accorded full access privileges into any royal space he wished to enter.

  The next evening, while Xerxes attended a war meeting with his generals, I followed two of the girls through a back door in my quarters, walked through a dizzying series of back corridors and came out of the royal residence through a servants’ entrance.

  I barely had time to make out a figure in the shadows before he was there, embracing me. The handmaidens, already highly nervous from having led me out without protection, stiffened and nearly screamed in fright.

  “This is he,” I quickly called to them. “He’s my father!”

  They shrank back, and I continued to sway in his arms. Yes, my tears made a return appearance, as did his. He kept up a muttered monologue as we kept bending together, neither one willing to break free. “My dear, my little one,” he repeated. “Can you believe it? Can you? You are Queen!” I felt like I was holding a ghost, for the first part of my life now seemed like some faraway dream, an ethereal reverie that had taken place in someone else’s lifetime.

  I was still unwilling to let him go, so I began to whisper through my sobs into his ear, “I need you, Poppa. I need you more than ever! I need your counsel, your wisdom. I need you! I miss you!”

  Finally he pulled back, his eyes bright with a remembered question. “Have you told them, Hadassah? Have you told even the King of your—secret?”

  I hurriedly waved my companions farther away and leaned into his face. “No, I haven’t! But if you continue to call me Hadassah and ask about my secret in front of my servants, it will not matter!”

  He winced at his thoughtlessness and frowned. “I am sorry, dear Esther. I forgot about them and your new name.”

  “I told Hegai only because he realized that I had invented a name. And even then, I swore him to silence. Yet I do not see why I should not reveal it now. I am married to the most powerful man in the world, if you can believe it. Surely I am now safe from those who killed our families, am I not?”

  “No,” he hissed in agitation, “you are not! In fact, in some ways you are more in danger than ever. You must never, ever tell.”

  “Have you seen the number of guard towers you just walked through?” I exclaimed. “Do you know how carefully I had to plan just to have you admitted through all of them without endangering your head? Have you seen the thousands, yes thousands, of guards who guard my husband’s every move? And now mine?”

  I believe my angst was tinged with some desire to have Mordecai appreciate the height of my ascension. I regretted my petulance immediately when I suddenly remembered that fleeting glimpse of the twisted cross on the back of that sentry guarding Xerxes and me from the coronation crowd—not a handful of steps away from me.

  I quickly dismissed the idea of telling Mordecai, knowing it would only heighten his worries. And at that moment I did not want to argue with him about his perennial anxieties. I just wanted to be with him, to somehow bridge the gap between my dizzying new existence and my placid, solitary life of old.

  “Look, Poppa,” I continued. “Don’t you want to come into the Palace? I can have you named to any post you wish. I can gain you access anywhere you want.”

  “I am sure you can, my dear. But someone would learn our secret. Let me just continue in my current work and keep the safe life I know.”

  “But don’t you understand? You can live at the height of luxury. You’re the father of the Queen! Can’t my victory have any impact on you? Come, please! Don’t deprive me of my chance to make this a good fortune for all of us!”

  “My favor must be earned,” he replied, “just as yours was.” He touched me lightly on the top of both arms. “You can make the most of this good fortune by being a beloved Queen—by extending your influence. As for us, I have spoken with Jesse. Now that you’ve been chosen, he has been rewarded for helping catch Misgath by being named to Memucan’s private staff. He can run errands out to the Gate and carry messages between us.”

  “And is that it? After growing up in your house, calling you my father for as long as I can remember—I never see you again? We never speak again except through messages from a courier?”

  “No. No,” he quickly assured me. “We can arrange meetings like this again. But they cannot be too frequent or word will get out. This night was dangerous enough.”

  I looked down, unwilling to face him. “All right. But I never thought it would end up this way. I thought I was fighting for both of us. I never . . .” My voice trailed off into a stifled sob.

  “You are fighting for us, my dear. You are. But G-d has a different way than we’d anticipated. A different path, that’s all. Trust Him.”

  “I’m trying my best, Poppa. I really am.”

  G-d did not take long in showing both of us that Mordecai had urged me onto the right path. Less than a month later, in his normal position as a scribe at the King’s Gate, he sat praying for me, as he usually did throughout the day. Evidently the two royal guards standing above him thought he was napping, for they launched into a conversation that soon caused Mordecai to stop praying—but keep his eyes very much closed.

  “You’re going to have to do it,” said the first, in a low, raspy voice. “Xerxes is getting ready to leave for war tomorrow, and he decided at the last moment to bring our commander with him. So I have to know. Are you ready to take him?”

  “I’m ready to take him into the next life with me,” said the other, a younger-sounding man. “I hate him. I hate these people and all their grand pretensions. I’m ready to help take over and to cut a few necks.”

  “Are you truly ready to die in the process? It may take some time for the boss to take over the Palace after you do it.”

  “I am ready to die, my captain. If only I have the chance to spit in that fool’s eye before I give his severed head a good swift kick.”

  “Good. Tonight, at the stroke of seven, just after his dinner with the new Queen.”

  “I’ll have my blade sharpened.”

  Although the men must have separated and left within moments, Mordecai did not know that—and he was too frightened to open his eyes for a look around. So for several long moments he sat as still as a stone, listening to the sounds around him for any signs of their continued presence. Finally he pretended to let his head fall sideways, and he parted his eyelashes ever so slightly. They had indeed gone.

  In case they were watching him from the crowd, he feigned nonchalance when he stood and yawned. Nevertheless he made his way through the Gate and swiftly onto the Palace grounds.

  I received word only a few moments later. A guard entered the room where I was receiving a welcome massage from one of my handmaidens and slipped another of the attendants a tiny note. She brought it to me. It read, “Mordecai of Susa wishes an audience with your Highness at your earliest convenience, in the Outer Court.”

  I immediately bolted upright, stunning the messenger in the process, pulled on the nearest robe at hand and made haste for the Outer Court. I knew Mordecai would never have initiated a midday meeting unless it was an emergency of the highest order.

  When I found him, Mordecai’s skin was the color of an overcast sky—white with a strong tinge of gray. I wanted to sit him down and feed him a good soup as badly as to hear what had brought him there. Unfortunately, Mordecai gave me no such choice. He immediately grabbed my forearms and began to pull me toward him. He spoke quickly, then caught sig
ht of the two guards purposefully approaching him.

  “Hada—your Highness, these guards must leave us,” he whispered.

  “Nonsense,” I replied. “They are part of my personal retinue. They are trustworthy upon pain of death.”

  Mordecai’s face tightened and he whispered, “I mean it, your Highness. Absolutely no one else can hear my message for you. No one is safe.”

  Mistakenly assuming that his only objection centered on the tired old ethnic secrecy issue, I began to argue. These guards did not care whether I was Jewish, Persian or a citizen of the moon. They were reliable. Besides, I was Queen of Persia, regardless of anyone’s prejudice.

  But Mordecai held his ground. Speaking through gritted teeth, he muttered, “When I am finished you will see the necessity for my demands, your Highness.”

  So finally, with a heavy sigh, I dismissed the guards to just inside the door. They hesitated, wishing instead to form an outdoor perimeter for my protection, but finally relented.

  Mordecai was only halfway through his account when I started to feel like the ultimate fool. Without taking my eyes off of Mordecai, I called out loudly for my senior guard. “Artechim, get me Memucan.”

  “Your Highness?”

  “Get me Memucan. Now. As fast as you can run.”

  39

  Artechim saw the fire in my eyes and his own widened immediately as he sensed my urgency. In fact, this was the first real test of my royal authority—to give an order to someone this adamantly. He turned on his heel and was gone, the rapid slapping sound of sandals on stone fading quickly into the distance. Mordecai gave me his usual tight embrace, this time punctuated by an extra long squeeze of the arms.