Game of Queens

by India Edghill

  She has control over herself. She is kind and she is clever in both deed and word. We have chosen well, Vashti and I. I watched as Esther and Vashti awaited Hatach’s revelations.

  Clearly delighted with his audience, Hatach lifted the stopper from the iridescent teardrop-shaped vial. “O Star of Women, this perfume is like you—”

  “High-smelling?” Esther interrupted, and Vashti put a hand up to her mouth, pressing back laughter.

  Frowning, Hatach began again. “O most beautiful of women—”

  “O most flattering of eunuchs, I am no such thing.”

  “You are!” Hatach stamped his foot to emphasize his words. “Of course you are. Who is a better judge of that, you or I?”

  I thought it time to intervene before Hatach persuaded himself to throw a tantrum. “Or I?” I said, and they all looked at me: Hatach sulky, Esther amused, and Vashti falsely solemn. “Hatach, don’t let the women tease you. And you, Esther, remember you were chosen as the most beautiful woman in Shushan.”

  “You see?” Hatach told Esther. “Why deny what is plain to all our eyes?”

  “Very well, I will not deny that I was chosen as the most beautiful woman in Shushan—” Esther slanted a glance at me and added, “—or at least as beautiful as rubies. But Hatach, you cannot say I am the most beautiful of all women, for you have not seen all the women in the world.”

  “But Esther, of course he can say that. In fact, he just did.” Pleased with this devastating logic, Vashti linked her arm in mine. I saw Esther prepare to respond, so I firmly steered the conversation back to the original point at issue.

  “The perfume?” I said.

  Hatach held out the vial to Esther. She took it and held it under her nose—and promptly handed it back.

  “If I am like that perfume, my hopes of becoming queen are doomed,” Esther said, adding, when Vashti raised her eyebrows in silent question, “Too much musk.”

  “Of course you are right, that one is quite hopeless,” Hatach promptly agreed. “Try this instead.”

  Again Esther refused to try the perfume on her skin once she inhaled its aroma. “Too sweet. You of all people, Hatach, should know that I am not sweet.”

  “You are,” Hatach said firmly. “You are sweet as spring honey. And truly, that scent is far too simple to suit you.” Hatach studied the vials and at last selected one of pale green glass. “This one. This one is perfect. The most wise and beauteous Queen of Sheba herself might have worn such a fragrance.”

  “I know that one, and I think you’re right.” I remembered Vashti trying that perfume. A subtle mixture of sandalwood and spikenard, cedar and clove and frankincense, it had proved far too lush to suit Vashti at all. No, my darling Vashti remained faithful to the scent I myself had crafted for her; even now the warm bite of amber drifted in the air about her.

  Pleased by my agreement, Hatach cradled the green glass vial in his hand. “Yes, this one might have been compounded for you alone. Like you, it is complex, sophisticated, elegant.”

  “Oh, no,” said Esther, glancing down demurely. “I’m only a simple country girl.”

  “Esther,” said Vashti, “I don’t know how you can utter such an outrageous untruth without bursting out laughing! Do you, Hegai?”

  Ignoring both girls, I nodded to Hatach, who told Esther to stand still. Outwardly meek, Esther obeyed; Hatach stroked the perfume over her throat and wrists. “Now wait,” he told her. “Let the perfume decide.”

  Esther smiled at him. “I will, and I promise to say nothing witty about it.”

  “Good. It is utterly unnecessary for a woman to be witty all the time.” Hatach regarded her sternly; obedient, Esther waited until Hatach nodded. Then she lifted her hand, breathed in the fragrance, and smiled. “Sandalwood,” she said, “and … cedar?”

  Hatach nodded, and I smiled, too. “Yes, and spikenard, frankincense, and clove—and other essences as well.”

  “And,” said Hatach, “they all combine to create the scent of Esther.”

  He had done well, and was so pleased with himself and his charge, that I decided to let him have the final word on the subject. Everyone with eyes can see the result of their labors, but palace eunuchs themselves get little enough praise for all their hard work.

  ESTHER

  Time flowed, a slow yet steady river. Each day the same rituals, each night the same quiet determination and despair.

  I remember that time as if it were all one endless day and night. Only a few hours spring into bright focus, when I look back upon my waiting time.

  One was the moment I realized that Hegai loved Vashti. Not as a brother loves a younger sister, or a eunuch cherishes a valued concubine in his charge—but as a man loves a woman.

  I saw how his eyes followed Vashti, how when he touched her, his fingertips lingered on her skin or her hair.…

  And I saw that Vashti accepted Hegai and his eternal perfect care of her without question, and without noticing his deep and abiding love. Oh, she was never unkind, and she clearly held him in great affection. But mere fondness was not what Hegai longed for from her. Fondness, I knew, was not what he dreamed of in the dark.

  Another was the day I saw how clever Vashti really was—how fine her mind would have been, had she ever been encouraged to use it. I already knew that Vashti was determined that she—and Hegai—would set the rules and control all that was done in this bizarre quest for a new Queen of Queens. She begrudged all attempts by Queen Mother Amestris to advise her to favor one candidate over another.

  So Vashti set out to ensure that the very mention of the contest wearied the Queen Mother. The nobly-born ladies Tandis and Barsine had been given Vashti’s twin handmaids Ajashea and Bolour as their servants. And the four girls, quick and clever as mongooses, were given the task of carrying messages to the Queen Mother. Lengthy messages requiring an equally lengthy answer. Frivolous queries—should Vashti give all the candidates new names? Should she require they all dress alike when they went to the king?

  Messages a dozen times a day, until Amestris at last told her servants not to admit Vashti’s couriers.

  The morning they were turned away at the Queen Mother’s gate, Tandis and Ajashea dashed back giggling so hard Hegai reproved them for unseemly behavior, while Vashti and I laughed. In that laughing moment, I saw that Vashti had skillfully created a brace of spies—the four girls were all nearly the same age, and most people could not tell whether two girls running to do Vashti’s bidding were Tandis and Ajashea or Barsine and Bolour. By now, no one questioned the four girls’ right to be anywhere in the women’s palaces.

  But the memory that shines brightest was the golden afternoon I roamed alone through the Queen’s Palace, and came upon a living reminder of long-vanished glory.

  * * *

  I walked slowly through the bars of light and shadow until I came to a gate. The gate seemed ancient, the planks that formed it worn smooth, as if it were older than the palace itself. Gold traced images upon the time-darkened wood; djinn dancing in flames. For a moment I hesitated, then put my hand to the latch. It will be locked, I told myself, but when I lifted the bar, it rose lightly, easily, and the gate swung open when I pushed upon its polished and gilded wood.

  I stepped through the gate into a small garden. Walls covered in tiles blue as the sky above me rose high, twice as high as my head. The small rich roses of Damascus spilled over marble pots, perfumed the warm air.

  The garden was very quiet, and at first I thought I was alone within it. Then I saw the old man.

  At first I could not imagine what man would dare enter here, into a private garden within the walls of the women’s world. Then he looked at me, and as I gazed into his serene blue eyes I knew who he must be.

  Daniel, called the Dream-Master. Daniel, who had given peace to madness-ravaged Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, who had vainly warned worthless Belshazzar. Only so great and so old a man would be permitted to wander where he pleased in the Queen’s Palace.

 
“Dream-Master,” I said, and bowed before him.

  “Oh, dear,” Daniel said. “Not another one.” And as I stared at him, puzzled, he smiled. Dreams did not cloud his eyes; they were bright as the sun-gilded sky far above us. “You are as bad as the Beautiful One, O Star of Shushan. Neither of you satisfied with mere rank and riches.”

  “You know who I am.”

  “Of course. And not”—he lifted a minatory hand—“not because I can read dreams. Everyone in the palace knows precisely who the girls who battle for a crown are. There is no privacy in a palace; remember that.”

  “I will. May I ask—”

  “Oh, sit. You are so full of life it tires me to watch you trying to stand still. Yes, you may ask.”

  I sat at his feet; it seemed only proper. “Can you see my future, Dream-Master?”

  “Yes. Your future here will be harder for you than for the others.”

  “Why should it be? I am as beautiful as they, and more learned.”

  “Because,” Daniel said, “you are a Jew.”

  And then, as I stared, he added, “Don’t bother to deny it, Star of the Palace. I know because your stiff-necked cousin came to me so I could tell him what he could have told himself. Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Daniel shook his head ruefully. “Remember that I, too, am a Jew. Once my pride was to keep all our laws, even in the court of the King of this world’s Kings. That didn’t last long.”

  I did not catch at this bait. I let the silence between us grow heavy, as if truth fell to the ground between us, unspoken.

  Daniel smiled. “Yes, you are clever, my lady Esther. Stay that way; it is the only safe path for those trapped as we are. And remember, while you have friends within these gilded walls, they weave their own futures as they do yours.”

  Now it was I who smiled. “Queens have no friends,” I quoted.

  “No, I suppose they don’t. But remember that your foe’s foe may aid you for a time.”

  “May—or may not.” Daniel’s foreign wife stood in the doorway to the blue-tiled house; she regarded me critically.

  “Come again if you wish, or if Samamat or I can help you.” Daniel hesitated, glanced at his wife. “If you dwell in a palace, it is good to have friends.”

  “It is good to have friends you can trust,” Samamat amended.

  “Yes, it is.” I rose and bowed to them both. “Thank you. I will remember your words.”

  * * *

  “You go to listen to the Dream-Master?” Vashti smiled, and slid her arm through mine. “Is he not wonderful? He is always so clever, and knows so many stories—yes, let us go to Daniel’s garden.”

  As easily as that, she claimed my privilege as her own. I was not sure I liked having Vashti come with me to listen to Daniel, but I could think of no good reason to say no to her.

  * * *

  Vashti more than repaid me for my loss of solitude with Daniel Dream-Master, for she took me to gaze upon the king. One afternoon, she came and grasped my hand and drew me through the labyrinth of the palace until we reached a window covered by an ivory screen carved in intricate latticework. “Look, Esther!” Vashti sounded greatly pleased with herself; I stepped forward, cautiously.

  I looked through the ivory lattice and for the first time looked upon the face of the King of Kings. Slow fire kindled in my blood. I had not expected that; never thought I would desire him. When I saw him riding through Shushan beside a laughing Queen Vashti, I had not seen his face—but I had remembered ever since how he had sat easily upon his restless horse.

  Did I desire him now because he was pleasing to look upon? For Ahasuerus truly was what all kings were called: handsome. He was tall and well-formed, broad-shouldered and lithe. His hair curled night-dark over his shoulders; his skin gleamed rich as amber. The King of Kings plainly spent many hours in the sunlight, and he shone with health and moved with supple vigor. His strides as he paced before Prince Haman were long, each sweep of his legs kicking his heavy gold-embroidered robes aside.

  Now I know why I am here. He is the man destined for me before our mothers were born.

  Below us, Ahasuerus reached the end of the balcony, turned back so that the sunlight fell upon his face. His eyes were the rich brown of good fertile earth.…

  “Well, now you have seen the King of Kings,” Vashti said to me, and I drew in a deep breath, willing my blood to calmness.

  “Yes,” I said, “I have seen him.”

  “Now that you have seen him, do you think you would like to be Queen of Queens?” she asked.

  “I do not know if I would like to be queen,” I said, speaking each word slowly and with care, as I did with any language new to my tongue, “but I do know that I would like to be the king’s wife.”

  Again I looked down, found myself staring at Haman. As he smiled and gestured, and the king smiled back, I realized that not only Queen Mother Amestris stood between me and the king. Another obstacle was Prince Haman.

  I did not like Haman even before he revealed his evil heart to all the world. When I looked upon Haman, I saw a man who drowned half-breed pups and fouled water with their small bodies. A man who tore away a woman’s veil on a public street. Lord Prince Haman, the king’s friend—so sleek, so attentive, so obsequious. Even had I not encountered him before, I think I would have disliked what I saw. And what I most disliked was seeing my king smiling upon this man.

  “That is Prince Haman, is it not?” I asked Vashti. “How did he become the king’s favorite?”

  Vashti looked and shrugged; light flowed over her pale hair. Haman, she told me, had always lurked about the court—

  “But he became the king’s good friend only after I was queen no longer. The Queen Mother always favored Haman, and I think she set him in Ahasuerus’s path. She wanted Haman to be his friend—and Haman knew how to make Ahasuerus like him. Ahasuerus needs friends,” Vashti finished, rather wistfully.

  So Queen Mother Amestris has her own pawn in play. But I think she misjudges, this time, with this man. I guessed that Amestris thought to rule Haman. Amestris had not learned that soon or late, a blade grows too heavy for an aging hand to command. That Haman was a weapon that would turn upon its wielder.

  “Why do you call him the favorite?” Vashti possessed a disconcerting ability to remember what had been said many words ago. She clearly wished to understand my thoughts. I answered as seriously as she had asked.

  “Because he so clearly is. See how he stands, his body curving toward the king? And how the king reaches out to him, permits him near?” I distrusted Haman’s fulsome devotion to the king. I saw Haman’s loyalty for what it was: a sham.

  “Everyone turns to the king, Esther.”

  “Not as Haman does. Not so…” I hesitated, trying to choose the right word to describe Haman. Images slid through my mind. Serpent. Wolf. But they did not fit; the serpent, the wolf, were merely animals, innocent. Haman is truly evil.

  “Esther?” Vashti’s voice, questioning, concerned. “Are you all right? Suddenly you looked—ill.”

  I managed to smile and shake my head. “No. Perhaps I am a little tired, that is all.”

  Vashti’s worried eyes brightened. “Of course you are. We will go to the baths. That will soothe and rest you.”

  Vashti led me to the Queen’s Bath—she no longer held the title of queen, but all that had been hers remained hers save that title and the crown. All the world knew Ahasuerus still went to her. A dart of jealousy stung; I forced myself to ignore it. No matter how my heart burned for him, the king did not yet know I existed. He might never know, if he chooses another. If he does, I will die—or wish to. How can I ensure I am the first maiden to go to him?

  All such pains and questions vanished in the Queen’s Bath. Of course I had been bathed and perfumed in the palace baths, and thought myself pampered like a princess, but compared to the Queen’s Bath, the palace baths were as a bucket in a shed.

  I seemed to walk into an un
derwater world where maidservants bathed me in water that smelled of roses and washed my long heavy hair. After I had been bathed and rinsed until I thought I must melt if one more drop of water touched my skin, I was permitted to lie upon one of the marble slabs so the maids might rub sweet oils into my skin. The women were so skilled in their art I fell asleep as one combed out my hair and another rubbed myrrh into my feet.

  I awoke refreshed as if I were once again a child on my father’s farm, when each awakening was to joy. I stared up at the high-arched ceiling, admiring sunlight glinting through little stars. Stars; a good omen. I was Star, now.

  Omens! What would Mordecai say? Sunlit stars, water and warm oil. My body naked to perfumed air and expert hands. No place, no position, for a good Jewish girl. But by my cousin’s own order, I am no longer a good Jewish girl. I am not Hadassah bas Abihail. I am Esther, one girl among many in the palace of the king. I stretched, supple as a cat, or as a courtier’s back—or as my cousin Mordecai’s scruples had proven to be. As I stared up at the sunlight stars, I found myself thinking of Vashti. She had no true place in the palace anymore, and nowhere else to go.

  I asked her whether she could not return to her father’s house. The question startled her.

  “I never thought of it, Esther.”

  “Think of it now. Would you be happier there?”

  “No.” Her answer came swiftly, without pause for the briefest thought. Then, more carefully, “No, I would not. I have not dwelt beneath that roof for so long I think I have forgotten even the scents and sounds there. And I don’t think my mother would welcome back a daughter so disgraced and dishonored as I.”

  VASHTI

  “I would like to be his wife,” Esther said, and I stared at her. Ahasuerus was king, and he was kind and generous, and I loved him as a sister loves her dearest brother—but what I saw in Esther’s eyes was a pure hunger, a longing I had never felt for him.

  Can she love him? So swiftly, so easily? And if she did, was that good or bad?

  I put the question to Hegai later, when all the queen-maidens walked about the gardens, enjoying the warm evening air. I explained what we had done, and what Esther had said, and how her eyes had looked as she gazed upon the king.