Esther : Royal Beauty (9781441269294)

by Hunt, Angela Elwell

  “I should have known you’d find a way to check on me.” I hesitated, searching for words that would adequately describe the glorious joy that had flooded my heart. “I will live for the day when I see you again, cousin, whether in this life or the next.”

  I thought he would respond with the same sentiment, but instead he said, “Go in peace, Hadassah. May HaShem watch over you until we speak again.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harbonah

  FOLLOWING IN THE TRADITION OF HIS FATHER and other kings before him, when balmy spring surrendered to summer the king and his household packed their belongings and moved to the palace at Ecbatana. Usually I made the trip with a light heart, much preferring the northern palace’s weather and locale, but that year I left reluctantly. I had developed a real affection and sense of responsibility for Mordecai’s young ward, and I hated to leave her behind.

  At least I would not leave her alone—Mordecai spoke to the girl every day but on his Sabbath, and Hegai would remain behind to oversee the palace of the virgins.

  My place was with my master.

  Though I had a thousand details to oversee as we prepared for the journey, I did not worry about my friend Mordecai. Since he had found a way to communicate with Hadassah, I knew he would be available to provide counsel should she become depressed or discouraged.

  But why should she be discouraged? No virgin in the harem was more pampered than Esther. As Hegai’s favorite, she enjoyed the best of everything. As Mordecai’s ward, she would never be alone. Her unseen guardian would always be available to comfort, counsel, educate, and correct—in the unlikely event that she needed correction.

  As the royal party began the trek over the mountains, I set my concerns about the harem aside and began to concentrate on my king. The idea of crowning a new queen had brightened his mood while we remained in Susa, but we left the virgins behind. With no hope for a consort’s comfort and companionship in the near future, the king’s dark mood returned.

  Not even our arrival at Ecbatana cheered him. The summer palace was situated by a river and located on an elevated plateau, where the air was cool and thin. The impressive Zagros Mountains overlooked the city, with Mount Alvand towering over us with its snowcapped heights. An otherworldly sense of calm dominated the settlement, despite the capital’s torrid and bloody history.

  The summer palace held deep personal significance for my master. His father, the great Darius, had overcome a rival here, executing the traitor Phraortes atop the city wall in full view of the public. Darius preserved his legacy with that act, and I knew my master could not gaze upon the city wall without remembering that he would have no empire if not for his father’s valor. The older people in Ecbatana remembered as well, and expected to see the same power and authority in Darius’s son.

  I could only hope that my king would accept the memory as a challenge. With the memory of his failure in Greece still fresh in his thoughts, my master did not need another taunting reminder of his father’s success.

  The palace at Ecbatana was a marvel, equally as beautiful as the compound at Susa. Seven concentric walls enclosed the king’s house and gleamed in the slanting sunlight, its high battlements plated with gold and silver. The river ran deep and fast at the west side, providing life and security to those who dwelled inside the walls. Deep within the secure fortress lay the royal treasury, and deeper still lay the king’s residence.

  I hoped the change of scenery would do my master good, but after our arrival he retired to his rooms and went straight to bed. He stayed abed for days, waking only to relieve himself and eat a bit of fruit or meat. His dark mood deepened with every passing day, and more than once I found myself wishing that he had allowed Vashti to accompany her children. Though she was never again to sit beside him as queen, I could have arranged a chance meeting in a hallway or antechamber. . . .

  In truth, no woman had ever delighted my king like Vashti. With a tongue as sharp as a serpent’s tooth, she had a gift for cutting to the heart of a matter. Her beautiful eyes saw through the facades of smiling sycophants, and her ears caught rumors long before they surfaced to do damage. Though her obstinacy had resulted in her downfall, I think the king would have enjoyed being with someone who saw him not as a king, but as a man in need of a soul mate.

  I hesitate to write of these things because I am a slave. I have no right to exhibit even a sliver of pride, but I am sure there were occasions when the king considered me a friend. Not because I had done anything to be worthy of his notice, but because I was a stable fixture in his life. I had seen him at his best and at his worst. I had seen him hearty and ill, cheerful and disagreeable, in love and lonely.

  Lonely is the word that best describes my king that summer. My royal master longed for someone in whom he could confide, yet no confidant could be found in Ecbatana—or at least none that was worthy of a king. Even his nephew Mushka, who had always delighted him, left my disgruntled master murmuring about the extreme foolishness of restless young men.

  After realizing that our beautiful surroundings had done nothing to improve my master’s mood or his health, one evening I gathered my courage and suggested we return to Susa early, before autumn advanced. “The plain is so lovely in the cooler months,” I said, pretending to talk to myself as I removed his royal cloak and prepared him for bed. “The king has always enjoyed looking across the plain at the river.”

  The king grunted an inadvertent reply, then lifted his head and looked around his chamber. Recognizing his thoughtful mood, I stepped away, content to let him explore whatever thoughts lay on his mind. He settled onto his bed, punched his pillow, then rested his head on one arm and stared out the balcony of his chamber.

  “Eunuch, look at this,” he finally said, lifting one arm to indicate the elaborate columns around his bed. “The finest artisans in all the world wrought this chamber for my father, but what pleasure can a weary man find in it? A life without joy is no life at all.”

  I pressed my lips together and waited. I would have remained silent, but then he turned and met my gaze. “I did wrong to set Vashti aside,” he said, his voice flat and matter-of-fact. “And now I must take a new queen, but I do not think I will find Vashti’s equal. She was more royal than anyone I know.”

  I drew a deep breath, not sure how to answer. I did not want to criticize the former queen, for she was still the mother of the crown prince, but neither did I want to criticize the king’s decision.

  “I am sure your majesty will do the right thing,” I finally said, offering a safe and cowardly answer. “My king has great wisdom.”

  “Your king has wise counselors.” My master turned back toward the balcony and peered into the darkness. “My father often said I should be more decisive, that I lived too much in my thoughts. But I never know how to choose the right thing, so my counselors give me wisdom . . . or at least the appearance of sagacity.”

  I bowed my head and said nothing, for my master was speaking as if to an intimate. What I heard could never be repeated outside the king’s bedchamber and was probably best forgotten.

  “Tomorrow we shall make immediate plans to return to Susa,” my master said, abruptly punching his pillow again. “Have my generals plot a swift track over the mountains. I would like to be home before the snow makes travel impossible.”

  I pressed my hands together, bowed, and backed out of the room, turning only when I had stepped between the guards in the outer hall.

  I had been successful. We would return to Susa immediately, and that fair city and its warmer climate should do much to ease the king’s melancholy. He could ride out on a hunt or watch the soldiers train on the open plain. He could take his sons riding by the river.

  And if the city failed to lift the dark cloud around him, my master might call for an evening’s entertainment and I would recommend Hegai and his palace of the virgins. Scores of beautiful young women waited there, and any of them would make a better queen than the selfish, scheming Vashti.
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br />   I had a good feeling about one girl in particular.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hadassah

  AS GIRLS, PARYSATIS AND I HAD OFTEN REMARKED about the discernible difference in the city’s atmosphere when the king was away from his palace. We groaned about how boring and dull Susa was without him, but that difference was magnified a hundredfold when one lived in the royal fortress. When I entered the palace, the harem buzzed with activity, and every slave walked with a brisk step, never lingering for more than a moment in any one spot. But once the king and his household departed, an air of somnolence descended over the place.

  Those of us who had been gathered into the complex reserved for virgins grew sluggish and lazy in the heat. We were still fed choice foods (Artystone claimed the eunuchs were fattening us like lambs for the slaughter) and given our beauty treatments: each morning we bathed in waters laced with myrrh, and each evening our handmaids massaged perfumed oils into our skin. I had already begun to notice the difference—when I removed my tunic each night, the fabric smelled of sweet flowers.

  In the more relaxed atmosphere of the hot summer, we were allowed to sleep until we woke naturally, and nap in the late afternoons. I spent long hours lying in my chamber, staring at the painted ceiling and wondering how I had come to be in that place. I certainly had no choice in the matter, but what choices did any woman have in her life? Whether we were betrothed and married to friends of the family or sold into slavery or sent to a king’s palace, what did it matter? We had no control over our fate.

  Yet we were not the only powerless beings in the palace. One afternoon I stood at the gate to our building and saw a line of shackled boys arriving with a caravan. Stick thin, barely clad, covered in scabs and grime, they stood silently, the fight gone out of them. These lads, the oldest of whom was probably no more than ten or eleven, were directed to another building where they would live until ready to serve the king.

  I looked over and caught Hegai’s eye—he had seen the boys, too. “Will they be slaves?” I asked.

  Hegai opened his mouth to speak, then clamped his mouth shut and nodded.

  “Will they be eunuchs?” I asked, more carefully.

  Hegai turned away, but a moment later he turned toward me again. His eyes brimmed with tears as he answered: “Y-y-yes. They will be c-c-castrated within the week.”

  I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic smile and reconsidered my fate. The king controlled everything in the palace, including our right to lie with a man we loved and create children. We virgins were not the only people who’d had the king’s will forced upon us, but I felt far more fortunate than those captive boys.

  With the king away, Hegai allowed us to wander throughout the fortress so long as we promised not to draw attention to ourselves. Like surreptitious ghosts we slipped out of the harem at night to tiptoe over the marble floors and stare at the towering columns, marveling at their colorful designs. I ran my fingers over glazed tiles arranged into intricate figures of lions and horses and marveled at the luxury of my king’s palace.

  I had never seen such beautiful images, not even in Parysatis’s home. Mordecai and Miriam had simple tastes and bare walls, but amazing art covered nearly every object in the palace. Walls, ceilings, columns, floors—colors blazed from every surface and shone in the slanting rays of the sun. Fountains bubbled up in the most unexpected locations, and the shrubs in the garden hung low with huge blossoms. I loved walking in the garden adjacent to the apadana and breathing in the scents of so many flowers. A shame, really, that the king chose to be away during the most beautiful growing season.

  Sometimes I felt almost guilty for being so pampered. Mordecai talked as though I were being held prisoner, and while I was not free to leave the royal palace, no one asked me to do anything but submit to my lessons, ointments, and garment fittings.

  When we weren’t eating, resting, or exploring, we attended lessons under Hegai. The little eunuch did not seem to enjoy speaking about intimate topics, but he had grown up in the harem and knew everything we would need to learn.

  Such as how to walk so that our hips swayed from side to side. “Like a b-b-beguiling pendulum,” he said, waving a silk scarf back and forth like a cattail blowing in the wind. “The king’s view of your backside should be gr-gr-graceful and f-f-feminine, hypnotic.”

  His advice confused me. When we were summoned to the king’s chamber, weren’t we supposed to immediately prostrate ourselves? And when he dismissed us, weren’t we supposed to back out of the room, head down, eyes averted, until the guards closed the door? If so, how would the king ever have an opportunity to glimpse anyone’s backside?

  I wanted to ask my question aloud, but Hegai had said nothing about the span of time between our entrance and our exit, so perhaps some occasion in the gap might require walking away from the king. If he took one look at my face and pronounced me unattractive, perhaps I might be allowed to turn and slink away from his harsh disapproval . . . or maybe not.

  An Ionian beauty fluttered her fingers to catch Hegai’s attention. “What are we supposed to do with the king other than . . .” She rolled her eyes in a coy gesture and tugged at her long hair. “Are we supposed to talk to him?”

  “And what would you t-t-talk about?” Hegai shook his head. “Would you tell him how to run the k-k-kingdom? Would you give him advice on the r-r-royal children?”

  Obviously sensing Hegai’s discomfort, another eunuch stepped up to finish the answer. “You forget, girl, that you will be talking to the most powerful man in the world. You could not possibly say anything he would find interesting or useful, so keep your lovely lips clamped together. You are there to please him. If he wants music, play the harp. If he wants song, sing for him. If he wants to be touched, touch him as he directs. But do not talk to him. The royal ear must not be distracted or disturbed by one so young, and a female at that.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, annoyed by the eunuch’s advice. Mordecai was a wise man of some importance, yet he had never hesitated to talk with me. He had listened respectfully to my thoughts even when he considered them foolish, and then he had asked questions to make me think more deeply about my opinions. Though sometimes he talked about concepts and beliefs I didn’t understand, he had never told me to be quiet or shamed me for my ignorance.

  Perhaps the king would like to know about the homes from whence we had come, or the plans we had made before his summons interrupted our lives.

  I looked around the airy chamber and saw young girls from all over the Persian Empire. None of us had ever been in a situation even remotely like this, but under Hegai’s tutelage we had formed a bond. Nearly all of us had come to believe that our situation, though not of our choosing, was a step up in the world. If the king had not decided to choose another queen, we would probably be married to whomever our fathers chose. We would be eking out an existence far more difficult than the one we enjoyed in the harem. To the world we were anonymous females, but we knew each other.

  And in our hearts we cherished one unspoken hope: that the king would remember our names.

  One afternoon Hegai plucked my sleeve and pulled me from a group of girls who were painting one another’s faces. Artystone had applied cosmetics only to the right side of my face, and Hegai blinked at me in confusion until I picked up a towel and scrubbed some of the powdered malachite from my eyelids. “Sorry,” I said, blushing. “We didn’t think we’d be interrupted.”

  Instead of answering, Hegai took a half step back and looked me over, his bright eyes drinking me in from head to toe. “G-g-good,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Even with the messy c-c-cosmetics, g-g-good.”

  I squinted at him, unable to understand what he meant. “May I do something for you, Hegai?”

  For the first time that day, he lifted his head and looked directly into my eyes. “The k-k-king is returning early this year.”

  My stomach tightened. “He’s coming soon?”

  “Advance r-r-riders arrived th
is morning, s-s-so we expect the king within days.”

  An invisible cord pulled my shoulder blades together. “You don’t have to remind me to be more circumspect when the king is in residence. I know we won’t be able to leave the harem.”

  “Not here to r-r-remind you.” An odd look settled over Hegai’s face. “I want you to see H-H-Humusi. Today.”

  I turned to look at Artystone, but she had quietly slipped away. “I don’t believe I’ve met anyone by that name.”

  Hegai shook his head. “Sh-sh-she lives in the palace of the c-c-concubines. She belonged to the present king’s f-f-father.”

  Though she had outlived her master, she would reside in the harem until she died. I pressed my lips together, aware that my destiny had just unfolded before my eyes. Hegai might as well have said, And you, Esther, will languish with Humusi until you shrivel up and waste away. . . .

  A lump rose in my throat. Did Hegai think me so unlikely to please the king that he would send me to live with the concubines now? Was this his way of preparing me for rejection?

  Did he know I secretly dreamed of wearing a crown?

  I swallowed hard. “Are you sending me to live in the house of the concubines?”

  The little man’s face rippled with anguish. “By all the g-g-gods, you misunderstand. I am sending you to H-H-Humusi because she knows what a w-w-woman must do to please a man.” A furious blush glowed on the little eunuch’s cheekbones. “She knows things I will never know. B-b-but you need to know them, t-t-too.”

  I lowered my gaze, embarrassed for both of us.

  “I have asked H-H-Humusi to meet you in the harem garden. Your time is coming.”

  “My time?” I asked even though my racing blood had already intuited the answer.