Star of Persia: Esther's Story
Page 6
“Which is exactly what she wanted all along,” Vashti said, realizing at Omid’s lifted brow that she had spoken aloud.
“Begging your pardon, my queen. I do not understand.”
“It is nothing, Omid. But mark my words. Amestris has something to do with this request. She wants to see me humiliated before the king’s nobles and the common men. Well, I am not so easily fooled.” She swallowed. Met his gaze. “Tell the king’s eunuchs that I am not coming. I refuse to break the king’s law to embarrass him in such a way.”
Omid nodded. “You are sure?” His uncertainty at her answer unnerved her.
“You don’t think I should do this?” Whose side was he taking? The old fear that even her closest servant could not be trusted surfaced once more.
“You must do what you think best, my queen. It is hard to say how the king will respond if he has had too much wine to drink.” Omid bowed his head. “I will give the eunuchs your response.”
He walked back toward the entrance, and she wondered for the briefest moment if she should change her mind and call him back. To disobey Xerxes could cost her. But to obey could cost her more and humiliate them both.
Her refusal was a risk she had to take.
CHAPTER
Eight
Amestris pulled Biztha aside as he slipped from the banquet room and headed back to face the king. He was the one eunuch belonging strictly to Xerxes who favored her over Vashti, and by his look, she could not withhold a smile. “She refused then?”
Biztha nodded. “Yes, my queen.” He glanced at his fellow eunuchs, who marched ahead of him back to the king’s gardens, where the king and his men and the people still celebrated.
“Good,” she said. “Come and tell me everything the king decides as soon as you can.”
He bowed and she waved him on. He could not show up late behind the others, lest he anger the king.
Vashti would suspect her absence, but soon, if her hopes and dreams were correct, what Vashti thought would no longer matter.
“Where did you go?” Atossa asked, smiling her way.
“I fear I had too much to drink.” Let her mother-in-law think she had simply gone to relieve herself. If she had her way, she would be relieved of her nemesis as well. And that could not come soon enough.
Xerxes leaned against his cushioned couch and guzzled the rest of the wine in his cup. A servant quickly refilled it. Xerxes looked at the contents and set the goblet aside. He laughed, giddy with the pleasures surrounding him. Life was good. His men were happy, his own heart light. Soon Vashti would appear before him, and he could show the world that the king of kings was wed to the most beautiful woman in all of Persia. And the entire known world!
He laughed again. He could not help himself, though his advisors looked at him as though he was mad. Let them wonder what made him merry. Surely they suspected how much he appreciated Memucan’s suggestion. Hadn’t he thought the same thing many times in the past? What silly law had kept him from showing his prize to his men all these years? True, before he had worn the crown, Vashti was not kept as hidden. But memories faded, and to show her now, to show that her beauty had not faded, would fill his men with jealousy.
He chuckled, pleased with himself. How unfortunate that law had been. He had missed out on years of added respect that a beautiful wife afforded him.
Why keep her to himself? She would shine, decked out in her royal apparel and the jeweled crown he’d had made for her when he ascended the throne. It set her apart from all other women, something she most certainly deserved. Ah, Vashti. How I love you, my queen.
Had he told her that? Love was not something men thought about in terms of marriage. They wed for status, to carry on their name, to increase wealth. Love was hardly something that entered a man’s mind when he took a woman to his bed.
But as he listened to the men’s laughter around him, he felt the slightest sobering. If love was real, then Vashti had won his heart. He could not imagine his world without her. Without her tender embrace, her willingness to do whatever he asked of her, and her understanding mind, he would be lost. What man among those here compared to her?
Certainly not in form. The thought caused his heart to beat faster as he considered her beauty once more. After this night, he would call her to his bed and enjoy what his men would only glimpse here. A smile lifted his lips. He reached again for his cup and drank.
The sound of marching feet drew his attention, and he realized that his eunuchs had already returned. He searched among them. Counted seven of them. Where was Vashti?
“My lord.” Biztha stepped forward and knelt at his feet. “We took your command to Queen Vashti, and she refused to come and appear before the king and his men.”
Xerxes stared at the eunuch for a silent, lengthy breath. The air in the room around him thinned, and he felt as though a spear had pierced him. She had refused him?
He drew himself up, anger rising slowly, then increasing in strength with every strangled breath. “What did you say?”
Biztha cowered and moved slightly away from him. “Begging your pardon, my lord. We delivered your message to the queen. She refused to come with us to show her beauty to you and your guests, my lord.” The eunuch stilled, his wide gaze displaying his fear.
He should have the eunuchs killed. Every last one of them! “How dare you defy my order! Did I not tell you to bring her with you?” Xerxes’ words roared through the court. Silence fell like a pall. “Take them away. All of them!”
Guards appeared and the seven eunuchs marched away, surrounded by the men who would see to their execution. Yet Xerxes’ anger did not abate. The eunuchs were weak. They should not have listened to a woman!
He turned to face his seven advisors, each of whom had paled. Good. Let them fear the king’s wrath. And let them come up with a good punishment for this “favored” wife. The one he thought he loved.
Love! There was no such thing. If a woman could be so favored as to enjoy his presence and repay him with such disrespect, she did not deserve to have his affection.
Vashti accepted a cup of wine from a servant, her first of the banquet. What could Xerxes possibly be thinking to want her to stand before a whole city of men? In her royal crown? Did he mean only her crown? Her face heated at that thought. Surely not. Surely he simply wanted to show her beauty dressed in her royal finery.
Would saying yes have been so bad? Should she even now change her mind and send Omid to catch up to the eunuchs? No. She could not allow herself to be so humiliated, for if Xerxes were drunk, there was no telling what else he might ask of her once she arrived at his feast.
She turned to listen to the conversations nearest her, but her mind whirled with uncertain thoughts. When would this day end? She longed to hold her son and lie beside him to rest, to hear his gentle breathing as he slept. How much longer?
Another commotion at the banquet doors rattled her already fraught nerves. She straightened, lifted her chin, and smoothed her expression. Whatever it was, she would meet it as a queen should.
Hegai, the eunuch in charge of the king’s harem, appeared at the door, and Omid met him. They spoke in whispers until at last Hegai came forward with Omid. Both bowed before her.
“What news do you bring?” She met Hegai’s gaze. Was that sorrow in his dark eyes?
“The king has sent me with this message.” He straightened.
“Where are the eunuchs who came to me earlier?” she asked before he could say more.
“The king has removed them,” Hegai said.
Vashti knew better than to ask what he meant by that. Xerxes had a violent temper, and no doubt his messengers had received the punishment for her refusal to obey the king. Sudden sadness filled her that she could be responsible for harm to those men. She looked briefly away, then met Hegai’s gaze once more. The message had to be important for the king to send his highest-ranking eunuch.
“Tell me what the king said.” She clasped her hands in her lap.
Vashti sensed the heat of Xerxes’ anger in Hegai’s words. Her stomach dipped in a sense of dread.
“Then Memucan spoke to the king,” Hegai continued. “He said, ‘Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Xerxes. For the queen’s behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt, since they will say, “King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.” This very day the noblewomen of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will say the same to all the king’s officials, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty.’”
The knot twisted in Vashti’s gut, and she knew without looking that Amestris was smiling at her loss. This was why her rival had met with Memucan before the banquet. Vashti felt light-headed.
Hegai droned on, but Vashti barely heard him for the faint feeling overcoming her. “‘If it pleases the king,’ Memucan said to the king, ‘let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Xerxes. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.’”
Dread grew to stunned incomprehension. Never see her husband again? Never enter his presence, listen to his heart, share his love? Was it not just this morning he had called for her and promised his protection? And what of her son? Would he remain while she alone was sent away?
“I’m afraid, my queen, that this means you must come with me. The king’s orders are to have you removed from the palace before this night ends,” Hegai said, but she heard him as through a long tunnel.
“Omid?” She looked from Hegai to her eunuch, but his face bore no expression. Not even the sorrow and compassion covering Hegai’s features. Was he glad of this? Had he sided with Amestris all along?
“I will help you gather what you need, my queen,” Omid said. “And I will see about Gazsi.”
They both glanced at Hegai. He nodded. “The king said nothing about his son.”
Perhaps she would have this one comfort to take him with her. Would the king allow them to live? But he had not ordered her death. Only her loss of position. No doubt Amestris would take her place. She looked at her rival and did not miss the smirk on her round face.
Vashti turned away and slowly stood. She lifted her head and stepped down from the throne, left the banquet hall, and walked toward her apartments.
CHAPTER
Nine
Hadassah greeted Mordecai, carrying a small oil lamp. “You are home at last.” She smiled at him as he closed the door behind him.
He kissed her cheek. “Where is Levia?” He looked about the room, a brow lifting.
“She was here waiting with me, but she grew so weary that she sought her pallet. She asked me to wake her when you arrived.” Hadassah searched Mordecai’s face. “Should I wake her?”
Mordecai sank onto a low couch and glanced toward the hall, where his wife slept in a small room. “No. Do not wake her. When I join her, if she wakes, I will tell her anything she asks of me.” He ran a hand over his face. Somehow he looked older than he had that morning.
Hadassah sat across from him and set the lamp on a low table. “Did something happen?” She had come to read his expressions, and she held a bond with him that he did not share with his sons or even his wife. She was the daughter he’d never had.
He nodded, then leaned forward and placed his head in his hands. Hadassah waited until he lifted his gaze to hers. “The king has done a foolish thing.” His words were whispered, barely audible.
“What happened?” she asked again.
Mordecai clasped his hands. “The king and his men drank too much wine tonight. This is not unusual, because the king often drinks much wine. But tonight he broke a tradition of his fathers and ordered Queen Vashti to appear before him in front of all who were there. The tradition of the kings of Persia is that a king’s wives or concubines appear only to the king—and, of course, to their servants—but not to the general male populace. Even upon their marriage, they are covered in veils or hidden behind screens, lest a common man gaze on their beauty.” Mordecai’s chest lifted in a sigh.
Hadassah drew in a startled breath, suddenly fearing for the queen who once was so kind to her. “Did she come?”
Mordecai shook his head. “No. She refused the king’s command. And the king banished her from being queen. Queen Vashti was sent from Susa this very night.”
Hadassah stared at him. “Where did he send her?”
Mordecai shrugged. “No one knows. She was sent with her son from the kingdom. I daresay she left as quickly as the messengers who carried a decree throughout Persia declaring every man ruler in his own home. As if we needed such a thing.” Scorn dripped from Mordecai’s lips.
“Is not every man already ruler in his own home?” Hadassah tilted her head, searching his face.
“Exactly. The king asked the queen to break a tradition, a law even, that would humiliate them both, and she had more sense than he did. If she had obeyed such a foolish command”—he lowered his voice again—“it would have decreased the king’s respect in the eyes of all the people. As it is, this decree will likely do the same.”
Hadassah sat in silence, processing Mordecai’s news. “Who will take her place?” she asked at last.
He made a disgusted sound. “Probably Amestris. No doubt she had something to do with the whole scheme. She is related to Memucan, after all, and Memucan put the idea in the king’s head when he was cheerful with too much wine.”
Hadassah nodded. “Amestris is not a nice person, is she?” The gossips had little good to say about the king’s second wife, mother to his heirs.
“She is not,” Mordecai said, standing. “I’m going to bed. You get some sleep.”
Hadassah nodded and walked to her room. She lay awake long into the night, wondering how things would change with a new, unkind queen.
Vashti huddled with Gazsi in the curtained litter and jolted every time the men carrying them moved. At last they fell into a steady rhythm, and Gazsi slept in her arms. Sleep would be a welcome thought but for the ache in her heart. How could she be banished?
The realization still stung deep within, and she could not bring herself to fully accept it. Surely Xerxes would come to his senses and change his mind on the morrow. But Omid had told her of the decree that ran with her and away from her, carried by messengers throughout the kingdom. Her banishment was permanent and complete. She would never see her husband’s face again.
As the last of her things were packed and readied in carts, the news had come from Omid that she would live in the palace in Persepolis. When Xerxes came to winter there, she would move to a place he would have built for her in the far reaches of the kingdom. She would not return to Susa again.
Persepolis held a large, beautiful palace, perhaps nicer than the one in Susa, but apparently this arrangement was the king’s temporary answer to the dilemma he faced on where to send her. It would take time to secure proper lodging. That he had not suggested she be imprisoned or executed had made the blow easier to bear. Her son would live, and she with him. And it was a kindness that Omid and her maids had been sent to accompany her. A kindness to her, though probably not to them.
Perhaps Xerxes did care for her—though his actions this night made her doubt. His fine talk, his compliments, his favor . . . fleeting things, all of them.
> A deep sigh escaped as she shifted Gazsi to a more comfortable position. She closed her eyes. Perhaps if she could just pretend tonight had not happened . . . She would awaken in her bed, or the king would call for her any moment now and she would attend him and rest beside him . . .
She’d made the right decision, hadn’t she? If she had gone with his eunuchs and allowed Xerxes to display her beauty to his men, what might that have meant once she arrived to an unruly, drunken crowd? Would the king have asked her to remove her royal robe? How much of her beauty did he want her to display?
Once Xerxes sobered, he would regret this entire evening. Of that she had no doubt. She knew him too well. Had been his friend before he wore the crown and his only lover for years. Would he really put Amestris in her place as queen? The woman had given him two sons, so undoubtedly one of them would follow his father to the throne. But would Xerxes care for Amestris as he had for her?
She shook her head, unable to imagine it. The Xerxes she knew would not, could not, love Amestris the way he loved her. He might allow her position to be elevated, but he would not care for her in the same way. He could not. He had told her so more than once, and she’d seen the truth in his eyes.
He had also promised to protect and keep her, and she now saw how well he kept his word. She looked through a slit in the curtain at the moon shining down on her and brushed a tear from her cheek. Persepolis was a long walk for her litter bearers. Far enough from the king that even if he changed his mind, he could not act quickly to undo what he had done.
Amestris sought out Memucan late, long after the king and the rest of the men had dispersed. She was not likely to receive a summons from Xerxes this night, and she was eager to hear all that had happened. If Biztha had returned to tell her, she could have gone to her rooms and let Memucan be. The news of the eunuchs’ execution had come as a blow. She had never expected Xerxes to kill his messengers simply because his wife refused him. But then one never knew where the king’s thoughts and his temper might take him.