Star of Persia: Esther's Story

by Jill Eileen Smith

  She turned a corner in the hall and emerged into the passage that led to the king’s gardens. A shadowy figure approached, and she breathed easier once he spoke.

  “I thought you would give me until tomorrow to ask for details,” Memucan said, his words slightly slurred.

  “You’re drunk.” She made a disgusted sound. “You should have remained clearheaded. What if things had gone differently?”

  “But they did not, now did they?” His sharp tone made her step back. “I had to drink. One does not ignore the food and wine of the king while sitting in the king’s presence.”

  “No, of course not.” She lowered her voice, hoping he detected a softening in her tone. “Please, tell me everything.”

  “I am sure you already know as much as you need to know. I made your suggestion to the king, he acted on it, and Vashti refused. Now she is on her way out of Susa, and we have no acting queen.”

  “He did not name a successor then?” She would have heard if Xerxes had named her, but she needed to hear Memucan tell her just the same.

  “No, he did not. He was too busy writing the edict. I doubt he has fully comprehended what he has done or that he will never see Vashti again.” Memucan rubbed a hand over the stubble along his jaw.

  “When he is sober, we must convince him that I am the best choice.” She searched his face. He wouldn’t back out on her now, would he?

  “I am tired, Amestris. I did what you asked. What happens next is not my decision. If the king asks my opinion, I will suggest you, of course. But after tonight, I believe it will be in my best interest to stay clear of him for some time. He will not be pleased with the man who suggested Vashti appear before him, because without that desire, she would still be here. And like it or not, my dear ‘queen,’ the king loved Vashti. He will not soon get over her.” He rubbed his eyes as if trying to keep them open.

  “Where did they send her?” If she knew, she could find a way to be rid of Vashti for good. That would help Xerxes to forget her. And there were always those who were willing to do anything for gold.

  “I don’t know.” Memucan eyed her with suspicion. “Why do you care?”

  “Surely someone knows.”

  “Someone surely does. The king must. Perhaps his closest servants do, but I’m in no mood to ask. And I believe the king did not wish her whereabouts to be known. Even if you ask, I doubt you will find your answer.” He turned and started to walk away.

  “Wait!” Amestris moved closer to him but stopped short of clutching his arm.

  He whirled about. “What now?”

  How dare he growl at her? She was his superior! But she dare not push him. Not when he was still filled with too much wine. He might speak to the wrong person, and her part in this could put her life in jeopardy. She could not risk it.

  “Nothing. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for what you did. When I am queen, I will make sure you are richly rewarded.” She smiled, though she wondered if he could sense her insincerity. She had no certainty that she would ever reign in Vashti’s place. Her son might be Xerxes’ heir, but mothers did not rise with the same favor until their sons ruled.

  “I hope you get what you want, Amestris. It is hard to grasp at the wind.” Memucan walked away then, and she stood looking after him for a long time, wondering why he should think her ambitions were as fleeting as the wind.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  The room spun and that telltale sick feeling grew within Xerxes, despite the fact that he’d passed out and slept for hours. He was getting too old to consume so much wine. What was it about being around his men that caused him to lower himself to the ways of a common man? He drank from intricately carved golden goblets, each different from the next, and consumed the finest wines in all of Persia. In the entire known world, for that matter. Was he so weak that he could not hold a few goblets of wine and not feel ill the next day?

  How else did a man feel merry if not for the consumption of fine food and drink? He forced his head from the pillow but slumped back and closed his eyes to still the whirling room. He must get hold of himself. Vashti would know how to help. He must call for her to come at once and work her skilled fingers along his temples and shoulders. She would ease the suffering simply by her presence.

  He courted a smile at the thought, until a vivid memory assaulted him. Swift images moved through his mind. A summons. A refusal. A command against his eunuchs. Biztha? Harbona? His guards had marched them away, their heads covered.

  He sat abruptly and leaned over the side of the bed, losing what remained in his stomach onto the rich carpet beneath his raised bed. Servants moved about like silent rodents, wiping his mouth, cleaning the mess, settling him among the cushions of the bed.

  All the while his mind cried out to stop the memories. Was he dreaming?

  “Vashti!” He heard his voice through cracked lips, a whisper barely audible. No one approached him.

  “Vashti!” he called again, louder this time.

  Footsteps drew close, slowly, cautiously.

  “My lord? May I help you with something?” The voice sounded strange. Not one of his attending eunuchs.

  He forced his eyes to open and focus on the man. “Send for Vashti. I want Vashti now!” Would he never be free of the incompetence surrounding him? What was so incredibly hard about sending for his wife? Everyone knew that he needed her when the wine overtook him.

  The servant cleared his throat, and Xerxes searched his face. The man would not meet his gaze.

  “Look at me,” he commanded despite his pounding head. “Tell me why no one in the palace seems capable of sending for my wife. Is this such a difficult task that I have to ask twice?”

  The servant clasped his hands around his belt and twisted the fabric in nervous hands. “My lord king. May you live forever.”

  Yes, yes, stop the pleasantries. A sense of foreboding filled him at the man’s downcast look.

  “I fear the king has been ill and forgotten the events that transpired last evening.”

  The sick feeling returned to his gut, and he feared he would embarrass himself once more. “Tell me everything.” Why couldn’t he remember? But a part of him sensed that he could if he would allow the memories to fully surface.

  “Last evening,” the man said, his voice quavering, “the king celebrated the final night of the feast with his men. In the course of time, when the king’s heart grew merry with wine, he commanded Queen Vashti to appear before him, wearing the royal crown in order to display her beauty to the crowd. The king sent the seven eunuchs to bring Vashti to him, but the queen refused to come. This angered the king, and he ordered the execution of the eunuchs and banished the queen from ever entering his presence again. She was sent to Persepolis under cover of darkness until a suitable home could be built for her. The king then wrote a decree that cannot be revoked, commanding all men to rule their own households, and messengers were dispatched throughout the entire kingdom. My lord.” He stopped, his breath coming fast as though he feared his fate would be that of the eunuchs.

  “I did this?”

  “Yes, my lord. It is written in the laws of the Medes and Persians and cannot be revoked.” The man’s face paled as Xerxes stared at him.

  Memories of Memucan’s suggestions and his willing compliance, his wrath that Vashti refused him, his rash decisions, suddenly came flooding back. Why had she refused to come? Yet deep down he knew that the fault lay with him. He should never have put her in such a compromising position. She was trying to protect his honor and keep him from humiliating them both. Vashti had always been his confidante and the wiser one. And he had sent her away, never to return.

  What a fool you are, Xerxes! How could you do such a thing? A deep sense of grief and loss filled him, and he wondered if he had the strength to ever rise from his bed and rule his kingdom again. He was a complete and utter fool for sending her away, and worse, for banishing her forever.

  The thought turned the spinning room in
to an inner sense of spiraling downward until he wondered if he would ever climb out of his sudden depression.

  “I’ve lost her then,” he said, not wanting a response.

  The man merely nodded and stepped back from the bed.

  Xerxes turned on his side, gingerly so as not to awaken the sick feeling or deepen the pounding of his head. But it was no use. He would not sleep again, though sleep was all he longed to do. He had lost his life’s true love, and he had no one to blame but himself.

  Weeks passed, and Xerxes made every attempt to push thoughts of Vashti from his mind. War loomed on the horizon, and he expected his fighting men to gather outside Susa by month’s end. The distraction was perfect, for his muddled thoughts could make no sense of his actions that day. He had tried desperately to recall each moment, to give himself a reason to point the blame at someone else. Surely the suggestion had not been his alone. Memucan stood behind this. Memucan and the other seven nobles. Perhaps some of his wives. Or his mother.

  His constant frustration came to a head a week before he was to head to war.

  “My lord, the soldiers have begun to arrive and are setting up camp outside of the city,” Memucan said. “Is there anything we can do to help you, my lord, to prepare for your personal needs?” He had seemed unduly subdued since Vashti’s loss, and Xerxes studied this advisor and relative of Amestris.

  “You can tell me, Memucan, why I sent my favorite wife into exile and had my eunuchs executed for her actions. I am at a loss to understand why I, king of kings, would do something so utterly foolish when Vashti was not breaking any laws. In fact, it was I who would have humiliated both her and myself, but she stopped me from doing so.” He gripped his staff, his knuckles whitening, and his gaze swept the room, stopping to pierce each of his nobles with a withering look. “Perhaps one of my other nobles can tell me why such a thing as banishing her came from your mouth to my ear.” He glared at Memucan. The man’s idea to banish his queen was one thing he managed to recall quite clearly.

  “My lord,” Memucan said, his voice lacking his normal confidence, “we had all been drinking wine for a week. I fear none of us were thinking through things as we should.”

  “And yet it is only I who suffered loss. My queen and I. Tell me, Memucan, did my mother or one of my wives put you up to the suggestion?” He wouldn’t doubt for a moment if his mother or Amestris had plotted to remove Vashti from his presence. His mother had often made it clear that he deserved better than a foreigner for a wife.

  “My lord, forgive me. The idea was something we thought of in our drunken stupor. We did not realize the consequences.” Memucan was clearly trembling now, and Xerxes pondered why. The man obviously feared the same fate he had given the eunuchs. With good reason, no doubt.

  But he could not execute a relative of his wife. He could, however, depose the man from his authority. Yes, that was what he needed to do. To replace Memucan with someone worthier. Someone who did not grovel or whine or listen to the king’s wives at the expense of the king’s happiness.

  “I have no doubt you are guilty of something, Memucan.” He lifted his gaze to take in the other nobles. “The whole lot of you are guilty of something, or I would not be sitting here today, heading to war, without my favorite wife to comfort me!” His shouted words rang in the silent hall. “Therefore, I decree this day that you, Memucan, will no longer sit with my advisors or enter my court without my summons. You and the other six nobles are dismissed from my service. I will find a better man to replace the entire worthless lot of you.” He clapped his hands on his final word, and his guards appeared and escorted the nobles from his audience chamber. The room stood silent.

  Was there no one he could trust?

  Doubt filled him as he descended the stairs from his throne and returned to his chambers. He would work with his new servants, the ones he had chosen to replace his seven eunuchs, and ready himself for war. Perhaps by the time he returned, he would have discovered a worthy man capable of advising him and have put Vashti from his mind. He would come home and her presence would no longer linger in the corners of every room.

  On his last night at the palace, he told three of his servants, “Make sure the palace is cleaned, aired, and treated with whatever you must do to remove all memory of Vashti. When I return, I had better not find a single trace of her life here.” The next day, dressed in his military garb and surrounded by bodyguards, he mounted his horse and left for battle.

  But as his horse passed through Susa’s gates, he wondered how he would ever remove her from his heart.

  Part Two

  After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus [Xerxes] had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. Then the king’s young men who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them. And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so.

  Esther 2:1–4 ESV

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  Four Years Later

  Hadassah knelt at Levia’s bedside and placed a cool cloth on her head. The woman moaned but did not open her eyes. Oh Ima, why can you not get well?

  Levia had contracted a fever weeks ago, right in the midst of their planning for Mordecai to approach Gad’s father. It was past time for Mordecai to see Hadassah wed, and Gad was a match she readily agreed to. Once the betrothal was sealed and announced to their small Hebrew community, the wedding plans could begin.

  But Levia had taken ill before Mordecai could make the visit, and instead of improving, each day she had grown weaker. Though the fever had left, her body did not seem capable of gaining strength.

  “Hadassah?” Levia’s voice sounded faint.

  Hadassah leaned close. “I’m here, Ima.” She moved the cloth and brushed tendrils of hair from the older woman’s forehead.

  Silence fell between them again, and Hadassah studied her ima, searching for signs of slowed breathing. Levia had taken to speaking in single words, calling a name or mumbling something others could not understand. Attempts to pour a little broth into her mouth only worked part of the time.

  Please, Levia. Mordecai needs you. I need you.

  But she couldn’t say the words aloud. What if Levia’s time on earth was nearing its end? What would Mordecai do without her?

  Hadassah dipped the cloth in the tepid water again and placed it over Levia’s forehead. Levia shivered as though the water brought a chill. She blinked and met Hadassah’s worried gaze.

  Levia glanced beyond her for a brief moment, then looked again at Hadassah. “Mordecai?”

  “He has gone to work at the palace. You have been sleeping so long, and there was nothing he could do here.” Hadassah secretly wondered if Mordecai worked to escape impending loss. Levia had not noticed his absence until now.

  “He will be home soon?”

  Hadassah’s heart lifted. It was the most Levia had said in weeks.

  “Yes, yes. Shall I fetch you some porridge to eat? You need to regain your strength.” Hadassah stood, then grasped Levia’s cool hand.

  Levia nodded. “Help me to sit up.”

  Hadassah rearranged the pillows behind her, then hurried to retrieve some leftover porridge she’d kept warm in a clay bowl near the oven. Mordecai had built them a new oven when Levia took ill, venting it through an open window in the cooking area.

  She returned to Levia’s side, pleased to see her alert and waiting. “You’ve been ill for weeks. This should help.” Hadassah offered her a small piece of bread dipped in the thin barley porridge.

  Levia took a bite, then another, but after the third swallow, she stopped. “That’s enough for now.” She offered Hadassah a smile, albeit a sad one.r />
  “A little more later then. Soon you will be on your feet again.” Hadassah would believe for both of them because the alternative was something she could not accept.

  “Yes. When Mordecai returns.”

  “Shall I fetch him?” She suddenly needed to do something outside of the walls of this house, where she had stayed during Levia’s illness. “Will you be all right without me for a few minutes? It won’t take me long.”

  Levia nodded. “Yes. That would be good. I will wait.” This time her smile held warmth.

  Bolstered by the assurance that her ima was indeed on the mend, Hadassah donned her scarf and hurried down the cobbled street, past the market square, toward the city gate where Mordecai worked for the king. Even in the king’s absence, there was work to be done, though Hadassah could not imagine what her abba did with his time.

  She approached the gate from the city’s interior and asked the guard to allow her to speak with her abba. Moments later, Mordecai hurried down the steps to greet her.

  “Is it Levia? Is she . . . ?”

  “She is awake and asking for you.” Hadassah beamed, joy filling her. Soon she would be betrothed, once Levia made a full recovery. If it were proper, she would run to Gad’s house and tell him so. But returning home with Mordecai must come first.

  Mordecai turned and spoke to one of the guards, then walked with her toward the house. “She is better then.”

  “She seems to be. She ate a few bites of bread and porridge. We spoke and she smiled.” Hadassah glanced at this wise man who had been her father for as long as she had known. What thoughts went through his mind? Should she mention the betrothal now that Levia was on the mend?