A Reluctant Queen (25 page)
How did this happen to me? My Father in Heaven, I am only a woman. How can You ask me to choose between my husband and child and my duty to You? It isn’t fair
.
The sound of the door opening made her start and a flash of anger shot through her. She had distinctly said she did not wish to be disturbed.
Hathach said, “My lady, the king,” and Ahasuerus walked in. For the briefest of moments, Esther remembered the day when she had first seen him in this very same place, the day he had chosen her.
He said, “Your girl told me you were here,” and came over to join her at the bench.
It usually irritated Esther when Ahasuerus referred to Luara as
her girl
. She had reminded him several times that Luara had a name, but he never seemed to remember. There was a faint line between his brows, however, so she did not mention his omission but moved a little so he could sit beside her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“I have had an interview with Hegai. He complains that you are slighting him.”
Esther was astonished. “I? How can I have slighted him, my lord? I hardly ever see him.”
“I know, Esther. That is the problem.” A single rose petal lay on the ground next to the bench. He picked it up and smoothed it between his fingers as he spoke. “You see, Esther, the official role of the Chief Eunuch is to be the messenger between the queen and the rest of the world. You have given that job to Hathach, and Hegai is upset. Understandably upset, I might add.”
Esther was surprised. “I never meant to hurt Hegai’s feelings, my lord.”
He smiled wryly. “It is not just his feelings you have hurt, Esther. You have stripped him of his power.”
She didn’t know what he could be talking about. “What power can there be in running errands for
me
?”
“A queen can have a great deal of power, Esther.” He turned to look into her eyes. “Particularly a queen who has her husband’s ear. As you have mine.”
At these particular words, she felt guilty color flush into her cheeks. His
ear
. That was the exact word that Uncle Mordecai always used. She lowered her eyes and asked, “Power to do what?”
“To influence me on policy,” he said. “To win a favor for someone.”
She did not reply, could not reply. She felt miserably, horribly guilty.
He said, “I know that you have no desire to do that. However, Hegai still feels that his job has been usurped by Hathach.”
She still couldn’t look at him. “I like Hathach. Hegai makes me nervous.”
He frowned. “Has he done anything to upset you?”
She shook her head.
He waited.
“I suppose that I have never really forgiven him for that examination,” she said at last.
“What examination?”
The question made her so indignant that she was able to look him in the eye again. “The examination they gave me when I first came to the harem. Do you
know
what they do to the girls who are brought to your harem, my lord?”
Of course he knew
, she thought. However, he was prudent enough to remain silent and she went on, “I have never been so humiliated in my life. It was awful.”
He sighed. “I am sorry you were humiliated, Esther, but Hegai feels he has been humiliated also. And I think he has cause.”
She put up her chin. “I will not abandon Hathach.”
“I am not asking you to abandon Hathach. I am asking you to make Hegai your chief officer. Hathach can still run your errands.”
She was bewildered. “But if Hathach is to run my errands, what will be left for Hegai to do?”
“He can act as a messenger between you and the other members of the court.”
“I don’t communicate with other members of the court, my lord. All they ever wanted was to ask me to ask you for favors, so I stopped seeing them. I told you that.”
He frowned. “There must be
something
he can do for you, Esther!”
She looked at him for a moment in silence. “What did Hegai do for your mother?”
A white line appeared around Ahasuerus’ mouth. “He did nothing for my mother. Xerxes’ mother, Atossa, was the real queen, not my mother. Atossa was the one whom Darius listened to. Hegai acted as a messenger between her and the rest of the court. But he was also the chief messenger between her and my father.”
Esther had, of course, heard gossip about Darius’ first two wives. Artabama, Ahasuerus’ mother, had been beautiful. In fact, people always said he resembled her. But Atossa, the second wife, had been a direct descendant of Cyrus and, once he married her, Darius had neglected Artabama and let Atossa bully her mercilessly. Muran had once told Esther that one of the reasons Darius and Ahasuerus fell out was that Ahasuerus always tried to stand up for his mother.
She thought now about what he had said. “Well, I don’t see members of the court, so I don’t need Hegai for that. And I see you all the time, my lord, so why would I need Hegai to be my messenger between us?”
There was a long silence. Finally Ahasuerus turned on the bench and looked down into her face. “That is true,” he said, a strange note in his voice.
Several birds had perched on top of the high wall of the garden and were calling loudly to one another. The soft rush of water came from the fountain behind them. Esther said softly, “Is something wrong, Ahasuerus?”
He shook his head, as if he had just woken up. “No. Nothing is wrong. It’s just . . . I don’t think I had realized before quite how closely you have grown into my life.”
He was quiet again and Esther waited. Then he said, “Unfortunately, the Hegai situation is only part of the dilemma I am facing. There is the question of the whole harem to consider.” There was a flat note in his voice, a tone she had never heard from him before. He was looking down at the rose petal in his hands, which he was now tearing into small pieces.
“Is the harem a problem?” she asked tentatively.
“It can be a huge problem. Discontent in the harem can easily spill over into state politics. I am not the most popular of kings, as Teresh’s recent plot demonstrated all too clearly.”
His voice as he spoke that last sentence was too careful, and Esther’s heart ached for him. She put a comforting hand over his restless fingers.
“You are not popular with the clique that supports a Greek war, but everyone else loves you.”
His smile was a little crooked. “You exaggerate, Esther.”
“No, Ahasuerus, I don’t.”
His fingers were warm under hers and they sat there together in the sun, thinking.
She said, “If you think the harem might be trouble, why not send all those girls home?”
He gave her a look that mixed amusement and exasperation. “I don’t think it would be quite as easy as that.”
Esther pictured the harem in her mind; the huge number of rooms and baths and gardens. “However did you manage to accumulate so many concubines?” she asked with true amazement.
He sighed. “Gifts. When I was in Babylon, every tribal chief within reach of the Royal Road sent me a beautiful girl as a gift. I couldn’t say I didn’t want them, so into the harem they went. And when I became Great King, the satraps scoured the slave markets to send me girls.”
The flat note was back in his voice.
“Well,” Esther said after a while, “I will take Hegai into my service and try to find something for him to do. And I will talk to Muran about the harem girls—perhaps she will have some ideas about how we can at least reduce their number.”
His voice was slightly more buoyant as he said, “You know, Esther, you might have Hegai put it about that you will be extremely displeased with anyone who sends me new concubines.”
“I don’t know how much weight my wishes will carry, my lord, but I will be delighted to try.”
“You would be surprised to learn how much weight your word will carry,” he said, and slipped his arm around her shoulders to draw her close.
She rested against him, feeling the pleasant warmth of the sun on her skin. “It would be so nice if you weren’t the king, if we were just two ordinary married people. Perhaps we would have a horse farm near Ecbatana. You would like that.”
She felt his mouth touch her hair. “You must be the only woman in the empire who does not want to be married to the Great King.”
“I don’t want to be married to the Great King. I want to be married to you.”
She closed her eyes and listened to the beat of his heart under her cheek. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, she had an idea that might solve one of her problems.
She would recommend to Mordecai that he have the Jewish Community of Susa write a letter to the king assuring him that the Jews only desired peace in Palestine. Mordecai could deliver such a letter in person and make even further reassurances. She need not be involved in the matter at all.
Ahasuerus put his mouth against her ear and whispered, “Would you really marry me if I were only a horse farmer in Ecbatana?”
“Yes,” Esther whispered back. “I would.”
H
aman was furious when once more Ahasuerus canceled their appointment to discuss the Treasury report. He had told Haman that he needed to speak to the queen on some issue pertaining to Hegai. Haman was scowling as he returned the Treasury scrolls to his office and he decided to take a walk through the public courtyards of the palace. The homage of the minor palace officials would put him back in temper, he thought.
Haman was not entitled to any form of deference from the Royal Kin, but ordinary men were constrained to bow to the Grand Vizier as he passed by. To Haman, whose Palestinian origins had marked him an outsider in both Babylon and Susa, this reverence was particularly sweet.
As he walked with pretended purposefulness through the Household Court, he affected not to notice as man after man bowed from the waist. He passed into the Treasury rooms, and the officials there immediately bowed as well. Haman was concentrating on looking as if he were attending to some important business, when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that someone was not bowing. He glanced over, surprised to find one of the Royal Kin in so work-a-day an area, and saw that the upright man was not a member of the Royal Kin at all, but the Jew, Mordecai.
Haman stopped.
There were five men in the office. Four of them were bowing. Mordecai stood upright and looked him in the eye.
“It is correct protocol to bow to the Grand Vizier,” Haman said icily.
“I do not bow to an Edomite,” Mordecai replied through his teeth.
And with those simple words, Haman and Mordecai regressed to the primitive hatred of enemy tribesman, the animosity between them burning as hot and fierce as their desert homeland.
“You will bow to me, Jew,” Haman hissed, his eyes mere slits of gold in his furious face.
Mordecai did not reply, but his look of amused arrogance was carefully calculated to infuriate. His back remained straight as a lance.
The tension in the room was almost tangible. Haman felt it, felt the eyes of everyone on him, on his humiliation by this swine of a Jew. He would get Mordecai, he promised himself. The only person in the empire with more power than himself was the king. Mordecai was going to be sorry he had scorned Haman.
Haman was still in a vicious temper when he reached home that evening. His wife, Zeresh, saw him come in through the courtyard gate and went into the front room to greet him. She read his face immediately. “What happened?”
He told her about Mordecai. Zeresh, who had lived in Edom until she married Haman, was not surprised. “All Jews are unbearably arrogant. My father says they have become even worse since they rebuilt the Temple.”
Haman grunted.
She patted his arm. “Dinner is almost ready.”
“I will wash,” Haman said.
After the meal was over and Zeresh had gone to see to the children, Haman took a jug of wine and went to sit in the small side room that belonged to him alone. The evening was cooling down rapidly, and he had a servant put some charcoal into the brazier and light it. Then he leaned back in his cushioned chair, propped his feet upon a footrest, and closed his eyes. He sat in the same position for a long time, the wine untouched on a table beside him, his thoughts on the past.
