Jewel of Persia (23 page)

His smile was small but warm. “Perhaps. Zechariah weighed on my spirit today.”

“Zechariah?” Her hand fell away from the post as she took a step back. “What about him?”

Mordecai chuckled and came her way. “The Lord gave me no specifics. Did you see him today?”

“Only a glimpse.” She spun toward her room so she could deposit her basket of sewing supplies. “He has been hard at work on a bed this past week.”

“For the palace?”

“Not this one. The sister of his Persian friend is also betrothed, and her bridegroom commissioned it.”

Mordecai studied her. “It seems everyone is marrying this winter. Which reminds me that, though I would deny it, you are a child no longer. We should discuss your future soon, little one.”

Her throat went dry. “Are you in a hurry for me to leave your house, cousin?”

He chuckled, as she had known he would. “I dread the thought.”

“Then I would wait to marry.” She strode to the table and poured herself a gulp of sweet watered wine to soothe her throat.

Mordecai’s gaze did not relent. “Do you still favor Zechariah?”

Her fingers tightened around the cup. She nodded.

His lips curved up. “Perhaps that is why he was on my mind. If he is the husband you desire, I can speak with him and Kish to arrange it.”

Her eyes slid shut. Would Zechariah refuse if their fathers both agreed to it? Probably not. He would not shame her like that. Would he? But even if he accepted, it would be only out of duty. “I would first have
him
realize I am not a child.”

“I see.” His voice came from a step away now, and his finger touched her chin. She opened her eyes to gaze into his—precious and familiar and confident. “He will realize soon, Esther. No man could remain blind to the amazing woman you have become.”

“Thank you, my father.” She gave him a swift hug and a fleeting smile. “I hope you are right. And perhaps I shall go pray for him now as well.”

“I will call you when the meal is ready.”

She headed to the sanctuary of her chamber and settled with a long exhalation onto her bed. Her prayers were probably a far cry from Mordecai’s, but it helped to empty her heart and mind before her creator.

Eyes closed, she called Zechariah’s face to mind. “Jehovah . . .” What to pray? She could thank the Lord for crafting him so well. Those beautiful features, strong and confident. The form that had become so muscled over the last few years.

Her blood thrummed each time she spotted him. Yet he continued to look at her as though she were yet another sister. And why? Did he not have enough of those?

She squeezed her eyes tight against the sudden tears. No, he did not have enough sisters. He lacked one—and perhaps it made sense that he would expect her to replace Kasia. But oh, how she had longed to dash her jar of water to the ground last week and demand he accept her as she was, that he
love
her as she was. What would he have done if she had thrown herself into his arms and kissed him?

Her cheeks burned at the thought, and she cleared her throat. This terrible attempt at a prayer might earn her a divine thunderbolt. “I am sorry, Jehovah. You know my thoughts are not usually so scattered . . .”

She sighed and buried her face in her pillow.

Why could Mordecai not have asked her to pray for the army again? They never caused her nearly so much trouble as that one would-be soldier three doors down.

~*~

Sardis, Lydia

“I cannot believe you have your own Spartan.”

Xerxes chuckled and clapped a hand to Pythius’s shoulder as they strolled along the outer wall of the palace. “I can introduce you to him, if you like. His name is Demaratus.”

Pythius’s brows hiked up his forehead. “The former king? I had heard he was exiled, of course, after advising his people to align themselves with your father. I did not realize he had found a home in your court.”

Xerxes rested his gaze on where the once-ruler exercised outside the palace walls. Even now, years after Demaratus had left home and family, the man insisted on keeping himself in the physical condition required of all Spartan men. He still wore his hair long, he refused any adornments. Every morning he found a patch of solitude and put himself through paces to keep muscles firm and reflexes ready. He provided an example Xerxes intended to follow—sitting on a throne most of one’s day was no excuse to succumb to sloth.

“I owe him much,” Xerxes murmured. “It was his argument that convinced my father to appoint me his successor instead of my older brother. There are those who question his trustworthiness, but I have spoken to him at length. He still loves his nation as an ideal—but not its current people.”

Pythius nodded, then frowned at something behind Xerxes. “Runners, my lord.”

Xerxes spun around, and his breath caught. The runners’ faces were etched with dread, and they had collected his brothers and cousins, Amestris’s father and brother. They might as well have come screaming, “We have bad news!”

He was in no mood for bad news. Not now, when all they had to do was wait for spring and march to victory. He felt his face turn to stone, muscle by muscle, and strode toward them. “What is it?”

The two runners dropped to their knees and bowed until foreheads touched marble. Though they then rose together, only one opened his mouth. “Forgive us, our king, for being the bearers of evil tidings.”

His hand fisted. “You will not suffer for whatever news you bring. Tell me.”

The messenger ducked his head. “It is the bridge over the Hellespont, my lord. It has collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” His vision narrowed, all the ambient noises faded to nothingness. “Collapsed
how
?”

The runner clasped his hands together but still shook visibly. “The straits had just been bridged, all was in place when . . . when a violent storm—”

Xerxes cursed and spun away, thrusting fingers through his hair. He pivoted back. “How bad?”

“It has been completely destroyed.” The man dropped to his knees again, shoulders rolled forward in supplication.

“No.” Four years of planning could not be obliterated in a single storm. He tasted the fear emanating off the messengers and spun away to keep from breaking his word and tossing them off the wall and down the rocky embankment of the mountain. They were not the ones to blame.

But someone was, and fury with them settled like blood on his tongue. He marched to the palace, knowing the rest would follow. “Unacceptable!” Perhaps he bellowed—he did not care. If his wrath could match nature’s, then perhaps all would obey him instead of her. “What fools designed a bridge that could not withstand the storms the Hellespont is famous for? I will have their heads!”

“Master, the engineers are to blame for this. They—”

“Quiet, Mardonius.” He sliced a hand through the air, tempted to ram it into his cousin’s stomach. “Given that you are the one who had this brilliant idea to march against Greece, I ought to hold
you
accountable for this failure.”

Mardonius scuttled to the rear of the group.

Masistes cleared his throat. “We will rebuild, my lord—”

“Of course we will rebuild.” As he strode into the cavernous hall, Xerxes grabbed a towering golden pillar and sent it clanging across the floor. The ashes of burnt incense blew through the room. “But I do not have another four years to dedicate to this! How long before the men drink the river dry and descend on the land like a pestilence? We must be out of here by spring, or both the army and the country will suffer famine and drought.”

“Surely a plan can be devised that will allow for quick rebuilding.”

Xerxes spun on Otanes. Usually the man had more brains than his fool of a daughter, but apparently not today. “Do you not think we would have chosen such a plan to begin with, were there one?” He grabbed up a bowl of fruit and sent it flying. It made a satisfying twang when the metal struck stone.“I will give them three months. Three. We cannot afford more.”

A cacophony of arguments sprang up from the men, which only made his vision haze. “If you must squawk like a bunch of birds, do it where I cannot hear you!”

Growling, he turned his back on them and fumed his way to a window. He
would
have his bridge in three months. He needed to get through Greece and burn Athens to the ground so that he might be in Susa again next year. They could not get stuck in Europe through a winter.

One year. He had one year to teach the arrogant collection of city-states who ruled the world, and he would not be stopped by an overblown rainstorm and the incompetence of slaves.

A cool touch kissed the burning on the back of his neck, and all the fury inside bunched into a knot. Then small, familiar hands rested on his elbows, and the knot unraveled into a mess of limp strands.

Kasia rested her forehead on his back. “What has happened, my love?”

He had no choice but to be soothed by the sweep of her hands up and then down his arms. “My bridge is destroyed. A storm. It is that blasted Hellespont, Kasia, it is set against me.”

“The river?” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Yes, surely the river hates you, the spiteful thing. It must be offended that you would dare to bridge it. You ought to give it a few lashes to teach it a lesson.”

Why could his mouth not keep from twitching up when she was near? “Scribe! Take down a message for those at the Hellespont. Their king orders them to give the river three-hundred lashes with a whip in punishment for its impudence.”

“Xerxes!” Her whisper was both outraged and amused as she jumped around to face him. “You cannot—everyone will think you mad!”

He grinned and took her hands. “It will be cathartic. Besides, most of these nations think the river a god—they will only assume me supremely arrogant, not mad.”

Her eyes sparkled with the amusement he so loved. “You
are
supremely arrogant. You are rearranging the face of the earth for this war—bridging rivers, digging canals, cleaving mountains in two. Already you claim every person in the empire as your slave—will you subjugate creation too?”

He chuckled and turned his face toward the scribe busily taking down his order. “Add that a pair of manacles should be thrown into the waters.”

His name came out on a laughing groan this time, and she fell against his chest. Xerxes ran a hand up her back and into her mass of midnight hair.

Behind him, a throat cleared. “What of the engineers, master?”

He saw no reason to look at Mardonius or invite him any closer. “They will have to be executed.”

Kasia stiffened and tilted her face up. “My husband . . . are men responsible for a storm?”

She at least kept her words so quiet no one else would hear them. He shook his head. “That area is known for its violent winds, my sweet. They should have taken that into account. The god’s servants may have sent the weather, but it was human error that allowed it to wreak such havoc.”

She nodded, but her eyes filled with tears. Ah, the emotions that went along with pregnancy—they were as tempestuous as the Hellespontine winds.

He tipped her chin up. “My authority is grounded in respect, admiration, and fear—failure must be met with punishment, or no one has incentive for success. It is either punish the thousands who worked on it or the few engineers at the head. Which is the kinder?”

“I know.” She dashed at her eyes. “I am sorry—I cannot think why it upsets me so.”

“I can.” He kissed her forehead and set her away. “Worrying over it cannot be good for you and the babe, my love. Go back to your rooms and rest. I will not rage anymore, I promise.” And now that he mentioned it . . . “Why did you come in here, anyway?”

Kasia gave him a sheepish smile. “Pythius fetched me.”

He chuckled and cupped her cheek. “A wise man, our Lydian friend. His loyalty proves to me that the god did indeed ordain this campaign. Which begs the question of why Ahura Mazda allowed this to happen without warning us.”

Her smile was small and fleeting. “I will pray to Jehovah.”

One of the coals inside fanned into a flame. “You pray to your Jehovah without ceasing, it seems—but he did not warn
you
of this either, did he? Yet you claim he and he alone controls the entire universe.”

She jerked away with flooding eyes. “He may have formed the river and placed it in a pass that bears forth the winds. He may lift his hand and send out the rain to nourish the crops. But
you
are the one who chose to cross that river, knowing what storms may come.”

The flame licked through the banked coals in his soul. “Do you dare to lay the blame for this at
my
feet?”

Anyone else would have cowered in fear, but not his Kasia. She only looked weary and far too pale. The flaming coals burned out quickly.

She shook her head. “I cast no blame. I only wish you would not dismiss Jehovah—or expect him to bend his creation around your will when you care nothing for his.”