CHAPTER
Thirty-one

Xerxes followed the trumpeters and flag bearers, and his guards flanked him as he entered his audience chamber. A few scribes and servants stood at attention along the walls, but the columned hall stood silent except for the marching feet and the intermittent blaring trumpet. The fanfare was unnecessary when the room stood so empty, but he needed the reminder that he was indeed king. He had too many enemies, too many people he did not trust, and dared not allow even the nobles or courtiers in his presence without individual permission. Was he becoming paranoid since that threat on his life a few years ago? Or was it the continual concerns that his guards had in protecting him that made him overly cautious? Was he simply growing old?

The thought depressed him. Forty-eight years was not so old, was it? He took the steps to his throne and sat, his thoughts taking him to places he did not wish to go. He had plenty of years ahead of him. He simply needed to be cautious lest the assassin’s blade find him before his time came to rest with his fathers.

The servant in charge of his appointments approached and bowed. “My lord, Haman waits in the outer court and seeks an audience with you.”

“Send him in.” Xerxes straightened, his spirits brightening. Haman was a good man. He would bring good news and perhaps distract Xerxes with a new project—something he might build right here in Susa. He’d been considering expanding his palace or adding an additional hall to accommodate greater crowds, but the work in Persepolis was not yet complete, and some of the outlying regions made him wonder if another war might be imminent. They had no reason to balk at his taxation. They were his vassals. They owed him allegiance.

Footsteps pulled his thoughts from their melancholy. War had a way of depressing him, ever since Greece. Without his father to lead, he had never felt quite as adequate. But he could never admit such a thing.

Haman approached, and Xerxes extended the golden scepter. Haman touched its tip and bowed.

“Rise and speak.” Xerxes considered briefly having a second throne brought for the man, but thought better of it.

“My lord, I have something of great import to discuss with you.” He glanced about and then held Xerxes’ gaze. “It is of a sensitive nature.”

Xerxes lifted his chin and looked down at him through a slanted gaze. “I think we are safe enough here for you to speak.”

Haman nodded. “Yes, of course, my lord.” He cleared his throat. Was the man nervous?

“Speak,” Xerxes said.

Haman clasped his hands. “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.” He paused and lifted his hands in entreaty. “If it pleases the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give ten thousand large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the royal treasury.”

Xerxes stared at this trusted advisor, trying to imagine what people he could be talking about. Were his fears of assassination coming from this group? How would they search out the true culprits? Destroying the entire people seemed rather harsh. He glanced beyond Haman, his mind whirling. He’d been living in fear since his personal guards had plotted to take his life. Even before that. Since he’d lost Vashti and suffered Memucan’s treachery. Was no one to be trusted?

Esther’s face came to his mind, and the thought of her smile calmed him. He drew in a deep breath. Esther would agree with Haman. She would want these people who threatened the peace of the kingdom, his peace, his safety, destroyed. She would protect him. Of course she would. He could ask her, but such a thing was not done. He had his nobles and advisors, and Haman was second to him alone. If Haman thought them a threat, then they were surely a threat.

He looked at Haman again and removed his signet ring from his right hand. “The money and the people are both yours to do with as you see fit.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Haman took the ring and bowed low. “You will not be disappointed once we rid the kingdom of this scourge.”

“I am sure I will not.” He dismissed Haman and sank deeper into his thoughts, wondering when he had gone from seeking normal advice to becoming so utterly dependent on his advisors. What other king would have given his signet ring to another simply so he didn’t have to look into the matter himself? He was a warrior! If these people were a threat, he should assemble an army and go to battle against them even now.

Instead, he had given the job to Haman for the simple reason that he was too weary of fighting. Esther’s face came to mind again, and he considered going to her. Yes, that is what he would do. Better yet, he would call her to his rooms for a private banquet and allow her to wipe the fear from his mind and remind him that he was still wanted.

On the thirteenth day of Nisan, a year after Haman had begun to have the priest cast the Pur, he finally stood outside Xerxes’ audience chamber, holding the king’s signet ring. Better yet, he carried the king’s approval to do whatever he wished with the people he wanted to destroy. Xerxes had not even asked what people Haman was talking about.

Haman scratched his head as he pondered the king’s disinterest in the details. He’d noticed it often of late, as though the king had little interest in the goings-on in his own kingdom. Had he given up control to Haman more thoroughly than even Haman realized? A sense of giddy delight filled him at that possibility. But one glance at the guards lining the halls and he tamped down his enthusiasm. He had work to do and no time to waste. He hadn’t waited an entire year for the perfect day in order to let it slip away unused.

“Summon the king’s scribes and tell them to meet me in my offices,” he said to the servants standing near. He would work with them day and night if necessary in order to get enough clay pressed with the message in every script and language of every people in all the provinces Xerxes ruled.

He moved through the halls to his offices, which were nearly as big as the king’s meeting rooms. Scribes soon sat at tables piled with clay tablets and triangular rods that would be pressed into the clay to form symbols into words. All eyes looked to him.

“Write this decree in every language of every people throughout the entire Persian kingdom. ‘Be it known that all Jews—young and old, including women and children—must be killed, slaughtered, and annihilated on a single day. This day is to happen on the thirteenth of Adar next year. The property of the Jews will be given to those who kill them.’” Haman rested his gaze on each man to make sure they fully understood.

“A copy of this decree is to be issued as law in every province and proclaimed to all peoples, so that they will be ready to do their duty on the appointed day.” He paced the front of the room, unable to contain his nervous energy, then faced the scribes once more. “This decree is to be sent to the king’s highest officers, the governors of the respective provinces, and the nobles of each province. Write this in the name of King Xerxes.” He held up the signet ring. “Each document is to be sealed with this ring, so as you finish one, bring it to me. It will be dispatched immediately.”

He turned to a guard. “Gather swift messengers to be ready to ride to every province in the kingdom. This decree must go out before the sun sets tonight.”

“Yes, my lord,” several guards said in unison. They left, and he smiled at the sound of their running feet in the halls outside of his rooms.

Scribes bent over tablets and furiously pressed out every word. Haman sat at a table with the king’s ring, and as servants presented the tablets to him, he placed the seal at the top of each decree. He had just created a law of the Medes and Persians that could not be revoked. Not only would the Jews finally be destroyed, but there was nothing anyone, not even the king, could do to stop it now.

After the last clay tablet bore the king’s seal, Haman went to his house. Sounds of confusion trickled to him from the king’s gate, and he imagined Mordecai reading the decree. A slow smile spread over his face. More voices rose, and sounds of anguish filled the air as the copies placed throughout Susa were read in the fading light of the setting sun.

Zeresh welcomed Haman with a knowing smile and poured him a tall goblet of the choicest wine in the kingdom. The wine he’d been saving for this very moment. He sank onto his couch, put his feet up, drank, and laughed.