A MONTH AFTER THE KING’S CALL for beautiful young women went out, I began to regret ever suggesting the idea. My master expected me to oversee the gathering of the virgins, which meant I was required to spend far more time in the harem than I wanted to. I had grown up among the royal women and was glad to be rid of them when appointed to serve my master.
Those who castrated me as a youth ensured that I would forever be well-suited for working with females, but I found the king’s women catty, boring, and irritating. Too many of them were obsessed with their looks and trivial details, too few truly cared about the king. The royal women also tended to be snappish and jealous, even using eunuchs in their schemes against one another, so I was grateful that Hegai, chamberlain of the palace of the women, would bear much of this latest burden.
Envoys began to arrive a few days after the king’s proclamation was issued, and guards brought the virgins—many of whom had been taken against their will—to Hegai and me for evaluation. If we—two beardless eunuchs with good eyes and not an iota of lust between us—found the women worthy of the king’s attention, they were taken to the palace of the virgins, whether they were strictly virgins or not. If they did not win our approval, they were told to make their way back to their fathers or husbands. “Since beauty is a matter of perspective,” I had earlier warned the king, “we must release those who are unacceptable. We don’t want every young woman in the empire lazing about in the harem.”
Laughing, my master said he trusted my sense of beauty, and with a clap on my shoulder he went on his way.
Now Hegai and I stood at the southern staircase of the royal fortress, the culmination of a long road that led from the Valley of the Artists. A walled carriage approached, and from within it we could hear shouts and furious pounding on the walls.
“Oh my.” Beside me, Hegai went a shade paler. “Sl-slave traders.”
I shifted and eyed the vehicle. Slave traders hunted humans the way some men trapped wild game, enjoying the thrill of the hunt as much as the bounty paid for a fine catch. We had encountered several slavers in the last few days—men who usually sought runaway slaves or escaped prisoners now made it their business to scour the king’s highways for beautiful virgins.
I didn’t know how or where these men hunted, and I didn’t care much for their specimens. Though great beauty could hide behind a layer of filth, the women from the plains tended to be beefy, bandy-legged, and lacking a full complement of teeth. I had yet to accept a single offering from a slave hunter, but since the king had authorized an empire-wide search, I had no choice but to consider every female presented at the palace.
“Don’t worry,” I told Hegai. “If they have brought another load of farmers’ daughters, we can simply turn them away.”
The carriage rolled up to the stone platform where we stood, and a grinning guard climbed down from his perch and went around to open the side door. “Bet you’ve never seen anything like these wenches,” he said, displaying a gap where a front tooth should be.
I stepped forward to acknowledge the delivery. “Where did you find these girls?”
“Road to Babylon,” the guard answered, pulling the bolt free of its hasp. “Some of them Babylonian beauties, at least one an Elamite. All of them fit to be queen.”
Hegai shot me a sharp look, then pursed his lips and turned his attention to the carriage. I sighed and tried not to appear too stern as the guard pulled the first girl from the confines of the conveyance. She was a barefoot Bedouin, her hair a wild tangle about her face. The second girl was a wasp-thin creature who appeared to be from one of the local tribes. The third girl outweighed Hegai, and the fourth could have easily beaten me in a wrestling match. The fifth, however, possessed a comely form, and her face—
I blinked as the features of the fifth captive came into focus. This was no farm girl, no Bedouin, and no warrior woman. Unless my eyes deceived me, the pale virgin who trembled on the pavement was Mordecai’s daughter, Hadassah. Like the others, her face was streaked with dirt and her hands were bound. But unlike the others, her beauty shone through the grime on her face like a lantern in the night.
I felt Hegai stiffen beside me. “Wh-wh-what’s this?” he stuttered, his voice thick. “A diamond amid the d-d-dreck.”
“Quiet,” I whispered, then shot him a look that said I’d explain later.
Thrusting my hands behind my back, I walked to the first woman and asked her name. She told me and I promptly forgot it, but I repeated the experience with the second, third, and fourth girls until I stood before my friend’s ward.
Our eyes caught and held. For a moment I feared she didn’t remember me, but then a flicker of recognition lit her eyes. “Fear not,” I murmured, pitching my voice to reach her ear and no one else’s. Then, raising my voice for all to hear, I asked her name.
She lifted her brown eyes and cast me a brief look of helpless appeal. “My name is Esther.”
The name was Persian, not Jewish, and it meant star.
“Have you a father or mother in Susa?” I asked carefully.
“Neither.” Steadily, she held my gaze. “I am an orphan.”
I lifted a brow. She must have had a good reason for concealing her link to Mordecai, so I decided to guard her secret. Later I would ask if she wanted me to send word to her cousin.
I turned, bringing my hand to my chin as if I were considering the merits of all the women before me, but my mind whirled with thoughts of the accountant. Should I hide this girl and return her to her guardian? If I did, she would still be at risk, and would probably end up here yet again. And if the slaver spoke truly about finding these girls on the road to Babylon, Mordecai had already tried to send her away. . . .
I stepped back and surveyed the line of women one final time, then turned to the slave trader. “Thank you for bringing these women to the king. I have decided to return all of them to you—all but the last. That one we’ll keep.”
The man protested, extolling his fine taste in females, but I cut him off by placing three pieces of silver on his palm. “I trust this will cover your expenses. Thank you for your effort on the king’s behalf.”
While the guard tugged at the rope linking the remaining captives, I pulled a knife from my belt and cut Mordecai’s daughter free. I then gestured to Hegai, who stepped forward, curiosity shining in his eyes. “Hegai, I entrust Esther into your hands. Take good care of her, will you? I have a particular interest in her welfare.”
While Hegai’s forehead knit in puzzlement, I cut the cord that bound Hadassah’s wrists and promised I would try to find her later. I wanted to know how she had come to be caught in a slave trader’s dragnet, and how she had been separated from Mordecai. But because she had not volunteered any information, I would not ask these questions in public.