Chapter Twenty-Six
Harbonah
AS USUAL, I ENTERED THE ROYAL BEDCHAMBER about an hour before dawn to lead the king’s concubine away. I had pulled many women out of the massive bed—some who would become the king’s favorites, and some who proved to be so completely forgettable that they remained in the palace of the concubines for the rest of their lives. Some woke easily and followed me without question, while others ignored my tapping on their shoulders. Those I had to grip firmly and pull, even though their resistance sometimes woke my royal master. But the king and I had an understanding. He wanted the women gone when he woke, so if a concubine proved reluctant to leave his bed, he would roll over and pretend to sleep through the unruly exit.
When the woman returned to the harem, she was free to share whatever she wanted to share with her fellow concubines. As a youngster, I spent a fair portion of my day working in the harem, so I knew what passed for entertainment in that place. Some of the women spoke of their hours with the king in glowing terms, crediting him with the strength of a lion and the ardor of a stag in rut. Others responded to queries with a coy smile, as if their experience were too sacred to frame in words. No one spoke ill of the king, for in the harem any disloyal comment or insinuation might be repeated until it reached unforgiving ears.
I smiled as I passed the spot where the kitchen slave had spilled my master’s dinner tray. What would Mordecai’s innocent Hadassah say about her night with the king? She was one of the gentlest and most pliant women in the house of the virgins, and I shuddered to think that the king might have handled her roughly. A young woman like Hadassah should be treated with delicacy. . . .
I approached with the stealth of a cat, so that my sandaled feet made no sound on the tiled floor. Moonlight streamed through the open balcony, spangling the marble floor with silver. Through the gauzy bed curtain I saw the king sprawled over the mattress, one leg extended toward the foot of the bed, the other bent to support the small woman who lay curled beneath his arm. A gnat of worry pestered me—had he been too rough with her? This king could be erratic in his moods, and for all I knew he might treat an intelligent woman like he treated intelligent men—as though they were enemies to be conquered. Hadassah deserved a better fate.
I tiptoed to the side of the bed, pulled back the curtain, and peered at the girl’s sleeping face. Then I drew a breath and poked her upper arm.
Her eyelids flew open. She blinked at the sight of me standing before her, then nodded when I held my finger to my lips. The king’s silk robe lay on the floor like a dark stain, so I grabbed it, held it up, and averted my eyes as she slipped into it.
When she had wrapped the robe around herself, I shifted to peer at the king’s face. My master lay with his mouth agape, his beard dark against his pillow, his skin as pale as stone in the moonlight. Not a muscle flickered. He was sleeping deeply, a good sign.
I motioned for Hadassah to follow, then led her out of the king’s bedchamber and into his dressing room. “Here,” I whispered, offering her a plain tunic. “Do not wear the king’s garment outside this room. That could lead to trouble.”
She lifted a brow and took the gown I offered. “Is the king possessive of his robes?”
“It’s not the king I worry about,” I replied, thinking of Vashti and her palace spies. “It’s the symbolism. Wearing the king’s robe in public is improper for a concubine, no matter how lovely she is.” I tapped my lips, abruptly returning to the present. “So—did you enjoy your night with my master?”
She looked at me, her eyes wide and dark, and then a slow smile blossomed across her face. “Shouldn’t you be asking if he enjoyed his night with me? That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? For his pleasure?”
I shrugged off her question. “Well?”
“I don’t know what he thought of me or my company.” She tightened the belt at her waist. “And I don’t know if he’ll ever call for me again.”
Her indirect answers began to annoy me. “Any girl could say the same thing. But you, Hadassah, are not just any girl. What did you think of my master?”
In response, the young woman I had thought completely open and honest laid her finger across her smiling lips and walked toward the door, leaving me to follow like a shadow.
My master did not send for a virgin the night after Hadassah’s turn in the royal bedchamber, yet none of us were surprised. The man might be a king, but he was also forty and had just returned from an arduous journey. Not every man wanted a woman every night.
But at the conclusion of the next day, when Hegai entered to ask what sort of woman the king might desire, my king sat upright, smiled broadly, and asked for Esther.
Hegai blinked in pleased surprise. “The maid who visited you two nights ago?”
“Has your memory slipped so soon?” The king smiled. “Yes, bring me Esther. And you, eunuch—” he swiveled to face me—“do not spirit her away in the middle of the night. For once, I would like to wake with the woman who has shared my sleeping hours.”
Hegai and I bowed, then gave each other knowing looks and hastened to do the king’s will. Hegai hurried to prepare Esther for another royal appointment while I hurried to arrange a gathering of the vice-regents. The king had not yet announced his intentions, but I knew him like no one else. I suspected that soon he would want to address his counselors about a matter of some importance.
I was right.
The next morning, a few hours after Hadassah had returned to the harem to change her clothing and reapply her makeup, she appeared at the back of the royal audience hall. Flanked by the two eunuchs I sent to escort her, she walked through the assembled vice-regents and members of the nobility. She appeared young and small, like a child creeping past giants, and seemed to tremble as she walked past the hulking guards. Yet every man present gazed at her in awe, impressed by her gentleness and fragile beauty.
The counselors and nobles murmured to each other, wondering who she was, because the king had made no mention of her to anyone but Hegai and me. Yet onward came this slip of a girl, no older than sixteen, walking past burly men who could snap her neck with one twist.
Approaching the king without permission meant death, which usually occurred without hesitation or explanation. If the king did not immediately extend his scepter to pardon the interloper, the Immortals around the throne would draw their swords to execute swift and final judgment . . . unless the guards at the door managed to spear the offender first.
But my master smiled as the girl he knew as Esther came down the long aisle that bisected the audience hall. And as she glided toward the dais where he sat upon his throne, he not only held out his scepter, but stood and walked down the ivory-clad steps to greet her.
Mordecai’s brave ward seemed to collapse when she reached the throne. She bent to prostrate herself, then stretched her arms toward the man who held her life in his hands.
“Behold, counselors and noble friends,” the king said, lifting her from where she knelt. “By the favor of Ahura Mazda, on this day I have chosen this woman to be my queen.”
Mushka, the king’s nephew, stood close enough that I heard his reaction: “If only I had seen her first. What I wouldn’t give to bed a woman like that.”
Thankfully, the king did not hear his nephew’s brash comment. The room broke into furious buzzing as eunuchs, officers, and counselors craned their necks and marveled at the pale beauty and grace of the young woman gripping the king’s hand. This one had not entered the great hall like Vashti, with an uplifted chin and mincing step. This girl would never stiffen her spine in defiance of the king.
I folded my hands and smiled, quietly delighted by the rampant speculation humming around me.
“Who is she? Where did she come from?”
“Is she Persian?”
“She must be Egyptian. Look at her eyes.”
“She is small of stature; she has to be from Babylon.”
“Raven hair—a Macedonian beauty. But whose daughter is she?”
The king offered no answers, and Esther uttered not a word, but shyly dipped her chin and looked around the great hall as though amazed to find herself amid such majesty and splendor.
The speculation about Mordecai’s ward only increased when my master held a banquet for his officials, governors, and even the palace servants. He decreed a holiday for the provinces, liberally gifting his subjects with a day free from forced labor. In Susa, he freely distributed gifts from his treasury, all to honor the quiet girl who sat on a couch beside him during the generous feast.
I couldn’t help comparing this occasion with a previous feast—this one was lavish, but the food and decor were appropriate for the occasion and not designed for ostentation. The wine flowed a little less freely at Esther’s banquet, the decorations were more in keeping with good taste, and the king was in a far better mood.
Perhaps this banquet would erase the memory of that other disaster . . . and Esther would overshadow Vashti. For my master’s sake, I fervently hoped she would.
In the midst of the festivities I looked for Mordecai, who should have been celebrating by his ward’s side. When I found him sitting with a group of accountants and scribes from the King’s Gate, I realized he had chosen to remain anonymous. Because Mordecai, being Jewish, lived among other Jews and did not mingle among the Persian nobility, I doubted anyone else knew of his relationship with our young queen.
But even from where I stood, I could see the glow of concern in his dark eyes. Upon reflection, I realized he had probably not spoken to his ward since Hadassah had moved to the palace of the concubines. Had the king’s announcement caught him by surprise?
I finally caught my friend in the garden, where guests wandered freely after partaking of the delicious meal. “Be well, Mordecai!” I called, hoping to find him in high spirits. “Congratulations are most certainly in order.”
The sharp look he gave me put an immediate damper on my mood. He pulled on my sleeve, drawing me apart from the crowd, then looked at me with blazing eyes. “Congratulations are certainly not in order. A woman who should have been married to a kinsman has been ripped from her family, imprisoned in a palace, and had her virginity stolen by a man more than twenty years her senior,” he said, his voice breaking. I blinked, stunned to see the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “Can you give me a single reason why I should celebrate this turn of events? Or why I should be happy for the girl I have loved as a daughter?”
“I, well—” I looked away, unable to bear the man’s probing gaze. “It may be a small comfort, but she does seem happy. I can promise she will be well cared for. I wasn’t surprised when the king chose her. Everyone who meets our queen adores her.”
“I have been worried sick about her.” Mordecai continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “She hasn’t come to the garden wall in several days. It’s not like her to keep things from me.”
“She is no longer a girl.” I tempered my voice with discretion. “In appearance and manner she has become a desirable woman, and she has been with the king. She may not want to share every detail of that experience with you—or anyone else.”
Mordecai blinked as if he had just learned that his ward had been sold into slavery. He closed his eyes and groaned. I don’t think he’d ever envisioned his Hadassah as a mature woman, and he hadn’t seen her in over a year. He didn’t know how lovely, how desirable she had become.
“I grieve for the righteous woman she could have been.” Mordecai ran his hand over his face, then looked at me with regret in his eyes. “I can obey Xerxes as my king, but he is not the sort of man I would ever want my daughter to wed. He is not worthy of her.”
I glanced around, worried that my friend might be overheard. “You can’t believe every rumor you hear.” I lowered my voice. “And you should be more discreet. Even the garden hedges conceal spying eyes and listening ears. Hundreds of people live within these walls, and hundreds of plots along with them.”
“So why should I rejoice that Hadassah lives here, too? With an unpredictable king and a murderous former queen?”
I closed my eyes, realizing that Mordecai had undoubtedly heard the story about Vashti’s bloody request at the king’s birthday banquet. Everyone who worked on the royal mount probably knew the tale, for servants liked to talk . . . and so did noblemen and their ladies. My new queen had probably heard the story, though I wasn’t sure if she would believe it.
“Hadassah is different.” I softened my voice to a more gentle tone. “And I am watching out for her. I can promise you she will be safe. I will do everything within my power to make certain of it.”
“And therein lies the problem.” Mordecai met my gaze as he laid bare the reality before us. “Because your power, great as it is, is not enough to ensure that the king will never tire of her. So thank you, Harbonah, but do not congratulate me on one of the darkest days of my life.”
A dozen emotions swirled in my heart as I watched him trudge away, but chief among them was gratitude . . . that Esther the queen had not glimpsed her kinsman’s haggard face.