Harbona of Lydia, the unfortunate eunuch selected to return with the obviously bad news, had already voided his bladder into his clothes by the time he reached the top of those velvet stairs, for he knew that his King was at once an expansive and a capricious host who did not suffer negative tidings gladly. He no doubt silently thanked his Persian god Ahura for the layers of robes he had worn in addition to his gold filigree, then proceeded to choose his words with the supreme effort of not bursting into tears, relieving himself further or both.
Watching him, I noticed at once the strangely feminine tilt of his head, the lilt in his high voice, his soft skin. This conversation was recounted to me thus:
“My King, there has been a most disconcerting turn of events, one which my fellow servants and I have labored mightily to reverse.”
“Speak plainly, my friend. How dire can it be?” Xerxes was standing on the dais at this time, towering over Harbona.
“Well, your Majesty, Queen Vashti refuses to come.”
There was a pause. The King’s jaw muscles churned, and his facial complexion turned the color of a ripening apple. “You jest.” But a glance at the face before him confirmed the truth.
“She also refuses to give a reason, your Majesty. But even after lengthy pleas and warnings from myself and my two fellow emissaries, she maintained her refusal.”
The King grew very still, and apart from the hue of his face, he gave no further clue as to his emotions. Then he turned away and stumbled toward the center group of couches.
“The witch turned me down,” he muttered. Only a few heard this, but I learned of it later.
The communal gasp that came from among the King’s closest advisers no longer reclining upon their respective pillows held a portent of death. These courtiers were deeply schooled in all matters of law and protocol, and their main function was to keep His Majesty constantly informed on these matters. “According to law,” the King asked in a halting yet deep voice, “what is to be done with Queen Vashti for not obeying the command of King Xerxes delivered by the eunuchs?”
Memucan, the King’s Master of the Audiences, rose shakily to deliver his opinion. “Queen Vashti has wronged not only your Majesty but also all the princes and all the citizens of your Majesty’s provinces,” he began slowly, but his words and tone gained strength as he continued. “For Queen Vashti’s conduct will become known to all women and cause them to look with contempt upon their husbands and say, ‘King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to come into his presence, but she did not come!’ And today, all the women of Persia and Media who hear of the Queen’s conduct will speak in the same manner to all the King’s princes, even to every husband in the land, which will result in great contempt and anger.”
I was standing more than forty cubits from the base of the royal stairs as these words were spoken, so I could not hear all that was being said until the end, when his voice became a shout. Yet I was deeply cowed by the great silence that had once more fallen over the crowd. Instinctively I knew that something solemn and earth-shaking was taking place. Mordecai stood unusually still and sober, his eyes radiating a fearful alertness. He leaned toward me and whispered, “The man speaking is Memucan, the second most powerful man in the Empire. He is Master of the Audiences. He controls the King’s thousand bodyguards, called The Immortals, and decides who can enter into the King’s presence. Some say he is the ultimate power in the realm.”
Above us, Memucan finished his oration. “If it pleases the King, let a royal edict be issued by His Majesty and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be rescinded, that Vashti should come no more into the presence of King Xerxes, and let the King give her royal position to another more worthy than herself.”
The gasp that then rose from the royal platform was so loud and exaggerated that I thought some royal pantomime was being performed.
Indeed, the assembled entourage was aghast then awed at the boldness and severity of Memucan’s pronouncement. For indeed, Vashti was Queen of Persia at that moment. Had she appeared, even this learned consort of the King would have been compelled to bow low and kiss her outreached hand.
And in fact, I can tell you that Memucan had taken what to any other man was an intolerable risk, especially with a king as given to whims as Xerxes. But perhaps he had accurately read the King’s rage and merely given voice to what His Majesty felt unable to express. In either case, Xerxes swerved drunkenly around and bellowed, “Make it so!” Then he pointed to one of the satraps in the corner and spoke in a lower voice. “You. Haman! You’re a backstabbing murderer, forgive the slur, but come here!”
And Haman the Amalekite, summoned months before with all the other satraps for the military portion of this banquet, rose warily. His girth unmistakable, he approached Xerxes, and the King draped one arm unceremoniously around the old raider’s shoulders. Xerxes leaned salaciously into Haman’s ear, as though he were about to anoint him with a kiss. Instead, he whispered, and while no one else but Haman heard the words, nearly everyone on the platform blanched at the hardened sneer that twisted the King’s features as he spoke them.
Haman nodded, smiled slyly, bowed once before the King and bounded down the steps into the crowd.
And, dear Candidate, what I will tell you next elicits nearly the same overwhelming fear and revulsion as happened the first time. As Haman rushed past where I was standing, his cloak flew up and revealed just a glimpse of something I thought I had wiped from my memory. My knees nearly gave way as I recognized that cruel emblem I had seen long ago after the murder of my family. The twisted cross! I clung to Mordecai’s arm, arguing silently but fervently that I must have been mistaken—it simply couldn’t be.
I later learned that Vashti was dragged screaming from the Palace even as I stood there watching her husband squeeze the last dregs from his glorious party. She and her belongings were deposited outside the King’s Gate in the swiftest and most sudden reversal of fortune Persia ever had the occasion to witness. And as word of this spread through the Persian provinces, the message to women was indeed clear.
What Haman would do next would result in my life being changed forever—again.
Not long after, on a cold and moonless desert night, a group of eight horsemen rode quietly into the darkness of a wealthy Susa neighborhood not far from the King’s citadel. The men, all of whom wore identical twisted crosses permanently tattooed on their backs and on their tunics, tied their horses to a young tree and ran without a sound to a nearby home. The large, white dwelling was flanked like all the rest by a high mud wall. The men vaulted it without a moment’s hesitation.
As though they were following some internal map, they ran without pause into the dwelling, padded quietly up the stairs and entered a large bedroom there. In the low bed slept the publicly banished and now privately undefended Vashti, former Queen of Persia.
At once she sprang forward in her bed, her legendary raven hair tousling around her. A dark hand clamped over her mouth. Two more hands grabbed the sides of her heaving shoulders. And then a long blade began to stab—up, down, up, down, up, down. . . .
The King’s whispered order had been carried out.
All I could think, when I finally heard the rumor whispered to me by Rachel, was how silent killers in the night had slaughtered my own mother in a similar fashion.