And so after just a few dozen nights in my original simple but elegant room, I moved into a luxury suite featuring its own sitting area with a goose-down divan and three deep chairs, a separate bedroom and its own expansive bathroom. Now I truly felt like I was living in a palace. The beauty treatments would now come to me. Instead of waiting in line by the pool, I would lie on my bed and wait for the masseuses to tiptoe in and begun their work.
No, I cannot claim to have been mistreated, that is the honest truth.
My life in the harem house rapidly settled into a very predictable although incredibly pampered routine. I would wake before dawn, change into loose clothing and walk out into the courtyard for some early morning stretching exercises. The excursions also served, of course, as my occasion to meet Mordecai on his way to work at the King’s Gate. I would hug him tightly through the gate, my affection for him having only grown deeper with time away from his home, and bring him up-to-date on harem gossip. This, of course, had far less value for him than his Palace gossip held for me. Mordecai seemed to know everything about the endless hierarchies and political game playing behind these marble walls.
In those days Xerxes, who had barely escaped with his life during earlier Grecian Wars with his father, was obsessed with his long-planned counterattack against Athens. More than anything, he wanted to go down in history as the man who conquered Greece. As a result, the Palace was filled with talk of war—was the King’s authority stable enough to risk years away in battle? Who would emerge as his key general? And who would serve as High Regent during his absence?
Echoes of these great rivalries reverberated only dimly at the harem; we heard of them and realized their importance yet heard very little of their latest developments. Because much of the time the information Mordecai possessed was even more current than Hegai’s, I gained an extra edge—yet another reason why other girls came to speak with me.
I gradually allowed myself to linger longer at the gate with Mordecai. I had little cause to spend much time at the breakfast table. Long after he had left for work I would remain outside and stretch, then find a secluded spot in which to pray. What had once been a ceremonial function—a series of loudly spoken pronouncements, a ritual Mordecai performed in private, one that I had once assumed to be a mumbled series of incantations—had now become an intimate means of communication with a divine presence who now felt closer to me than my own self. I found that I could not pray loudly or formally; I simply conversed with G-d.
Even as my time of private prayer ended each day and I took the morning’s myrrh bath, I asked G-d to show me ways of following Him. After drying off, while the masseuse’s hands kneaded the fragrant myrrh oil into my back for an hour, I continued silently speaking to Him.
The first time I rose from my hour’s massage, my body redolent with myrrh—and realized I would be receiving a similar treatment that afternoon and every afternoon after that for the next six months—I felt like the historic Queen of Sheba Mordecai had taught me about. I could not help but take pleasure in the experience, but ever before me was the destination—one night with the King.
And Hegai, for his part, stayed true to his pledge—he began to periodically, tidbit by tidbit, educate me regarding the King’s preferences. Sometimes it would be a hurriedly whispered phrase as he rushed past me at poolside: “He likes women lean; stay true to your diet!” or “When it comes to clothing, simplicity is better; that is for certain.” Then, twice in the first six weeks, he appeared at my door and spent several hours discussing the King’s personality. It seemed like almost a welcome outlet for him—a place to express his opinions on countless royal subjects with little fear of reprisal.
Xerxes, by Hegai’s account, was surprisingly insecure for being the ruler of all the civilized world. As a result, he could be given to wild whims and erratic behavior depending on who was influencing him at the moment. Paranoid about being assassinated, he was constantly on the watch for signs of loyalty or treachery. Either one could bring wildly varying reactions.
As for matters of the bedroom, Hegai knew far less, yet more than anyone else. Xerxes was an adventurous lover, I was told—assuming he truly fancied the girl. He had spent his youth with captured beauties from Alexandria, Damascus and Cush and had found that a woman in fear for her life made for a vivacious and compliant partner. This knowledge tended to make him act gruff and intimidating.
“The governing paradox of sexual love,” Hegai told me, “is that the quickest way to ruin your own pleasure is making it your first priority. Center your attentions on your partner’s bliss, and your own will find expression along with it.”
I smiled warmly at advice like this, for it conformed so well with my overall philosophy toward the King. Focus on him. Focus on him. It had been our elderly friend Jacob’s refrain, and now it would be mine.
“Be willing to try anything, but remember that your artless virginity is also part of capturing His Majesty’s interest. You must be both maiden and harlot as the moment calls for,” Hegai told me on another occasion.
I agonized before G-d about the morality of the whole encounter. Could I be considered married to Xerxes at the occasion of my deflowering? Regarding this dilemma I received no clear word, no definitive response from on high. But over time, I became convinced in my spirit that I was doing my very best, that I was here for a good reason. A reason that would reveal itself over time.
And Mordecai confirmed this in his hurried and whispered conferences with me each morning. He quoted passages from the Song of Solomon to guide my thinking and preparation.
As for my seven maids, I resolved to treat them like younger sisters, like the female companions I had never had. I shared bits of news and Palace conjecture with them and elicited their stories one by one during late-night discussions in my suite. I assured them that if they had not already been in royal service, all of them would have made superb Queen candidates—I am not certain they all believed me, but I think they appreciated the sentiment.
Afternoons were long, languid stretches at the harem. Many girls spent time in the sun by the pool, adding a deep suntan to their diminishing list of physical attributes, since Hegai had explained that the King preferred fair-skinned women. Others caught up on any beauty treatments that they had happened to miss during the morning hours.
I spent much of my afternoon time engaging in a clandestine activity: reading books from the royal library. Since, as you know, Persian women are not supposed to know how to read, I had my handmaidens discreetly bring various scrolls and parchments on the pretext of a mission for Hegai. Then they would deliver them to me out in the thickest part of the garden, across from the eunuchs’ house. There I would curl up on a thick mat of fallen banana leaves and devour works of history and philosophy.
Or at least pretend to.
What I was really doing there, besides doing a bit of perfunctory brush-up work on my reading skills, was watching for an opportunity to make contact with Jesse.
I had first inquired about him on my third day there and learned that all eunuchs would convalesce for a week before beginning their training and would not join us for another few months.
That was far too long. I cared about Jesse, although the chaos of my capture and subsequent adapting to my new environment had largely crowded him from my mind. Our kiss on the gryphon statue had taken place a relatively brief time before, yet it now seemed like it had happened in another lifetime, to another person. Now that I had given myself time to reflect, I remembered how things had changed so dramatically between us in those days just before his capture. For years he had merely been the annoying young boy who tagged along with his grandmother. While entertaining to a lonely, isolated girl, he had been little more than a pest with dubious hygiene. Then he had become a friend. And puberty had added yet a new dimension.
I had noticed even before the kiss how Jesse was growing into a lanky, handsome young man. But the kiss seemed to have released something within me. I felt like I had been suddenly introduced to a whole new crop of emotions. My future as a woman, once a barren and worrisome set of images in my mind, now began to include brief, tentative scenes of being Jesse’s wife. I had discovered, much to my surprise, that the scenarios did not displease me.
Thinking of it there in the orchard, I shook my head in disbelief. How drastically things had changed! Now I was promised—if not in marriage then at least in body—to the King of Persia, a flamboyantly jealous ruler. And Jesse was now sadly shorn of much that had once made him a man and a husband-to-be. Yet I cared for him deeply nevertheless, and I determined that I could not allow us to exist so close to each other without making at least an attempt to see him.