33

I must pull away from the moment, perhaps to take a breath, perhaps to ready myself to disclose what I am thinking about revealing to you. As you may know, all sorts of assumptions have been made through the years about what I did next with the King. I have had women of highest repute turn up their noses at me. I have had rabbis denounce me in their synagogues for the laws they think I betrayed. All sorts of moralists have had their say about me even though they were not there with me and Xerxes that night nor have they lived through the experiences that led to that fateful encounter. They did not pray the prayers I raised to G-d for guidance, for rescue out of temptation, for a way to conduct myself in a manner that would please Him and exalt His name before others.

YHWH is a righteous G-d, I know, a G-d of the law. But He is also a gracious G-d who sees our hearts, our intentions, who meets us in the very difficult and nuanced situations where our lives take us. And I know beyond a shadow of doubt, as history has borne out, that He used what actually did occur that night for His good, for His purposes.

Why am I telling you these things? Because, my fellow candidate, I am going to tell you what I have told no one beyond Mordecai and my beloved Jesse-turned-Hathach in all the years since these events took place. It is a disclosure that might have saved me from a great deal of pain and condemnation had I made it years ago. I suppose I have been too stubborn, too ambivalent—and too offended—to offer this very tender fact up for public consumption.

But you see, as truth would have it, there was no sexual intimacy between me and the King that night.

It is not a matter of eternal importance to me, since I was fully prepared to become everything I could for him, with every womanly skill I possessed. And I also know that what we purpose in our hearts is as important as our actions. To begin with, I believed Mordecai when he told me that my being taken against my will and forced into the King’s bed on pain of death relieved me of culpability. Had I given myself to him, I would have felt utterly absolved of guilt. Furthermore, as I’ve already said, I believe G-d had brought about this divine appointment that night for a destiny that went far beyond a King’s desires.

Something far more special and profound took place between us in those precious hours. We engaged in a conversation the likes of which he said he had never enjoyed in that room before. I can say it now, too, with no fear of vanity or pride.

We fell in love.

We lay on his bed—without embarrassment or discomfort on my part, without being overtaken by lust on his part—and talked of our lives—of things Hegai had never prepared me to converse about. Only G-d himself prepared me for that night. Xerxes unburdened himself of his struggles, of years’ worth of pain and grief. He talked about how it felt to come upon his father’s body pierced with arrows, lying upon the field of battle like some punctured bag of corn. He described the pain of seeing his own brothers, his childhood companions, treat him like an adversary the moment his crown had settled upon his head.

I honestly began to feel his sorrow, his grief, and my eyes moistened more than once. I had never imagined being able to sympathize, let alone feel sorry for, the sovereign of my known world. Yet the honesty of his disclosures gave me a raw glimpse into his very own, very real inner pain.

I gathered up my courage and told him about the great ordeal of my childhood—what it felt like to burrow into my mother’s side for protection only to find her beheaded. The disclosure created an atmosphere of empathy—he winced and held me then, and I shed several more of my belated tears at her neglected memory.

I did not reveal my Jewishness, yet I answered his many questions about the attack and where it occurred. He seemed to think hard at that moment, trying to search his memory, then shrugged and returned to our conversation. I did not tell about the twisted cross insignia, still unsure to whom the emblem belonged and having seen it now several times around the Palace.

Somehow, somewhere in the early hours of the morning, we came to acknowledge each other as fellow orphans, strangely and oddly stranded in the world by events beyond our reach. Although the means and circumstances of our respective tragedies clearly differed enormously, the more we talked the more we realized that the resulting traumas were strangely alike. He was forced as a young crown prince into the isolation and otherworldliness of Palace life, while I became a recluse and unwilling refugee at a very early age, then another kind of recluse in the Palace harem.

And strangely, as fatigue began to wear away my reserves, I ceased to see either his royalty or the danger he embodied. It may have been imprudent of me, but I began to see just a man beset by countless cares and machinations. A man afflicted with unquenchable loneliness and insecurity. A flawed man, to be sure—obsessed, for one thing, with ransacking Greece, one of the world’s great civilizations, and slaughtering scores of its citizens. But for some reason, my reaction to him vanquished his defenses and caused him to reveal his innermost self to me. And that self was remarkably like other human beings I had known.

When I told him what I had seen in his eyes, he sighed and began to unburden himself even more directly. “I am weary, Star. So weary. I tire of the constant maneuvering and gamesmanship of court,” he said, looking away. “I always have to keep watch behind me, careful that some hidden enemy or other does not usurp my throne. The seven Princes of the Face, to name but one group, while on the surface my closest advisers are at the same time my fiercest competitors. My grandfather was one of the Princes years ago, and he inserted himself into the throne, as everyone knows. Ever since then the other Princes have pushed and strained for the chance to do the very same thing, always trying to improve their claim to royalty, always straining to inch one level closer than the others. It is an endless matching of wits, a perpetual game of positioning and repositioning themselves. I must always be thinking of strategies to outflank my enemies, to surprise them, to pit them against one another and waste their energies on meaningless rivalries rather than on me.”

He held me then, and I felt that the tighter he held me the more he was squeezing away the worries he had just listed. I tried to mentally detach myself and take stock of the incredible situation I was in—here I was in bed, having one of the most intimate and satisfying conversations of my life . . . with the King of Persia.

The King seemed in no dire need of a woman’s body but rather in desperate need of a loyal soulmate. Apparently the wonder of what was taking place between us far outweighed his immediate craving to discover any sensual mystery about my womanhood, let alone relieve any pent-up tensions.

Lastly, I believe he did fully intend to take my virginity that night. Before he could, though, our conversation dwindled hours later, and he fell asleep in my arms, just as the torches began to gutter down to mere embers and the sun warmed the light in the room’s high windows.

My fears waited until after the King’s slumber to assault me. After all, the evening’s most notable event, the one thing I had prepared for the most carefully, had not taken place. So with the end of our time together came an onslaught of insecurities. Had some flaw in my appearance caused him not to desire me? Had I miscued the simplicity of my presentation? Did he finally decide I was not attractive to him and that any further intimacy was futile?

I had not heard of any girl waking up a virgin after this night. Although who knows—perhaps they had simply declined to let it be known, silently bearing the ultimate rejection.

Another misgiving soon pounded its way into my consciousness. Any woman later found to be carrying His Majesty’s child was guaranteed an exalted place among the concubines, for she could be carrying a future king, or at least a potential apple of his father’s eye. Our platonic evening had denied me even that bit of leverage.

In fact, since only a royal deflowering ensured a girl entry into the concubines’ house, I wondered—would I, still a virgin, be sent back to the candidates’ harem, there to be mercilessly taunted by the other girls? The prospect filled me with dread colder than a blast of winter air.

But then, had he not profusely complimented my beauty? Had his gaze not lingered over my form in its simple silk gown?

And yet the fatigue he had spoken of clearly overtook him in the end. Xerxes had truly been a weary man.

These warnings and reassurances tumbled over one another in my mind until I became literally dizzy with anguish. Finally, exhausted both mentally and physically, I stared up into the room’s dim elevations and gave up—I simply asked G-d to give me peace and direction.

Then I must have fallen asleep for some short period, for I awoke with the King moving about beside me. I immediately bolted forward with my worries fully deployed. How would he treat me now? What would the morning’s unkind light reveal that had been withheld during the night’s overwrought emotions?

Xerxes rolled onto one elbow and brought his face within inches of mine. And he smiled a smile that instantly left me at ease.

“I woke up wondering what you must think,” he said in a throaty whisper. “I know that you came prepared to give me pleasure last night, and clearly that did not happen. But, Star, you must know this. And do not forget it. You are by far the most beautiful and desirable woman who has ever graced my bed. And believe me—that is saying much. I was a fool not to ravish you last night. But I was also enraptured by something more than your lovely form. I was completely overwhelmed by your manner with me.”

I breathed in deeply out of sheer relief. “Thank you.”

“And what’s more, Star,” he continued, “no one needs to know what did and did not take place here last night. It will be our complete secret. I will have Memucan burn our sheets and swear him to secrecy upon pain of death. Believe me, he will obey. Nor should you worry about not carrying the royal seed—”

“It was not your seed I craved,” I whispered. “It was your presence. And your love.”

He looked at me with the distant gaze of someone realizing that his life has just taken a major turn. “You have that, my Star. Know that you have that.”

Then he kissed me again, long and hard, and bounded from his bed calling loudly for his valet.