By the time one moon had passed, I needed every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from despondency. The darkness deepened when I heard the King had returned four days ago from Persepolis and still had not called for me. My hopes and expectations had been raised beyond the stars during my night with the King. Now I wandered through my days in a sort of blur, working to remain as unfocused and unthinking as possible. I hardly noticed the other concubines around me as I woodenly ate what was put before me, slept as often as I was able and implored G-d to again give me purpose and direction. My handmaidens had urged me to dress in readiness should the King call, and I let them prepare me every evening. But each day the flicker of hope burned itself out more quickly. By nightfall the girls probably recognized my humiliation at the silence from the Palace, and they tried to cheer me with promises and expectations we all knew were not more than feathers in the wind.
I had given up hope and was lying beside the courtyard pool on that fifth afternoon, covered only with a simple length of cotton, when the sound of a distant drumbeat reached my ears. It sounded martial, warlike, unlike anything I had heard in my year of Palace life. I sat up to see if any peculiar sight accompanied this noise.
I saw a dark jumble of motion on the horizon. People. Carriers of some sort. A parasol that dipped up and down, as though held by a slave over the head of someone of high rank. A caravan of some importance was approaching.
I noticed a woman standing behind me, also staring, and then two more behind her. I looked farther—within moments, a dozen concubines had silently gathered nearby, their squints turning to frowns as the drumbeats grew closer. I heard murmurs about a court official coming this way.
I thought briefly of retreating to the house and observing what happened through a window. And then it hit me—I was as likely a choice as anyone. I had forgotten! In just a few days of emotional despair, I had allowed myself to utterly overlook the fact that I was a leading contender to become the next Queen of Persia—all royal fickleness aside.
Instantly flushed with embarrassment, I quickly wrapped the cloth around me and ran inside for a long linen robe in the preferred style of the concubines. I hurried back through the hall to rejoin the others and almost ran into Carylina, the last candidate before me, as she ran giggling out the door.
Memucan, the King’s Master of the Audiences, was walking Carylina’s way. The assembled concubines and his own varied entourage were now a mere backdrop, arrayed behind him in myriad expressions of awe and surprise.
They were all staring her way.
My heart sank and broke at the same moment. Carylina was a fine girl, a worthy candidate, I realized. Somehow, I felt more disappointed for Mordecai and Jesse than for myself. All those certainties about G-d and His destiny, His divine interventions. We would all muddle through without it, made sadder yet wiser by our disillusion. Maybe even discover a new chastened and reasonable estimation of G-d in the process.
Then, in a sort of luminous slow-motion cadence, as though the whole scene were taking place inside a jar of honey, I saw Memucan’s hand go out to Carylina’s shoulder, grasp it, then, in the slowness of great moments, move her aside.
He was walking toward me. Or was another girl standing behind me? I glanced around and saw no other nearby.
Within three steps of me, Memucan knelt. Before I could utter a word of apology, or even surprise, he was bowing his head before me. I felt like I was turned to stone, without and within.
He looked up with an inscrutable expression on his tanned and confident face. “My lady, Star of Susa, your presence is desired within the court of His Majesty King Xerxes of Persia. Would you honor me with your hand?”
The world came to a halt. The wind ceased to blow. The clouds in the sky stopped floating past. The mouths of the women behind him remained in gaped expressions. Even my racing thoughts had come gracefully to rest like an autumn leaf gliding to the surface of the water. They delicately settled upon a single thought, which emblazoned itself across my brain and mesmerized my faculties. He remembers my name!
He wants to see me. He wants me to come. . . . And then my emotions swung between He wants me! and He is angry. . . .
A noise knocked on the door of my consciousness. It was a familiar sound—one I had heard at a happier time. A noise like water. A sign of goodwill, of celebration.
I broke back into the waking world and found that the noise was applause. It occurred to me, ever so briefly, that I might well be a queen.
My knees gave way, and I would have fallen except for Memucan’s hand under my arm. I willed myself to breathe. I tried to apply the news to my brain, to make it stick like an artisan pressing gold leaf onto stone. The staggering nature of it had rendered my intellect immune to rational thought.
I tumbled into a lucid moment and found that I had grabbed Memucan’s hand. “Is everything all right?” I managed to ask.
Memucan flashed the same kind of smile I had seen Rachel give Jesse when he was a little boy in our house, asking silly questions. “The only possible harm is what could befall me if I answered your question, my lady,” he answered. “His Majesty will make his intention perfectly clear when we arrive. Please come with me, yet do not be troubled.”
Memucan lifted my hand and led me like I was a blind person. I kept stealing glances his way, wondering one moment if what he had hinted could possibly be true.
Finally Memucan whispered to me, “Madam, please. Did I not kneel before you? I can say no more, but surely you know you have cause for joy.”
Cause for joy.
Some part of me knew these were the best possible words I could have hoped to hear. Yet the fact they presented to me lingered somewhere just beyond my understanding, a stranger at the door. Could I fully accept their truth?
In a far grander version of my procession five days before, I walked shakily past the gathered well-wishers. The golden litter before me had room for four and was carried by half a dozen of the largest men I had ever seen, Nubians, from the blackness of their skin, with more gold on their limbs than any slave I had ever laid eyes on. Drummers and escorts dressed in Palace finery stood to one side.
I was not ready—in my despondency, I had failed to stay prepared for this possible outcome. Harboring great misgivings about my appearance, I climbed into the litter.
Then something unexpected happened. A thick brocade curtain was drawn around the litter’s edge, and I found myself enclosed inside a sort of improvised tent, open only to the sky for light. The flap opened, and I recognized two of my handmaidens stepping eagerly inside. Their arms were filled with rich embroidered clothing.
“We’ve come to dress you, your Highness,” said Sakyl.
I nearly fainted with relief. Within a few minutes their skillful hands had not only folded my body into the most stunning set of robes I had ever seen but adorned my face with all my favorite cosmetics. I could have kissed their feet in sheer gratitude.
Finally they both leaned back with beaming glances, smiled their approval and swiftly left. Just as quickly, the curtain was pulled back and the same crowd, still waiting, cheered my transformation. I sat down; the seat rose and began to move forward.
A group of spectators came into view, trailing stragglers back toward the royal chambers. Hundreds and hundreds of people drifted our way as though blown by some errant wind. I could see the faraway gate into the inner courtyard standing open and a faint glimpse of the gate beyond, open as well.
This time as we broke into the sunshine, I was not only shaded from its glare by a canopy but cooled by the swaying of palm branches. And now rather than the applause of a partisan crowd, I was greeted with lowered eyes and heads bowing in some sort of deference. The sight of it shocked me—I had been a concubine wondering and worrying about my future only moments before. What had I done to merit such honor?
We crossed the outer courtyard and turned for the Inner Court. As we turned, I saw through the open door another magnificent hall. Its acres of shadowed heights were cleaved in half by pillars of sunlight streaming down from windows I could hardly see. Down lower, a carpet of scarlet lay stretched onto the terrace, its edges lined with threads of gold that glittered in the sun. And on either side stood soldiers, members of the Immortals, a group of the King’s personal bodyguards, in full gold-threaded regalia with their scabbards held high and their faces frozen in expressions of grim determination. The tops of their helmet plumes and the blades of their lances traced a perfect row leading inward, in toward the source of all this splendor.
We came to the end of the red carpet, and the litter, along with the whole drum-beating procession, stopped at once. The litter began to lower, and Memucan fixed me with a knowing look.
“His Majesty awaits you, your Highness.”
What had he called me?
But there was no time for questions. The litter had reached the ground, and it was now the moment for me to step out. I felt the blood rush from my head as I took my first step, and just at the sides of my vision, I realized that I was being watched more intensely, and by a greater number of people, than I had ever been in my whole life. The crowd had knitted together into a solid mass, a human wall lining either side of my path. It was almost as if every pair of eyes was a tiny pinprick fixed somewhere upon my person. I fleetingly wished for the anonymity of Mordecai’s home, its isolation and peace.
I looked ahead and peered into the shadow of the Inner Court. Some great pomp and ceremony loomed ahead, I could tell, but I could not make it out precisely. Then I passed under the portal and into the great room. And I saw.