At first, I thought little of not seeing or hearing from Mordecai over the span of several days. After all, the King had just returned after four years’ absence, which had caused my own schedule to accelerate dramatically. Court was back in full swing, my social calendar had gone from dormant to hectic, and my free time was largely spent in useless yet time-consuming court appearances about the Palace.
In fact, the demands on my time escalated even more sharply because of a most disquieting turn of events.
You see, matters between Xerxes and me did not permanently return to the ecstasy of our first few nights together so many years before. What sank my spirits as surely as anything was the lack of a summons to his side—or his bed. Slowly, it grew clear to me that the magic spell of our time together had been shattered by the rigors and traumas of war. The initial period of bliss and harmony appeared to be over.
My nights spent alone during his absence were nothing compared to the lonely nights after his return, which gradually increased in number until more than a month had passed. I began to catch the tail end of gloating looks and snippets of gossip from ladies of the court, and I wondered who was gracing the King’s bed. As usual, my faithless mind raced far on ahead of the facts.
Certainly, I was not the only one being neglected by the King. His deflated retreat from Greece, combined with the disastrous news of the treasury, the murder of Memucan and the subsequent report of a grave threat within the Palace walls—all had combined to render Xerxes listless and despondent for the very first time in his reign. I began to hear of canceled engagements, of days when Xerxes never left his chambers. I longed to reach his side and do my best to restore his morale, but even the most basic mealtime summons never arrived. And so, as my popularity still soared with the people following the Queen’s tax repeal, I began to make appearances in his stead, dismissing the urgent inquiries about his health with a quick laugh and a confident shake of my head. . . . Oh no, fear not, Vice-Chancellor. His Majesty is merely in a war council, conferring with his generals on the impending counterattack. . . .
To make all of this even worse, I remained tormented by the fact that Haman, the now-proved murderer of my family, was my husband’s top advisor—a man who now spent much of his day just a short distance from me, constantly trying to become as trusted and close to me as Memucan had once been. His ingratiating efforts, of course, only made me want to publicly scream out my accusations. But I bit my tongue and gave him my best winning smile. Truth be told, it was only after witnessing how the King’s reclusiveness bolstered Haman’s status as the Empire’s most powerful figure that I started attending court functions alone. Someone had to blunt the Agagite’s sudden rise to power, and at the moment I seemed to be the only person in a position to do it.
Yet once again, the overwhelming fears of my childhood started to make repeat appearances. I began having nightmares of that horrible night, only now Xerxes and the Palace court stood watching the carnage, laughing and pointing out its most spectacular highlights. Perhaps worse, that gray cloud started to haunt my waking hours again, coloring my daylight with its haunting and shadowy gloom. I grew fearful and jumpy. Sudden gestures and people turning corners too quickly caused me to scream, ready for a blade across my neck. As a result I became irritable and critical.
Worse still, I had begun to hear Palace rumors of impending civil unrest. The whole city wallowed in confusion. Indeed, the world seemed to be unraveling at every seam! How far I had come from the wide-eyed girl who once imagined life among these golden walls as a blissful idyll of joy and leisure. All the prestige and privilege had now faded utterly from my mind—replaced only by gnawing fear and grinding stress.
As a result of all these distractions, I was completely caught off guard when one of my handmaidens quietly tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Your eunuch friend, Hathach, is waiting outside. He has an urgent message he will deliver only to you.”
For some reason, I instantly knew it was about Mordecai. I had not heard from him in several days and I sorely needed a dose of his calming wisdom. A plunge of fear stabbed through me—had he suffered an illness? Had his delvings into Haman’s complicity caused him to be hurt—or worse?
I immediately stood and made my way to the door where I knew Jesse awaited, an anxious look on his still-handsome face.
“Hadassah—I mean, Esther—“ he smiled gamely at his inability to use my royal name—“there’s a problem, but I don’t know what it is. I have been ensconced in the archives on an assignment from the King, but when I finished this morning, I heard some most disturbing news. I know it’s serious, because Mordecai paraded through this city in full Jewish regalia, crying loudly in Hebrew. It’s as if he now wants the whole world to know what he kept under wraps for so many years. And even worse, he has now clothed himself with sackcloth and ashes and spends all day at the King’s Gate moaning loudly.”
“Did he say why he is so upset?”
“No. He barely acknowledged my presence, he was so distraught. He will not move any more than he will speak. All I know is he is wearing full Jewish mourning garb. He must have told everyone he was a Jew, because all the symbols are now there for everyone to see.”
“He is certainly in mourning—there is no other meaning for sackcloth and ashes. But mourning what? Are there any tragic deaths he could be upset about?”
Jesse shook his head. “He keeps mumbling something like ‘only she can save me now.’ You must go to him, Esther.”
“I can’t. I must not. But, please, go to him for me. Take him a change of clothes and tell him that he must stop this dangerous display and be more discreet. If he wants to continue keeping the truth about our relationship a secret, I simply cannot come to him. He must stop what he’s doing and tell you what is the matter.”
Jesse nodded somberly and hurried from the room through the hidden exit. Although he was now Haman’s chief assistant, he spent some of his time working on my behalf—errands that were naturally kept hidden from his new superior. In that role he had learned all the Queen’s hidden exits and corridors.
I was just finishing a solitary supper when the same handmaiden rushed in and summoned me with frantic hand motions. I hurried out to our usual meeting spot and found Jesse sitting against the Palace wall with his face in his hands. Without a moment’s care for appearances, I rushed over, knelt and pulled his hands back. The face before me bore little resemblance to the one that had left me such a short time before. Jesse’s face was streaked with dust and tear tracks, and his features were so twisted in anguish that he did not look like himself.
“What is the matter, Jesse? Tell me, what were his tidings?”
He shook his head, initially unable to even form the words. I felt my heart plummet and shook his wrists wildly.
“What? What?”
“Your husband has just issued an Empire-wide edict stating that on the thirteenth of Adar all Jews are to be killed—men, women and children.”
I recoiled as though a physical blow had struck me across the face. I began to pant, for the invisible shock had knocked the air out of me and I literally could not breathe. I fell back and sank into the dust—hardly a regal pose. Yet I could not gather the composure to regain my feet.
I wanted to race through the usual preliminaries—whether he was joking, whether there could be some mistake, whether this interpretation was all the result of some simple misunderstanding. But I knew that neither Mordecai nor Jesse, both of whom I trusted above all others, would have told me this without absolute certainty. My mind reeled instead from one futile reassurance to another, none of them satisfactory. The inescapable verdict was like some child’s leather pouch I could not allow to fall to earth, that I had to keep swatting about in my brain and keep airborne as though my life depended on it.
I tried to twist the news into some pretext for blaming Mordecai—that perhaps if I had been open about my Jewishness the King would not have issued such a decree. But then again, it occurred to me, I might have never become Queen if it had been known in the first place.
There was no way to absorb this, no way to process its full import. Not only could I not think it through, but I felt I was fighting to survive my very next breath.
The handmaiden who had escorted me hastily called for soldiers from the Palace. Half a dozen men poured out from the door and rushed to my side. Their captain knelt and leaned into my face.
“Are you ill, my Queen?” he asked. “Should I call a physician?”
I shook my head no—that was the most I was able to convey.
Jesse crawled over into the middle of this panicked group, reached out and, again disregarding appearances, gathered me into his arms.
“Her Highness has just received some very grave news above a beloved relative,” he rasped out to the captain. “She is in the throes of severe grief and only wishes for some cover from the prying eyes of others. Will you form a circle around us and give the Queen a few moments to recover?”
The captain’s eyes darted suspiciously from Jesse—who was, after all, a mere eunuch virtually ordering around a captain of the army—to me. I managed to nod and confirm the truth of Jesse’s words; the man shrugged and turned around to the rest of his men. Within seconds a cordon of soldiers’ backs shielded the pathetic scene from the eyes of any courtiers who might have wandered around this corner of the inner courtyard. Whether the measure actually protected us or simply attracted more attention, I would never know.
For the next few long moments I swayed silently in Jesse’s arms, overcome by a dizzying, even nauseating sensation of freefall. He told me that the entire Jewish community was in mourning. “Mordecai gave me a copy of the edict. He had to transcribe it himself,” Jesse whispered to me. “His thought is that perhaps you might go in to the King, implore his favor and plead for the sparing of our people.”
I shook my head, for this had been one of the first ideas my desperate mind had rejected.
“It won’t work, Jesse. Don’t you remember your training? Have you forgotten how unforgiving Palace protocol is? You know as well as I that any man or woman who approaches the King without being summoned is immediately decapitated—unless the King lowers his scepter to spare their life! And do you know how long it’s been since the protocol of the scepter has seen it lowered in invitation? Years! Besides, Xerxes has not summoned me into his presence for over a month now. Remember what happened to Vashti—that even a queen is not above losing her life over a matter of protocol. And Haman would be delighted to eliminate any rival for the King’s attention. I just cannot do this. Please, Jesse. I am all right now. Go and tell Mordecai what I have told you.”
One of the handmaidens, thank G-d for her, brought me a veil. I rushed through the hallways to my private quarters. Once inside, I retired to my bed with a tall goblet of sedative-laced wine prepared by the Palace physician. Hours later, I was awakened from my slumber by Jesse shaking me by the shoulder. He had barged past the guards, reminding them he was Hathach, aide to Memucan. I stirred upright and stared at him in amazement, for in normal times the impudence of such an intrusion would have likely caused his own immediate execution. Yet my guards, knowing him well, had apparently allowed him free access.
“What did he say?” I asked, coming immediately awake.
“He did not receive your reply well,” he said as he crouched before me at the side of my bed. “He acknowledged that you may well risk execution in any attempt to reach the King, but he also wished me to point out that the King’s Palace is no escape from the force of this edict. He said to remind you of Vashti and her fate. He said you will most likely die with all the other Jews when the truth is known and the order is carried out.”
I reluctantly had to nod my agreement with Mordecai’s dark appraisal. As much as I hated to admit it, he made sense.
“Mordecai made me vow to quote him accurately. He said, ‘Furthermore, if you remain silent now, G-d will surely raise a deliverer from some other source. But you and your father’s house would perish forever in the process.’ He said, ‘Who knows, Hadassah, but what you attained the Palace for such a time as this?’”
And then Jesse put into my hands a copy of the written edict. I held it like it was on fire as I read the pronouncement of death and destruction on all Jews.