Esther (48 page)

“Oh, but that is not all, Your Majesty. This very morning Haman was in the courtyard on his way to see the king, likely to speak against Mordecai. The king called him in and asked, ‘What should be done for a man whom the king desires to honor?'

“Assuming the king spoke of him, Haman said, ‘Let royal garb which the king has worn be brought, and a horse on which the king has ridden and on whose head a royal diadem has been set; and let the attire and the horse be put in the charge of one of the king's noble courtiers and paraded through the city square. The noble shall shout so all can hear, ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!' ”

I had not expected to laugh ever again, and certainly not as hard as I did as I guessed what came next.

“The king told him to make haste getting the garb and the horse and to go with them to Mordecai the Jew.”

“The king himself said ‘Jew'?”

Hathach raised his gaze up from the floor, and I saw that light shone in his eyes. “Yes, Your Majesty. The head throne room eunuch is also a friend of mine. Actually, all of the king's attendant eunuchs are friends of mine.”

Perhaps Mordecai was right, and I could turn the king against Haman by revealing that I was Jewish. “Thank you for all you have done, Hathach. If I do not return, I know you will do me the final service of making certain the letters I gave you get to my friends.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said as he bowed to me, perhaps for the last time.

Haman did not seem so sure of himself as he and the king approached on the second day of the feast. I was glad for his great pride. Surely it had made his task torturous. I could not help but smile as I imagined him leading a horse with my cousin upon it through the city square, yelling “This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!”

He himself looked like a horse who has heard a loud noise in the distance. Bristling, angry with fear. I planned to press upon him until he lashed out or did something else that revealed his true nature to the king. I would welcome his unhappiness, though I knew that the more I angered him the more careful I would have to be.
He is dangerous, he will hurt someone. I hope it is only himself.

As I bowed to the king I saw Haman's feet shifting in his sandals. He did not even wait until the king bade me to rise before he lay down upon one of the couches.

I thanked the king for honoring me once again by coming to the feast I had prepared for him. There was a tiny spark of warmth in his eyes, enough that I decided to trust in his gratitude more than his jealousy. I would finally tell the king who I was. Regardless of what happened afterward, at least I would not die a secret.

When the king had arrayed himself on some cushions that I had plumped for him, I lay upon the adjoining couch, my head close to his. From the corner of my eye I saw him raise his goblet and I smelled the sweetness before the wine spilled down his throat. I would not wait so long to make my request that the king was too drunk to understand it.

I looked at Haman lying upon the couch across from us. Though he reclined, I knew he was not truly resting but only affecting a pose of relaxation. Sweat from his face dripped onto the cushions he lay upon. The veins in his hands bulged from his skin, as though he were ready to grab or hit someone. His fingers were weighted with as many rings as Halannah's, and seeing them reminded me of how her rings had clinked together when she had slapped me. His chest was puffed out, and in his eyes I could see he was already fighting for something—most likely himself, or that part of himself that wished, always, for more.

I turned to the king. “I have heard that today a great man was honored, Your Majesty. I wish I had been there to hear Mordecai's loyalty declared throughout the city square.” I looked at Haman. “What is it you said as you led his horse, Haman?”

“I said this is the man whom the king desires to honor.”

“And how did you say it? I so would have loved to be there. Please say it just as you did today.”

Haman pressed his lips together, then muttered through his teeth, “This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor.”

“You said it so quietly?”

“My queen,” the king said, “surely his voice is tired. He can say it for you another time. Let us partake of some wine.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Let us drink to the man without whom you might not have lived to celebrate this day. To Mordecai!”

Haman held his full goblet in his hand but did not raise it to his lips even though the king and I drank. I had ordered a special pennyroyal wine prepared for Haman, one that I told the servant who bore the wine not to serve to the king or me. I had allowed Ruti to add some bathwater that she'd used to wash her feet.
No matter what happens,
she had said,
at least I will know he drank dirt from my feet
.

Haman continued to hold his goblet without drinking from it. His eyes sharpened upon everything before him, moving carefully from one thing to another, as though looking for a hidden threat. He finally took a sip from his goblet. He made a choking sound and spat wine over the fruits and nuts before him. He beckoned to a servant to take his goblet.

“The wine which I have procured for the king is not good enough for you, Haman?”

His mouth was still twisted in disgust. “This is not a king's wine.”

I gasped. “Is not my husband a king? Is not any wine he has drunk a ‘king's wine'?”

Haman glared at me for an instant before catching himself and smiling. He forced himself to take another sip, and the victorious look from the day before returned to his face as he managed not to twist his mouth in disgust this time. “The king is most dear to me, and to the empire. I only said ‘this is not a king's wine' to make certain of your loyalty.”

I was going to say “You insult the king,” in the hope that the king would see that he should be insulted. But I did not have to. The king's voice was that of a man who owns the world and everyone in it. “I chose this woman, with the help of Ahura Mazda, from among hundreds. She has helped save my life. Yet you dare to test her, and therefore also to test my judgment?”

Haman's eyes bulged so much from their kohl outlines that I could see little red lines in the whites surrounding his large pupils. He bowed his head and said, “Your Highness, I am your most devoted and loyal servant. You are more dear to me than all else in this world. I would give you the lives of my other eight sons if it would prove my devotion to you.”

The king had not yet taken the lives of Parsha and Dalphon, yet Haman so easily counted them among the dead?
Thank you for ridding me of any pity for you,
I thought.

The king laughed. “Perhaps I am only testing you too. You are still my wisest adviser. The one who is best at enriching the royal treasury.”

Do not wait,
a voice inside my head commanded. It was not my mother's voice, nor Ruti's, nor Hegai's. It was my own.

I fell upon my knees before the king. “My most beloved king, there is someone who would take from the empire a greater treasure than the wealth that comes from coins. He would take from you some of your most loyal subjects, including Mordecai.”

The king looked as alarmed as I had hoped. “Mordecai, whom I honored only today for saving my life?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. This evil man I speak of wishes to kill the devoted subject without whom you might not have survived. If his wish had been granted when he first desired it, he would right now be pouring money into his own coffers, not yours.”

The king stared at me with something held back in his huge eyes. Did he hold out hope that I would start laughing and declare it all a jest so he would not have to consider giving up the wealth Haman had promised him?

Haman said, “Your Maj—”

“Quiet,” Xerxes said to him, and then turned to me. “Do not speak in riddles.”

“Your Majesty, the people he wishes to destroy, I am among them.” The king's grip upon his goblet tightened with a jerk, sending wine splashing over the rim. Haman gasped. “He has sold my people to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated.”

In a voice that shook the ground, the king commanded the servants, “Leave us! Every one of you.” He turned back to me.
“Whom do you speak of? Where is the man who dares insult me by endangering my queen?”

“He is right here, Your Majesty,” I said, pointing at Haman. “He is the man who does not wait for you to choose your place before choosing his own. He is the man who insults the palace wine. He is the man who walks beside his king instead of behind him.”

Haman's voice trembled as violently as the hands he held out to the king. “I thought only of my love for you, Your Majesty, when I devised a way to enlarge the royal treasury. If I had known your queen was—”

“Only a fool would threaten what is mine,” Xerxes cried. “I am the most powerful king in the world. No man should insult my wine. No man should walk beside me, or seek to stand shoulder to shoulder with me as you have done so often, or choose a place at the table before I have chosen mine.”

Haman was on his knees now. “Please—”

“Silence!” The king threw his goblet upon the table and came to his feet.

Haman cowered in the shadow the king had thrown over him. He began moving backward on his knees. “I beg of you—”

“Be silent before I cut out your tongue. Your voice hurts my head and the sight of you blinds me with rage. I cannot think here. I must clear my head before my rage overtakes me.”

The king stalked off toward the palace gardens, leaving me alone with Haman.

Haman leaned toward me. “Please, my queen, please forgive me. We will be more powerful as allies than enemies. I will find another people to enrich the royal treasury. I will pour the spoils not only into the royal treasury but also into your own personal coffers.”

I placed a hand over my empty womb. “You have murdered the king's heir and the descendants he would have had. Only God can forgive you.”

“Your Majesty, it was Halannah who ordered the pennyroyal for your tea and bribed the servants with the king's gifts to her.” His voice rose nearly as high as a eunuch's. “It is
she
who threatened them with long, agonizing deaths.”

“Then we will put her upon the gallows beside yours.”

“Please, my queen, I hold much sway and will do you any favor, procure anything you desire”—he swept his arm to one side—
“wipe out your enemies.”

“You can rid me of my enemies by climbing onto the gallows you built for Mordecai.”

He stood and came to throw himself at my feet. “Anything,
everything
I have, my queen, it is yours.”

“I want nothing from you except your life.”

He was crying now and he moved from my feet to my legs, sobbing his way up my body as he pled for his life. When he pressed his head into my lap, my heart began to beat as loudly as anything he was saying.

“There is nothing you can say or do to win back your life, Haman. It is gone. The only choice that remains to you is whether you will die as a coward or a man.”

He looked up at me and his eyes darkened. He squeezed my thighs through my robe—squeezed them as hard as Halannah had done my first night in the palace.
“Jew.”
The wine smelled much worse on his breath than it had in the pitcher. “If you do not convince the king to save me, I will tell him of our love, the seeds of which you foolishly planted in his head yesterday. I will tell him Mordecai arranged everything for us—Mordecai came to your chambers with a message for you and found us together, then came up with a plan to keep our secret. When the king returns he will see how you offered yourself to me one last time.”

He threw his whole body on top of mine, crushing the wind from my lungs. His face was so close to mine I could see only his eyes. I saw not only the little red lines in them but also the dark lines beneath, where kohl had seeped into the creases of his skin. I tried to yell for help, but my cry was muffled by his beard filling my mouth and then by his hand across my lips.

“I will die either way,” he said, “but this is the way you will die.”

My left hand was trapped beneath his body, but that was not the hand I wanted. I brought my right hand up and slashed his face. He cried out.

Heavy footsteps rushed toward us. There was only one man whose footfalls were heavy enough to be heard over another man's cries.

“What goes on here?” the king demanded.

Haman lifted himself from my body and, without turning to face the king, said, “It is she who invited me to lie on top of her.”

Blood was falling from Haman's cheek onto my robe. “My king,” I said. “I tried to drive him from me. Look how I cut him.”

The king's face was nearly as red as Haman's blood. “Turn around,” he commanded.

The hatred in Haman's eyes as he stared at me did not fall away completely but receded enough to allow something else to enter: respect.
Little, barren peasant queen, you win.
He took a deep breath and turned toward Xerxes.

The king waited for Haman to face him completely before he spoke. “Oh, my doomed adviser. Blood is falling from your face where soon tears will follow. My queen would not have cut you if she wanted you near. What lack of wit could compel a man to try to ravish my queen in my own palace?” When Haman tried to stammer a reply the king silenced him. “You have uttered the last lie you ever will.”

Behind the king were more guards than I could count. Two of them grabbed Haman and pulled a black hood over his face. One of the eunuchs beside the king said, “This traitor has erected a gallows at his house, fifty cubits high, which he made for Mordecai the Jew, the man who saved your life.”