Game of Queens (17 page)

The day a messenger came to tell us that the Queen Mother and Princess Vashti would arrive in Shushan the following day, Ahasuerus came to me and demanded I play chess with him. “Of course, O king,” I said, and set out the pieces while he sat and scowled. I waited, and at last he spoke.

“I'm not sure I want a wife,” Ahasuerus said, frowning at the game board.

“You need not see her often,” I pointed out. “But remember, O king, that Princess Vashti is a very young girl, and will be overawed by your—”

“Magnificence?” Ahasuerus hesitated, then moved a pawn forward. “She'll like my mother best. Everyone does.”

He sounded resigned to this fact. I studied the pattern of the chess pieces. “Not everyone,” I said at last, and slid my tower aside.

“Then they like me because I'm the king.” Ahasuerus stared at the board so long I thought he had forgotten the game. At last he touched his vizier, and looked up. “If I move this, it's checkmate, isn't it?”

I looked at the paths his vizier might travel, and then smiled at him. “Yes, O king,” I said, and tipped my king over in defeat. “I believe you've won the game.”

*   *   *

Unlike the rest of those eagerly awaiting the new queen's arrival, I did not spend all the morning hours staring at the harem gate and sending to ask if anyone had yet spotted the queen's entourage. I knew Queen Mother Amestris far too well to think she planned her entrance for any hour other than full noon. Amestris would arrive at the city's Western Gate when the sun was high enough that all Shushan would be awake and watching. Her progress through the city would be slow, deliberate. Royal. She would take care that everyone had plenty of time to gaze upon the palanquin containing two queens.

My time that morning was spent in a last inspection to ensure all was prepared to welcome the new little queen, from her attendants to the coverings upon her bed. I walked through the rooms and courtyards of the Queen's Palace, regarding everything critically. Servants followed me, anxious lest I utter a word of criticism. But I had no complaint to make. “Beautiful,” I announced. “Fit for a queen.” I smiled—and watched my audience relax. Some laughed at my small jest; I took note of them, for it is always wise to glean clever servants for one's self.

Once I had satisfied myself that everything in the Queen's Palace was as I desired it to be, I went to my own apartments and changed into my finest robes. Only then did I leave the harem and climb the stairs to stand on the top of the King's Gate and look down into the crowded streets of Shushan.

I had timed my day well; the procession had just reached the broad square at the foot of the Great Staircase. A bodyguard of the Immortals escorted the massive royal palanquin. A gratifyingly large crowd pressed into the square, striving to catch even a glimpse of the palanquin, or even of the curtains shielding the women within. The first rank of Immortals began to climb the Great Staircase, and I turned away without haste. The palanquin would not reach even the outer gates of the harem for another hour; I would be waiting in my proper place to greet it long before Amestris and her chosen daughter-in-law arrived.

*   *   *

Just before the sun reached its zenith, the harem eunuchs who had carried the palanquin on this last stretch of its long journey set it down gently on the velvet-smooth grass. I smiled—yes, I had indeed paced the time well; if only I had wagered upon it!—and bowed, reached my hand in past the opened curtains. “O queen, may you live forever. Welcome home.”

The Queen Mother set her deceptively soft hand in mine and seemed to float up out of the litter. “Thank you, Hegai.” She gestured to the litter, a movement graceful as a dancer's. “And here is—”

“Princess Vashti.” I smiled, and once more held out my hand. I bowed very low. “O little queen, live forever. Welcome home.”

Then I was staring at a face that seemed all eyes and amazement. After a moment, she smiled back at me and clutched my hand with both of her small ones. With my aid, she scrambled out of the litter and stared around her with eyes wide as full moons. Then she remembered to thank me.

I knew she was only a child, but I did not expect her to be so very young!

I looked over Vashti's head and saw Amestris regarding the awestruck child and smiling. Something in that smile made me uneasy; Amestris looked too amused, too self-satisfied, for her expression to seem either fond or kind.

As we headed into the labyrinth that was the Women's Palace, I held out my hand again to Vashti. She clung to it gratefully, and I thought of a forlorn kitten—why, I do not know, as this little girl was destined to be the new Queen of Queens. A life of the utmost luxury and ease awaited her.

But still, there was Amestris's odd smile …

Never mind, my little queen. I will make sure you are not only Queen of Queens, but happy. I do not care what Amestris wishes.

I shook my head to banish this treacherous thought. Why should Amestris choose Vashti from all the girls in an empire that spanned half the world and then be unkind to her?

All will be well,
I told myself firmly, and then heard those disloyal words whispering again,
It no longer matters what Amestris wishes, for Vashti is your queen now.

*   *   *

Now a ten-year-old girl was Queen of Queens: whatsoever she asked for became hers; she had only to utter a whim to have it granted. And she was surrounded by flatterers who seemed to care about only one of her attributes.

Such as Simin, a eunuch who had last smiled before the little queen had been born. He stopped me as I was on my way to inspect the harem kitchens. Before I could even ask what he wanted of me, Simin launched into a paean to Queen Vashti—or, more accurately, to Queen Vashti's appearance.

“I saw her in the bath,” Simin said, almost breathless, “I would not have believed it had I not seen her with my own eyes. So perfect! Skin like pearl—”

“Yes, she is very pale,” I said. “We must take care the sun does not burn her.” I might as well have remained silent.

“And that hair!” Simin enthused. “Have you ever seen such hair before?”

I sighed inwardly; already tired of hearing endless tributes to Queen Vashti's hair. “Oh, yes, her hair. Lovely,” I added after a pause, as Simin seemed to expect more.

“Lovely? Such hair is fit for a goddess, let alone a queen!”

She is a little girl—who one day will have power over all of us. Do you want to spoil her utterly?

“Very true,” I said. “The King of Kings is a fortunate man indeed.”

“Or will be—in time. When that green peach is ripe.” Simin laughed and made a vulgar gesture, hiding the crude movement of his hand in the folds of his cloak.

And that displayed all most people saw when they looked upon Queen Vashti. Her glittering hair.

Fortune favored me; spoiled and petted though she was, Vashti possessed a kind heart. Someday she might even possess a clever mind as well. But I soon realized that Amestris did not seek a clever queen for her son. Amestris did not want a rival. If Amestris had her way, Vashti would remain a beautiful ignorant child; another pretty plaything for Ahasuerus.

And why should she ever desire to become more than that?

 

BOOK THREE

Queen of Beauty

VASHTI

Had I not been beautiful—fair as summer stars—I would never have worn a jeweled crown.

And had I not been as proud as the Daughter of the Morning, I would never have lifted the weight of that crown from my head, and said no.

No, I will not display myself like a common harlot.

No, I will not permit you to exhibit me as your most prized possession.

No, I will not demean myself.

“No,” I said to the servants sent to fetch me, as if I were no more than a gem, than a statue, than an object. “No. Tell the king that I will not come.”

*   *   *

Until the day Queen Mother Amestris took me to the palace at Shushan to be wife to her son the king, I never passed beyond the walls of my father's house in Babylon. A timeworn city palace and the courtyards hidden within its walls—that was all my world until I was ten years old. My father was a prince, and my mother a king's daughter—and a woman so virtuous that even her maidservants went veiled from our gate. Not that even her servants often walked out into the city; when my mother wished to purchase something, merchants sent their wares to our house.

My mother needed to be both virtuous and cautious, for her father had been Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon. Belshazzar had been both reckless and extravagant, and no warrior. He had been so enamored of lavish feasts that he was drinking deep of Shirian wine when the army of Darius the Great swept into Babylon. Darius had let Belshazzar's bloodline live—since the only one of that line who survived the battle for Babylon was a mere girl—but she had been swiftly married to one of Darius's most loyal men. My mother knew she lived only at Darius's pleasure, and that safety lay in modesty and seclusion.

And in her hope for the future: me.

I was the last child my mother bore, and the only one who lived past infancy. My mother guarded me closely, for I was a jewel of great price. Not only was I the last princess of the royal line of Babylon, but even as a child I was oddly, exotically beautiful. I was born with hair pale as ivory, and that rare color never darkened. My eyes, too, gleamed with extraordinary color; infancy's smoky blue transmuted into a myriad shades of silver and green, opalescent.

Nor did I become awkward as I grew. My body and limbs remained in perfect equipoise; I was neither too plump nor too slender. My skin stayed smooth as cream. And as I have said, there was my hair.

Not content to rely on my beauty alone to guarantee my future, my mother taught me most carefully how I must act at all times. She ensured I learned how to sit very still, to speak very softly. Always she impressed upon me my absolute duty to behave as befit a virtuous daughter of royal Babylon.

She charted each moment of my day. I was never alone, guarded always not only by high walls and locked gates, but by the constant vigilance of my mother and her trusted servants. I was a valuable commodity and no chance was taken that might jeopardize that value.

Modesty was a woman's greatest prize in my mother's world. Once my mother married, only her husband saw her unveiled face. And she reared me far more strictly than she, herself, had been raised. The path I would walk had been laid out for me from the moment of my birth, and my mother would not chance the slightest deviation, lest my glittering future vanish like a dream.

No one told me what had been planned for me; what need had I to know? What I wished—might dare to desire for myself—did not matter.

What did matter was that I was a princess, and beautiful, and that was all I learned to be. Highborn maidens need know only how to be chaste, modest, and obedient. My mother ensured I was the first; to reach my bedchamber, it was necessary to walk through my mother's room. And two maidservants attended her always, by day and by night. The night-maids remained awake while she slept.

Night or day, eyes always watched me. I did not know what it was like to be alone.

Nor did I know how it felt to walk through the streets of Babylon. Only when I climbed to the rooftop of the women's quarters could I gaze upon the city beyond my father's gate. If I looked to the north, I could see the Hanging Gardens, a marvel built by King Nebuchadnezzar for his wife Amytis, a queen homesick for the mountains in which she had grown up. If I stood upon a bench, I could see a flash of vivid blue; the Ishtar Gate. I longed to look upon that great gateway, to feast my eyes upon the lions and dragons marching evenly across turquoise-glazed tiles. I had no hope that I ever would.

My mother's laws for me were clear as winter air: I was King Belshazzar's granddaughter. Never, never must I forget that, even for a breath.

Sometimes, as I stared longingly out at the city forbidden to me, I wished I could forget my lineage. If only my mother's father had been a merchant, I would have journeyed the Silk Road with his caravans. Or a scribe, who would teach me to read and to write. Or even a farmer. Then I would live uncaged beneath the wide sky, and raise doves and poppies.

But my mother's father had been the last king of Babylon, and so all those things, and many more, were forbidden to me.

I dwelt as a princess in Babylon, the world's wonder, and yet saw less of the glorious city than did the poorest beggar.

*   *   *

On a day no different at first from any other, my life changed utterly. My mother received as a guest a lady of such high rank my mother would not even speak either the lady's name or her title to me.

I spent a whole day in our bathhouse, enduring the longest, most thorough purification I had ever undergone. I sat in hot water until my skin softened. Then the bath-maids scrubbed me with a paste of crushed almonds and honey, a paste it took many ewers of lemon-water to rinse away. At last they deemed my skin clean enough to be massaged with perfumed oil. When that was done, I gleamed like a pearl and smelled of roses.

My mother's most favored handmaiden painted my eyelids a brilliant green and my mouth a deep crimson. She painted thick lines of kohl around my eyes. The darkness surrounding them made my eyes shine pale as full moons. She combed my hair until it lay smooth, and then deftly wove it into three braids, twining strings of pearls into the strands. She pulled the three braids together and bound them into one. The pearl-woven braid lay heavy down my back to my waist; a tassel of pearls dangled from the end of the braid to the backs of my knees. My neck ached from the weight, but I knew better than to complain, or to let my head droop.

I was dressed in garments I had never seen before: a gown of thick silk the color of new cream, and over that a vest of cloth woven with gold and silver threads in a pattern of suns and moons. I set my feet into slippers of crimson leather, and then stood while my mother circled me, examining each twist of my braids, each stitch in the shining vest. She touched the emerald and pearl earrings dangling to my shoulders.