Jewel of Persia (35 page)

Desma got her to her makeshift bed before Kasia’s strength abandoned her legs and banded around her heart. She curled up against the pillows, squeezed her eyes shut tight, and prayed.

Twenty-Six

Susa, Persia

Mordecai jolted from his pillow, eyes darting from left to right in search of the light that had pulled him from his dreams. He saw no indication of it now.

He did not need to. He jumped up. “Esther! Martha, Jonah!”

His cousin and the servants all stumbled into the main room a few moments later. “Jonah, go rouse any faithful Jews you can find. Tell them our friends with the army need our prayers, to gather here. Martha, we will need refreshment. Esther—go convince Kish and his family to come. He will resist, it being about the king’s war, but they must. Zechariah especially. He has a friend in the Immortals, does he not?”

Eyes round, Esther jerked a nod. “Bijan.”

“He must pray for Bijan. Go.”

The three of them darted away. Mordecai dropped to his knees.

Within the hour, his humble abode filled to bursting with friends and neighbors, on their knees beseeching God. Jehovah would use their prayers to fuel his servants, to strengthen their might against the enemies’.

Zechariah settled beside him with a pained expression. “Bijan?”

Mordecai could only shake his head. “I know only that we must pray for him and his companions.”

Zechariah swallowed and darted a gaze at Esther. Even through the veil of prayer, Mordecai saw a new complexity in that look. The young man’s nostrils flared. “I have not prayed much these past months. I cannot think Jehovah would hear me now.”

Mordecai gripped his shoulder. “Make your heart right with God, my son, and stay on your knees. There are bigger things at stake tonight.”

Zechariah covered his face with his hands and touched his head to the floor.

Mordecai closed his eyes again and welcomed the Spirit into their midst.

~*~

Malis, Trachis

Xerxes stared at the darkened pass, exhausted but unable to sleep. Two days. Two days of death and defeat. He had thought for sure the Spartans would be too tired to fight well today, that his fresh troops would take advantage of that and find victory quickly.

He dared not consider how many of his men were dead tonight because of that misjudgment.

“Master, you will want to hear this.”

He spun to see Mardonius with a stranger dressed in Greek attire. “Will I? Does he have some secret to defeating these cursed Lacedaemonians?”

The man stepped forward with a bow. “I am Ephialtes, master, and I have exactly that. This area is known well to us Malians—there is another way through the mountains, around the pass. I could show it to your men, and they could sneak up behind the Spartans. It is a more open space, and you could surround them easily.”

Xerxes sat down for the first time in hours and stared at the man. Could he not have offered this two days ago? “Our numbers would have their natural advantage.”

Mardonius smiled. “Exactly. Tomorrow could see a far different battle.”

He surged to his feet again. “Have Hydarnes lead the Immortals where this Malian shows them, tonight.” He spun to Zethar. “Everyone who remains behind must pray. I want each and every idle person beseeching Ahura Mazda for victory.”

Ephialtes inclined his head. “You ought to plan for the frontal attack to launch tomorrow no later than mid-morning—all will be in position, and you can strike them from both sides.”

Yes. “You will be well rewarded for this information if it leads to victory.”

“It will.” The Malian bowed. “I will guide your men myself.”

He nodded and dismissed them.

This time tomorrow he would be celebrating. He knew it in his soul.

~*~

The Greeks fought with nails and teeth after their spears were broken and their swords fallen into the sea. Kasia watched from her hiding place, ignoring the continual prodding of her servants to return to her tent. She had spent the entire second day of the battle in there, trying to look as though she were not praying.

Now she felt the prayers of her people covering the pass. Peace had settled over her with the first breath of dawn, and she swore she had seen streaks of light brighter than the sun. Given that all had been commanded to pray, she had taken to her knees in the first hours of the morning. But when the battle began, her feet propelled her outside again.

From the start, it was different. Today the Spartans came farther down the mountain, into a wider area where the fighting was fiercer than ever before. Her husband’s men were driven forward with whips, stragglers trampled.

Four times the Greeks managed to push back the Persians, but then the Immortals came in from behind. Surely the Spartans knew they were finished—yet the knowing only increased their fervor.

A hail of missiles blotted out her vision of the Greeks, but occasionally she caught glimpses of them, fighting even with spears in their chests. And then, hours after the enemies first stormed together, came the silent knell of death.

A soldier sprinted to Xerxes’ throne. Kasia peeked between the leaves of her hiding spot to see him kneel before her husband. “Victory is ours, my lord.”

“How many of our men died today?”

“We have not counted. But my lord . . . two of your brothers fell. Abrocomes and Hyperanthes.”

Xerxes cursed, and Kasia nearly abandoned her position to go comfort him. But no, she must wait. He would not appreciate his men seeing a woman embrace him in his grief. He would want them to see him do just what he did—stand up, square his shoulders, and lift his chin.

“They died with honor and will be memorialized as heroes.”

“Yes, master.”

When her husband was distracted, she dashed away from the hill, back to her tent. Perhaps Xerxes was right, that she should not have filled her mind with such terrible images. So why did she not regret it?

She settled on her prayer rug and focused her gaze on the pattern without seeing it. Had her people fought so bravely when Babylon surrounded them? Probably not. At that point, they would have been fighting only for their lives, not for their beliefs. But as always, Jehovah had preserved a remnant.

As part of that remnant, she now knew what one
should
look like when battling the enemy of one’s soul. The Spartans served their law, battled to the death for the right to live free. Even in loss, they won. Would her husband recognize that? Would he grant them the honorable memory they deserved?

Would he grant her the right to live for Jehovah, or would she spend the rest of her life afraid to kneel in prayer lest her husband rebuke her?

Her eyes slid closed.
Have I failed you, Jehovah? I have sought you so often, with dedication. Yet when my husband forbids me to pray, what am I to do? I want to obey him, honor him. Yet I am to love you above all. Help me strike the balance, Lord.

And thank you for rallying your people to pray when I could not. I could feel them, could see the affect they had. Thank you for the faithful remnant you have preserved. Thank you for—

“Mistress?” Zethar’s voice broke through her thoughts. “The king has lost two of his brothers. He has retired to his tent and could use your comfort.”

Thank you for my husband, for a man I can love so much. Help me to help him and still honor you.

She let Desma assist her onto her feet and looked to Zethar. “Of course.”

He lifted his brows, studied her. Then grinned and shook his head. “You were watching again, or you would have asked me for details. I suggest you not let the king know that, mistress.”

“You are very wise, Zethar.” She returned his smile and followed him out into the afternoon sunlight. “Is the king not rejoicing over his victory?”

“Before the people, yes, but the losses weigh heavily on him. He needed a few moments to indulge the grief, but he will not stay inside long. He will recover the faster with you beside him.”

Her eyes tracked again to Thermopylae. The dead littered the ground like the leaves had in Sardis. Persians and Greeks draped over one another, enemies embracing in death.

So many of her husband’s men dead, not by Spartan spears, but by their own people’s impatience. By the whip of their commanders, by the feet of the soldiers behind them, by brothers shoving them off the cliff. Most of them had not fought for a cause, but by compulsion. The Persians had nothing at stake.

The same could not be said for their king. He had invested more than money and time in this war. He had poured his heart into it.

When she entered his tent, she found him leaning against a table, shoulders rolled forward. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Zethar told me of your brothers.”

A shudder stole through him. “They were good men, Kasia. Brave men.”

“I know.”

“Why does victory always come at such a steep price? Pythius was right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have dispatched his two eldest sons back to Sardis to care for him.”

She pressed her lips to his arm. “He will appreciate the gesture.”

“Will he? Sending these two home will not give him back his firstborn.”

Tears stung her eyes. “No. Nothing can ever replace the ones we lose. But that only makes us value more the ones who remain.”

With a long sigh, he turned and wrapped his arms around her. “So many men died these last three days. There were moments I thought my ranks would be cut in half.”

And though he would have mourned it, still he would have sent them in. She sighed too. “Praise God it did not come to that.”

“Mm.” He pulled back enough to smile at her. “I wanted to thank you, Kasia. I heard you prayed along with the others. I did not think I would ever see the day when you would bend your knee to Ahura Mazda.”

A chill swept through her. “Xerxes . . . I did not pray to Ahura Mazda.”

The pleasure leaked out of his expression. “I told you not to pray to Jehovah.”

“You told me not to
obviously
pray to Jehovah. I did not kneel until everyone else did. But my love, you know very well I cannot pray to your god.”

He spun away and tossed his hands in the air. “Will nothing convince you? Is it not enough that we claimed victory so soon after everyone beseeched the god?”

“I . . .” She should keep quiet. But something welled up inside, a fountain of determination. She would cling to her beliefs as fiercely as the Spartans had. “Yours was not the only god beseeched. I prayed the faithful Jews would pound the throne of heaven, and I felt the presence of the heavenly warriors this morning. Did you see Ahura Mazda?”

When he turned to her again, his eyes sparked. “What I see is a woman who refuses to obey her husband. A woman who puts her stubborn faith above everything.”

“What else would you have me do, Xerxes?” She spread her hands, palms up. “I have no house, I have no child. I have no loom in my wagon, I cannot read. The other women prefer each other—when with them, I always feel removed. Shall I just sleep the day away, waiting for you to carve out a few moments for me? Shall I remain in the fog I lived in after Sardis?”

He sloshed some wine into a chalice. “It is your clinging to Jehovah that keeps you removed, Kasia. Look at you. Two years with me, yet still you wear the simplest of garments, rarely any jewelry.”

She settled a hand over the lions’ head torc, the one piece she never took off. “You have never complained of my appearance before.”

“I do not care about your clothes, they just point to the larger issue. You
deliberately
remain apart. Always the Jewess. Never the Persian.”

Odd . . . had her father not feared the opposite? She could still hear his low plea.
They will make you Persian. Strip you of your heritage.
“Because I
am
a Jewess, which you knew after our first conversation. You told me never to change.”

He tossed the wine down his throat and slammed the cup onto the table. “And yet you have. If anything, you have become
more
Jewish since coming to me. You spend hours—
hours
—in prayer each day. I cannot have a conversation with you without your blasted Jehovah coming up.”

She gripped her arm to keep her hand from shaking. “I have not so much as mentioned him in months. I have held my tongue about my God, I have held my tongue about my babe. What else do you want me to do, Xerxes?”

“I want you to trust my wisdom for once.”

No, he wanted her to give up Jehovah. The races he ruled may be granted the right to worship as they willed, but not her. Not his wife.