Esther (6 page)

“The heart of the king was soaked with wine,” Mordecai went on, “and when his adviser, Haman, bent to his ear and suggested the queen not only come before the entire banquet but come before them in only her crown, he could barely get the words out before the king clapped his hands together and cried ‘Yes!' ”

Mordecai was prone to exaggeration, but I did not interrupt to ask if he had been close enough to the king to hear this. I wanted him to continue telling the story.

“As though the idea had been his own, Xerxes commanded Haman and his six other chamberlains, ‘Bring me my queen, naked but for her crown. My subjects will see that a man who possesses such a perfect vessel is one worth fighting for.' ”

Knowing what came of this fighting, I could not help but groan inwardly at Xerxes' words. The Persians had lost many men and all except a few crumbs of their pride to the Greeks.

“But not one of the seven chamberlains the king sent to Vashti could rouse her from the silken cushions upon which she reclined with the noblemen's wives. The women too were feasting, and when the chamberlains appeared the women did not set down their goblets.

“ ‘The king has sent us,' Haman said.

“It is said that at this, Vashti seemed to sober. She set down her goblet and inclined her head at the courtier she hated more than any other.

“ ‘He commands you to appear before the banquet.'

“ ‘Get my crown and my purple robe at once,' she ordered one of her handmaids.

“ ‘You will not need your robe,' Haman said.

“ ‘Out of respect for the king, I, his queen—and also
yours
—will appear in my royal robe.'

“ ‘He does not want you to wear your robe.'

“ ‘Then where is the robe he would like me to wear?'

“ ‘He does not want you to wear a robe, or anything else, other than your crown. Not even sandals.' ”

Only slaves did not wear sandals.

“She did not raise an eyebrow or react in any way. ‘No,' she said, and picked up her goblet again.

“The chamberlains beside Haman pleaded with her. ‘Your life, beautiful queen,' one cried, ‘is the king's, and he will take it if you do not obey.' It was actually his own life that he was pleading for. The chamberlains thought the king was too proud of Vashti's beauty to harm her, but that they themselves, no matter how close to the king they were, could be replaced. All of them, except Haman. Or perhaps he too worried, but he did not let his worry overshadow his ambition. Because surely he wanted the queen to refuse the king's request, and that was why he had suggested it.

“So he must have been happy when Queen Vashti could not be swayed by the chamberlains' pleading. It wounded her that the king would ask her to parade naked except for her crown in front of a room of drunken men. ‘The king has many concubines; I am not one of them' she said.

“Upon hearing this, the chamberlains had a litter brought forth to carry Vashti into the banquet, so she could enter like a queen and not a concubine. But when they ordered servants to lift her onto it, she held out her hand to stop them. ‘Tell my husband that I cannot come to his banquet, while entertaining my own.'

“Neither the chamberlains nor the noblemen's wives could reason with her.

“ ‘If it please Your Majesty,' one of the chamberlains said, ‘let me go to the king and beg for your modesty, so that you could wear sandals and a beaded scarf across your hips.'

“ ‘I will not beg for what is rightfully mine.'

“ ‘Your Majesty—'

“ ‘Go now.'

“ ‘But—'

“ ‘Now.' ”

“Surely people could sympathize with her position,” I interrupted. What woman would want to be paraded naked in front of a thousand men?

“Perhaps they could have, if they had not been so bent on war. Vashti's grandfather Nebuchadnezzar was killed by Cyrus. This murder was a teacher to her, just as I am to you. It taught her that no victory is great enough to completely wipe away the losses of war.”

“Nebuchadnezzar destroyed our temple and started the Babylonian Captivity of our people. Should not we be glad Cyrus killed him for us?” I asked. Every Jew knew that a few decades before, when Xerxes' grandfather Cyrus was king, he had issued a decree permitting Jews to go back to their homelands. Fifty thousand Jews had returned to Jerusalem. “We are too often at war already.”

“Cyrus has rightly earned the love of our people. I know war is necessary, I wish only to tell you that we as Jews do not make war without reason, and we do not glorify it. Vashti was like us in this way, and believed the king's expansion of his empire was not reason enough to justify the many lives that would be lost. She was smart and strong-willed enough to suspect that the king was asking her to come before the men naked because he hoped to win their support for an attack upon the Greeks. The men who write history will hate her for this. To a man with a quill in his hand, murder, war, and heartbreak make far better subjects than peace.”

“Do not you usually hold a quill, cousin?”

“Yes, and I do not write of peace. I write down the taxes collected from the peoples who pay for luxuries they will never experience. They will never be invited to the palace to lie upon beds of silver and gold and share in the exotic wines and meat they pay for.”

I should not have asked him a question. He was always unhappy about one injustice or another. “What happened to Vashti?”

“When the chamberlains returned without her, it was silent for the first time since the wine had started to flow seven days earlier. As Haman put his lips near the king's ear, you could have heard a feather floating to the floor. Those closest to the king say that even through the screen they could see his face grow the same red as the sun setting upon the desert sand. They heard his golden goblet break upon the marble floor.”

“But a golden goblet does not break so easily.”

“The tale men fashion is as important as what really happened. Until many years have passed. And then it is more important.”

Is this the lesson he means for me to learn?
I could not think of what else I was supposed to glean from this strange tale. It seemed to have nothing at all to do with me.

“Haman pounced upon this opportunity that he had so cleverly made for himself. He could finally rid the palace of the voice that spoke most loudly against the war. He had a maiden niece whose beauty rivaled Vashti's—a girl who was as hungry for war as a general.

“He whispered in the king's ear, ‘Listen now to their silence. It is louder than a hundred women screaming. When they learn that Vashti will not come before them, all these men will lose respect not only for you but for your war as well—the war that will make you the greatest king the world has ever known.'

“He paused and looked out at the crowd. ‘Your Majesty,' he said urgently, ‘I can see that already they are losing respect for you, just as Vashti has. They stare unflinchingly at a man they should not dare to look at directly.' He put his lips so close to the king's ear that they were almost touching it. ‘You must punish Vashti in such a way that they tremble before you once again.'

“The other chamberlains expected that upon these words the king would recoil. But he did not draw his ear away from Haman's lips.

“Haman saw that victory was within reach, and that he must seize it before the king emerged from his goblets. The only way to know he had truly gotten rid of Vashti would be to see her swaying upon the gallows. But he could see that first he must appeal to the king's pride, make it swell larger than his love for his queen.

“ ‘Word of this will spread to every woman in the empire' he told the king. ‘Vashti's disobedience will feed each wife's own insolence, and every husband's resentment of you.

“ ‘But a royal decree will set your kingdom to rights. A decree meant for every person in the land. Though your subjects are mostly lowborn men who spend their days growing and harvesting barley and sesame, who cultivate palm trees, who are shepherds, potters, and craftsmen,
we will make each feel like a king.
For should not every man be a king to his wife? First we will tell your subjects that what has happened with Vashti has not happened to you alone, but to all men. What man has not had a woman linger too long in carrying out the tasks he has commanded her to perform? Bringing his dinner, beating the dust from his rugs, weaving the tunics and blankets needed for the next season?

“ ‘Women will dethrone us all with their contemptuous laughter, every one of them, if we let Vashti's slight pass.

“ ‘But!' Haman cried, delighted already by the words he was about to speak, ‘we will place a royal foot upon women's backs, bending them so that they bow to men once again. The decree will be sent out to each people in their own language. It will begin:
All wives shall give to their husbands honor, both to great and small.
It will be a letter of husbands' superiority and rule over their wives. We will tell each scribe that if a
single word
is altered he will see his reflection for only the briefest moment in the swords of the king's soldiers.'

“Haman did not mention that the number of men in the empire who could read was even less than the number who will live to fifty years.”

I was impatient for Mordecai to come to whatever lesson he wished to impart. But he continued, “The Greeks have more men who can read, and therefore, more men who think deeply. They know what has come before, so that they can build upon it. They will build higher than we will. This is how they continue to advance, and how they will pass us by in learning if not in numbers.”

“Is this the lesson I must learn? That reading is important?” I was tired of my cousin's grim pronouncements about the empire.

“You know it is the Persians' practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Yet, long before the day ended and the king had emerged from his cups, Vashti was gone. The very next day he mourned the loss of his queen. He had no remorse about the decree though. Hadassah”—he took a deep breath—“you are not one of the king's subjects. Men are the king's subjects. Women are the subjects of men.”

It was true I never saw a woman selling wares in the marketplace anymore. Persian women had enjoyed status that Greek women never could have imagined. They could own property and engage in trade as freely as men. But that was before the decree was issued the year before. “Am I your subject?”

“You are not my subject. The decree has taught me . . .” He cleared his throat. “The decree has taught me how deeply I care for you. I know this because the thought of the empire's foot upon the backs of women angers me more now that you have come to live with me. My love for you has started to make me wish the world were kinder.”

I felt my face flush. We had never before spoken of any affection for each other. “Was Vashti exiled or executed?” I asked quickly.

“If she was ever executed it was done in secret, for she did not end up upon the gallows. I believe Xerxes could not stomach the thought of his queen's lifeless flesh being eaten by vultures, her eyes picked out and loosed on the world so that he would feel them, always, upon him.”

“You spoke to him?”

“It is not my place to speak to him of anything but numbers. I listened. When the feast was over he called me to him to find out what taxes had been collected while he was in his goblets. His eyes were unfocused as I spoke until suddenly he said, ‘Haman advises me to send soldiers to bring Vashti back from the place to which I have sent her. He says that it is too dangerous for her to be free. She will spread false tales about the palace, the empire. About me. I told him she is the mother of my heir, Artaxerxes, whom I have hidden away. I cannot kill her.' ”

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, before continuing, “Haman could not have liked to hear this. But he knew that at least he would have his war. The war we have just lost, the one that has cost the empire half its glory.

“Hadassah, whose fault is this war?”

“Haman's.”

“No, it is Xerxes'. A ruler's most important task is figuring out who to trust. Xerxes is both aggressive and uncertain. He is strong-bodied but his heart is weak. His reign will not end well. I only pray he does not bring the whole empire down with him.”

“Now I know this story is not true cousin, for you do not pray.”

He half-smiled. This was half a smile more than I was accustomed to seeing on his face. “It is true, I do not pray,” he said. “But a few times I have thought of what this king will do to the empire and been tempted. I hope our God is more powerful than the king's and Haman's gods, and more wise.”

I had not prayed much either, not since God let my parents die. “Does Xerxes miss his queen?” I asked.

He looked at me in surprise. “Ah! I knew I had left something out. I was in the palace when the feast ended, and the king came out of his goblets and remembered that he had sent his queen away. His belly that had been so full of wine now filled with misery. It grew so heavy that it dragged him from his throne. Yet his agony became larger still, pressing against his bowels, his lungs, his heart. He let out a terrible wail that could be heard throughout the palace. It did not sound human. All of his misery birthed from him in that wail.”

Though Xerxes seemed impetuous and weak, I could not help but feel sad for him.

“I fear this misery is his
true
heir,” Mordecai said, “and soon it shall rule the empire.”