Game of Queens (52 page)

“Of course.” Amestris stroked her fingertips over the lion's head snarling beneath her hand. “And what would this so-great effort on your part cost the King of Kings?” She eyed Haman coldly. “To surrender an entire people into your hands—a people who pay tribute and taxes—the empire will lose much if you gain this boon.”

Haman smiled. “There are not so very many of them—a few thousand at most. And the empire will lose nothing. I myself will pay for them.”

“I see. Shall we say—ten thousand talents of silver?” Now she would see just how greatly Haman desired this favor.

“A most fair price,” Haman said, and Amestris laughed, low and scornful.

“You would pay ten thousand talents of silver to rid the empire of a nuisance? Do you think me a fool? Tell me your true reason or the Jews will live long and prosperous lives.”

Haman sighed, and seemed to yield. He claimed long-smoldering anger at the Jews, that he was heir to a feud dating back to King Agag's defeat by King Saul, and Agag's execution by the Prophet Samuel. “I am descended from kings—from King Agag. It is my duty to avenge him.”

Here, Amestris told me, she nearly laughed—a joy she denied herself. Amestris did not believe for even a breath that this was Haman's motive. “Vengeance for a battle lost five hundred years before Haman was born? What nonsense!” she told me, and I had to agree.
“Men,”
she said, and for a moment I felt sorry for her.…

However, Amestris allowed herself to smile at Haman. “I see. Well, that will do for a reason, I suppose. Well, since you think the Jews worth ten thousand talents of silver to you, you may have them.”

Haman had bowed very low, perhaps to conceal his expression; he had, after all, apparently won the encounter. “But there is one slight difficulty—oh, not with the silver; that is a trifle. There must be a decree written, and it must be sealed into the Laws of the Medes and the Persians with the king's own seal.”

“That should not be even a slight difficulty.” Amestris tilted her head to the side, regarding him slantwise. “Write an edict against the Jews using the words you think best. And my lord Haman?”

He paused in mid-bow, looked up. Amestris kept her face still and cold as mountain stone.

“There is no need to trouble the King of Kings over so trifling a matter.”

“But the seal? The edict must be sealed into law by the king.”

Amestris knew this for the most dangerous, delicate part of Haman's murderous plan.
My softhearted son will never knowingly seal such a decree into Median and Persian Law. Even if his own queen were not condemned by it—which she is.

Amestris smiled. “Sealed by the king's seal. Bring me the edict, when you have written it as you would have all done, and the king's seal will turn your edict into law.”

She watched as Haman realized she possessed a copy of the king's seal—but that Amestris had not actually admitted as much.

Once Haman bowed himself out, all sly reverence and cunning evil, Amestris put her hand between her breasts, reassuring herself that her copy of the king's seal still lay there, as it had since the hour the infinitely precious object had been delivered into her hands. Ahasuerus had been a child of seven then.

No one but she herself knew of its existence. The jeweler who had created it had died suddenly—a pity, for he had been very skilled, but Amestris trusted no one. Whoever held the king's seal owned the empire. Ahasuerus had never suspected—why should he? What great king can know every edict governing an empire stretching from Hind to Tyre?

And Amestris had been very, very clever. She had not had two seals made, but three. Two she had, with all due ceremony and honor, placed in Ahasuerus's hands when he came of age. Half the court had whispered that she had a copy of the king's seal; that never would she give it up—whispers that ceased when she gave those two seals into Ahasuerus's keeping. Ahasuerus kept one seal; the second had been ground into dust.

The third remained her most cherished secret; her ultimate weapon.

Now that seal would once again serve her well. Of course Ahasuerus would, in time, know of this law concerning the Jews—but not until the edict had already been sealed into a law bought and paid for by Haman's silver. Even the king could not alter a sealed law. And why should Ahasuerus care about the Jews?

But Amestris knew he would care about me. This edict would condemn even the Queen of Queens to death—and even the King of Kings could not save her.

Amestris decided to ensure that Ahasuerus was far from the heart of the empire when Haman's law was carried out. That would be wisest—the king far away from Shushan, hunting in the Zagros Mountains. By the time he returned, it would be too late for the Jews.

More important to Amestris, it would be too late for me. Amestris decided to tell Haman he must kill me himself, and first. Yes, Ahasuerus must be far away …

And then it would be necessary to find her son still a third queen. Briefly, Amestris considered trying to reinstate Vashti, rejected the idea. Vashti no longer seemed as malleable, as oblivious to all but her own childish pleasures, as she had been before she had defiantly refused to obey a royal command.

No, Amestris must find yet another queen. She strove to regard this as a challenge. Oddly, she could not summon any emotion other than a flat distaste. For a heart-freezing moment, she found herself thinking,
I am growing old and tired.…

Silent words that frightened her into fierce anger, a fury she released on the slaves who had the misfortune to enter her presence bearing bowls of grapes and peaches and tall pitchers of wine. Their fear helped reassure her that she was not old.

Not powerless.

Not yet.

VASHTI

I heard of the edict against the Jews before any other, for Haman himself hastened to reveal it to me. He had his reasons, which I soon learned. I have said Haman cherished ambition greater even than that of Queen Mother Amestris, who merely sought to cling to power she considered her own. Amestris preferred others to be happy—happy men and women did not think too hard or long.

Haman could be comforted in his heart only when all around him were less than he in all things. For Haman, it was all for him—or it was nothing.

Unaware that I did not like him, Haman sent a message to me. I thought this strange, so I took the folded and sealed parchment to Esther before I broke the seal.

“Esther—Haman has just sent this to me.” I held out the small triangle of parchment on the palm of my hand as if it were an offering to a goddess.

She smiled. “Perhaps you have an admirer, Vashti?” As I made a disgusted face, Esther laughed. “Well, it looks like a message. Why don't you read it?”

“I don't want to. I don't know why, but I just don't. I thought of burning it.”

“A waste of papyrus. You want me to open and read it, don't you?”

“The queen is, as always, wise,” I said in the honeyed tones of an importunate courtier, and she laughed again.

“Oh, very well—but you're as lazy as that cat, Vashti.” Esther gestured at the long-haired white kitten sleeping on the window ledge; the small creature radiated warm peace. I set Haman's message in Esther's hand, and she gazed down upon the black wax, sealed with the sharp-beaked bird that was Haman's sigil. She slid her gilded thumbnail under the seal, prying it off unbroken, a knack I was always too impatient to employ.

“Ah,” she said a breath later.

“Well? What does Haman want of me?”

Esther slanted her hawk's eyes at me. “He wants you to grant him an audience, Vashti. Privately. I told you—an admirer.” She did not sound as if she thought Haman had suddenly discovered strong lust for me in his heart.

“Privately?” That sounded odd, and unseemly. “Well, I will not see him, privately or no.”

“Hmm. Actually, Vashti…” Esther folded the message back into the tight triangle, pressed the seal back down. She tossed the message back to me. “I think you should grant Haman's request.”

“You do? Why?”

“Oh, I am
so
tempted to say, ‘Because the Queen of Queens commands it'—but I won't. It is because, my dearest Vashti, I very much want to know what it is that Haman wishes to say.”

*   *   *

That is how I, who had been a queen, became a queen's spy. Once Esther had explained, I delightedly undertook my part in the affair. Excited, I wrote out an answer to Haman, copying down words Esther gave me. Haman was to meet me on the Great Staircase, on the western side of the third step down from the King's Gate.

“You may disguise yourself as my beloved brother again,” Esther said, as I folded my message. “No, don't seal that. If it falls into anyone else's hands, it will not bear your seal.”

I nodded, delighted at this chance to act on Esther's behalf. Odd—since I had lost my crown, I had done far more than I ever had while I had worn it. I had ruled the search for the new queen. I had
chosen
the new queen.

And now I played the spy for the queen I had chosen. For a moment I understood why Amestris would not release the reins of power.

Meddling was delightful.

*   *   *

To undertake Esther's task, I was forced to take Hegai into my confidence, and then forced to listen to his extremely long list of reasons why I should not, could not, must not do this thing. At last I put my hands on his arm and said,

“Dear Hegai, can you truly be saying I should disobey the queen's command?”

“The two of you,” Hegai snapped, “should have been soundly whipped as children. Perhaps you would not now be striving to drive your devoted servants mad.”

But Hegai, too, had been charmed by Esther—and he knew she did not ask great favors lightly. She would not ask such a thing of me at all did she not think it urgent to know what Haman desired. So Hegai brought me the saffron-dyed tunic and blue-and-white trousers the king's pages wore, helped me bind up my hair and hide it beneath a crimson turban. As a final touch, Hegai pinned a gold star set with a blood-red stone upon the turban and pronounced me ready.

“And I will accompany you. Close your lips, Vashti, for either I go with you or I go to the king and lay the entire matter in his hands.”

“But Hegai, everyone knows you!”

He smiled. “Of course they do. Everyone knows me very well.”

I sighed. “Too well. Now, how do we disguise you?”

“We do not. Hegai the Chief Eunuch chooses to walk abroad to savor the last of the spring air, accompanied by a page. A pretty boy, with a look of She-Who-Is-No-Longer-Queen about him. By Varkha, in fact. But you would know nothing of that resemblance, of course.”

Hegai always had been able to make me laugh—and I admitted it a clever scheme. It would seem far less odd that Hegai sent his page to speak to Haman on the Great Staircase than that Haman should stop to engage a pageboy in intent conversation.

And that was how the Chief Eunuch of the Queen's Palace came to be walking upon the Great Staircase, carrying a white horsehair flywhisk and followed by a tall, pale-faced king's page.

*   *   *

Haman waited for me on the third step down from the King's Gate, as he had promised. As we reached that step, Hegai stopped and beckoned me forward, then nodded toward Haman, who paced impatiently along the edge of the step. I bowed, and ran over to Haman.

“Prince Haman. I am here.” I could not imagine what Haman had to say to me. “Speak quickly; I cannot remain here long.”

“Of course not, O queen.” Haman managed to incline his head without, quite, bowing.

Already his manner irritated me, but I kept my voice low and calm. “I'm not queen now.”

“
Now.
But
now
is not
forever.
You can be Queen of Queens again.”

So that was it: treachery aimed at Esther. Proud of my cool tone, I said, “Can I indeed? And how is that possible?”

Haman smiled, and at that sight of the look of triumph in his eyes, my heart seemed to beat cold and slow. Whatever he would say was going to be bad indeed. But I could not guess
how
bad—who could, who was not as mad as my great-grandfather King Nebuchadnezzar?

“It is possible because soon Queen Esther will not exist. For all the Jews in the empire are condemned.
All,
” he repeated, as if he relished the word. “All of them—no matter what their rank or riches. Since Queen Esther is a Jew, she, too, will die.” Haman smiled again. “I think I shall reserve the privilege of slaying her for myself. With Esther gone, the gate will be open for you to return to King Ahasuerus.”

As I stared, unable to believe such evil words, Haman stepped closer. “You were set aside by one decree, but another can be written. I will write it myself and it shall be sealed into the Laws of the Medes and Persians that you shall again be queen. You see how good a friend I am to you? I know you will be grateful to so good a friend. Grateful, and generous, and kind.”

I kept my eyes wide, gazing at Haman as if astounded—which I was—and admiring—which I was not. Even with the summer sun pouring its light upon me, ice seemed to press upon my skin. “Kill all the Jews?” I repeated. I hoped I sounded only slow-witted, and not horrified.

Haman bowed his head. “Indeed.”

“But—how?” How had Ahasuerus been persuaded or tricked into sealing this slaughter into law?

“Ah, now that was not an easy task to achieve.” Haman puffed himself up, a man who has labored hard and virtuously for no reward but his own good opinion. I called upon every god and goddess I had ever heard mentioned, begging them all for aid, for I knew I must keep all my wits about me now. I opened my eyes even wider.

“Surely it cannot have been! Will you tell me how you accomplished so great a labor?”