A Reluctant Queen Page 11

  “Yes, that would be helpful,” she replied in a low voice.

  Luara picked up a comb and went to work. After a while she said, “You know, my lady, you and the king are married.”

  Esther turned and looked up into her maid’s shrewd blue eyes. Her own face relaxed into a smile. “Muran would say I am being silly. It is just . . . everyone knew what we were doing.”

  “My lady. The king comes to your room almost every night. Do you think we believe he comes to talk to you?”

  Actually, Esther thought, we do talk. After. She found the talking almost as nice as the other thing.

  “It will be good for him to be here for the summer,” she said. “He carries many burdens.”

  Luara agreed. “Yes, he does. You must be one of the few people around him who doesn’t want something from him. You are good for him, my lady. And”—her lips twitched in a small smile—“I think he is good for you.”

  Esther thought again about that conversation with Luara later in the evening, as she lay in her solitary bed. There was a drinking party tonight to celebrate their arrival in Ecbatana, and she knew it would run very late and Ahasuerus would not be coming to her room.

  Say my name, he had commanded her. She wondered how many people there were in this world who could call him by his name. Not too many, she suspected.

  When she was with him, she was happy. The spell of his physical presence chased away all the worry and fear and doubt and uncertainty and guilt that besieged her at other times— that were besieging her now. What was she doing here? She knew that Haman was close to Ahasuerus, but she never saw or spoke to Haman. Ahasuerus never mentioned the situation in Palestine to her, and she didn’t see how she could bring it up in any way that would seem remotely natural.

  Be our voice to the king. That is what Mordecai and the Jewish elders had commanded her. According to her uncle, that was what God had commanded her.

  It was unfortunate that no one had ever told her exactly how she was to accomplish this desirable goal.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The king had a fever.

  “Anyone who gets soaking wet looking at horses, then doesn’t have the sense to change his clothes before he rides in a race is asking to be sick,” Esther told him.

  Ahasuerus lay in bed propped up against two dark-blue silk cushions. Esther was standing beside him, looking exasperated and trying not to show how worried she was. The king’s face was flushed with fever and his eyes were too bright. Haman, the other person in the room, had closed the doors to the balcony.

  “Keep those balcony doors open,” Ahasuerus ordered, his normal voice a little raspy from a sore throat. “I want to look at the sky.”

  “You have a fever, my lord,” Haman protested. “Cold air is not good for you.”

  The fever flush in the king’s cheeks seemed to deepen. “I said to open the doors.”

  “My lord.” Haman’s slurred Babylonian accent was gentle. “Please be sensible.”

  Ahasuerus scowled.

  Esther understood how much fresh air meant to Ahasuerus and said to Haman, “Perhaps we could open one of the doors. If the king remains under the blankets he will be warm enough.”

  Haman shot her an annoyed look.

  There came a knock upon the door.

  Haman said, “That will be my wife’s Egyptian physician, my lord.” He came back to Ahasuerus, leaving the doors firmly shut behind him. “He has a remedy for fevers that never fails.”

  Ahasuerus was starting to get angry. “I don’t want any foul-tasting medicines, Haman. I want you to open the doors and leave me alone.”

  Esther gazed down into the haggard, fretful face of her husband. Even ill, he was still beautiful. “I will open the doors, my lord, if you will see the doctor,” Esther said gently.

  Ahasuerus clenched his fist and pounded it once into the mattress. Esther thought that his helplessness was angering him more than the idea of seeing a doctor. She put her hand on his forehead and smoothed back his tumbled hair. “Your hand feels so cool,” Ahasuerus said.

  “And your head feels so hot,” she returned. “Please, my lord, won’t you see the doctor?”

  There was the sound of voices at the door and both Haman and Esther waited. “Oh, all right,” Ahasuerus grumbled.

  Haman went to the door and came back with a small, dark man who was carefully carrying a goblet of chased silver. “If you will drink this, my lord King, you will feel very much better,” the doctor said.

  Ahasuerus started to push himself up in the bed. Haman went to help him and the king motioned him away. The doctor put the goblet into the king’s reluctant hand.

  Esther started as loud voices sounded in the hallway, then the door flew open and a man almost tumbled in. “Ahasuerus!” he shouted. “Don’t drink that potion!”

  It was Xerxes.

  Esther’s blood froze in her veins.

  “Why not?” the king said. He sounded merely curious.

  “Someone told me this doctor might have been bribed to poison you.” Xerxes was breathing quickly, Esther saw, as if he had been running hard.

  Ahasuerus’ face went perfectly still. The little doctor was white with terror. “Who is supposed to have bribed him?” the king asked.

  Xerxes pointed to Haman. “This treacherous Palestinian.”

  Esther reached out to grab the goblet from Ahasuerus’ hands, but he was too quick for her. Horrified, she watched as he tilted the goblet back and drained it.

  “I knew it would taste terrible,” he said.

  Esther’s hand was still on the king’s forearm, and he let her take the empty cup from him. She could hardly hold it, her hand was shaking so badly.

  Xerxes was staring at his brother, his nostrils pinched tight beneath the haughty arch of his nose. “Are you mad? I told you the drink might be poisoned!”

  Ahasuerus’ eyes glittered fever bright as he said to Xerxes, “The most important judgments a man makes in his life are his judgments about whom he can trust. Think about your so-called friends, Xerxes. Are they followers of the Truth? Or of the Lie?” There was a tense pause while the two brothers stared at each other. “There was nothing wrong with the drink,” Ahasuerus said. “Who told you it was poisoned?”

  There was a white line around Xerxes’ mouth. He looked furious. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the room.

  Esther looked at the doctor. “Is it really all right?”

  The doctor was still as white as bleached linen. “Yes, my lady,” he croaked. “It is good medicine. It will help the king.”

  Ahasuerus’ early temper seemed to have abated with the drink. He took Esther’s shaking hand into a reassuring grip and said humorously to Haman, “The lengths some people will go to just to get me to take some medicine.”

  The Edomite’s golden brown eyes were bright with tears as he regarded the king. He said huskily, “Thank you, my lord. Please try to get some sleep. You will feel better when you awaken.”

  “I will go to sleep after you open the doors.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Haman did as he was asked and came back to the bed.

  Esther pulled the covers up over Ahasuerus’ shoulders and tucked them in so he would be warm. He closed his eyes. She looked over at Haman and caught him gazing at the king, his expression unguarded.

  He truly cares for Ahasuerus! she thought in astonishment.

  Then she remembered the fearless way the king had swallowed the supposedly poisoned medicine. And Ahasuerus knows it. She looked down at her husband’s fever-flushed face. “The most important judgments a man makes in his life are his judgments about whom he can trust,” he had said.

  “You may leave us, Haman,” she said quietly. “I will watch over the king.”

  After the Edomite had closed the door behind him, Ahasuerus opened his eyes and looked at her. “That was a little too exciting. Are you all right?”

  Esther wasn’t all right. Everything about what had ju
st happened upset her. She asked the first of the questions that was on her mind. “Who could have told Xerxes that the medicine was poisoned? And why would someone do such a thing?”

  His expression was somber. “If I had given the medicine to Xerxes, he would have taken it away to be tested on a slave or an animal. By the time it was tested, someone would have made sure that it was indeed poisoned.”

  Esther felt a shiver of fear run all through her. “Was this Xerxes’ doing, my lord?”

  He said wearily, “I don’t think so. Xerxes would be delighted if I was killed in battle, but he is too honorable to have anything to do with poison. Someone who wanted to destroy Haman was behind this.”

  “Why would someone want to do that?”

  “Because Haman is my friend, and they don’t want me to have friends.” Ahasuerus’ eyes were heavy. “That potion is making me sleepy.”

  “Then go to sleep,” she said softly. “I’ll stay with you for a while.”

  His eyes closed all the way and in a short while he was asleep. Esther stayed by the bed, as if her very presence could keep him safe.

  She was deeply afraid. There had been no poison this time, but perhaps at another time there would be. All of his father’s old courtiers hated him. Hathach, who was Esther’s eyes on the world, had told her the specifics of the various court factions that were aligned against the king, and she knew that Ahasuerus did not have many people he could trust. He had left two of his closest boyhood friends in Egypt to keep the peace in that country. He had made his other boyhood friend, Coes, his Lancebearer, and Haman was his Bowbearer. Coes and Haman were the only two men he could fully trust among the throng of Royal Kin who filled the court, most of whom only wanted him for what they could get out of him. She had begun to suspect that, under all the magnificence and power that were his, Ahasuerus was a lonely man,

  Esther’s thoughts turned to her own situation. What would have happened to her if the drink had actually been poisoned and Ahasuerus had died?

  I would have been free to go home. I am not with child, so there is no question of an heir other than Xerxes. I would be free to go back to my old life, as I have longed to do ever since I first came here.

  If Ahasuerus died.

  But she did not want Ahasuerus to die.

  That was perhaps the scariest thought of all. She had told herself over and over that she must not fall in love with this king, that she must not confuse loving embraces with love of the heart.

  You must not be foolish, Esther. The king does not come to you night after night because he loves you. He comes because he needs an heir. And once you do have a son, you will be trapped here forever. The best thing that could happen to you would be for Ahasuerus to die. Then your grandfather could take you away and, after a while, you could go back to Mordecai and no one would notice or care. Perhaps Abraham might even still want to marry you.

  She heard Ahasuerus stir and she reached out to put her hand over his, to reassure him that she was there.

  Ahasuerus was better the next day, and the Ecbatana summer progressed with one beautiful day following the other. Esther had her own covered carriage in which she could take long drives all over the plateau. Everywhere she went that summer the wheat was as tall as the horses and mixed in with it were wild hollyhocks, bluebells, and giant purple thistles. Poppies grew in the thousands, making a bright patchwork of red and pink and orange in the grass. Esther felt herself relaxing as the clean, clear air of the mountains blew away her worries. For a few wonderful weeks she almost succeeded in being happy.

  The one person she did worry about during that otherwise peaceful time was Hathach. As lovely day passed into lovely day, he seemed to become more and more silent and withdrawn.

  She observed him closely one clear, bright morning as the sun was shining into her apartment through the open balcony doors. He was standing by those doors watching the men in the courtyard mounting up for a day at the racetrack. The sound of deep male voices and the noise of shod hooves on gravel floated clearly upward through the thin mountain air.

  The young eunuch’s face was a mask of misery.

  Esther looked down into the courtyard from behind Hathach’s shoulder. Ahasuerus had come out of the palace and was leaping lightly onto the back of a muscled bay stallion. The sun shone on his scarlet riding jacket and winked off the gold hoops in his ears. He picked up his reins in one hand and turned to the man whose horse stood beside his. It was Coes, his childhood friend, who was laughing at something the king had said.

  The scent of horses drifted to Esther’s nostrils. Then Ahasuerus began to trot his stallion forward. Esther watched the easy roll of his slim hips as they followed the motion of his horse. In two minutes the courtyard was empty. Hathach turned slowly back into the room.

  “Is it so bad?” Esther asked gently.

  His face froze. For a long, silent moment they looked at each other, both of them standing in the sunshine from the open doorway. Esther waited, but still he said nothing.

  “Do you ride, Hathach?” she asked.

  He nodded. In the sunlight his hair shone as black and shiny as a crow’s wing. “I am of the Sargartian tribe, my lady. We pasture our herds in the mountains to the north of here. I have ridden since I was a small child.”

  “Then I will ask the king to give you a horse,” Esther said.

  His frozen face did not change. “My people do not have horses such as these, my lady. We ride shaggy hill ponies. I do not ride like the king.”

  Esther saw again the supple hips and soft back of Ahasuerus as he rode out of the courtyard. “You can learn to ride horses such as these, Hathach. Perhaps you will not ride quite as well as the king.” She lifted her eyebrows humorously. “But then no one else does either.”

  The tension that was drawing his lips into a straight line relaxed slightly. “That is true. He is magic on a horse, my lady. Did you know that he rode one of Xerxes’ horses in the race yesterday and he won? On a horse that had never won before!”

  This was news to Esther and not altogether welcome. She frowned. “I’m not sure that was wise, Hathach. Xerxes already resents him too much.”

  “He had to, my lady. Xerxes challenged him. And he won! Xerxes was furious.”

  “I did not know you went to the racetrack,” Esther said.

  All of the brightness died from his face. “Occasionally I do, my lady. When I have no duties to perform for you.”

  Esther looked at her eunuch, at the high cheekbones, the thin black brows, the proud nose. Hathach was eighteen, of an age to be one of the young men riding out with the king. But he would never have the opportunity to do the things men do, and Esther’s heart bled for him.

  “You are young and strong and I see no reason why you cannot ride a big horse.” Her voice was deliberately matter-of-fact. “Furthermore, you are my chief spokesman—my Grand Vizier, as it were.” She smiled warmly. “When we return to Susa it will be useful to me if you have an available horse.”

  At these words his look of pinched misery lifted. “You had better not let Hegai hear you calling me your Grand Vizier, my lady,” he warned. “He thinks that is his job.”

  “You are more than my Grand Vizier, Hathach,” Esther said. “You are my friend.”

  “Give your eunuch a horse?” Ahasuerus asked over dinner that evening. “Certainly he can have a horse if you want him to. But what is the point?”

  The two of them were eating in the small dining room that was part of the royal apartments. Ahasuerus ate there with Esther three evenings a week. The other nights he dined in the main dining room with the men of the court.

  “He will also need someone to instruct him,” Esther continued. “He tells me that he rode when he was a child, but only on hill ponies.”

  “There is a big difference between a hill pony and a Nisean, Esther.” Ahasuerus was dressed in a blue jacket and black trousers and wore only a simple gold fillet around his forehead. He had affected the Median style of dress
since they came to Ecbatana.

  Now he sliced a chunk of chicken in half and the rings on his fingers flashed as he wielded his knife. “We’ll find him a nice quiet nag. Though I still don’t see the point.”

  “He needs a Nisean,” Esther insisted. “A big one. One that prances and snorts. That kind of horse.”

  He put down his knife and looked at her. “Why?”

  “Because he is a eunuch, my lord, and he hates it. Having a horse like that will help to restore his pride.”

  He continued to look at her and did not reply.

  She sustained his gaze fearlessly. “Perhaps he could learn to ride in races. Hathach would like that.”

  “You appear to have expended a great deal of thought on this eunuch,” Ahasuerus said.

  “He is not ‘this eunuch.’ He is Hathach.”

  One eyebrow lifted. Ahasuerus ate a piece of chicken.

  Esther tried to explain in a way he could understand. “Hathach is of the Sargartian tribe, my lord, and when he was eleven years old your father passed through their summer pastures. Hathach’s father was the chief of the tribe and he invited Darius to dine in his tent. Darius accepted. After dinner he complimented Hathach’s father on his son’s beauty. Hathach’s father had him castrated and sent to Susa as a gift to the Great King.”

  Ahasuerus’ brow furrowed faintly. He swallowed the chicken and said, “My father was not a man for boys.”

  Esther felt like hitting him. “That is not the point!”

  He picked up his wine cup and drank. A page stepped forward to refill it. “Furthermore,” he said, “Hathach should never have told you that story. It is not at all suitable for a woman’s ears.”

  Sudden anger surged through Esther. She laid her hands flat on the table before her and glared at him. “Don’t you have any heart?” she demanded. “Is it so impossible for you to imagine the sufferings of this boy? There you sit, not just a king, but a man! You have a beard on your face. Under your belt you are whole and unblemished. How would you feel if that was taken from you, my lord?”