A Reluctant Queen (7 page)

“It’s piped in, of course,” the girl replied. “The furnace is under the floor.”

The only time Esther ever got to bathe with hot water was when she took the trouble to heat it up on the outdoor stove. Most of the time she made do with cold. Now here she was, sinking up to her shoulders in a tub of water that was the perfect mix of hot and cold.

It felt strange, but she thought she liked it.

To her great relief she had been allowed to keep her robe on, but that did not stop Luara from reaching under it to scrub every inch of her body until it tingled.

Once the bath was over and Esther was standing with water streaming off of her, they went into the next room where Luara said she was to have her hair washed. Two very pretty girls told her to sit upon a stool, and then they poured a horrid yellow mixture on her head and began to rub it through her hair.

“What is that?” Esther asked, her eyes closed tightly so she wouldn’t be blinded.

“It’s only egg yolks,” Luara replied. “Excellent for cleaning the hair without drying it out.”

The two girls rubbed vigorously, working the egg yolk into every strand of her hair. Then, when they had finished, they rinsed it by pouring buckets of warm water over her head. Esther shook her head like a wet dog once they were done and watched with fascination as the water simply disappeared through the drainage holes in the brick floor. Thinking she was finished, she started to get up, but Luara’s hand rested on her shoulder to prevent her.

They washed her hair again and then one of the girls rubbed in some kind of sweet-smelling oil. And they washed her hair again.

At this point, Muran and the Mistress of the Baths had wandered over to watch the proceedings.

“A good start,” the bath mistress said encouragingly. “In a month it will shine like silk.”

A month? She would be here for a whole month? And she didn’t want her hair to look better. Not that the king would be likely to choose her anyway, she assured herself. But she had been hoping to see him sooner.

“Next we shall attend to the skin,” Muran said, and she, Luara, and Esther moved to a third room where two more bath attendants were awaiting them.

First they rubbed her all over with pumice stone, an exceedingly uncomfortable process that was meant to smooth away any rough spots. Then they bleached her skin with egg whites—to try to make it less sallow, Esther thought. The worst part of the ordeal, however, came when they removed the hair from her legs and her underarms.

First one of the girls spread a paste on her skin, then after five excruciating minutes, when she was sure her skin was burning off her body, the women sluiced her with hot water. To Esther’s astonishment, the hair washed off with the paste.

The final part of the treatment came when Esther lay upon a marble table while a slim girl with incredibly strong fingers rubbed oil into her skin. It was the first time all day that Esther actually relaxed, closing her eyes with pleasure as the clever hands rubbed away the tension in her muscles.

Finally Muran took her to a robing room where the Mistress of the Robes had set out new clothing.

“I can dress myself,” Esther said when Luara bent to put a thin linen shift on under her now-dry bath robe. She was heartily sick of being handled as if she were a doll.

“I am sure that you can,” Muran agreed. “But here you must learn to let others dress you.”

Esther set her jaw as Luara slipped the shift on her. “If you will hold up your arms, my lady, I will remove the robe,” the girl said.

Esther held up her arms and Muran regarded her critically as she stood in only the thin undergarment. “Your breasts could be a trifle larger, but they will do.”

Esther had also had her fill of comments on her person. “Give me that tunic,” she said to Luara, who handed her a long-sleeved, ivory-colored garment that Esther pulled quickly over her head.

The tunic fabric was beautiful. Esther could not stop herself from stroking the exquisite material.

“All our linen comes from Egypt,” Muran informed her.

“It is very lovely,” Esther admitted.

She stood for what seemed forever before the Mistress was satisfied that the folds of the tunic were falling evenly from her charge’s narrow waist to her toes. Finally Luara took a long-sleeved, rose-colored wool robe and slipped it over Esther’s head. The robe came only to her knees, so that the perfect folds of the tunic showed below.

By this time Esther’s hair was only damp, and Luara combed it out and braided it with rose-colored ribbons.

“Now for the cosmetics,” Muran said, turning to the girl who had come in with a tray covered with small turquoise and green glass bottles.

Esther’s stomach rumbled audibly.

The cosmetic girl giggled and Muran glared at her.

“I have not eaten all day,” Esther said, pleased that stomach noises would be another black mark against her.

“You shall eat as soon as we finish with your face,” Muran promised.

After much consultation the women decided to merely outline Esther’s eyes with kohl and dust a touch of rouge on her cheeks. When the cosmetic girl was finished, Muran led Esther to the big bronze mirror that took up almost one whole wall of the room and commanded her to look at herself. From the expression on the Mistress’s face, she clearly expected Esther to be enchanted.

Esther looked into the mirror and saw a strange aristocratic Persian lady with huge, kohl-lined eyes. She felt a wild longing for her old scratchy wool clothes and naked face.
What would Abraham think if he could see me now?
she thought.

“Well,” Muran demanded. “Aren’t you pleased?”

Esther did her best. “I look very nice. Thank you.”

Muran gave her a puzzled look. She was about to speak when Esther’s stomach growled again. Unexpectedly, the enormous Mistress of the House laughed. It was a deep, surprisingly infectious sound and it made Esther smile.

Muran’s small, bright eyes widened. “Ah.
Now
I see why Hegai accepted you,” she said.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

I
t was a week before Esther could eat any of the food that was served to the girls, and many more weeks before she could eat without feeling nauseated. It didn’t help that the girls she was living with behaved completely opposite to how she was taught to be. They were not modest; they boasted of their beauty all the time. They were not kind; they fought malicious and foolish battles over trivial points of precedence and privilege. The girls who were members of the high aristocracy looked down on the girls who were less exalted. And everyone looked down on her, the girl with the mother who was a merchant’s daughter and whose father was a mere lieutenant in the cavalry.

All this while, as Esther was suffering the continuous regimens of baths and hairwashes and skin preparations, more and more girls were having their interviews with the Great King and being rejected. According to Luara, the maid who had been assigned to her, the girls who were rejected were sent to another part of the harem to wait while their families were notified to come and pick them up.

“Only two girls are being held as possible choices, Mistress,” Luara told Esther. “Ahasuerus will see them again if he doesn’t find anyone more to his liking.”

Esther snorted indignantly. “This king has absolutely no concern for the feelings of other people. One has only to look at the way he treated his first wife to see that. And now these poor girls, being kept on like this just because he cannot make up his mind. He should be ashamed.”

Luara, who had been combing Esther’s hair, stopped and looked at Esther’s face as it was reflected in the bronze mirror in front of them. “Mistress, we are speaking of the Great King. I would say that he has more on his mind than the feelings of the women who wish to be his wife and share in his glory. None of them mind waiting if it may give them the chance of being chosen.”

Esther met her maid’s blue eyes. Luara was certainly as pretty as any of the girls who were candidates. Esther hesitated, then asked something she had long wondered about. “How did you come to be here, Luara?”

Luara smoothed a strand of Esther’s hair with the comb. “When I was twelve my father sold me to the Satrap of Babylonia, and then the satrap presented me to Ahasuerus as a gift. He thought the king would like my coloring.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact, but Esther saw pain in those beautiful eyes.
What a terrible story,
she thought. “How long have you been here?”

“I have been in the harem for five years, Mistress.”

Pity stabbed through Esther’s heart. What a terrible life this girl had led. But she felt instinctively that Luara was not the kind who would welcome pity, so she said, “Well, I think it is disgraceful for one man to have all of these women just waiting around for him to notice them! We are like a stable full of expensive horses, groomed and bathed and fed so we will be ready for when our rider decides to come and take us out. It’s . . . it’s disgusting.”

Luara’s hand came down on Esther’s shoulder. “Do not say that to anyone else, Mistress! Never say anything that might be derogatory of the Great King. You yourself mentioned how easily he got rid of Vashti when she got in his way. Be very, very careful, I beg you.”

Esther could see that the girl was truly concerned. She lifted her own hand and rested it on Luara’s. “Do not worry, I will be good.” She gave Luara a reassuring grin. “Besides, none of these aristocratic girls want to have anything to do with me, so I won’t even have a chance to tell them my thoughts. I shall be safe.”

The girl whom the harem staff thought had the best chance of any of the candidates was named Barsine. She was exquisitely beautiful, with the ivory skin, thin arched nose, and glossy black ringlets that Persians most admired. Luara explained to Esther that not only was Barsine beautiful, she was a direct descendant of Cyrus the Great, the founding king of the Achaemenid dynasty. This was what made her more special than most of the others.

Esther knew all about Cyrus because the Jews also revered him. He was the king who had freed them from the Babylonian exile imposed by King Nebuchadnezzar, and it was Cyrus who had allowed her people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. She thought now that to the Persians it must be as important to be of the line of Cyrus as it was to Jews to be of the line of David.

In fact, Barsine had so many advantages that even the other candidates thought that she would be chosen; everyone hoped to be summoned before her so they might have a chance. When finally Barsine received the call for her appointment, she surprised everyone by asking Esther to keep her company while she was being dressed. “I won’t be so nervous if you are there. There is a serenity about you, Esther, that is very calming,” she said.

So Esther sat with Barsine while the girl was prepared for the meeting that might change her life—and that of the rest of the girls in the harem. While Muran and the attendants fussed over Barsine’s hair and dress, Esther tried to think of things to say that might distract her. She mentioned a little brown bird that had flown into the harem garden the day before.

“It looked so odd among all the Birds of Paradise, but it was such a breath of real life,” she said. “Imagine, this little brown bird, pecking away in the harem of the Great King of Persia. I thought it was wonderful.”

Muran straightened up from her position on the floor beside Barsine and gave Esther a long look. “Are you thinking that perhaps
you
are that brown bird, Esther?”

Esther felt her eyes widen at this too-perceptive remark. She forced a laugh. “Compared with Barsine, I certainly am a brown bird, Mistress.”

At that moment, Hathach, the eunuch who had been assigned to Esther and Barsine, looked in the door and said, “It is time, Mistress.”

Barsine drew a long breath.

“Good fortune,” Esther said sincerely.

“Thank you,” Barsine whispered. Then she pulled herself together, the unusual vulnerability vanished, and she said haughtily, “I am ready.”