“No.” Kasia traced one of the shapes with a light finger. “You ought to wear it still, as a reminder of a time when things were better between you. Of all she invested in you and your children.” She smiled up at him from under the sweep of long, black lashes. “The present ought not negate the past.”
Was it any wonder his brother desired her too? Her heart could not be matched. He drew in a long breath and cupped her cheek in one hand. “Mother told me what happened with Masistes. Are you all right?”
Her shoulders stiffened under his arm, but she only cuddled closer. “Your mother assures me it was nothing to be upset about.”
“A neat avoidance of the question.”
She sighed. “I do not understand how he could take such a thing so lightly. He threatened my family as if life meant nothing, insisted on adultery as though it were not a crime deserving of death, and then laughed it off as if the whole thing meant no more to him than what bowl they serve his dinner in.”
A chuckle slipped out. “A bowl? Really?”
She sent him an exaggerated scowl. “Sometimes, my love, I think the more bowls one has to eat out of, the less one realizes that the important things in this world are not made of gold or silver.”
Until he held her, he had not understood that. “Yet you now have limitless bowls.”
“No, the bowls are yours.” When she smiled at him like that, his heart melted like gold in a furnace. “All I can claim is you—and that is all I shall ever need.”
“Ah, I love you, Kasia.” He kissed her to be sure she believed him, then smiled upon pulling away. “I suppose it is a blessing that you have not all the trappings of most women. It will be easier for you to prepare to join me in Greece.”
Those beautiful brown eyes went wide. “I will go? Your brother said—”
“I had not made up my mind. There are always dangers in war, and I want you safe above all. But as my mother pointed out, there are dangers at home as well. I would worry incessantly if you were not beside me.”
She bounced, laughed, and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, my love. I would have missed you so much.”
“Have you a preference on which other concubines come? I know not all have been kind to you . . .”
Arms still linked around his neck, she made herself comfortable in his lap and leaned back to regard him. “You would let me choose?”
A corner of his mouth tugged up. “I would hear your opinion, anyway.”
She puckered her mouth up and seemed to mentally tick off a list. “Lalasa and Diona have not been among the cruel ones.”
“Kasia.” He narrowed his eyes. “They are the only two I have spent any time with since you joined us. Do you name them because you think they could be your friends, or because you think they are
my
choices?”
“I think they could be my friends
because
they are your choices.” She managed to look both sweet and mischievous. “Which of your wives do you suppose are cruelest to me? Those you have still paid attention to or those you have ignored?”
He sighed. “Lalasa and Diona, then.”
Zethar drew his gaze with a lift of his arm. “Master, a delivery for the lady. Furniture.”
“Oh!” Kasia jumped up as servants entered with their burdens.
Xerxes joined her and examined the pieces as they came in. The table took its place first. “Beautiful. Your father is talented.”
“This is my brother’s touch.” She traced a finger over the design carved into the legs. “Little though he enjoys the work, he excels at it.” She turned to the chairs and frowned, though Xerxes could not see why. They were magnificent too—his steward had done well to offer the full commission. “These are also by Zechariah.”
Ah, that explained the frown. She would wonder if her father’s refusal to put his hand to the job had some deeper meaning.
Then he spotted the chest. “That was not commissioned.”
The servant bearing it smiled. “A gift, master, from the patriarch of the family.”
That grabbed Kasia’s attention from the chairs. She spun around, fingers pressed to her lips and tears flooding her eyes. “A gift?”
The servant placed the large box upon the floor with care. “He says he knew you would need something for your belongings when you travel. This way, you will always know his prayers go with you.”
She knelt beside the chest, and Xerxes crouched beside her. The designs any eye could appreciate; the inscriptions were in Hebrew. “And the Lord went before them . . .”
One hand still on the wood, she turned her face into Xerxes’ shoulder. She took a moment to regulate her breathing, then looked up at him. “Do they meet with your approval, my love?”
“I certainly hope so, given that I already commissioned enough to keep your father and brother busy for the next five years.”
She blinked back tears that glistened like diamonds. “You did?”
“When we return, lovely Kasia, you will see the work of your father’s hand everywhere you turn.”
The droplets spilled over onto her flawless cheeks. “How is it that a poor Jewish girl ended up the wife of a man so generous? You cannot know how I love you.”
Words more precious than all the gold and jewels in Persia.
Fourteen
Outside Celaenae, Phrygia
Eighteen months later, in the fifth year of the reign of Xerxes
Kasia cuddled the babe close and pressed a kiss to his downy head. The tiny boy, only three months old, yawned and stretched one arm before nestling in. His complacency made her smile.
Zad stretched out beside her as she lounged against the cushions in her tent. All in all a peaceful place, this nomadic home of hers. Not that she would complain when they reached Sardis and she could enjoy the comfort of a bed again.
Desma crouched down to tickle the infant’s foot. “Shall we play for you, mistress?”
“Please.”
“Mistress.” Theron stepped inside from his post at the exit, a frown on his brows. “Diona comes.”
“Perhaps she forgot something?” Mindful of the baby, Kasia rolled onto her feet and stepped over the lazy dog.
The other concubine fluttered in, hands in the air. “He is raging again. I cannot abide it, Kasia, my nerves are too frayed.” Diona lifted her copper curls from her forehead. “I could hear him bellowing from half a stade away.”
Kasia chuckled and bounced the babe gently. “You know well our husband will not take his anger out on you.”
“I know even better he will not take it out on
you
.” Diona stretched out her arms. “Please? Will you go instead?”
With a sigh, Kasia relinquished her friend’s son. “I thought you wanted a quiet night.”
“Which I will obviously not get with our husband. This wee one has come by his screaming naturally.”
She bit her lip to hold back a grin. “You know I never mind spending time with Xerxes, but he
did
call
you
.”
Diona rolled her eyes, green as the hills of Phrygia. “Only because he thought you still unwell. Go, please. I shall be in your debt.”
“Nonsense.” When her maids stood, she motioned them back down. “Stay and rest. Theron will see me safely there.”
“Oh, thank you.” Diona walked out into the twilight with her, where slaves waited to see her back to the tent she shared with Lalasa and the three children they had between them.
Kasia raised her hand in farewell and took her place beside Theron. Xerxes’ tent resided at the head of the procession that stretched for miles. Diona was right—his shouting was audible from a good distance, and his choice of words made Kasia shake her head. A few engineers scurried out as she drew near—the unlucky recipients of her husband’s wrath. She entered as he tossed a frayed rope to the ground.
The other concubines always thought her mad for grinning at such a display. “Has the rope dared to offend the king of kings? Shall I stomp on it for you, for good measure?”
Xerxes spun around, and the light of anger in his eyes shifted to one of amusement. “Would you? The touch of your lovely foot may convince it to hold fast when it would like to break.”
“Perhaps it would. It does seem the ground gets greener, the more I tread on it, undoubtedly due to the power of my lovely feet.”
He laughed and gathered her into his arms. “Such phenomena has nothing to do with leaving the desert?”
“Nothing at all.”
After one long kiss, he pulled away with narrowed eyes. “I sent for Diona.”
“And scared her off with your bellowing.” She poked a finger into his chest. “You will have all the world talking of your temper.”
“I would not lose it so much if people were competent once in a while.” He sighed, and the tension left his shoulders. “You are feeling better? You looked quite ill this morning.”
“It passed.”
“Excellent.”
She drew in a deep breath. “Though I imagine it will return on the morrow.”
For a moment he only stared at her. Then the fear-saturated sorrow overtook his countenance. “Not again.”
“It will be all right.” She rested her forearms against his torso and patted his chest. “I am already farther along than the other times. This one will hold.”
Xerxes shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “You cannot know how it kills me to watch you go through this time and again, Kasia. The hope, the joy. The pain. I ought to be flayed for my part in it all—were I a stronger man, I would never touch you again.”
He had threatened as much after the third miscarriage. “Shall I leave?”
When she feigned pulling away, he growled and held her captive. Just as she had known he would. “The damage is already done.”
She smacked his arm. “A baby is not
damage
, Xerxes!”
“But the loss of one is.”
Irritation tickled her chest, but it faded when she looked into his eyes. Each pain had struck him as acutely as it had her, if for different reasons. He could not understand the loss of hope—he was not a woman, and he had so many children already. But he grieved with her. He soothed each tear, held her through each dark night.
She brushed her hand over his cheek. “Why mourn for a child who is healthy and whole in my womb? Whatever the reason I could not carry beyond a few weeks before, this is different. It
is
.”
“Let us pray so. I confess part of me hoped you would never conceive again. I know you long for a child of your own, but more than another son I need
you
. And I fear that one of these miscarriages will take you along with our babe.”
“At the risk of sounding treasonous, my love, I do not want a baby because you need ever-more sons. You can hardly keep count of the ones you have already. But
I
need a child.”
He dropped his arms and spun away. It may have irritated her except that he turned back with a shawl and draped it over her arms. She had not even noticed her goosebumps.
Xerxes sent her a tight-lipped stare that always made others run for cover. “Why, then? Because of that ridiculous warning I issued your first week with me? That your future will be insecure without them? I promise you, Kasia, you will be taken care of. I will give you a city—ten cities to guarantee it.”
“You are always so generous with your cities.” She pulled the fabric up over her shoulders and breathed in the faint scent of myrrh. “It is not that. I need a little one to love.”
Though he grumbled, he put his arm around her and led her to the lavish lounge area his servants set up each night. “Perhaps it will help that we will not be traveling much longer. You can grow large in Sardis while we wait out the winter.”
“See? All will be well.” She grinned and settled into her usual spot against a large pillow.
Xerxes sat beside her and nodded at his servants. They rolled up a corner of the tent and secured it.
Hills undulated into distant mountains, creating a vista strange and beautiful. As they marched, the golds and bronzes and coppers she knew gave way to waving amber grasses, trees large and green without the help of irrigation canals, and those mountains looming emerald before them. Beautiful . . . but still she missed Susa.
Xerxes tucked her to his side and rested his head against hers. Neither spoke. Not now, while they waited for the crimson streaks of sun to fade from the sky, for the rich shadows to drape over the mountains. They cuddled close and watched the heavens for the first prick of diamond light.
“There,” he whispered in her ear, indicating a place she had looked at a minute earlier and found empty. Now a single point of brilliance shone.
Her lips pulled up.
Be with Esther, Lord Jehovah. Wherever she is, whatever she does, bless her. May she shine like the star after which she is called
.