Esther by Rebecca Kanner Page A

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

    I thought of Mordecai’s tale as I watched the son of the king’s cruelest and most ambitious adviser place a rope around my wrists and tie it with a bowline knot. Parsha smelled like he had not taken a wet cloth to his neck and underarms in many days of journeying beneath the pounding sun. His nails scratched my already raw skin as he hooked his fingers over the rope and pulled me to stand. I was glad for my cousin’s long hours in the palace, hours that did not allow him to be out in the road except very early and very late. I did not want him to see me at the mercy of a soldier. He might blame himself for not sending me farther from the city.
    Parsha got back on his horse, and the rope tugged upon my wrists. I began to march.

CHAPTER EIGHT
----
THE VOW
    I did not raise my eyes from the ground. I felt alone except for the Faravahar against my breast. I hoped that if God were watching, He would not look at the Faravahar, but at all of our suffering, and that He would bring it to an end. An end other than death.
    Just when the humiliation seemed too great to bear, my feet went out from under me and my knees and elbows opened upon the road. Because I had torn off strips of my tunic to bandage Cyra, it was too short to shield my legs.
    â€œYou brought this upon yourself,” Parsha called down to me. “You are lucky this is your only punishment for trying to escape.”
    After I managed to rise to my feet again, I felt a calloused hand gently squeeze my shoulder. I knew by the Nisaean horse that had ridden up beside me that it was Erez’s hand. The kindness of his touch diminished my anger and brought me more pain than my burning knees or the rope around my wrists. I wanted only to be angry. If I allowed myself to feel sadness—for Cyra, my parents, my own future—I might not have the strength to go on.
    I do not yet know how to run on bloodied feet, but I will learn. And then, one day, I will find a way to have Dalphon and Parsha killed. Them and the man who pulled me from my bed and forced me into this nightmare.

CHAPTER NINE
----
THE PALACE
    It filled me with shame that men I had bargained with only days before watched as I was marched behind Parsha’s horse. Each day Mordecai had dropped silver coins into my palm and sent me to the market to choose lamb and goat meat, jars of honey and fresh goats’ milk. I had freely haggled with men from all over the empire. Now I was conscious not only of the rope around my wrists but also of my sweat-soaked tunic. It was ragged at the bottom where I had ripped off strips to bandage Cyra’s wounds, and my bloodied knees were as naked as my head. Humiliation kept my gaze lowered upon the hooves of Parsha’s horse.
    On the ground lay evidence of the haste with which the market had closed. I stepped over a broken pitcher but could not avoid some smashed dates that stuck to the bottom of my sandals and to my left foot where the sandal had worn through. I saw swathes of yellow and blue silk that only yesterday would have seemed like treasures too good to leave behind.
    I also saw, out of the corner of my eye, that Erez had stopped to subdue a man who must have been the father of one of the virgins. The man was screaming, “She is only twelve!”
    â€œThen she is the king’s