Esther by Rebecca Kanner Page B

twelve-year-old.”
    â€œShe is betrothed!”
    â€œAnd she will be fatherless if you do not turn around and quietly walk away.”
    I remembered what Erez had said: I regret almost everything I have done since drawing back the bow and killing the panther. Yet all that I did for Persia I would do again.
    One of the merchants gathered along the side of the road waiting for the market to reopen said, “ These are the prettiest virgins in the empire?”
    I recognized the voice. It was Arshan the rug seller. He had sold me four crimson rugs and had his sons carry them to Mordecai’s hut for me. The rugs now hung on the walls of what had been my home.
    I did not let my shame keep me from turning to glare at him. It has been a long walk, you soulless boar. Arshan must have felt my eyes upon him, because he looked back at me, and whatever it was he saw silenced him. Did he recognize me? Would he talk about me with the other merchants, with neighbors, with Mordecai, who would now have to come to the market himself each day until he took on a servant?
    Erez rode up beside me again and leaned down with a piece of purple silk. I did not have to ask him what to do with it. I lowered my head and clumsily tied the fabric over my hair with my bound hands, pulling it low on my brow as though it were possible to hide.
    Ahead something was starting to block out the sun. I looked up just enough to see the girls ahead of me leaving the sunlight and moving into a shadow—the shadow of a giant stone arch.
    In my haste to escape the merciless sun, I overtook Parsha. He pressed his foot against my back—not hard enough to push me over but just enough to let me know he could. He dropped the rope. “Watch this one!” I heard him call to another soldier.
    I had seen Xerxes’ palace many times. It was said that at least half the world’s gold was housed inside, and it looked like no small amount was on the outside either. I would never again mistake the oddly colored sphinx, winged griffins, and bulls for decorations; they were a warning: the gold and power of this palace are many thousand times greater than you . Golden lions that had looked regal and graceful when I had gone to market each day now gazed upon me with scorn.
    I gathered up the rope that hung from my wrists and pitched myself into the shadow of the arch as though the darkness had arms to catch me.
    A hundred stairs loomed before me. By the tenth step I understood that the heat had penetrated my bones and the marrow inside them had caught fire and turned to ashes. What blood had not evaporated from my body seemed to have crusted in my veins.
    And yet I continued to climb until finally I stood panting, with the others, in the colossal doorway to the king’s gatehouse.
    I was filled with a terrified awe. The hallway in front of me was wide enough for fifty men to walk through side by side. I knew that I was going to disappear down that hallway. Soon only the king’s servants would see me, unless one day the king himself deigned to look at me. I would spend my days in the maze of rooms at the southern side of the palace, waiting for him to want me.
    My fears came back to me like blades I had somehow managed to swallow but now felt tearing my stomach. The fear I’d had in the marketplace, that someone would see me, was replaced by the fear that no one outside of the palace would ever see me again. I wanted to turn around and scream at the merchants, even the one I had just glared at, “Look at me—at my eyes, my hair!” No husband would ever see them now.
    I thought suddenly of Erez and how his eyes had widened when I’d yanked off my head scarf. He was still in the world, somewhere behind me. Maybe I had seen the last of him. But maybe I had not. Thinking of him gave me the strength to walk through the gatehouse without glancing at any of the rooms along each side of me. I put one foot in front of the other until I