Ester’s attention was momentarily grabbed by her beloved maid. She took the cup and offered Abigail a smile, then patted the cushion next to her. “I imagine you are wondering about the incident that you just beheld.”
“I would never pry into your past.” Abigail sat in her normal place and folded her small hands into her lap.
“I know. But I would like to tell you, if you would like to listen. Perhaps you can learn something from my past naivete.”
“I wish to share in any story you desire to tell.”
Ester smiled, but it soon faded as her mind retraced the past decades, to the time when she was little more than a girl herself. Finally becoming a woman but with little knowledge of how to handle it.
“As you know, my father was high priest for a time, the years of my maturing,” she began. “My mother died when I was in my tenth year, so it was only my father who saw to my upbringing those later years. He taught me what he knew: the Law. But never did I sit down with an older woman and hear of how to best grasp the transition into womanhood, marriage. So it was not with grace that I handled myself.”
She sighed, searching the room as if for the best path to take in this journey to her past. “I was fourteen when I wandered to this section of the city, where the soldiers stayed. My father had, of course, charged me to stay as far away from the Romans as I could at all times. To go to the other side of the street when one was about in the city, to stay away from the booths when they purchased their goods, and to never go near the compound, especially alone. But–” she gave a breath of a laugh– “I had a stroke of rebellion then, I suppose, because at first opportunity, here I was.
“I was trying to act nonchalant, but my courage was not long lasting, and I ended up in the marketplace, which I deemed safe enough. Oddly, though, it was there that I met my first Roman centurion.”
“The master?”
Ester smiled. “No. A friend of his, who has long since returned to Rome. He was a brash and forward man, more of a boy, really. He approached me and started complimenting me, quoting some poem I had never heard. Needless to say, I was terrified.”
They shared a smile, and Ester chuckled. “All I could think was that my father would kill me, and that Jairus would never marry me if I was caught. But I have gotten ahead of myself, I have not even mentioned Jairus. I will go to him now instead.
“I had known him for most of my life. Our families were very close, and it had been long understood that we would marry, although no formal betrothal had yet taken place. Jairus was years older than me, and I found him so intriguing. It had always seemed a bit unreal that I would someday be the wife of he who would someday surely be so powerful. Whenever I saw him I would try to hide my face and practice every virtue I knew to prove that I was worthy of him, but he would never allow it to last long. Inside of five minutes he would have me laughing about something, or engaged in a discussion of the Law. My father scolded me often, telling me that Jairus would never want a wife that spoke as a man. But if he did not, then I could not understand why he drew me into those conversations.”
Ester shook her head in the old confusion and took a sip of her camomile. “So, when I was faced with that soldier and frightened that I would anger the two men most important to me, I did what they both taught me to do: I tried to talk my way away. When the boy finished his little line, something, I believe, from Homer, I told him that his barbarian poet was a heathen and completely ignorant of all truth, as were all the philosophers his people so loved to dote upon.”
Abigail bit her lip against obvious laughter.
Ester sighed. “I thought he was going to strike me, he was so angry. And he may have, if it were not that Cleopas chose that moment to intervene. He had been listening the whole time at the next booth, but I did not notice him until he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and said to him–I will never forget this–‘Did you hear her, Mannas? Finally, one who knows Truth, after all of those horrible dialogues we were forced to read. What luck to happen upon her here, and what fortune that knowledge has taken such a beautiful form!’
“I, of course, took that opportunity to try to slip away, but Cleopas would have none of it. He caught up with me at the edge of the marketplace and insisted on walking me home. I ignored him, but he would not be put off.