“Tell me, my friend, did I not arrange the most favorable marriage imaginable for my son? Is his new wife not everything a prince could possibly desire?”
Ah, perfect. Haman nodded. “You did indeed, master. Masistes’ daughter is everything desirable. What is more, I happen to know she is very much in love with the prince.”
“Exactly!” The king spun with a growl, though Haman could not guess at his destination. “Yet when I asked him why I saw his bride in tears this morning, he said she was
impossible to please and he had given up trying. Apparently more than two weeks of effort is just too much to ask of him.”
Haman pressed his lips together against the observation that Xerxes rarely gave a woman more than a single night to win his affection. To be fair, he had not been so
impatient twenty years ago, when he had fewer wives. “Perhaps, master, you ought to let them work things out on their own.”
“Stay out of their marriage? That is what my son said I should do.” That particular scowl was one that had led to mountains being smitten in the past. The prince ought to
know better than to provoke his father . . . though it did play perfectly into Haman’s hand. Xerxes’ nostrils flared. “Strange he would dare say such a thing to me, when
he is doing his best to interfere in mine.”
Haman cleared his throat.
The king stopped and glared at him. “You said I ought to speak with them. I did, but neither said anything to explain the fact that Darius cannot keep his eyes off Kasia,
and she refuses to look at him at all. I will ask you. What went on between them in Sardis?”
Praise the god—this opportunity must be from him. Haman kept his countenance serious. “I am not surprised Darius would tell you nothing—though I expected the Jewess to
admit what transpired.” True enough—she seemed the type to think she needed total honesty in her relationships.
Honesty had its place, to be sure—a kernel of truth went a long way toward convincing others of whatever you wanted them to believe.
Xerxes’ hands fisted. “She said he may have been infatuated, but nothing more. I did not want to push her. But I would know whatever you do.”
He nodded and clasped his hands together. “It started innocently enough, I suppose. Parsisa forbade Artaynte to associate with her, after what happened at the start of the
campaign, and all the other women followed her lead.” Helped along, no doubt, by the rumors he had started about her being sent away because her child was illegitimate.
“The prince sought her company solely to ease her solitude.”
“Laudable, until I consider the look now in his eyes when he regards her. Tell me it is as simple as a one-sided interest—that he fell in love, she rebuffed him, and hence
what I see.”
“I cannot.” That version of the truth certainly would not help his cause. Haman shook his head. Sadly, he hoped. “I saw them together one afternoon. He sent her servants
away, then embraced her.”
The king’s cheeks went red. “And you did nothing to stop it? Why do you think I sent you to Sardis, Haman?”
He spread his hands before him, palms up. “He was the acting king—if I had dared come against him, I would not be alive to tell you about it.”
Xerxes grunted and stomped onward. “So he embraced her. She would have fought him, acting king or not.”
“Yes, she did . . . for a moment.”
The king’s jaw ticked. “What are you saying?”
“Only what I saw. I cannot say whether he convinced her or forced matters—I left at that point—but surely you realize he would not have let her go without getting what he
wanted.”
His companion shook with rage, and Haman fought back a grin. The king may rant at his son, but he would not harm him. And the Jewess would be damaged in his eyes. The king
of kings would have no use for spoiled goods when he had his pick of the most beautiful virgins the world over.
“You did your duty,” the king said through clenched teeth. “Now excuse me.”
“Certainly, master. I only wish I did not have to report such a truth.” He kept his head bowed until Xerxes stomped off. Then he let the smile curl his lips.
*
His vision blurred. His blood pounded. His muscles bunched and coiled. Xerxes could not remember the last time the rage had come upon him so intensely. When the bridge was
destroyed? No, this was worse. This was not about wood and rope, earth and water.
This was about flesh of his flesh, wife of his heart.
How could he? How could his son—his own son, the boy he had spoiled, had taught, had handed the reins of his kingdom to—do this to him? He knew—knew—what Kasia meant to
him. He could take any other woman—blast it, most any other wife— with minimal consequences. But not her.
Not. Her.