“What happened to practicing at night?”
Zechariah jerked around, nearly dropping his spear at the once-familiar voice. A smile split his face. “Bijan! I did not know you were home.”
“Just yesterday.” His friend came over and clapped him into a one-armed embrace. “I thought to catch you last night, but no one was out here. Luckily, a few questions in
the right ears told me ‘that band of trouble-making Jews’ now gathered each morning for their mischief.”
Zechariah laughed and set the spear down. “We would have been forbidden from it long ago, had the king not given his approval.”
“I suppose it helps to have a sister in the harem.” Bijan quirked a brow and folded his arms over his chest. “Did she tell you I was in the party that accompanied her
back to Sardis? I could hardly believe it.”
“She told me. It is so good to see you, Bijan. I kept you in my prayers.” And there had been many of them, under Mordecai’s tutelage.
Bijan aged before his eyes. “Perhaps that is what kept me safe when all my fellows died around me. This last year was horrible, Zech. Have you heard that my father was
killed?”
He nodded, though he did not trust himself to speak. The news had come in the same message from Ruana that informed him he had a son. After swallowing he managed a tight, “
I am so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Bijan looked out over the river and huffed out a breath. “It is good to be home. I have never been so happy as when Susa came into sight. And I had the added
pleasure of meeting my nephew last night—she named him after our father—and hugging my sister again.”
Silence would strike his friend as odd. He forced a smile, and the question. “I have not seen her for some time. Is she well? And the baby?”
“Both well and healthy. Although I must ask what you did to her, Zech.”
Had it not been for the teasing in his voice, Zechariah would have snapped into a defensive position, ready to battle off an enraged brother. “Ah . . . pardon?”
Bijan chuckled. “She found, of all things, a Jewess to serve as little Navid’s nurse. Now she prattles on about the different Jewish laws and customs as if they are the
most interesting topics in the world.”
He shook his head and tried to ignore the swell of feeling within him. A Jewess? She allowed a Jewess to nurse his son, to talk of the ways of Jehovah? “You cannot lay that
at my door, Bijan—I do not recall ever mentioning the Law to her.”
“Asho is none too pleased about it, but she refuses to dismiss Rachel.” Bijan shrugged and motioned that they should walk. “I must go to the palace. Word came just before
I left in search of you that the king has selected a new queen.”
Thank Jehovah he had been bending down to pick up his weapons so that his friend could not see his face. He hoped it returned to neutral when he straightened again. “Oh?”
“Mm. Some girl of no family—orphaned, I believe—who is supposedly so beautiful the sun pauses in awe when it passes over her.” Bijan grinned and wiggled his brows. “I
cannot miss the chance to glimpse her, so I will go to the ceremony. I believe her name is Esther.”
Esther. Zechariah swallowed and told himself his heart did not thud, his soul did not howl. Told himself he had been prepared for this—and that it made no difference. Queen
or not, she belonged to Xerxes. Not to him. “Beautiful as she may be, I do not envy you the afternoon at the palace.”
“I was hoping I could convince you to come—surely your sister can get you an invitation.”
Zechariah grimaced. “My sister may be the king’s wife, but I am still a man of profession, and that order for a new throne will not fill itself.”
Bijan’s eyes bulged. “You are crafting a new throne?”
“Alongside a goldsmith, with whom I will be spending this afternoon and many others in the near future.”
Not to mention it was a far better excuse than that he was not ready to see her again, to realize anew that she had slipped right through his arms.
As Mordecai had taught him, he turned his mind to prayer until the throb of it faded to an ache.
Forty-Five
The ceremony was solemn, beautiful. Kasia felt the hush of awe down to her core as Xerxes lifted the circle of gold to catch the sun. A shaft of light reflected through the
hall.
Esther knelt before him, her face down but her spine straight. Exquisite multi-colored robes flowed over her shoulders and spilled out behind her. Kasia could not have been
more proud had it been her daughter evoking such gasps of appreciation. Could not have been more pleased had Xerxes tossed expectation to the wind and given the crown to her
instead. She did not want it, would not have known what to do with it. But Esther. Esther had the soul for this.