A look of stark terror passed across Hadassah's face and Artaynte was certain. She reached out her hands and gently touched the younger girl's face. 'Don't worry. Marduka helped me outside. I will not betray you.'
Hadasseh sat down. 'How...how did you know?'
'Your name. It means myrtle in both Aramaic and in Aryan.'
'Please don't tell,' said Astur quietly. 'Marduka took me from the palace last year and hid me here.'
'You are my friend,' assured Artaynte. 'I will tell no-one without your permission. After all, we are both in hiding, aren't we?'
Hadasseh relaxed a little and held Artaynte's hands in her own. 'You must teach me these languages you know. Marduka gives me lessons in local customs and the art of writing but I know little of languages except Hebrew and Chaldean.'
'I am a poor maid, Hadasseh. I know only eleven languages.'
'Eleven?'
'My father was the brother of the King and I was maid to the Queen for a while. Languages are easy to learn when you must speak them every day to foreign visitors.'
Hadasseh seemed excited. 'What do you know of the King?'
Artaynte paused. How much should she tell this girl? She decided upon total honesty. If she was to fulfil the plan brewing in her mind, she would need the total trust of this girl.
'I was concubine to the King,' she admitted quietly.
Hadasseh gaped for a moment. 'Is..is the King really kind like they say he is?'
Artaynte smiled. 'He can be. However, when he is angry, everyone is afraid.'
'How did you come to leave the Court?'
Artaynte shrugged. 'The Queen executed the rest of my family.'
'Amestris? She killed your mother and father?'
Artaynte nodded. 'And my brother and sisters. My father was caught whilst trying to escape and was hung. She...she had my sisters disembowelled alive.'
'Ugh! And your mother?'
'She was ritually desecrated at Court.'
'But why?'
'The Queen suspected she was having an affair with the King.'
'And was she?'
The Princess was quick to reply. 'Of course not. My mother was a good woman and the King respected that.' She sighed. 'No, it was me the King was loving. I became one of the royal concubines and, in time, I was to have become wife to Crown Prince Darius. But that is not possible now.'
'You poor girl.'
Artaynte bowed her head. 'Amestris really hated my mother. She had told the King that she would make sure my mother would be remembered forever. She certainly achieved that.' She looked straight at Hadasseh. 'If I am ever caught by the Queen, I will suffer the same fate.'
AFTER six months of war conference at Ecbatana to discuss the invasion of Greece, Khshayarsha was ready for a banquet. All the Princes of the twenty satrapies of Persia came along with their wives and concubines and, in the city of Shushan, there was hardly a room not taken for the many visitors and guests. It was a busy time for Marduka. Each of the visitors had to be screened against the possibility of assassins entering the city and the guard was doubled in anticipation.
'Will you be all right this evening?' he asked as Hadasseh carefully placed the official headdress of the Royal Gatekeeper upon his head.
'Of course we will,' she laughed in reply. 'I promise we will not leave the gatehouse until you return. We can see the palace from the roof and will watch the festivities from there.'
'You are upset about not coming, aren't you?'
'Not at all, my father. You go and have a good time.' She kissed his cheek. 'Bring me back some fruit of Ethiopia.'
'And some wine,' added Artaynte.
'Wine?' frowned Marduka. 'You are too young to be drinking wine.'
'I am sixteen and Hadasseh is fifteen tomorrow. We are ready for the nectar of the gods.'
Marduka shook his head. These girls were certainly growing up fast. In another year or less, he could be losing his Astur. When that happened, he knew he would be very sad.
'And lock the door,' he said as he departed.
'Yes, father,' they said in unison and giggled.
THE king paced before his chief advisors who sat around the polished cedar table from the mountains of Lebanon.
'What say you, my brothers? Am I being harsh by insisting upon the presence of the Queen at my banquet?'
'Not at all,' spoke up the Prince of Media. 'Every Queen must do the bidding of her King, regardless of who she is.'
'I agree,' said Admatha. 'Though what my own queen will say now she has seen the example of Amestris, I hate to think.'
'Then I am right?'
'Your Majesty,' said Haman. 'I have served you here at Shushan and your father, Darius, before you. The implications of this matter are indeed very great. Once, the Queen's attitude and actions could simply be described as unusual or unorthodox. But now, things are different. Throughout the Empire, people are saying that their ruler is not a King but the puppet of Queen Amestris of Babylon.'
'And what say you, my friend?'
'I know you well, my Lord King,' Haman said tactfully. 'You have permitted your Queen to act in the way she has so that she will reveal her true motives. Now that she has refused to come to the banquet at your bidding, Ahura-Mazda has given you the opportunity you need to rid the Empire of her once and for all.'
'It seems such a small thing compared to some of her earlier atrocities.'
'Not so. Prince Admatha make a valid point when he says that her rebellion is a symbol and could have an effect on the households of not just Shushan but of the whole of the Persian Empire. If this is overlooked, from India to Ethiopia, wives will think it right to disobey their masters in the same way.'
'Then what do you propose I do?'
'You must write a law, an unchangeable law according to the law of the Persians and Medes, that whenever a master commands his household, they must obey without question.'
Khshayarsha looked around the group of seven princes. 'Can I do that?'
'You are King,' said Carshena. 'May I also add that if you do not act in this way, it is not just wives who will rebel. Whole nations will see that the King's word amounts to nothing and will challenge your power. The results could be disastrous for this great kingdom that we have forged.'
'What say you, Haman?'
'My Lord King, the words which have been spoken are good. If you give the word, let a royal decree go to the length and breadth of the earth, that Queen Amestris be banished from the palace and that all other unruly wives are to be treated in a similar manner.'
The King smiled. 'That does seem good to me.'
'Furthermore,' the Magi added. 'Let a proclamation go forth that you will take a new Queen from among the nations.'
'But it will mean war with Babylon. Shamash-Eriba will not stand for the banishment of his daughter in favour of another queen.'
'I suggest that when he gets back from crushing the Lybians,' said Haman. 'You send Prince Megabyzus to Babylon. If there is trouble, he will deal with it in the most... appropriate manner.'
'You would recommend deliberately provoking a war with Babylon?'
'Sire. I believe there is a time for leniency and a time for firmness. Deal with Amestris now, while you have the chance and, if they rebel in Babylon, crush them.'
The King looked around his advisors who were agreed. He smiled. 'So let it be written.'
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CHAPTER
SIX
