Game of Queens by Edghill India

Author:Edghill, India [Edghill, India]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BOOK FOUR

Star of Wisdom

ESTHER

I am quick-witted, I am clever, I can read and write Persian and Hebrew. I can speak Persian and Hebrew and half a dozen other tongues besides. I can tell to a daric how much a shipment of spices should cost. I can judge swiftly and fairly between two warring merchants.

If I had been born a boy, I would be a master merchant.

But I am a girl, and so none of my talents weighs so much as a swan’s feather in the scale against my shapely body and my shining hair. Is a woman never to claim her will as her own?

It did not occur to anyone to ask if I wished to be paraded before the king like a prize mare. My cousin Mordecai never questioned that I would do my duty to him and to my people. In my cousin’s mind, I was a good Jewish girl, and so he assumed my obedience. Never once did it occur to him to do otherwise.

Had he asked, I think I would have bowed my head and told him yes. Yes, I will do as you ask, for your reasons are sound and the benefit if I succeed will be great.

But he did not ask. He could not imagine that any girl would be less than delighted to compete for the queen’s crown.

* * *

Until I was ten, I lived on a farm in the valley of the river Karoun, far beyond the walls of Shushan. My father Abihail raised horses—sturdy, sure-footed beasts that could carry burdens long distances. My mother died when I was born, and my father, untutored in how to raise a girl, simply acted as if I were a boy. I was not confined to the house and its small courtyard. I had the freedom of all the valley.

I ran across the fields dressed in a boy’s short tunic and trousers. Naked, I swam in the shallow river. My father, lonely after my mother died, talked to me as if I were his friend, rather than his daughter and a child. He taught me how to judge horses, and to judge the men who came to buy them, or to sell.

The men and boys who worked for my father treated me as he clearly wished me to be treated: as if I were his son, heir to all he owned. No one regarded me as the daughter of the house.

Do not think my father let me run wild; my father expected me to work hard. I learned not only to ride his horses, but to help train them. I not only ran across the fields, but also learned to judge whether the grasses were good for grazing, or whether we needed to plant new seeds next season. I had a knack for numbers, and so I kept the records, and could tell my father how well we would do from a sale.

No one spoke of my looks. I had no mirror except the river.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.