The second banquet was smaller.
Quieter.
No flutes, no nobles, no spectacle.
Just me.
Esther.
And Haman — pale as parchment, trying to look calm.
I thought this would be like the first: wine, flattery, perhaps a cryptic compliment.
Esther had always been cautious with her words.
But that night… she unfolded.
And I, the king of Persia, learned the difference between a queen who smiles and a queen who speaks.
“If I Have Found Favor…”
She began like always — with grace, as if she were offering poetry instead of panic.
“If I have found favor in your eyes…”
I nodded. Of course she had.
She had everything. My ring, my attention, my admiration.
But then the words turned.
Sharper.
Heavier.
“…let my life be spared.”
I froze.
Spared?
Spared from what?
Esther looked directly at me, her voice steady:
“For we have been sold — I and my people — to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated.”
The wine soured in my mouth.
The Room Tilted
I had approved no such thing.
I had given no such order.
And yet… deep in my chest, I already knew whose hand had written the doom.
I asked, as a formality more than ignorance:
“Who is he? Where is the man who has dared to do this?”
And then —
She turned.
Eyes locked not on me… but on the man seated beside us, now trembling.
“This wicked Haman.”
My Rage Was Real, but So Was My Guilt
It’s strange, the things that flash through a man’s mind in moments of fury.
I remembered the decree.
The ring.
The vague justification.
The silver I waved off.
I remembered that I had made it possible.
But I couldn’t afford guilt — not in front of her.
So I chose anger.
I rose, stormed into the garden.
The air was thick, the stars indifferent.
I wanted someone to blame.
The Plea That Sealed His Fate
When I returned, Haman had fallen at Esther’s feet.
Pleading.
Desperate.
The eunuchs stepped back, unsure.
Even in terror, the man clung to self-preservation.
But to my eyes — it looked like an assault.
Or perhaps I needed it to.
Because it is easier to punish betrayal than to face complicity.
I spoke without hesitation:
“Will he even assault the queen while she is with me in the house?”
And in that instant, his fate was sealed.
The Gallows He Built
Then came the final nail — delivered, of course, by someone else.
Harbona, one of my eunuchs, stepped forward:
“A gallows stands at Haman’s house — seventy-five feet tall — built for Mordecai, who once saved your life.”
Ah yes. Mordecai.
Another name I had nearly forgotten.
Another life I had once ignored.
I did not hesitate.
“Hang him on it.”
And they did.
Just like that.
The Crown Didn’t Shake, But I Did
I returned to my chamber that night not as a king basking in justice but as a man shaken by how close evil had sat to his right hand.
Esther had been inches from death.
So had her people.
And I — their king — had slept beneath silk while a noose was being tied.
No one said it aloud.
But I knew.
It was not Haman’s banquet.
It was mine.
And I never saw it coming.
