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About the Author

Arthur Zulu is a Nigerian-born writer. His works include Queen Esther, A Letter to Noah and Chasing Shadows! Others are How to Write a Best-seller and God Save the White House. He has also written several articles, which are freely available on the Internet.

The author is a founding member of ArthurBookHouse.

About the Book

King Ahasuerus of Persia dethrones his wife Vashti for disobedience and replaces her with the beautiful black Esther, Rada’s cousin. Haman, the king’s prime minister, builds a stake for Rada, and makes a decree to kill all the blacks in one day. For saving his life, the king honors Rada, who later becomes prime minister, and hangs Haman on his gallows. The Persian law is changed and the blacks regain their freedom.

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ACT ONE SCENE ONE

In the palace, enter Ahasuerus followed by princes, satraps, governors, lords, soldiers and attendants, feasting. Music.

AHASUERUS: (Drinking) Here, let every man drink and eat as he may. For Ahasuerus has reigned three years in all the one hundred and twenty-seven jurisdictional districts of the empire of Persia. I say, serve the princes and governors drinks in goblets of gold!

ALL: (Together) The king is great!

AHASUERUS: There are many forms of greatness. But in the greatness of a king of one hundred and twenty-seven jurisdictional districts, my empire overtakes them all!

ALL: (Together) We have a great king!

AHASUERUS: Here, let the maidens dance again and let the king once more behold the beauties of his empire. Where are they?

HARBONA: They are this moment entertaining the queen and the women. (Dance within)

AHASUERUS: That’s well said, good Harbona. Let the women feed their eyes and eat and drink too. As for those maidens, they are dancers, indeed! I have seen a thousand and one dancers in this anniversary—dancers, female dancers, all. But as for the dance of the maidens? This empire is great!

HARBONA: For this reason the queen bade them to entertain the women and show the greatness of the king’s empire.

AHASUERUS: Yes, I have a good wife, a beautiful wife and a queen too. But as I have commanded, go bring the maidens! (Exit Harbona). We will watch dance again, our eyes will see the dance of the virgins. Are your goblets empty? I say, serve them drinks!

ALL: (Together) We have been drinking for one hundred and eighty days!

AHASUERUS: What else? Is the king alone to drink all the wine from the one hundred and twenty-seven jurisdictional districts of the empire? Don’t complain or murmur or wink or look away or do anything else. Just drink and enjoy the riches of the empire! Those one hundred and eighty days are for all the citizens. But now, I have declared a seven - day banquet for the people of the capital city, Shushan. Yes, serve them drinks and fill my goblet as well. (Enter dancing maidens) Aha! Here they come. Dance for the king! (Dancing) I say this empire is great! (Dances resplendently with the maidens. Applause) Harbona, take them back to the women, lest they cuss the king. (Harbona takes dancers away). Our empire is mighty, my people. Now, tell me, my satraps, how the citizens fare. White Bear, I am listening.

WHITE BEAR: All Tigris and Euphrates bear the king well!

AHASUERUS: I know they do. For their wines speak volumes.

WHITE BEAR: They are in high spirits, Your Highness!

AHASUERUS: May they live long. How goes your region, Red Bear?

RED BEAR: All parts of India from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean are happy with the king. The elephant tusks speak for themselves.

AHASUERUS: I have seen them all. Peace be to the beautiful people. What of those that live by the Red Sea, Black Bear?

BLACK BEAR: All Ethiopia whether those that live by the Nile, the Lybian Desert, or by the Kilimanjaro, pray for the king.

AHASUERUS: (Overjoyed) May their days be long. This empire is blessed with people and riches. As for my wife, she is a queen and a beauty.

ALL: (Together) We know!

AHASUERUS: I know you know but here, you must know her again in all her splendor. (To Zethar) Go, call the queen! (Exit Zethar) People are blessed in different ways. There are those blessed with wisdom. Others are endowed with intellect. Yet, some are blessed with beauty from their very head even to their toes and my wife is one of them! (Touching his crown to his feet)

ALL: (Together) We know the queen! (Enter servant)

AHASUERUS: How, Zethar?

ZETHAR: (Moody) Your Highness, I called the queen but she would not come.

AHASUERUS: (Shocked) What? Is she sick or absorbed with the dancing maidens?

ZETHAR: She is none of them, Your Highness, but said not to answer the king.

ALL: (Together) That’s bad!

AHASUERUS: (Giving his drinking cup to a servant) No, it is not bad. It is good, very good. A queen to disobey the king of one hundred and twenty seven jurisdictional districts before his subjects on a festive day. It is well!

A LORD: May the king not be angery. If it pleases Your Highness, send another messenger to be double sure.

AHASUERUS: (Pacified) Alright. Go, Carkas. (Exit Carkas) Women are treacherous, more devious than the wine we drink. How can Vashti my wife disgrace me this day? (Rises, walks about meditatively and sits)

ALL: (Together) It is enough our king. Let Carkas come. (Enter Carkas)

AHASUERUS: Why so short a journey, Carkas? Did you reach there?

CARKAS: Yes, Your Highness. The queen made my journey short.

CARKAS: She chased me away!

AHASUERUS: What did you say? Pursued you like a dog?

CARKAS: Yes, Your Majesty!

ALL: (Together) That’s too bad!

AHASUERUS: (Annoyed) No, that’s too good, my people. The king’s beautiful queen is mad. I say, crazy, in the head. Where else? Now, you have seen it all.

A LORD: We will find out the matter, our king.

ALL: (Together) Indeed!

AHASUERUS: The matter is that your king’s wife is wild and crazy!

ALL: (Together) May it not be so!

AHASUERUS: It is so. (Rises and sits again)

A GOVERNOR: Yet, I pray the king. Let me go and seek the matter.

AHASUERUS: (Restless) What are you saying governer? Do a servant’s duty in my palace? Never ever! You are all witnesses to this great insult on your king.

A GOVERNOR: The king is out of sorts and we know what the decision might be. Let me, therefore, play the servant to save the situation.

ALL: (Together) It is well. Let him go.

AHASUERUS: Yes, you have spoken well. Go and see! (Exit governor) Why must my wife, the queen, disgrace me on a day like this? I only had to send for her and she would come running. Now what has happened to her? Demented she is!

TARSHISH: It is so with women, our king. Do you know that my wife called me her houseboy before the princes?

AHASUERUS: Imagine! To call a prince houseboy.

SHETHAR: It is true, Your Majesty. And I told him how my wife slapped me in the presence of my fellow princes, Tarshish and Memucan.

(Together) That’s the fact, our king. A deafening slap across the face with her left hand!

AHASUERUS: (Arms folded in surprise) Women!

PRINCES (Together): Yes, that’s what we call them and what they are. Look, the governor comes. (Enter governor)

AHASUERUS: (inquisitive) Why are you sad, governor?

A GOVERNOR: The queen is sick, Your Majesty.

AHASUERUS: Sick? What sickness has stricken her that she would not answer the king? Doctors know what names they call infirmities of the limb. Now, is it paralysis?

ALL: (together) A bad sickness, our king.

AHASUERUS: No king prays for sickness of the limbs. But let the governor diagnose what sickness it is.

A GOVERNOR: The queen is neither paralytic nor paraplegic.

AHASUERUS: Then speak, what is it?

A GOVERNOR: I do not know what name to give a queen that calls the king’s subjects drunkards on his anniversary!

ALL: (Together) Bad word!

AHASUERUS: (Rising in anger) Wait a moment. Am I still what I am? The king of Medo-Persia? The ruler of one hundred and twenty seven jurisdictional districts? You are slow of tongue, governor.

A GOVERNOR: It’s a bad word, Your Highness. The women heard it, for she spoke to their very ears! This is an insult, our king. But sit down oh king.

AHASUERUS: (Sitting down) A direct insolence on the king. The king is drunk, not you or the governors or all the princes. The king of the one hundred and twenty seven jurisdictional districts of the great Medo-Persian Empire is a lover of wine. I can bear insults but I have never been a disciple of Bacchus. As the whole empire has heard that we are all sons of Bacchus, so would they hear the punishment I will give Vashti, the queen. Now, what, according to the law, do we do to the queen?

MEMUCAN: This is not only an insult to the king but also a slap on the faces of all the regional satraps, one hundred and twenty-seven governors, advisory and special princes, including all the loyal citizens of this great empire.

ALL: Together) It is so Your Majesty!

MEMUCAN: In order to deter our women from starting a revolt against us, let Vashti be dethroned as the king’s wife.

ALL: (Together) No more, Your Highness!

AHASUERUS: That is not a just punishment for a queen who disobeys the king’s command and calls him drunk.

ALL: Together) It is enough our king!

SHETHAR: The queen’s royal position let a worthier person take. There are myriads and myriads of maidens in the empire.

ALL: (Together) You will live long, Prince Shethar!

TARSHISH: This will be proclaimed throughout the empire so that all women will honor their husbands, deaf or blind.

ALL: (Together) Exactly, our king!

AHASUERUS: The princes have spoken and their words are good. Do we now indite it as law in all the empire?

ALL: (Together) Even now!

AHASUERUS: Vashti is no more queen in this empire. Women as we say are bad but I have never seen a worse one. Let the scribes, therefore, write the king’s command in all the languages of the peoples of this empire and seal it in the king’s name. I will read the proclamation tomorrow. What a day! (Shakes head) May we retire!

ACT ONE SCENE TWO

Before the king’s palace, enter Ahasuerus followed by princes, satraps, governors, lords, soldiers, citizens and attendants.

1 CITIZEN: What does the king want with us?

2 CITIZEN: I don’t know.

1 CITIZEN: Does he want to give us more wine?

2 CITIZEN: Are you not tired of drinking?

A LORD: Who are those noise makers? Do you think we gathered you to talk?

CITIZENS: (Together) We are sorry, Your Lordship!

A LORD: Then let peace be! The king speaks.

AHASUERUS: (Worried) Satraps, governors, princes, lords and citizens. I beg to disturb your peace for…

CITIZENS: (Together) The king will live long!

A LORD: (Silencing the crowd) Peace, ho!

AHASUERUS: (Looking very sad) The peace of the land has been disturbed. A citizen of this empire has called the king and his noble men drunkards!

CITIZENS: (Together) Let him be hanged, our king!

A LORD: (Still calming the crowd) Peace, I pray you!

AHASUERUS: The life of the offender will be spared.

CITIZENS: (Together) The king is merciful!

A LORD: Silence, I say!

AHASUERUS: Let it be known to you all that the offender is Queen Vashti, the wife of the king!

CITIZENS: (Together) Very bad!

A LORD: Don’t talk into the king’s mouth!

CITIZENS: (Prostrating) We beg the king’s pardon!

AHASUERUS: Vashti disobeyed the king’s command and called him a drunk. For this, she is no more the queen of this land. Her position another takes and let it serve as a warning to all the women of the empire.

CITIZENS: (Together) The queen did wrong, our king!

A LORD: She is no longer queen, don’t you hear?

CITIZENS: (Prostrating) May the king pardon his subjects!

AHASUERUS: Here, let me read the proclamation. (Reading) Queen Vashti having transgressed against King Ahasuerus of the great Medo-Persian Empire, is hereby charged with the following offences: disobedience, insubordination, disrespect, insolence, disloyalty. . .

A LORD: (Shouting at the crowd) Let peace be! You interrupt the king. (Silence)

AHASUERUS: (Continues reading) Because of the offence of Vashti and in order not to set our women in revolt against us, she is hereby dethroned as the queen of Shushan. The title “Queen” is automatically withdrawn from her and the law will punish any citizen who so addresses her. (Applause) This decree is signed by my seal, the king of Persia. (Stops reading) The governors and princes will read copies of this in the languages of their respective royal jurisdictional districts. Now, go about your business. (Motioning them to go away)

1 CITIZEN: (Aside) This is shameful!

3 CITIZEN: I heard the queen say so. She called the king drunkard.

2 CITIZEN: Who do you call “queen”?

A LORD: (Angrily) What are you waiting and talking about? The king says away!

CITIZENS: (Prostrating) We thank the king! (Exit citizens)

AHASUERUS: The people are surprised. Yes, let them know now what awaits any woman who displeases her husband.

A PRINCE: Your Royal Highness, who replaces the former queen?

AHASUERUS: That we will discuss presently. All of you are to gather the beautiful young virgins in your jurisdictional districts. These you will bring to the palace, Shushan, to be beautified and massaged with expensive oils by the king’s eunuch for twelve months. The maiden that delights the king will become queen.