By
Anote Ajeluorou
Perhaps,
you have not read the amazing story of Esther in the bible, and how she brought
Godly enlightenment to a people, who ordinarily had nothing to do with the
Jewish God who resides in the Heavens. Well, a first-time novelist, Titi
Horsfall, has carved a delightful piece of tale from the life of a once peasant
woman, who warmed her way into the heart of one of most powerful kings on earth,
king of Medo-Persian empire, King Darius.
For Horsfall, Esther’s story should be
every woman’s story, as persons who should strive daily towards godly virtues
in all they do. Esther and her parents were in ancient Babylon as captives when
soldiers burst into their living room and killed her parents for persevering in
propagating Jewish religion to their young ones. She thus became an orphan and was
passed onto the care of her uncle, Mordecai to be brought up.
Soon after, the Media and Persians
struck impregnable Babylon and it fell. They took the Jews into captivity again
in a place farther away from Jerusalem. Esther and Mordecai were shepherded to
the Median and Persian capital, Shushan, where Mordecai, with her ward Esther,
and other Jews settled for a peasant life in a camp.
Life became a drudgery for young
Esther, who still mourned her parents’ brutal killing. Then one day, things
began to change both for Esther and her guardian. Queen Vashti, wife of King
Darius, refuses to respond to her husband’s call to show her off before his
important guests. This provokes to king to great anger, enough to reject her as
his wife and queen of the Medo-Persian empire. The king orders for fresh
maidens and virgins to be brought from all over the empire before him so he
could choose one for his new queen.
Mordecai, who works at the king’s gate,
sees God’s hand in the contest for the king’s heart and promptly sets up Esther
for the contest that was to change the history of a vast empire. He dismisses
Esther’s protestations of peasantry and diffidence. In a year-long contest,
Esther, a Jew and foreigner, emerges winner and the king’s choice of wife and
queen over the daughters of the land. This remarkable feat by a peasant girl of
no consequence from another land in winning the heart of the king can only be
viewed as something of a miracle.
By the time the king discovers that his
beloved queen is a Jew, so much has happened such that even the King Darius has
begun to pay obeisance to the Jewish God who resides in the heavens. So much so
that her only son, who is eighth in line, is willed the vast kingdom and is
made king in spite of fierce opposition from the older sons from Vashti. In all
this, God’s hand plays a major role as the godly teachings of Mordecai become
Esther’s beacon and daily guide in all she does.
Even in the heat of the most difficult
periods in that foreign empire, Esther’s trust and faith in her God see her and
her Jewish people through, especially when the highest ranking political officer
after the king, Hamman is intent on destroying the Jews because Mordecai fails
to bow before him in greeting. The Jewish weapons of prayer and fasting in
bringing their petition before God and Mordecai’s act of loyalty to the kind help
them to prevail over their enemies.
Eventually, Esther leads a triumphant
train back to Jerusalem where rebuilding work on the Temple of Solomon for the
restoration of the Jewish people after many years as slaves in foreign lands
starts.
In From an Orphan to a Queen Esther,
Horsfall
has crafted a convincing and full-fleshed narrative out of a simple biblical
tale. The work is a result of careful study and research into the history of
the Middle East and the great empires that sprang and fell to provide the
author a rich tapestry on which she weaves her narrative. She accounts for the
opulent lifestyles, the vast wealth of the Medo-Persian empire, the customs and
traditions and what emerges is a fine, believable and realistic portraiture of
the characters.
In Horsfall’s imagination, the ancient
become modern as this narrative speaks the heart of a fine heroine who ventures
into alien territory and emerges a conqueror in spite of great odds around her.
Hamman’s fall from grace to grass and eventual annihilation and Mordecai’s rise
from nothing to the highest post in a foreign land are counterpoints of which
legends are made. Horsfall brings all these together in a neat tale. Her
descriptive power is also assured, especially of nature and human intuition as
espoused in the development of Esther’s winsome personality.
This is how she starts the narrative in
the ‘Prologue’, as Queen Esther reflects on the years that have gone by and how
she came to be where she was as a beloved queen in a foreign land, “The garden
lay warm and inviting. In a profusion of hues, flowers blossomed lushly with
colours of the rainbow. Their scents hung heavily in the still air. In a small
fenced-off pond, swans glided gracefully in bliss, while not far off her
soft-gray eyes misted over. Her gaze rested on the weeping willow which framed
and cast dark shadows over the bathing pond. She walked slowly on unsteady feet
to this favourite spot.
“Her beauty, which transcended time, was
shielded with her thick, white tresses like clouds cresting the mountain peaks.
Her beauty was such that only the heavens could give, for the turbulent years
had not drained her fountain of youth. As she walked towards the weeping
willow, she stopped to pluck her favourite flower, a myrtle. In its distinct
scent, she revelled in the pleasure of the moment and stared across the expanse
of the pond, drinking in its rich beauty. As she walked on, she mused that
there are certain things in life one can never get enough of. This is one such
thing. This was her favourite spot. It was her place of worship, a place of
communion with God. It was her place of quiet reflection”.
Indeed, it was such reflection, such
communion with her God that made her transcendent life possible! Horsfall’s From
Orphan to a Queen Esther is a reverting read.
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