Jezebel by R. G. Mint

The mosaic floor in the bed chamber depicted scene after scene of war, violence, and death. It was a fitting aesthetic appreciation for the queen, who waited for news—any news—and traced the warm sunlight setting across the tiled artwork. Myrrh burned. The scent of the incense was a sweet and welcome distraction from what was to come.

“Word from the battle, my queen,” a foot soldier huffed at the end of his run. “Your son, the king, has fallen by Jehu’s hand.” He caught his breath in the moments waiting for his queen’s response.

“And what of Jehu?” The queen turned toward her balcony, unwilling to show whatever reaction her face may convey.

More calm but still ensconced in his duty, the foot soldier spoke again. “He rides for Jezreel. He will be at the palace by sundown.”

The battle had been lost to the dowager queen’s peril. A loss made worse still by the approaching usurper. Though feather-bedded and gilded in fineries, her life had been one of political unrest and religious tumult. It came to her as no surprise that her end should be of a similar kind.

"I'm sorry, my queen," the soldier said. "Might we slip you out of the royal city, go to your late father's kingdom, perhaps—"

"There is no affection for me in my father's kingdom," the queen responded. "There is no affection for me in any kingdom." Her bejeweled hair and bangled wrists, jangling like bells, echoed as the only audible sound when she approached the soldier. "Assure me you will still do what must be done."

"But, my queen, surely you will wish for sanctuary. It is not too late—"

"I will meet my end here. It has been foretold. My eunuchs will stay with me in my final moments, but you must vow to do as I have commanded." She spoke of Jehu's forces and how they would be received into the city with garlands of triumph. She had prepared for a victory of her enemy's forces and, as such, required the utmost loyalty from those few who remained.

"I swear, my queen," the soldier said, bowing to his sovereign for the final time.

"Alert them all. The servants, the scribes, every last one. They've sat in wait for a day such as this. Go, relay this final message, and leave the palace. Leave the royal city entirely. Upon completing this final task, you will be released from my service and the service of any others. And you receive the blessing of a queen."

She handed him a large ruby in gratitude for his devotion and as payment bequeathed for following her instructions. The soldier accepted his gift with a final bow, to which the queen nodded in return. His speed increased as he left her chambers and traveled to the rest of the palace, informing those who remained of the queen's long-laid plans.

The following hours left the queen in royal solidarity, for she remained the only royal in the royal city. She called for her eunuchs, dutiful until the end, and sat on a cushioned seat while they painted her in preparation for Jehu’s arrival.

A purveyor of pageantry, the queen was unlikely to abandon such a principle even in her final hours. The men painted her until she grew satisfied with their work. On each finger, rings of gold and gemstone were placed. Entwined in her lustrous hair, they wove fragrant jasmine flowers matching the scented oil rubbed on her skin. Her appearance was as cohesive as it was lavish, providing her the pinnacle of status she once held.

The reminiscence left her longing for a past long lost, one in which she reigned with unparalleled authority. “Remain here,” she told them once her visage was as she desired. “Call for me when he arrives, I wish to walk the grounds one last time.”

The eunuchs never spoke in return but did as they were bade. Each of them—two men of nondescript appearance and attire—stood guard at her balcony window overlooking the gates to the palace. Through such gates, Jehu would soon arrive, and the queen languished in her final moments strolling through her now-vacant palace.

Every frescoed wall held a memory, each carved chamber a story. Her homeland had become a legend to her—one in which she was born of one king and married to another. Ahab, her late husband and king of Israel, had been arranged for her as a political match, and her grasp on power had been decided once they wed. The king had his god, Yahweh, the queen her own in Asherah and Baal, and the religious tolerance she sought began in the palace.

Prophets of Yahweh had proven a hindrance to her, however, complicating matters and subjecting her to dynastic insecurity. They plagued her still in backing the enemy Jehu, a zealous figurehead who slew her last remaining son and king and now rode to slay her.

Thinking of her rivals, the queen dawdled through her courtyards and covered gardens, landing in her throne room. In one such throne room, that enemy prophet foretold the queen’s death in the very city she now sheltered within. All in retribution for her husband’s acceptance of foreign gods in tandem with his own god, the very god whose prophet condemned the royal line.

Admittedly, she met her rivals with swift and determined force, willingly subjecting dissenters to death and imprisonment. But she assured herself by assuring her husband that they would have done the same were they in power. Their adverse tantrums to Ahab’s decrees under his queen’s imploring led to the quarreling, which compounded into warfare. Battles had claimed her husband and left her to rule in the stead of her sons while they grew of age.

One son was claimed by illness, the other now killed by Jehu in the prime of his reign. Enemies had taken from the queen what she held dear, all the while smearing her as a spirited heathen queen pouring her wicked honey into the ears of any king she could get to listen. Never would she have viewed herself as such, yet fighting the title of temptress would be a fool's errand.

The braying of distant horses turned the queen’s head, pulling her from her reveries.

“He approaches, my queen!”

The eunuchs called her, and on her return to her upper chambers she pulled a small vial from her embroidered robes and swallowed the bitter liquid with resolve. Back in her apartments, the queen knelt at a small altar and whispered a prayer to a statue depicting Asherah, her Great Mother and Lady of the Sea. An exchange from mortal queen to divine goddess.

“Shall we remove it, Your Majesty?” one eunuch said concerning the divine effigy.

“No. Let him find it. His blood may boil at the sight of it.” With a wink, she shared a final laugh with her two remaining servants and watched them to consume the same draught she had. Then she went to the window and met the eyes of Jehu.

He sat upon a large horse, the strength of his army behind him. The city people had been warned and welcomed him. The soldiers were for sacking the royal palace.

“Queen Jezebel, Daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, I address you!”

“I can imagine why you withhold the honorifics granted to me by my late husband, but for one who fights for such a self-proclaimed ‘rightful purpose,’ I find myself surprised nonetheless.”

The freshly-anointed king, replacing the one he had slain hours prior, bellowed laughter along with his men.

“Your husband deserved no authority, nor did he have a divine right to the throne of Israel as I do. As an idolatrous blasphemer, you are entitled to even less.”

At his words, the queen laughed in turn.

“And who spoke of such rights? The prophets who, in their opposition, sought to remove me from my husband’s side? And for what but a disagreement of religious practice.”

“One prophet divined your husband’s death as punishment for falling prey to your machinations, and it came to pass. What cause do I have to dismiss the prophecy of another?”

“A convenience of politicking. They grant you an imagined entitlement and throw you their patronage to spite me. You were merely the closest acceptable figure.”

The new king’s resentment tightened his expression, a consequence of the queen’s outspoken undermining of his ascendancy. From his hip, he withdrew a bronze sword formerly sheathed within a leather scabbard. He pointed it toward the queen, who was looking down on him from her balcony window.

“You know your fate as well as I do. Don’t tarry with petty jests.” At his command, soldiers released wild hounds which circled the ground beneath the queen. “Eunuchs of the queen! I, your king, command you to throw her from her great height. She will feed the dogs while I dine in her palace!”

Behind the queen, each eunuch grabbed at their ruler and hoisted her onto the ledge of the balcony balustrade. But they held her still. The men on the ground turned to each other in confusion for the eunuchs’ inaction.

“Why defy your king?” Jehu spoke, face reddening.

“They’ve chosen to follow me in death, Jehu. You hold no power over them.” Her footing began to waver as the liquid concoction took effect. She would black out, a painless end, but before it occurred, she’d reveal her final requital.

“I came to this foreign land with its foreign gods and was punished for keeping my own. I came not to destroy your god but rather to join him to my own, to make tolerance the currency of the realm…” Her speech fractured, and her vision tunneled. “But tolerance was not in the hearts of your prophets. No, it was supremacy. And I was too much a threat to the supremacy of your god. I admit to staving off attacks from your prophets, acts provoked but for their ceaseless grapple for power.”

“You speak to deaf ears, heathen queen.”

“I speak only to you, Jehu. At this moment, while we hold our mock court, every servant, soldier, and courtier has vacated the palace. And with them, they’ve taken the treasures of the kingdom to be dispersed among your enemies. And it was a vast swath of riches, I assure you.”

Face plum-colored, the new king spoke enraged. “You sacrifice your legacy and those of the sons you bore? For what beyond a cheap slight to the new king?”

“What care have I for legacy? My husband was killed, as was his last son and successor. You saw to that. As foretold, I will die here in the royal city. I have nothing more to lose. So, as your prophets have foretold your victory, I curse you with my final act. Each servant and soldier loyal to me has been sent to hide and wait for the opportunity to strike at you. They will plague your reign, for they will move about concealed, always in the shadows, always a threat unseen, housing daggers behind their back and poison in their pockets.”

Her vision began to fail her, the poison taking full effect, but she continued.

“My palace, my family’s kingdom, will be granted to you at the price of your own sanity. Let it drive you mad, knowing not who among you can be trusted. You may tarnish my name, but you will never wash clean the stain of fear and suspicion, a fate far worse than my own.”

The eunuchs collapsed behind her, and she knew her death was upon her.

“Be vigilant, Jehu. And may your paranoia consume you.”

At her final words, the queen fell from her window. The last sound she heard was a rageful scream overlayed by barking hounds.