Chapter 7: The Trap is Sprung
The second party is underway. The same people are in attendance, but the mood is drastically different.
Yesterday, Achashverosh was intrigued at the banquet; he had no idea why it was being thrown, and no clue as to why Haman was invited. His attitude was one of curiosity. Today, he is already upset with Haman, but he's still unsure about how Esther fits in with Haman's schemes. So he's still curious, but with a more menacing overtone.
Haman was on cloud nine yesterday. A party with the royal couple, another in the works, more money than he could ever spend, and a solid plan to do away with the Jews. He was as happy as a pig in slop. Today, this party is the last place he wants to be. He knows the king is furious with him (although he doesn't really know why), he was unable to carry out the simple task of framing and executing a lower-level courtier, and he had to humiliate himself as a grandmarshall at a Jew's parade that should have been for him. Nothing is going his way, and the horizon doesn't look any clearer.
Esther sees all of this, and is confident that her plan is working.
Once again, Achashverosh offers his grand gesture to Esther. If it takes half his kingdom, he will get to the bottom of all this.
"Whatever your request may be, my queen, it shall be granted. Even if you ask for half of the kingdom, it shall be given to you."
Esther knows that she can't delay the king any longer. She proceeds with her master stroke:
"If the king really loves me, and if his majesty sees fit, my request is for my life and my wish is to save my people. My people have been sold out for complete and total annihilation. Had we merely been sold as slaves, I would have kept quiet for we are all servants to his majesty in any case. But this wholesale massacre is not in the king's best interests because it threatens his queen."
A threat on the queen's life?! Another royal assassination attempt?! This is bittersweet news to Achashverosh. On the one hand, he's happy that Esther's machinations have nothing to do with marital infidelity; she's not cheating on him. On the other hand, his paranoia is raging, trying to figure out who would hatch a plan that would harm the queen.
"Who? Who is so brazen that he would think to carry out such a plan?"
Esther lays her last card down on the table:
"A villainous man who is a traitor to the crown: the wicked Haman, sitting right here."
Haman goes stark white. What the heck just happened?! Now they're BOTH upset with him?
The king is enraged. He gets up and leaves the banquet to process what he's just heard. (I always pictured him getting up from the banquet table with a roar of anger, flipping over his table like an angry cowboy in an old-west saloon calling another dude a yellow-bellied cheat. But that's just me.)
Haman uses this opportunity to try and weasel his way out of this mess. He goes over to Esther's couch and pleads with her to explain what just happened, and beg for her to have mercy on him. He knows now that the king is upset with him because of her. So he has got to smooth things over with her, so that the king won't kill him.
As the king came back in to the banquet room form his moment of fresh air outside, Haman trips and falls on Esther. This guy can't catch a break. The king sees this and gets even angrier:
"It's not enough that you plot and scheme against the queen's life, you want to take her while I'm right here?!"
Just then, one of the guards in attendance named Charvona pipes in:
"Your majesty, I happen to know that Haman has erected a gallows in his estate for the purpose of hanging Mordechai. His highness remembers Mordechai - they guy who saved your life? Yeah, Haman wants to hang him on his special gallows."
Where did this come from? Who's this Charvona guy? And how does he know all this?
Charvona was mentioned as an advisor to the king earlier in the story, but now he's been reduced to guard duty. As for the gallows, they were just built last night. The only people aware of its existence was Haman, his family, and his friends. So it can be safely assumed that Charvona was a friend of Haman's. So why rat him out like this? Because as is mentioned in the courtroom scene of Goodfellas, a rat will do anything to save itself. And as soon as he sees Haman's ship not just damaged, but sinking - like a good rat, he jumps ship.
As for Achashverosh, he's heard enough. This vizier of his has been plotting and scheming for years now, all behind the king's back. He alone influences the king; he hatched a plan that would get rid of the queen; he dreams of parading around in royal garments; and now it seems he wants to repay saving the king's life with execution! That's the final straw:
"He has a gallows? Good. Hang him on it."
And so Haman was hanged on the very gallows he'd built. And the anger of the king subsided.
The End.....isn't it?
I mean, the bad guy lost, so it's over. Right?
In the words of Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club: Not. Even. Close. Bud!
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