Hmm.... What happened to Romans 13?

In Esther 3 there is a very interesting bit of info. Here's the text 3:1 After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. 2 And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. 3 Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king's command?” 4 And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury.
What's so interesting is that there is a direct command from the king and Mordecai ignores it. It doesn't seem like anything will be lost in honoring God (unlike burning incense to the Roman Emperor in the New Testament) if Mordecai bows down to Haman. Granted, Haman is part of an ethnic group that is a deep enemy of Israel--but does that mean that the ruling authorities can be ignored?
The rabbis have long struggled with this. They've come up with a couple of creative solutions, but none with any Biblical backing. One solution is to say that Haman was wearing an idol on a chain around his next, so to bow to Haman was to bow to an idol. Another solution is to say it is only proper to bow down to God. But if this later is the case then there are a lot of folks in the Old Testament who bowed down to kings that are in a world of hurt.
Perhaps a better way of looking at this is to take what Mordecai did at face value: he refused a direct order of the king. Once we've established this and established the Haman is an enemy of the people of God then we begin examining why this would cause Mordecai to refuse to bow. Along with this is the question of how we deal with those who are enemies of God in places of power today. Paul had no problem in Romans 13 telling us to show honor to those who deserve honor and in Timothy telling us to pray for those who rule over us. How do we juxtapose Paul's words with the actions of Mordecai? This could make for a rather fun and perhaps heated discussion.