Dreamers

by Angela Hunt

  Praise for the novels of

  ANGELA HUNT

  “Prolific novelist Hunt knows how to hold a reader’s interest, and her latest yarn is no exception…Hunt packs the maximum amount of drama into her story, and the pages turn quickly. The present tense narration lends urgency as the perspective switches among various characters. Readers may decide to take the stairs after finishing this thriller.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Elevator

  “Christy Award and Holt Medallion winner Hunt skillfully builds tension and keeps the plot well paced and not overly melodramatic.”

  —Library Journal on The Elevator

  “Angela Hunt has over three million copies of her award-winning novels in print today, and this poignant tale about breast cancer will only help to make the number rise. Jonah and Jacquelyn are both strong characters, and the medical terminology is well-written without confusing the reader. Both must learn to trust in a God they weren’t sure really cared about them anymore, and ultimately find that God’s grace will see them through.”

  —Romance Junkies on A Time to Mend

  “Only a skillful novelist could create such a multilayered, captivating portrait of Mary Magdalene…Hunt’s attention to detail in her historical research, combined with her bright imagination, fills in the sketchy biographical facts and creates a fascinating and convincing Magdalene. First-rate biblical fiction.”

  —Library Journal on Magdalene

  Also by

  ANGELA HUNT

  A Time to Mend

  The Elevator

  The Face

  ANGELA HUNT

  Dreamers

  LEGACIES OF THE ANCIENT RIVER

  Refreshed version, newly revised by author

  CONTENTS

  TUYA

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  POTIPHAR

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  SAGIRA

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  YOSEF

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MENKHEPRURE, PHARAOH TUTHMOSIS IV

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  AMENHOTEP III

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  For Gary

  But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  —“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”

  William Butler Yeats

  TUYA

  And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

  Genesis 37:19–20

  Prologue

  Dothan

  The collision of bones and rock stopped his fall.

  He did not immediately lose consciousness, but gasped in the depths of the narrow cistern, his limbs and tongue and vision paralyzed by shock and a wave of unspeakable horror. Murder had gleamed in their eyes. Did they truly hate him so much?

  Pinpricks of pain ripped along every nerve of his body, and after a moment of senseless suppression Yosef released the scream clawing in his throat. The sound echoed through the rock-walled cistern and grew into a chorus of agonized cries. From somewhere above him, his brothers heard. And laughed.

  Familiar voices, crackling sharply in hostility, came spiraling down from the mouth of the cavern. “Hear that? The dreamer is not hurt badly enough. We should have found a deeper pit.”

  “The brat isn’t so high and mighty now. Yet just last month he had visions of authority and power!”

  “They were but the dreams of a seventeen-year-old, for all youths think themselves invincible and immortal. Even you, Dan, were of such a mind when you were his age.”

  “Dan never had the gall to predict that even our father would bow down to him. Yet our father scrapes before the boy already, he gives Yosef everything—”

  “We should kill him, I tell you. If he survives, this talebearer will run to our father. He’ll take even our birthrights, for he is the pampered favorite—”

  “Yehuda is right, our father sides with the would-be king in every argument. Have you noticed how the old man smiles at him? My stomach churns when I think of it. My own son is older, stronger and better-favored, and yet—”

  “I despise his pride, as do you.” Re’uven’s voice quieted the others and echoed in the pit. Listening below, the boy bit his lip in an effort to quiet his involuntary moaning as Re’uven continued: “I, too, have reason to hate him. I should receive the first-born’s inheritance, but I know our father will honor this stripling with the largest share of his goods. But we are of the same flesh. I cannot kill him, and neither can you.”

  “Then we will have someone else do it.” Dan’s voice brimmed with eagerness. “If you are hesitant, Re’uven, I will hire someone to spill his precious blood over this cursed coat—”

  “We will say a lion caught him,” Levi interrupted. “Our father will believe it, and we will forever be rid of the troublemaker.”

  Re’uven’s stentorian voice hushed the others. “Would you have our father die of grief? We will not kill him. We shall leave him here, and let him ponder his own fate. Let him who aspires to rise a king pass the night in the depths of the earth.”

  The brothers mumbled and murmured, but most of them moved away. “I’d still like to spill his guts,” Asher grumbled, his voice overriding the fading voices. “Look at him whimpering there! If he rises from this pit, our father will never forgive us for his injuries. But if we cut out his tongue, he will never boast again.”

  “We’ll shed no blood before dinner,” Re’uven answered. “Come, Asher, our meal is waiting.”

  Yosef remained still until he was certain the last of his brothers had gone, then he struggled to focus his blurred vision on the walls around him. Re’uven would not let them kill him. Re’uven was respected; he would be obeyed, but for how long? Murderous intent might bring any of the brothers back during the night with a dagger thirsting for blood.

  He had to escape. He pulled his heavy head from the rock and steeled himself to ignore the white-hot pain that shot along his limbs as he fumbled against the stone beneath him. His left arm would not cooperate, and when he glanced down at his side he saw why: above his elbow, where there had once been smooth skin and healthy muscle, a white shard of jagged bone protruded from an oozing red wound.

  A hoarse cry escaped his lips as unconsciousness claimed him.

  Chapter One

  Thebes, Egypt

  A high-pitched giggle broke the stillness of the garden. From between the branches of the bush where she hid, Tuya saw her mistress pause in mid-step on the path. “Tuya, I command you to speak,” Sagira called, peering around the slender
trunk of an acacia tree. “You must make more noise, or how am I to find you?”

  Tuya deliberately rustled the ivy on the wall behind her, but the noise was slight and Sagira did not turn toward the sound. Finally Tuya took a deep breath and spoke: “Life, prosperity and health to you, my lady!”

  “Aha!” Sagira turned and sprinted toward Tuya’s hiding place as the slave girl darted from the bush. “I found you!”

  “But you haven’t caught me!” Tuya cried, arching away from Sagira’s grasping hands.

  The two girls ran, laughing, through the garden, until Sagira tripped over a rock at the edge of the pond. Pinwheeling, she struggled to keep her balance, then surrendered to the pull of the earth and fell with a splash into the shallow water.

  Tuya’s heart leapt into her throat, but after a moment Sagira sat up and howled with a twelve-year-old’s unrestrained glee. Tuya laughed, too, then stopped. The lady Kahent might be watching. Would she have Tuya whipped for this mishap? She glanced toward the house. “I am sorry, mistress, truly I am.”

  Sagira pulled dark ribbons of wet hair from her face and stood in the knee-deep water, then took a deep, happy breath. “It wasn’t your fault, Tuya,” she said, moving to the edge of the pool. Her thin linen sheath clung to her wet body and accented her budding figure. A trace of mud lay across her delicate face and her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. “Would you like me to pull you in? The water is wonderfully cool.”

  “No, my lady.” Tuya looked toward the house again. “I should not like to muss my dress. Your mother would not approve.”

  “Then I command you to keep still.” The floating lotus plants jostled each other as Sagira climbed out of the pool. “Our little game is not done.”

  Tuya stood as still as a post, her arms hanging rigid until her mistress dripped in front of her. “There!” Sagira clapped wet hands on the slave’s bare shoulders. “I caught you! I win again!”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “I must win.” Sagira grinned wickedly as she flung water from her hands into Tuya’s face. “It is only fitting that Pharaoh’s niece should win in everything she undertakes.”

  Tuya said nothing, but smiled as Sagira pirouetted in front of the long reflecting pool. She paused and studied her watery image. “Do you think me beautiful, Tuya?”

  Tuya lowered her gaze as she pondered her answer. Should she speak as a friend and tease Sagira about the small gap between her front teeth? Or should she reply as a dutiful servant and assure her mistress that no girl in the two kingdoms could rival her beauty and charm?

  Not an easy decision, for Tuya had lately been reminded of the solid line between friendship and servanthood. She had been only six years old when presented as a gift for Sagira’s third birthday, and as children they had shared everything. But though she often felt like Sagira’s older sister, when her mistress’s red moon had begun to flow, Sagira’s mother, the lady Kahent, had urged her daughter to put aside her baby name and assume a mantle of dignity. Her new name, Sagira, or ‘little one,’ referred to her petite frame.

  Tuya had never been called anything but Tuya, for slaves were not permitted the luxury of adult names, and of late Sagira’s mother had been quick to emphasize the gulf existing between masters and their slaves. Certain attitudes and actions were proper while others were not. Twice Tuya had been whipped for overstepping the bounds of propriety, but Sagira seemed not to have noticed the newfound care with which Tuya formulated her answers, attitudes and comments.

  Diplomacy won out. “You are beautiful, mistress,” Tuya whispered, lowering her head in an attitude of deference. “Lucky is the man who will be your husband.”

  “And you, Tuya? Do you never dream of marriage?” Sagira cocked her head and gave her slave an engaging smile. “Do you wonder what it is like to kiss a man? To sleep with him as my mother sleeps with my father?”

  Tuya felt her cheeks burning. “I dare not think of those things,” she said, stealing a quick glance toward the wide doors that opened into the courtyard. “I am your servant. I will go where you go, and serve you always.”

  “Tuya.” Sagira’s voice rang with reproach, for she had seen her servant’s frightened glance. She took Tuya’s hand and pulled her into the privacy of an arbor. “You can speak freely now,” she said, a slow smile crossing her face. “You need not fear my mother.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t pretend with me, Tuya. I know about the whippings. Even though you acted as though nothing had happened, I saw the mark of the lash on your shoulders and asked Tanutamon about them. He said my mother ordered both whippings.”

  “I am sure I deserved them.” Tuya’s stomach tightened as her ears strained for sounds of eavesdroppers beyond the trees. Would even this conversation be reported to Lady Kahent?

  Sagira’s eyes lit with understanding. “You did not deserve it. The first time was because you were wearing my jewels, but you did not tell my mother I asked you to model them for me. And the second time was because we were laughing together—”

  “I was too familiar. A slave should not be on such close terms.”

  “You are my friend, Tuya. We have laughed and cried together since I was a baby. Can we stop being friends now?”

  Tuya smiled in a fleeting moment of hope. Sagira seemed earnest, and her mother could not see into the thickly green arbor. Perhaps she could safely open her heart.

  “I do not know how to behave anymore,” she confessed, lifting her gaze. “Your mother says now that you are grown, I must be your servant, not your friend. She said although you may confide in me, I must not speak what is on my heart, for no one cares what a slave thinks.”

  Sagira flushed to the roots of her hair. “She did not say such a thing!”

  Tuya pressed her lips together and kept silent.

  “My mother is the best mistress any slave could have,” Sagira said, turning on Tuya with a flash of defensive spirit. She crossed her arms and sat on a low bench in the arbor. “Our slaves have greater freedom than any house I’ve seen. My father is as rich in graciousness as he is in gold.”

  Tuya slowly lowered herself to the bench. “You are right, my lady.”

  Sagira sniffed. “Well, then, you do not need to worry about anything. And I have a surprise for you. When I am married, I shall take you out of this house and give you your freedom. Then you can marry as well, and we shall live next to each other and talk every day as we do now.”

  Hope rose from Tuya’s heart like a startled bird. “You would do that?”

  “Truly.” Sagira’s eyes glowed. “And then you shall tell me all about your husband just as you told me about what to expect with the flowering of my red moon. And when you have a baby—” Sagira looked down and twisted her hands “—you shall tell me if it is truly as terrible as it seems.”

  “It cannot be too terrible,” Tuya softened her voice, realizing that Sagira now spoke out of fear. “I am sure that bearing the child of a man you love must be a great joy. And the priests say that offerings to the goddess Taweret will keep evil away from a woman giving birth.”

  The two girls sat in silence, pondering the mysterious rites they were just beginning to understand. Overhead, a hawk scrolled the hot updrafts, precise and unconcerned, a part of the sky. Tuya envied his freedom.

  “Do you ever think about love, Tuya?” Sagira said, running her hands through her wet hair.

  “Love?”

  “How and when it begins. My mother says love comes after marriage, but I have heard scandalous things from some of the other servants. They say one of the serving girls fell in love with one of the shepherds. For the love of this shepherd, she openly defied Tanutamon. He sold her that very morning for her rebellion.”

  “I am sure,” Tuya said, a creeping uneasiness rising from the bottom of her heart, “that the captain of your father’s slaves acted wisely. Rebellion cannot be tolerated.”

  Sagira tilted her head and gave Tuya a searching look. “You wouldn’t do that, wou
ld you? Fall in love with some man and leave me?”

  “I don’t think love is meant for one like me,” Tuya answered slowly. “I love you, mistress. I want to follow wherever you go. I have not left your side in nine years, so I am not likely to leave it now.”

  “Nor would I have you leave it,” Sagira answered, now serious. She reached out and clasped Tuya’s hands. “By all the gods, Tuya, my heart goes into shock when I think of marrying and leaving my father’s house. Only because I know you will be with me can I think about going at all.”

  Tuya’s heart warmed at the light of dependence in her young mistress’s eyes. “There is no need to worry. Your mother and father are in no hurry to find a husband for you. You are no commoner, Sagira. Pharaoh himself must be consulted.”

  Sagira sighed, then her mocking smile returned. “Then we will marry at the same time, and you will be my friend always.” She planted a brief kiss on Tuya’s cheek, then dropped Tuya’s hands and stood to stretch. “Oh, this wet dress grows cold! Come, find me a dry garment, and bind my hair. We will play the hiding game in my chamber until my mother tells us it is time to eat.”

  Tuya smiled and hurried to match her mistress’s eager step.

  The girls’ happy voices danced ahead of them into the house. Reclining on a pillow-laden couch in the villa’s reception room, Kahent heard the sound. “Our daughter is growing up,” she whispered, her dark, liquid voice intended for her husband’s ears alone.