by Angela Hunt
“Nonsense.” Sagira slipped her hand around his upper arm. “You were upset.”
“What I did was not appropriate.”
“There is no one here but you and me, and we shall judge what is appropriate.” Sagira smiled, her eyes bright. “I cried on your shoulder once, remember? I have only returned your kindness.” She leaned into him. “What upset you, my Paneah? The sight of the tombs? We do not fear death, you know. We are only afraid of being caught unprepared for it.”
He shook his head. “The whirlwind reminded me of my brothers. I try not to think about my family, for the memory is painful, but a moment ago I would have leapt into that chariot and driven northward to find them if you—”
He meant to say that he belonged to Sagira and couldn’t very well steal her chariot and leave her stranded, but she seemed to find a deeper meaning in his words, for she pressed her lips to his shoulder. He clenched his fist, resisting the urge to pull away. To do so would offend her, and she had been kind. After all, in his weakness, he had reached for her.
She pressed her warm cheek to his upper arm. “You would not leave me, would you?”
“No, mistress,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably. He propped his elbows on his knees and gripped his hands.
“A moment ago you called me Sagira,” she said, looking up at him. “I would have you call me that whenever we are alone. In fact—” she lifted her arm in an imperial gesture “—I command it.”
“As you wish…Sagira.” He couldn’t resist smiling at her playfulness. Perhaps he had misread her. She could be quite charming, and he couldn’t deny a quiet pride in his position. Of all the slaves, he alone had managed to befriend her.
“You are quick to please me,” she murmured, her eyes watering in the wind.
“I am your slave.”
“You are my friend.”
He inclined his head, remembering the fellowship they had shared over the past two months. “If friendship is possible between a slave and mistress, I suppose we are.”
“Of course it is possible.” She pouted prettily. “Friends want to make each other happy, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And a slave aims to make his mistress happy, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is no contradiction in the matter.” She slid across the mat until she sat facing him, then her arms fell lightly across his shoulders. “Kiss me, Paneah. The kiss of friendship.”
When he frowned, not at all pleased with this turn of the conversation, she threw back her head and laughed. “If you could see your face,” she said, locking her hands behind his neck. “By the eye of Horus, Paneah, what do you think I intend? I am a married woman!”
He forced a smile. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Have you never heard of the kiss of friendship? Potiphar kisses Pharaoh’s leg every time he stands before him, and only truly important people are allowed to kiss the royal leg. But when I offer you a chance to kiss my lips because you are a special friend, you gaze at me as though I had sprouted the horns of Thoth!”
He chuckled, and did not protest when she placed her hands on his face and brought her lips close to his. “See, a kiss is not torture,” she said, smiling against his mouth.
Though he felt ridiculous, he managed a reply. “No.”
She pulled away, still smiling, then leaned forward and deliberately gave him a childish peck. Yosef bore the kiss with good humor, then gripped his hands, eager to begin the journey back to the villa. His spoiled mistress could be a trifle dangerous when she did not get her way. If only she would finish this little game so they could begin the journey home…
She rose to her knees and pulled his head back, studying him as if he were a life-size doll. “I am glad you do not wear a wig, Paneah,” she said, splaying her fingers through his hair. “Your hair is black as a raven’s wing, and as lovely as you are.”
“Mistress—” he tried to pull away “—the sun dips toward the west. This heat will tire you unless we leave soon.”
“In a moment.” She took a deep breath and lowered her gaze fully into his. “Kiss me as a man kisses the woman he loves.” A small smile curled her lips. “Lie with me here, under the sun.”
“No.” The word sprang from him before he had time to think. He struggled to rise, but she had planted herself firmly in his lap.
“Come now,” she said, still playful. “We are friends, are we not? Don’t you desire to please me?”
“I cannot take my master’s wife.”
“He will never know.”
“I will know.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” When her warm lips smothered his mouth, he stood in a panic, but he could not throw her off. She clung to him like a burr to a cat.
“Sagira!” he cried, pressing against her shoulders with as much force as he dared.
She released him and raised the back of her hand to wipe her lips, then gave him a steady look. “Do not be so alarmed, Paneah. That was only a little test. I can tell Potiphar you passed with flying colors.”
Struggling to catch his breath, Yosef eyed her with suspicion. “A test?”
“To discover the strength and resolve of your virtue. I shall tell my husband that you are as unexcitable as a eunuch.”
She turned and sashayed toward the chariot with the confidence of a departing queen. To regain his composure, Yosef crossed his arms and turned to face the open canyon. He was accustomed to Sagira’s biting wit and flashing temper, but her last remark was a slap at his manhood. She had implied that he was not a man at all, but if he had accepted her proposition, she might have slapped him and had him thrown to the Nile crocodiles.
He shook his head and sighed. His mistress could be hot and cold, loving and sharp, caring and diffident. Compared to Tuya, Sagira was a bundle of sharp angles and rough edges, but for some reason God had placed her at the center of his life.
Amon-Re’s blood-red sun had nearly disappeared beyond the western horizon when Ramla’s entourage returned to Potiphar’s house. Tuya was disappointed when the crowd of welcoming servants did not include Yosef. Where was he? He should have been in the house attending his master at this hour, but Potiphar stood on the porch alone, his hand lifted in greeting.
Sagira, Tuya noticed, was absent as well. As much as she tried to force Ramla’s cruel prediction from her thoughts, Tuya could not forget the mental image of Sagira with her arm around Yosef’s waist.
But Yosef was no weakling. He would not do what Ramla predicted. He would not even listen to such a suggestion.
The donkeys had been put away and the guards sent home by the time a single chariot churned the dust outside the gatehouse. Tuya ran to the porch, straining to see who had arrived in the gathering darkness.
Sagira’s laughter broke the silence of the night. “Paneah, let Enos put our little picnic away,” she called, her voice ringing like a bell. “You must be tired after our long day.”
The man in the slave’s kilt hesitated, then followed Sagira up the path toward the porch. Tuya blinked in bewilderment when Sagira slowed her step and the man—could it be Paneah?—caught up and walked alongside his mistress, like an equal.
Tuya stood on the porch like a helpless rabbit caught in a panther’s hypnotic glare. When the mistress and her companion entered the circle of torchlight, Sagira gaped in surprise. “Tuya! You have finally returned! I hope you had a pleasant journey. I should find Ramla, but we’ve had an exhausting day among the hills.”
She swept through the porch on her way to her chamber, but Yosef paused on a step. “Welcome home,” he said, giving Tuya a dusty smile, but she could not return it. Red ochre stained his lips and the side of his face.
Gulping back a sob, Tuya turned and sprinted toward the women’s quarters.
She wept for an hour, then hiccupped until one of the maids tossed a sandal at her from across the room. “Go outside if you cannot be quiet.”
Tuya wrapped a th
in shawl about her shoulders and slipped into the night. How could she sleep after what she had witnessed? She might never be able to sleep again. Each time she closed her eyes she saw Yosef locked in Sagira’s embrace. Ramla could foretell the future, and soon a child would be born. Yosef had rejected Tuya’s love, claiming that he owed obedience to his god and to his father, and yet he had given himself to Sagira as eagerly as a bridegroom…
From force of long habit, her feet carried her to the garden. At the edge of the reflecting pool, she gazed downward and wondered if it were possible to drown in knee-deep water. She hiccupped again, then wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “Oh, Yosef,” she wailed. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” He stepped from the shadows of the trees, his eyes as troubled as hers. Seeing that he suffered, too, she could not bring herself to repeat Ramla’s accusations. If Yosef had become Sagira’s lover, surely he would be with the mistress instead of pacing in the garden. He would not be here…unless his conscience troubled him.
Tuya gave him a wobbly smile. “Did you miss me?”
“Very much,” he said, stepping closer. She thought he would draw her into his arms, but he merely lifted her hands and held them on his own. He kept his gaze lowered—was he afraid to look at her?
Somehow she found her voice. “Did you spend much time with Sagira?”
“Yes,” he answered, finally meeting her gaze. “Because you told me to. She now thinks of me as a friend.”
“Then why—” Tuya tried to keep her voice light “—why was your face stained with ochre when you returned tonight? Have you taken to painting your lips?”
She couldn’t tell if he blushed in the moonlight. “She kissed me,” he said simply. “A kiss of affection.”
“She kissed you,” Tuya repeated, lowering her hands. Suspicion rose again and snarled, blocking the voice of reason. “When was the last time a mistress kissed her slave?” she asked, wincing at the edge of desperation in her voice.
“How am I to know?” Yosef folded his arms in a pose of weary dignity. “She kissed me in affection—and you told me to be her friend.”
“Her friend, not her lover,” Tuya whispered. When defiance lit his eyes, she pressed on. “She kissed you, Yosef, so tell me the truth. Did she not long for more?”
Her question brought a hard frown to his face. “Do you not trust me?”
“Can you not answer my question?”
“Yes, she wanted more! But so did you, remember?” His words cut through the night, lacerating her. Tuya backed away and pressed her hand to her mouth.
Yosef growled and knocked a fist against his forehead. “If I would not lie with you, why do you think I would lie with a woman I do not love?” He turned toward the pool, placed his hands on his hips, and breathed deeply.
“Do you, Yosef? Do you love me?”
After a long moment, he lowered his arms and looked at her. “You know how I feel about you,” he finally whispered, his voice husky. “Sometimes I wish God had not gifted me with a form pleasing to women. I walk in the marketplace and hear them call greetings, I walk in the threshing rooms and feel their eyes on my back, I sit behind my master at dinner and catch my mistress’s smiles…”
He walked to a tree and leaned against it, crossing his arms as he faced her. “The same beauty that bound Rahel to Yaakov now enslaves me. You should understand, Tuya, for God has also gifted you with beauty.”
“I understand some things,” she said, moving toward him. “I understand that you long to be free, Yosef, and that you dream of greatness. You are proud, you are ambitious, you dream of the future and aspire to succeed in every effort you undertake. You are a fire-eater. You will do anything to keep faith in your dreams. I wonder if you will do anything to be free—”
He did not answer, but slouched before her, bleary-eyed and weary.
“There is no advantage in loving me,” she whispered, avoiding his gaze. “Yet there is much to be gained in pleasing a mistress. I love you, Yosef, and I know about your dreams. And I’ll not stand in the way of their fulfillment. I can’t.”
Before her heart could change her mind, she turned on her heel and left the garden.
The pleasant sounds of people at dinner drifted through the house as Tuya approached the main hall the next afternoon. Sagira, Potiphar and Ramla sat on chairs placed in a circle for conversation and ate from bowls that had been placed on stands near them. Between Potiphar and his wife, Yosef lingered like an obedient shadow, ready to do their bidding.
He caught Tuya’s eye as she approached, and for the first time in her memory his face did not light with excitement when she entered the room. His smile seemed strained, his eyes wary. She glanced at him with no more apparent interest than she would have given a wall painting, then prostrated herself on the floor before Potiphar’s feet.
“What’s this?” He looked down at her over the deep crescents of flesh beneath his eyes. “I did not send for you, Tuya.”
“If it please my master,” she said, lifting her head. “I have a request.”
“Should a slave beg for favors?” Sagira interrupted, but Potiphar smiled and leaned forward in his chair.
“Speak, Tuya. I will listen.”
Tuya swallowed hard, knowing she had stepped onto a path from which there could be no return. “Some time ago I displeased my mistress and she wanted to send me away,” she said. “You, kind master, would not allow me to go. But if my lady still finds me displeasing, I am willing to leave.” She steeled herself to continue. “I have no place here.”
“What’s this?” Potiphar turned to his wife. “Have you quarreled with this girl?”
“How could I, my lord?” Sagira lifted her shoulder in an elegant shrug. “She has been with Ramla for two months. This request, I assure you, is a surprise to me.”
“The captain of Pharaoh’s guard would do well to consider her petition,” Ramla said, speaking in the low voice she reserved for dreaded things. “An unhappy slave can incite rebellion and mutiny among the others. Even you, Potiphar, may have trouble on your hands if she is forced to remain here.”
Potiphar thought a moment, then slapped his knee. “She was a gift from Pharaoh. One does not cast off a presentation from the divine hand.” He glanced toward Sagira, another of his favors from Pharaoh, and lifted her fingers to his lips. “Not that I would want to rid myself of any of our king’s gifts.”
“Still, Tuya is an old friend, and I don’t want her to be unhappy,” Sagira said, resting her hand on Potiphar’s arm. “Perhaps you might approach the king or one of his counselors about the situation. I am sure you can find a solution, my husband.”
Potiphar gave her an approving glance. “I shall try, little wife,” he promised, rising. He kissed her hand again in farewell, then turned toward Tuya and lowered his voice. “I would hate to see you go, but if you are sure you cannot be happy here—”
“I am certain,” she said, bowing before him again. She did not allow her gaze to drift toward Yosef’s face.
Yosef fought against the maddening tedium of the after-dinner ritual. Potiphar left the house, Tuya slipped away, and Yosef attended Ramla and Sagira until they finished a lengthy, rambling conversation and moved to the women’s quarters. When they had gone, he clapped to summon slaves to clear the chamber, then he hurried from the hall.
He found Tuya in the room where the lowliest of all slaves worked to grind corn into flour. On her hands and knees, she was bent over a slab with a heavy grindstone in her hand. The toothless old hag who usually ground the corn sat on the floor, watching with wide, amused eyes.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded, pulling the grindstone out of Tuya’s grip. “This is not your work!”
“I thought I may as well learn how to do everything,” she said, not looking at him. “If a family can afford only one slave, they will purchase a woman for grinding, so I thought I should learn—”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He pulled her from the
room, oblivious to the old woman’s curious stare. In the corridor, he stood Tuya against the wall and leaned over her, his arms blocking her escape. “What foolish, womanish, jealous notion entered your head today?” he asked, taking pains to keep his voice level. “You have harmed your reputation with Potiphar. I may be able to dissuade him from approaching Pharaoh, but now the master and mistress both know you are not happy. The damage is done.”
“I will leave even if I have to run away,” Tuya answered, her eyes large and fierce with pain. “I cannot stay here, Yosef. I love you too much. I cannot bear to watch Sagira trap you—”
“I will not be trapped,” he said, pressing against the walls with all his strength. What would it take to make her believe him? “Sagira may be infatuated—” he lowered his voice “—but I am only her friend. My heart belongs to you, Tuya, and she knows it. Soon she will grow tired of me.”
“She won’t stop until she wins. She has the power to command you.”
“Some things cannot be commanded.”
Tuya released a bitter laugh, then looked into his eyes. “Then consider this—she hates me and she has the power to take my life. If I stay and you refuse her, she will hurt me somehow. She’s already hurt me—”
“So you would exchange this house for some place where I cannot protect you? What if you are sold to a cruel master? What if you find yourself commanded by a man who would ask more of you than Sagira asks of me? You are not thinking, Tuya! You may find yourself in a nest of vipers—”
“I don’t know where I will go,” she whimpered, sliding down against the wall. “I only know the gods have not smiled on us. Montu’s strong arm has not been able to save you from Sagira, and your god is silent—”
He knelt in front of her and reached for her hands, his heart breaking at the sight of tears on her cheeks. “You must trust in the true god,” he said, gentling his voice. “Please, Tuya, stay with me. Our time of waiting is nearly over, then we shall be married and have a house of our own. I have handled Potiphar for years, so I can handle Sagira.”