by Angela Hunt
His servants scurried to do his bidding, removing the royal chariot to a place of shelter from the desert winds. Their dark bare feet skimmed over the blistering sand as they hastened to prepare a tent, but Abayomi placed his hands on his narrow hips and ignored them, choosing to study the Sphinx half buried in the sand. Khafra, a king long before his father, had modeled this monument after his own likeness in honor of the sun-god who ruled these vast deserts.
A smile twisted the corner of the prince’s mouth. Where was the sun-god now, and did he care that the lion’s body of his Great Sphinx lay buried beneath the desert? Only the wind-scarred head of Khafra was now visible, his chin resting on the sand like a creature resigned to inevitable suffocation.
“Prepare my tent here, before the Sphinx,” the prince commanded the servants who fluttered nearby in anticipation of his wishes. “We will rest, then continue our hunt.”
A canopy appeared as if from nowhere, four poles held its striped linen high above the earth. Another piece of linen, tightly woven to keep out irritating grains of sand, was spread on the ground, and on this the prince reclined.
The sun threw the shadow of his distinctive profile onto the ground. He knew he was handsome, and though his face still retained the softness of youth, his concentrated stare never failed to make a maiden blush or a servant grow pale. Taller than his mother, nearly as tall as his elder brother, he possessed strong limbs and a broad chest, set off by a fine linen kilt and the wide golden collar about his neck. One magnificent lock of black hair grew like an exclamation from his right temple, the seat of deep thought and wisdom.
The Great Sphinx sheltered him from the hot winds of the sirocco and his eyes closed in the heavy heat of the afternoon. Sleep, when it came, was welcome.
The Sphinx spoke to him. “Behold me, gaze on me, O my son Abayomi,” the creature said, the wide eyes of stone un-blinking and yet, seeing all. “For I, your father Harmakhis-Khopri-Tumu, grant you sovereignty over the Two Lands, in the South and the North, and you shall wear both the white and the red crowns of the throne of Sibu, the sovereign possessing the earth in its length and breadth.”
The prince blinked and sat upright, but nothing else moved in the hot afternoon. Was this a dream? Or had he dared disturb the mighty sun-god with his irreverent thoughts?
“These are words of blessing, my son,” the Sphinx continued, his voice a roar that reverberated through the desert. “You shall be called Tuthmosis, and the flashing eye of the lord of all shall cause to rain on you the possessions of Egypt. Vast tribute from all foreign countries, and a long life for many years as one chosen by the Sun, for my countenance is yours, my heart is yours, no other than you is mine.”
“I am yours,” the prince whispered, falling to his knees before the solid stone image. He lowered his head to the earth and felt the heat of the desert burn his forehead. “But I am only a second son. How can these things be?”
The massive stone head turned, the grating of stone on stone quivered the canopy poles. The prince slowly lifted his gaze. Beyond the Sphinx, sand dunes rippled and flowed like water toward the monument, and the mouth of the half-buried stone creature opened in an inhuman cry. “The first born of Egypt shall die,” the monstrous voice shrieked. “You shall become King, my son Tuthmosis.”
The prince moistened his lips as the horrible prophecy rang in his ears. “What would you have me do?”
As if by command, the sand stopped flowing, the wind ceased. The Sphinx’s mighty head returned to its resting place and the powerful mouth closed.
But still the voice reverberated in the prince’s head. “Now I am covered by the sand of the mountain on which I rest, and have given you this prize that you may do for me what my heart desires. For I know you are my son, my defender. Draw nigh. I am with you, I am your well-beloved father. Release me from this mountain, and I shall give you what your heart desires.”
“I will release you from the sand, I swear it,” the prince answered, the scent of scorched linen filling his nostrils.
“Then this and more will I give to you, Tuthmosis, if you release me!” The mighty voice echoed through the desert stillness, growing louder and stronger until the boy’s hands covered his ears and he screamed, too, his cry lost in the buried god’s terrifying wail.
The prince jerked into wakefulness as an anxious servant touched his shoulder. Behind the servant, the sirocco blew past the Sphinx in a miserable, commanding howl. “May the gods grant you life, my prince,” the servant said, bowing on the hot sand. “You have slept a long time. We feared you were not well.”
“I am well,” the prince answered, rising on his elbow. He moved slowly, half-afraid any sudden sound or action would tear the fabric of sanctity around the half-buried Sphinx. The fearsome sounds and images lingered in his brain, as vivid as the servant on the sand. His father would insist he had imagined the episode, for Amenhotep believed the gods spoke only to him. But the prince recalled the devastating power of the Sphinx’s voice, and shivered despite the heat.
He stood and stepped from beneath the sheltering canopy. “Mark this well, all who hear,” he called in his most authoritative tone. “If the gods will that I be King, on that day the sand of this mountain is to be cleared from the form of Harmakhis-Khopri-Tumu, the sun-god, that he may reign in beauty over the Two Lands, in the South and the North. It shall be recorded that I have done this, in covenant between the god my father, and I.”
The company bowed in honor of the royal proclamation. Abayomi nodded, satisfied, then climbed back into his chariot and led the procession back to Thebes, too shaken to continue the hunt.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The time of her travail caught Tuya by surprise. She barely had time to send for the priestess of Taweret, the patroness of childbirth, before her son dropped into the world.
As the grotesque priestess paraded throughout Tuya’s chamber striking at invisible enemies with her ceremonial daggers, Tuya drew the mewling infant to her breast and tenderly wiped the birth fluids from his skin. How perfect he was, and how unique! He was the only thing in the world that had ever belonged to her, and she would never surrender him to anyone. She had been born a slave, but this child would forever be free.
“What will you call him?” one of her maids asked, her hands folded reverently. “As Pharaoh’s grandson, he should have a fine name.”
Tuya pressed her finger to the child’s cheek and smiled as the boy turned his head, seeking a life-giving breast. She was about to answer when the door slammed open. Abayomi crossed the threshold, his eyes wide, his face stiff with fear. “I came as quickly as I could,” he said, struggling to catch his breath.
“Would you like to see your son?” She smiled at the baby in her arms. “He has just been born. I think he would like to meet his father.”
Abayomi panted his way through the knot of maids and knelt at Tuya’s side. He studied the baby for a long moment, then his worried face arranged itself into a grin. “He’s beautiful, my wife,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “What baby name will you give him?”
“I think—” she offered the baby to his father “—I shall call him Yosef.”
Abayomi did not protest the strange-sounding name, but she knew he had a taste for the unusual. “Yosef,” he murmured, taking the baby into his hands. “He is a fine son.”
“He is,” she murmured, running her hand over the baby’s damp hair.
The prince looked at her with something fragile in his eyes, then returned the child to her arms. “I should go.”
“Why?” she asked, startled. “You have a right to be here.”
“But you have done this,” he stammered, lifting his hands in a helpless gesture. “You have done a great thing! I want to get you something.”
“Abayomi.” She reached for the hand of the boy who was, in a way, as much her son as the infant in her arms. “You have given me a child, the greatest gift a man can give a woman. I ask for nothing more.”
“I w
ish you would,” he whispered, but she laughed off his suggestion and turned again to the baby, dimly aware that Abayomi watched as if she were some unparalleled work of art.
As a hot wind blew clouds of yellow dust down the alley between the walled cells, Yosef paused outside the structure where Pharaoh’s newest prisoners had been incarcerated. His hands, calloused from hauling buckets to and from these cells, tingled with exhaustion after a long day in the blinding sun. He lowered the buckets and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had hoped to return to his cell and go to sleep, but a riotous clamor had broken out beyond the prison walls adjacent to the streets of Thebes.
“What is the cause for this noise?” one of the new prisoners called. The two men in this cell, both servants from Pharaoh’s palace, had been imprisoned nearly five months without an opportunity to stand before the king.
The one who had spoken finger-combed hair from his eyes to better glare at Yosef. “It is not a feast day, nor a festival, nor Pharaoh’s birthday. Why does pandemonium rise from the streets?”
“Let me talk to him,” another voice muttered. The second inmate pushed his way to the small opening in the iron door. He was a dusty man with an aging yellow face and deep half-moons under his eyes, but his smile seemed genuine. His gaze flickered over Yosef, then he bowed his head. “Do you know why Thebes celebrates?”
Yosef lifted the bolt on the door. “I do not know.” The two prisoners stepped back as he moved inside to exchange a full bucket for their empty one.
The second man clapped his hands. “I may know the reason. It is time for the princess to deliver her child.”
“Another royal brat,” the other man groused, dropping onto the reed mat that served as his bed. “Another mouth to feed! I’m beginning to think I don’t want to go back to Pharaoh’s kitchen.”
The second man wagged a scolding finger at his companion. “The lovely Tuya could not produce a brat if she were wed to Anubis.”
Yosef’s blood rose in a jet. “You know Tuya?”
“Know her?” The man laughed and leaned against the wall. “I’ve known her since she was a child. I was the butler for Donkor, and she a maid for Donkor’s daughter. No one was more astounded than I to discover that she’d grown into a woman lovely enough for Pharaoh’s son.”
Yosef reached for the wall to steady himself. He had not dared to speak Tuya’s name in five years, but her image rose before him, vivid and close, opening the door on hundreds of memories he’d tried to bury. The impulse to ask a thousand questions was hard to resist, for this man had talked to her, toiled with her, perhaps his work-worn hands had even gripped Tuya’s slender fingers—
“Is she…well?”
The prisoner squinted at him, then nodded slowly. “Can it be that you have also known Tuya?”
Yosef nodded.
“Then let us talk.”
“Please.” Yosef overturned the empty bucket, then used it as a stool. “There is much I would like to know.”
The prisoner lowered himself to his mat. “I am called Taharka,” the man said, watching Yosef through eyes that had clouded with age. “I was summoned to work in Pharaoh’s vineyard many months after Tuya left Donkor’s house. Later she told me she had served in the house of the captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguard.”
“Potiphar.” In a moment Taharka would mention his name, for surely Tuya had told her old friend about the love she shared with a Hebrew slave…
But Taharka only scratched at his arm. “Yes. And Potiphar later returned her to Pharaoh. The kitchen slaves are fond of saying that the young prince fell in love the moment he saw her. So she was married to Abayomi, and when I left the palace a royal child grew in her womb. Unless she met with misfortune, it is time for her baby to be born.”
Yosef felt his smile twist. He could not picture Tuya with another man or with a child in her arms. He had heard that Tuya married a boy-prince, but in the void of prison life he had forgotten that time did not stand still outside the stone walls. If Tuya’s prince was mature enough to father children, she was married now to a man…
“I think we ought to discover,” the dark-haired prisoner interrupted, “why the mention of our princess’s name interests this slave.”
Yosef turned, about to stammer out a truthful reply, but Taharka’s eyes flashed a warning. Yosef looked away and shook his head. “Who has not heard of the lady’s beauty?” he finished, shrugging. “Every man in Thebes has heard songs that praise her beauty. I never thought to speak—” his eyes met Taharka’s “—with a man who had actually met her.”
An understanding was reached and returned in that glance, and in that moment Yosef realized that Tuya’s life at the palace was no more secure than it had been in Potiphar’s house.
Terrorized by nightmares, three prisoners stirred in their sleep and awoke with clear and unsettling memories of the night they’d passed.
Yosef awoke slowly, burdened by the rueful acceptance of a terrible knowledge. The meaning of his dream was all too clear. He’d seen Tuya standing on the opposite bank of the Nile in the flood’s ominous gray expanse. She wore an expression of incredible sadness on her pale face, but she carried a baby in her arms as a young boy clung to her skirt. Yosef watched as a wide crocodile rose from the engorged Nile and advanced toward her, its golden eyes focused on the babe in her arms. As Yosef called to her, the wavelets that had flecked the surface of the river flattened out, and a second crocodile crawled toward the unsuspecting Tuya.
She did not see, for her eyes were fastened on her child.
From the opposite bank, Yosef struggled to reach her, but his arms were held by iron bonds. He threw back his head and released a guttural cry, but his voice would not carry across the river.
Understanding hit him like a punch in the stomach, and Yosef awakened fully aware of what God wanted him to know. Tuya and her child were in danger. And if the boy clinging to her skirt was intended to represent her husband, his life would be also threatened.
But what could he do to warn her?
Seeking an answer, he climbed the rope from his pit and proceeded to go about his work. For the first time in years, the comments of the condemned prisoners did not register, so intent was he on recalling every detail of his dream. There had to be a way to reach Tuya. God would not have warned him unless he could do something to help. “Show me,” he whispered, turning from the pits to the stone cells. “O God of understanding, make the way clear.”
Abruptly, he remembered Taharka, Tuya’s friend. If God would provide a way to release the cupbearer, Tuya could be warned. He quickened his steps down the path, eager to speak to Pharaoh’s servant.
But Taharka was in no mood for conversation. A cloud of gloom lay over both of Pharaoh’s servants, and Yosef dared not ask for a favor while the cupbearer and baker were in such foul moods. “Why are you upset?” he asked instead, tucking their empty food basket under his arm.
The butler scowled at his companion. “I didn’t sleep well. The baker and I both had disturbing dreams that stole our rest.”
“Why speak of it?” the baker groused, lying back on his mat. He shaded his eyes and frowned at Yosef. “And why do you care?”
“Interpretations belong to God.” Yosef knelt beside Taharka’s mat. “Tell me your dream.”
Taharka’s worried expression softened into one of fond reminiscence. “I dreamed I walked again in my vineyard. A vine sprouted in front of me, and three branches grew on the vine. It budded, its blossoms came forth, and its clusters produced ripe grapes, the finest I have ever seen. Pharaoh’s cup appeared in my hand, so I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup, then put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.”
Yosef smiled. “God, the Almighty One, does not want you to be confused. This is the interpretation of your dream—the three branches are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will forgive you and restore you to your place, and you will once again put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand as you used to do.”
As a smile of
relief spread across the old man’s features, Yosef touched his arm. “Please, Taharka, keep me in mind when it goes well with you. Do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison. You will not be circumventing justice, for I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put into a dungeon.”
He did not dare mention Tuya, for he knew nothing of court life and did not know if even this man could be trusted. But Pharaoh could pardon any prisoner and if Yosef were free, he could keep a watchful eye on the situation at court. From a distance, he could search out danger that might threaten Tuya and her child…
“Fascinating,” the baker remarked, his voice dry. “If I promise to speak to Pharaoh, will you give me a favorable interpretation, too?”
Though he was impatient to continue his conversation with Taharka, Yosef nodded to the other man. “Tell me of your dream.”
The baker crossed his legs on his mat. “I saw three baskets of white bread on my head,” he began. “In the top basket were all sorts of baked foods for Pharaoh, and birds were eating them out of the basket.” He grinned. “In three days I’ll be serving Pharaoh again, correct?”
Yosef lowered his head as he struggled for words. “The three baskets are three days,” he whispered, a pang of regret striking his heart. “Within three days Pharaoh will lift you from this place and will hang you on a tree. The birds will eat your flesh from your bones.”
The baker trembled as though a chill wind had blown over him. A full moment passed before he protested. “That can’t be right,” he said, smacking his fist into his palm. “How do I know you are telling the truth?”
Yosef froze as the silent voice spoke to his heart, then he met Taharka’s steady gaze. “Pharaoh’s eldest son will die before today’s sun sets,” he said, stunned by the awful revelation that had come to him. “You will know I speak truly when you hear of this thing.”