by Angela Hunt
“Abasi!” He shouted for the eunuch who attended him. His grasping fingers found the silken cord hanging by his bed, and he yanked it sharply. “Bomani! Chike!”
His servant, his guard and his priest appeared in the doorway, their figures backlit by torches burning in the hallway. The servant and guard immediately prostrated themselves, but the old priest took his time.
“Rise, all of you,” Tuthmosis said, his nerves at a full stretch. “Abasi, light the torches, then bring me the royal wife Tuya! Bomani—guard the door, and let no one in except Tuya. I fear for my life. Chike, high priest of Osiris—”
As light flooded the chamber, the aging priest inclined his bald head. “Yes, my king?”
“Say prayers for me. Offer sacrifices of blood, of fruit, of incense. Make sure the gods are pleased with my kingship.”
The old man’s face remained as inscrutable as stone, but he bowed. “It shall be done.”
“Do it now.” With white knuckles, Tuthmosis gripped the sheet that covered him. “Abasi, why do you wait? Fetch Tuya now!”
The eunuch sprinted out of the chamber as fast as his bare feet could carry him, and Bomani moved toward the door. The priest prepared to follow, but Tuthmosis did not want to be abandoned. “Wait—priest,” he said, searching for words that would not reveal the terror that had frozen his heart. “Have any of the astrologers seen an ill omen in the skies?”
Chike lifted a brow. “None, my king.”
“And the river—it flows according to schedule?”
“The goddess waters our land as always. You have won her favor, divine one.”
“The cattle—I have not heard of any plagues on the cattle—”
“There are none, my king. All is well in the land.”
The door opened and Tuya hurried into the room, clad only in a straight gown and a shawl. She had risen in such a hurry she forgot to don her wig, and despite his terror, the sight of her short, rumpled hair brought a smile to the king’s face. None of the other wives would have come in such a disheveled state.
“O Pharaoh, live forever,” Tuya whispered, falling to her knees.
“Chike, you may go,” Tuthmosis commanded. When the aged priest had closed the door behind him, Tuthmosis crawled to the end of his bed and peered down at his wife. “I am frightened,” he whispered, his voice strangely thin in his own ears. “I need you.”
Her soft, understanding eyes met his. Without speaking, she rose and climbed into the royal bed.
“There, my king,” she whispered, slipping her arms around him. “Tell me what has upset you.”
“I don’t know what it is,” he murmured, allowing her to draw his head onto her shoulder. “For two nights now I have been awakened in the darkness. An evil premonition holds me in its grip and I cannot break free.”
“Have you told anyone of this?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “I do not want them to see my fear. And I don’t know why I am afraid. I was not afraid to meet the Syrians, or to lead chariots into battle against the fierce Nubians. I am not afraid to die, yet this terror sends my blood sliding through my veins like needles. A god should not fear anything.”
She lowered her forehead to his in silent understanding. Grateful, he reached for her and lightly pressed his lips to hers. The gulf that had once separated them had lessened, and even though Mutemwiya sat on the throne next to him, he still considered Tuya his favorite wife. She was the only one who understood him, the only one who never laughed at his dreams or scorned his fears. He loved her as he loved his gods, but though they demanded his attention, Tuya asked nothing of him. Sometimes he wished she would…
“Sleep, husband,” she whispered, pulling him down to lie on perfumed sheets. “I will watch over you. If the terror comes again, wake and tell me of it, and together we shall decide what is to be done.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. Tuthmosis looked around the chamber to make sure the torches still burned, then he lowered his head to the softness of Tuya’s body and murmured his thanks through the embracing folds of sleep.
Tuya stifled a yawn as her husband slept. She had promised to stay awake, but their son had kept her up late the previous night. The irresistible warmth of sleep bore down on her, and she struggled to keep her eyes open—
“Horus, help me!”
She startled as her husband sat up, his eyes like black holes in his pale face. “I know,” he said, his voice resonating with fear and awe. “I have dreamed, Tuya, twice! In this light I see clearly, for the demons of darkness have not stolen the visions away.”
“You had a dream?”
“A vision as real as the dream when the Sphinx spoke to me.” He brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “But the dreams are not clear. I see the visions, I recall every detail, but there is no voice to explain it. Since Horus has spoken to me before, why does he not speak now?”
“I don’t know, husband.” Tuya pressed her lips together. “Perhaps it is not Horus who speaks to you.”
“Another god? But my priests speak for the others. Every day I hear a score of messages from all the local deities. Why would one of them come to me in a dream?”
“Perhaps…it is a god we do not know.” She shifted until she faced him. “Long ago, husband, I knew a man who said an invisible god spoke to him in dreams. He called this god the Almighty One.”
“An invisible god?” For a brief moment his face seemed to open. Tuya glimpsed bewilderment, a quick flicker of fear, then denial. “I am a god. I would know if an invisible god existed.” He shook his head. “Tomorrow I will call the priests from every temple in Thebes and set the details of my dreams before them. One of them will know the meaning.”
He shot her a questioning look, waiting for reassurance, so Tuya pressed her hand to his back. “I am sure you are right, my husband.”
I hope you are.
The proclamation went out with the rising of the sun, and by midday a priest from each of Thebes’s temples had appeared before Pharaoh and heard the details of the royal vision. The priests consulted their scrolls, the ancient Pyramid Texts, the most gifted seers and the oracles, but no one could agree on the details of the interpretation.
“If a man dreams of a cow,” one of the priests suggested in the throne room, “it means a happy day in his house.”
“No,” another priest countered, “it means nothing of the kind. The seven cows are seven children who will be born to Pharaoh.” The second priest turned from his colleagues and nodded to the king. “It matters not what a man dreams, my king, because we can provide magic spells for the exorcism of bad dreams. If a man’s face is smeared with pesen-bread together with a few fresh herbs moistened with beer and myrrh, all evil dreams that he has seen will be driven away.”
“Dreams do matter,” Tuthmosis declared, iron in his voice. He extended the crook and flail over the assembled crowd. “Dreams do matter, you foolish priests! Horus appeared to me in a dream and promised me this throne when I was a mere boy! The gods speak in dreams, and I would know which god speaks, and what he would have me know!”
“Pharaoh must decide which god speaks,” the high priest of Osiris called, his voice ringing across the throne room. “Pharaoh has heard from every priest in Thebes, and each has his own interpretation. Which god, O Divine One, speaks to you?”
Tuthmosis slowly lifted his head, hearing the veiled threat in the words. If you are our divine king, you should be able to tell us these things yourself.
Abruptly, Pharaoh dismissed the lot of them.
Tuya uttered an indrawn gasp when she opened the door of her chamber and saw Tuthmosis standing in the hallway, but she smiled and gestured for him to enter. Never could she recall Amenhotep visiting the chamber of any of his wives; a king was supposed to command his wives to appear in his chambers. But Tuthmosis stepped inside as he always had, as comfortable with her as he would have been with a sister. In a way, she supposed, they had grown up
together.
Pharaoh dropped to the floor, where their son was playing with a collection of small statues. “Shall I send for wine, my husband?”
He signaled his approval with a wave of his hand, and Tuya sent her maid in search of the king’s cupbearer. After the maid left, Tuya sat beside her husband. Tuthmosis’s handsome face was lined with exhaustion, his eyes puffy from sleeplessness. A worried crease divided his forehead, and his hands fluttered in his lap. Her son, oblivious to the king’s anxiety, toddled over to his royal parent and tried to climb into Tuthmosis’s lap.
“Not now, Yosef,” Tuya gently scolded the child.
“Let him be,” Tuthmosis answered, his large hands supporting the boy. “Perhaps the god who desires my attention can speak through the lips of a child.”
A knock rapped on the door, and after a moment Taharka entered with his slave. “I have brought wine,” he said, carefully pouring the red liquid into one of Pharaoh’s golden goblets. The slave tasted the juice while Tuya and the king watched, then Taharka poured another cup and handed it to the king.
Tuya gave him the smile of an old friend. “Thank you, Taharka.”
The cupbearer tried smiling at Pharaoh but seemed to sense that smiling was a bad idea. “I have heard of the commotion at court today,” he whispered, more to Tuya than to the king who sat absorbed in his thoughts. “And now I find that I must confess one of my offenses.”
“I’m sure your offenses are not grievous,” Tuya said, trying to dismiss him. “Pharaoh has much on his mind.”
“I know.” Taharka stepped closer to the king, then handed the pitcher of wine to his servant and clasped his hands in an attitude of humility. “If it please you, mighty Pharaoh, hear me. Two years ago Pharaoh, your father, was furious with his servants, and put me in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, both me and the chief baker. We had a dream on the same night, the baker and I, each of us a different dream.”
Tuthmosis gave the cupbearer a piercing glance. “Why do you speak of things in the past?”
Taharka shuffled his feet. “Because they might aid us in the present. A slave was with us in the prison, a servant of the captain of the bodyguard. We related our dreams to him, and he interpreted them for us. And it came to pass that everything happened according to his interpretation. Pharaoh restored me to my office, but hanged the baker.”
Tuya’s blood ran cold. “A slave? One who had served Potiphar, captain of the guard?”
“Do you know this slave?” Tuthmosis sat upright and leaned toward her. “You know someone who can interpret dreams?”
Though she sensed she walked the knife-edge of danger, she had to speak. “Last night, my husband, I told you of one who once told me that his unseen god often speaks in dreams. This is the man I spoke of. He is a Hebrew called Yosef.”
“Not the same slave.” Taharka shook his head. “My dreams were interpreted by Potiphar’s steward, Paneah.”
Tuya pressed her hand to her son’s dark head. Would her eyes reveal her feelings? “Yosef and Paneah are one and the same.”
“It matters not what he is called. Let him be brought at once.” Tuthmosis clapped for his guards. “Send a messenger and escort to Potiphar’s house, and have the captain of the guard bring this slave to me. He is to be brought safely, and at once.”
The servants outside the door hastened to do their king’s bidding.
Menkheprure, Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV
Then Pharaoh sent and called Yosef, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.
Genesis 41:14
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Potiphar! Pharaoh summons you!”
The sound of frantic shouting woke Potiphar from a deep sleep. He sat up in bed, fully awake, as servants pounded on his door. “I’m coming,” he barked, thrusting his legs over the side of the bed. He snatched up his kilt and dressed while he cocked his ear for the noises stirring in the corridor beyond his chamber. Amid a few smothered laughs he heard the clink of weapons, so this was no trivial matter. “Master Potiphar!” his servant’s voice came again. “Pharaoh’s men await you.”
“Have I not said I am coming? Take them to the courtyard. I will join them there.” He might be nearly sixty, but he was still captain of the king’s guards and capable of performing his duties. He stalked through his chamber, his hand reaching for the sword and dagger resting on a stand near the door.
The crowd of callers, whoever they were, had left the corridor. Potiphar swept forward, his eyes intent on the courtyard beyond, but a sudden movement in the dimly lit hall startled him.
“By all the gods, what’s this?” a male voice slurred. Potiphar snapped a torch from its bracket in the wall and stepped toward the intruder. In the gleam of torchlight, he saw Sagira unconscious on the couch, her mouth open to the ceiling, her breath punctuated by drunken snoring. Her latest paramour knelt on the floor, blinking rapidly as he struggled to rise.
“This is the master of the house,” Potiphar said, bridling his anger. “And you, sir, had best be gone when I return.”
He turned with a quick snap of his shoulders and strode to the porch where a contingent of palace guards waited. “What is the trouble, Bomani?” Potiphar asked, recognizing Pharaoh’s personal bodyguard. “For what reason would you leave the king unguarded?”
Bomani flushed to the roots of his dark hair. “Pharaoh sent me away. The king demands to see the slave imprisoned in your house.”
“What slave?”
“The one called Paneah.”
For a moment Potiphar’s mind blocked the name. For six years he had shied away from tormenting thoughts of the Hebrew. Why should he be forced to think of the man now?
Surprised by the erratic rhythm of his heart, Potiphar stared at the bodyguard. “Why would Pharaoh want to see one of my prisoners?”
Bomani pressed his lips together as a silent reminder that it was not Potiphar’s place to question Pharaoh. Potiphar nodded, acknowledging his blunder, and moved toward the barred gate that led to the prison.
Tuya. He fumbled with the keys at his belt. The girl had finally exerted her influence and acted to free the man she loved. But how did she do it without arousing the king’s jealousy?
“If you must know,” Bomani whispered, falling into step beside his captain, “Pharaoh has heard that this slave possesses the power of divination. Our king has been unable to sleep on account of strange and troubling dreams. I myself have seen him wearing the look of a man who wakes to find himself at the edge of a precipice.”
Potiphar laughed as he fitted his key into the lock of the gate. “Dreams are but shadows of the mind, Bomani, surely our king knows this.”
The guard lifted his chin as if Potiphar’s answer had offended him. “Pharaoh is convinced that a god speaks to him. He believes this prisoner can divine the god’s meaning.”
Potiphar shook his head as the prison gate swung open. “Our king can have the slave,” he said, stepping aside so Bomani could enter. “I surrendered Paneah long ago.”
Khamat blinked in surprise when the captain of the guard appeared at his door in the dead of night. “Master,” he said, falling to his knees in fear that a prisoner had escaped. His eyes darted to the sword in Potiphar’s belt. “What brings you to me?”
“Do not fear, Khamat, we come only to relieve you of a prisoner.” Potiphar gestured to the men behind him. “Pharaoh wants to see the slave Paneah.”
Khamat widened his eyes. “Surely not tonight! Paneah stinks, he has fleas—”
“Clean him up,” Potiphar said, moving into the lodge. “We will wait.”
“Paneah won’t want to be bothered tonight,” Khamat said, wrapping his kilt about him. “He prays at night, sometimes for hours. He doesn’t know I can hear him, but I’ve stood outside his cell and listened—”
“Since when does my chief jailer heed the wishes of his prisoners?” Potiphar snapped. “Br
ing him now. He can pray while we shave the filth from his body.”
Khamat snatched a torch from one of the guards and hurried toward the prison pits.
Yosef usually finished his duties as the sun set, then lowered himself back into his pit where he enjoyed the bit of food in his bucket. After eating, he lay back on the sand and prayed as he watched night draw down like a black cowl. For the past four years Khamat had trusted him so completely that within the prison he was allowed to move about as he pleased. The knotted rope dangled always in Yosef’s cell, and at night no one bothered to cover the opening of his pit.
Night after night, as Yosef watched the stars spin across his small circle of sky, he thought of God’s promise that Avraham’s children would some day be more numerous than the stars and as countless as the sand of the sea. Though Yosef could only see a small section of the night sky, he knew the heavens stretched well beyond the limit of his vision.
He had learned many things during six years of imprisonment. He had come to understand that humility was more precious to God than success, and that a man’s reactions were often more important than his actions. He had questioned whether his old visions of the sun and stars and sheaves of wheat bowing down to him were inspired by God or implanted by the Evil One, and he had realized that his visions did not matter. When he had sought to fulfill them himself, the quest brought nothing but despair and disgrace. Better to be a happy, simple slave than dream of changing the world and stumble over pride.
Each night he ended his colloquy with a fervent request that God protect Tuya and her son from whatever dangers surrounded them. When he had dreamed of her two years before, the vision left him feeling frustrated and helpless. Why had God warned him of Tuya’s peril when Yosef could do nothing for her but pray?
In that question he found his answer. And as he prayed, his passion for her faded to a warm memory, replaced by a strong concern for her well-being.
He sighed and closed his eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion of a long day’s work. He had nearly willed himself to sleep when noises from above brought him back to reality.