Counted With the Stars

by Connilyn Cossette

  “These brave women deceived Pharaoh,” she said. They told the overseers that in contrast to the Egyptian women, who were pampered and soft, the Hebrew women were strong from daily heavy labor, and the babies delivered quickly. They insisted that the babies were secreted away before the midwives arrived at the birthing huts.

  “What happened to them?” The midwives’ disobedience relieved me, but a twinge of guilt for my inward rebellion against my king stabbed at me.

  Shira beamed. “Elohim protected them, and Pharaoh did not punish the midwives. In fact, both their families grew large and powerful. Our people venerate Shifrah and Puah to this day.”

  Awe filled me. What courage those women must have had to defy the most powerful god-man in the world.

  “However”—she frowned—“after the midwives failed in their mission to eradicate our precious babies, Pharaoh became enraged and ordered all of Egypt to take care of the Hebrew problem. He decreed that any Egyptian who came in contact with a male Hebrew child must report it immediately.”

  The faces of my parents’ friends came to mind—traitors, every one. Perhaps their parents or grandparents had participated in this injustice as well.

  “The priests and the overseers said the Hebrews planned to revolt: they must be controlled or they would take over the country, stealing Egyptian wealth. Fear and suspicion flourished. Thousands upon thousands of precious baby boys were ripped from their mothers’ arms and thrown into the Nile.”

  Bile swam in my throat. The image of babies, shrieking, sinking to the bottom of the Nile, flooded my mind. I scrubbed the last of the stench from my hair, suddenly needing to get out of the pool. Neither of us spoke as we climbed onto the bank, dressed, and collected our jars to head back to the villa.

  Even though I knew little of politics, and even less of governing a nation, Pharaoh’s destruction of the very workforce that helped build his own legacy seemed irrational. Pharaoh employed the world’s mightiest standing army, heavily equipped and more than capable of quelling any rebellion that might have reared its head.

  The Hebrews had no more hope of freedom than I did. The law demanded obedience to my masters, and if I ran, my mother and brother would bear the brunt of my rebellion against Tekurah. They would be punished in my stead, perhaps even sold to satisfy the remainder of the debt. Even with the assistance of all the gods, no chance remained—for myself or the Hebrews.

  “This Deliverer you mentioned . . .”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Moses.”

  “That is an Egyptian name.” We neared the point on the path where we must separate to avoid suspicion, but my curiosity about this mysterious man slowed my pace.

  “Moses is Hebrew. In our language he is Mosheh, but a daughter of Pharaoh himself raised him in the royal household.” A hint of smugness heightened her voice.

  A Hebrew raised as a prince? Why would Pharaoh allow such a thing in his own palace?

  Before I could ask any more questions, Latikah appeared, coming toward us on the path, expertly balancing an empty jug on her head. Our mistress must have sent her to collect water for a second washing. I pressed ahead of Shira, pretending that I had only passed her on the way, knowing she would understand.

  I steeled myself for another furious reprimand, half hoping Tekurah would demote me to the kitchens as well. Shira’s stories, of her people and her God, were like wild honey. They had the curious effect of making me hunger for more, and I did not want to wait long for another taste.

  7

  Shira waited for me by the ancient boundary stone, but she was not alone. A man stood with her, his back toward me. My pulse spiked as I tripped to a stop. Had our secret meeting place been discovered?

  Shira caught sight of me over the man’s shoulder and waved, a broad smile across her face. She gestured for me to join them.

  The man, dressed in a simple brown slave garment tied with an embroidered leather belt, turned as I approached. His dark hair, whipped by a breeze from the canal, obscured his face for a moment, until he brushed it away with long fingers.

  Oh no. It was the man with whom I had found Liat in the marketplace during the festival. What was he doing with Shira?

  Shira must have sensed my trepidation. She met me halfway. “I am so glad to see you.” She hugged me again and I half returned the embrace. “Come, meet my brother, Eben.” Her face emanated unmistakable pride.

  Her brother? How could such a sullen man be related to Shira, whose baffling optimism radiated like the sun?

  Shira linked her arm in mine and towed me toward him. His unkempt hair, now clear of sawdust, was darker than hers, but sure enough, they shared identical green-gray eyes.

  “Eben, this is my friend Kiya. I am so pleased you two can finally meet.” Without giving him a chance to respond, she turned to me. “He came to tell me all that is happening with our people. I have so much to share with you!” She squeezed my arm.

  I chanced a quick smile at Eben. “Hello again.”

  He dipped his bearded chin but did not speak. A muscle worked in his jaw as he fixed me in his gaze.

  Shira looked back and forth between us. “You know each other?”

  “Yes, we met in the market once.” Thinking to offer a gesture of goodwill, I added, “Thank you again for your help with Liat.”

  Although he stood not much taller than I, Eben’s chin tilted up and he glowered down his narrow nose at me, but said nothing.

  Desperate to escape the scrutiny in his penetrating gaze, I forced an excuse. “Tekurah is suspicious after our run-in with Latikah. I must hurry today. You talk with your brother. I’ll see you another time.”

  Such a lie. My worries had been misplaced yesterday. Curiously, my mistress had given me no more than a demand to bathe her immediately, as if her desperation to be clean washed her mind of my delay.

  Slipping from Shira’s grasp, I hastened down the path, relying on the papyrus rushes and date palms to veil my retreat. Even so, I felt Eben’s dark glare boring into my back.

  Shira caught up with me, breathless. “I am so sorry.”

  I sniffed, blinking away traitorous tears and chiding myself for reacting. Why should the opinion of one Hebrew upset me so much?

  “What for?” I attempted a carefree smile.

  “Eben . . . Oh Kiya, he was so rude to you. I cannot understand why . . .” Her voice trembled.

  I straightened my shoulders and huffed out a noisy breath. “That doesn’t bother me. I put up with Tekurah screaming at me every day. You think I cannot handle the evil eye from some slave?” I brushed away her concerns with a flip of my hand.

  “I know. But he is my big brother, and you are my only friend. I just hoped you might get along. Unrealistic expectations, I suppose. He still—” Her voice faltered. “He blames all Egyptians for my father’s death.”

  Although curious about her father, I was anxious to change the subject. “I really should get back before Tekurah misses me. I don’t have time to bathe today. But I am impatient for the end of your story about this mysterious Hebrew prince. Let’s fill our pots and get back to the villa.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “You can spin your tale as we go.”

  Shira beamed, all disappointment swallowed by pleasure at my interest in her stories. “Where was I?”

  “The Deliverer?”

  “Mosheh.” Her voice swelled with reverence reserved for gods and kings. “Mosheh was born during those black days, when crocodiles in the Nile still devoured our babies and weeping mothers vowed to give birth to ten more sons to replace those who had been murdered. Mosheh’s mother, Yocheved, devised a plan. She succeeded in hiding him from the Egyptian overseers and corrupt Hebrew supervisors for three months.”

  “You mean some of your own people spied for Pharaoh?”

  “Gold is a powerful persuader, even among my own, and many have turned from the God of Our Fathers.”

  A sharp laugh startled us. Someone was coming up the path.

  We slipped in
to the tall rushes near the edge of the canal, squatting there among the feathery plumes of grass and shoulder-high weeds. A group of three slaves, two of whom were from Shefu’s household, undressed and waded into the water to bathe.

  “That was close,” Shira whispered, her eyes glimmering with mischief, as if she enjoyed our childish game of hide-and-seek.

  “We will have to wait,” I whispered back.

  She nodded. “Won’t Tekurah be looking for you?”

  I flushed, caught in my lie. “Actually, Tekurah was up nearly until dawn at a banquet. She will sleep for hours.” I yawned, having only dozed for a couple of hours myself.

  Shira pursed her lips and arched her brows. “So you just needed an excuse to get away from my brother?”

  I deflected. “Tell me the rest of your story. But keep your voice down, it may carry across the water.”

  She stared at me a moment, settled into a cross-legged position, and then continued in a low tone. “Yocheved was a wise woman, full of the audacity all mothers summon when forced to fight for their children. She formed a basket of papyrus reeds, made it watertight, then placed her precious treasure inside and set it afloat on the Nile.”

  Shira brushed at a yellow-and-black-striped spider that had taken up residence on her tunic, and she continued. “The baby’s sister, Miryam, guarded the little boat, hiding in the rushes.” She smiled and winked. “Just like we are doing now.”

  I peered through the tall grasses at the glint of sun off the river, imagining the young girl watching her brother float down the river in his makeshift ark. I almost expected the little papyrus boat to glide by.

  “Yocheved knew Pharaoh’s daughter bathed and swam each morning in the river. This royal daughter was widely known to be compassionate—as well as stubborn. But most importantly, Pharaoh cherished this beloved daughter, the only child of his favorite wife.”

  This sounded familiar. I had grown up with tales of a princess who became a regent in the land. She held power unrivaled by most women in a world ruled by men. Could it be the same woman?

  “Yocheved counted on the princess finding her baby and prayed Pharaoh’s daughter would have mercy on her child. And, of course, Elohim heard the devoted mother’s prayer.”

  I interrupted. “What tribute did she offer?”

  “Tribute?”

  “Yes, how did she make Elohim protect her baby?”

  Shira cocked her head. “She just had faith.”

  “Faith?”

  She smiled. “She knew Elohim had a special purpose for the child. He was . . . different in some way. The tales handed down speak of his quiet nature, an unnatural calmness to the child. Yocheved was able to hide him for three months because he was so quiet. She called him Toviah, which means ‘goodness’ in my language.”

  Jumo flashed through my mind. Unable to speak with clarity as a child due to his afflictions, my brother reserved his precious words only for his family, yet somehow drew people like honey. No one was immune to his sweetness.

  Shira said the princess found the baby, fell in love with him, and determined to adopt him as her own. Miryam emerged from her hiding place among the rushes. She offered to find a wet nurse from among one of the Hebrew women. So the baby was nursed and raised until he was weaned by Yocheved herself. The princess provided food and clothing and extra goods for the family in exchange for the care of the little boy.

  “So you see”—Shira raised her chin—“not only did Elohim protect Moses, as he was named by the princess, but the family was blessed for their faith. Raised in Pharaoh’s own household, educated at Pharaoh’s own expense, adopted by the willful princess—Mosheh enjoyed the full rights of a true royal son.”

  “Did Mosheh know who he was? A Hebrew?”

  Shira nodded. “He did. Being raised at the breast of Yocheved, a woman of strength and courage, he was steeped in the stories of our people. Although raised as a royal prince, in line for the throne, his status as an adopted son lay heavy on his heart. And because he was an adopted son, he pushed himself even harder to be worthy of his royal title. He studied and practiced the arts of war with more diligence than any other royal son and grew to be a great general in Pharaoh’s army.”

  I wrinkled my brow, wondering if Akhum had ever served under the Hebrew. “I have never heard of a general named Moses.”

  “No one really knows what happened, but forty years ago, he vanished. Rumors floated around that he killed an Egyptian overseer.” She raised a brow. “I highly doubt that. But, all of a sudden, he was gone. There was no word from him, even to Yocheved. She died before setting eyes on her beloved son again.”

  What an implausible tale. A Hebrew baby floating down a river in a basket, saved by a princess at the perfect moment, raised by the very Pharaoh who sought to have him killed? The longer I listened to Shira, the less I believed her dubious little story.

  “And then, a few weeks ago, Eben told me Mosheh returned.” She paused as if to gauge my reaction.

  Startled, I arched my brows.

  “He returned from Midian, where he had lived as a shepherd and where Elohim appeared to him on a mountain and told him to return to Egypt—to deliver our people. Here in Iunu we hear only rumors. Mosheh lives among his brothers in Goshen, but we hope to hear from the elders soon whether what we’ve heard is true.” The gleam in her eyes told me she needed no such confirmation. Shira believed every word.

  “Did Mosheh take a carving of your Elohim with him on his flight?”

  She waved a hand. “No, our God is not limited in such a way. We do not worship idols. In the days of our forefathers, He talked with them, met with them in various ways, through dreams and visions. At times Elohim even appeared as a man and walked with them.”

  This poor girl was delusional. True, Pharaoh personified the ancestor gods, but only a high priest entertained any sort of interaction with those gods. Perhaps her forefathers served as high priests, schooled in the magic arts, as this Mosheh must be.

  Shira pointed at the river. “The Nile turned crimson to show Pharaoh that the Deliverer is here and that Elohim will bring us out of slavery and pay him back—blood for blood.”

  I restrained a shiver. “Listen. I know that you wish, as I do, that someone might whisk you away from this life. Up until the night of that festival, I hoped Akhum might free me. But this”—I touched the pot on the ground next to me—“this is our reality. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will stop believing such foolishness. The Nile changing was a natural thing, the priests said this happens every hundred years or so.”

  “If it was a natural occurrence, how do you explain that it happened at the height of inundation? Most of the silt came down the river a month before. How did it happen at the precise hour Mosheh hit the water with his staff? Can the priests explain that?” She lifted her brows, lips pursed.

  The other women had left the canal, and Shira and I were free to leave the green prison of tall grasses that had protected us, but I felt compelled to keep her from raising her hopes too high.

  “Maybe your Mosheh is a powerful sorcerer. You said he was educated in Pharaoh’s household . . .”

  She nodded.

  “Then he might have been taught the arts of divine persuasion. Besides, if your god-without-a-name is powerful enough to threaten Pharaoh the Almighty, why has nothing else happened since then? It’s been a week. The river runs clear. And I am fairly sure Pharaoh did not release you. Or am I mistaken?”

  “Eben says that Elohim is not finished yet.” A frown settled on her lips. “This is only the beginning.”

  8

  Torch in hand and skin crawling, I walked between two enormous statues of our Pharaoh at the grand entrance to the Temple of Iunu. I searched for something but knew not what. Somehow, though, I sensed it lay deep at the center of the holiest chamber.

  Blackness hemmed me in, augmenting the lonely silence and my fear of the dark.

  Passing through one deserted courtyard into anot
her, I came to a cavernous hall. My footsteps echoed off the endless lotus and papyrus columns. I held the torch high and tipped my head back, taking in the beautiful etchings that stretched from the floor into the dark reaches above me. The ceiling seemed to be only an endless black sky. The darkness pressed down upon me, heavy with the weight of spirits that roamed this temple in the darkest hours of the night.

  Statues of lesser gods guarded the holy sanctuary before me, their faces obscured by the liquid vision of dreams. I stepped past the thick bronze doors and into the chamber, grasping the torch in front of my chest, a burning shield against whatever lay ahead.

  Ra loomed large in the room, his golden body burnished to gleaming by the ministrations of the priests. Wilted lotus flowers encircled the base upon which his throne stood, and food offerings lay rotting at his feet. I raised my torch higher to take in his face and his obsidian eyes. But his eyes were not black—they gleamed red! Dripping red. The smell of the bleeding Nile met my senses, and I choked. Hapi, Osiris, and Isis—all the gods hemorrhaged bright red blood from their eyes, ears, and noses.

  A shriek ripped me from deepest sleep. Was I screaming? The smell of the cursed river had plagued my nightmares for days.

  But it was not my own scream that awakened me. Tekurah stood atop her sleeping couch, shedding her bedclothes. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  “What is it, mistress?” I sat up on my mat and rubbed my eyes, never surprised at Tekurah’s ravings.

  “Something just crawled across my face. And then something else moved against my hand. Get it out! Now!” She tumbled off the bed, tangled in a flurry of nightclothes and sheets, ranting at me. With all her noise, Shefu’s men would burst through the door at any moment, swords drawn.

  The oil lamp on the table burned low. Tekurah had fallen asleep early last night, and I risked a reprimand by keeping it lit. So many nightmares plagued me lately, I could not bear the pitch-black one more night. I retrieved the clay bowl, thankful that the wick had lasted so long. Something brushed my foot on the way. A cat’s tail perhaps?