She turned to hoist the sling of mats onto her back so her arms would be free to carry the stacked baskets. She stopped. Frowned. Disoriented, Jochebed turned again and then once more in the opposite direction.
A yellow butterfly blinked its wings, a ray of sunshine flitting through the air. Sweat puckered on Jochebed’s neck, and an eager fly tested her feet for crumbs. A chipped jar leaned against the corner, and the goat stared at her with his strange eyes.
Otherwise, the yard was empty.
Jochebed rubbed her eyes. She had not slept last night, but was she so tired she couldn’t see? Where were the stacks of mats and baskets?
Dumbfounded, she stared at the left side of the door where they had been last night. Someone must have moved them.
Without letting the door squeak, she stuck her head inside the house.
“Miriam, come here. Now.” Although she spoke softly, the tightness in her voice did not allow for any delay.
Eyes half closed, Miriam, still half asleep, managed to squeak the door at its full volume. Aaron fussed in his sleep. Jochebed gritted her teeth.
“Miriam, did you move the mats?”
“What? No.”
“You must have. Where are they? They’re due today.” Jochebed measured each word, trying to stay calm and keep the shrillness of panic from wobbling her voice. She failed. She watched Miriam scan the yard and saw her gaze stop at the sight of the goat.
Jochebed shook her head. “Impossible. He’s tied too far away.” She hesitated. “Isn’t he?”
As if in answer to her question, the goat ambled to where they stood, his sides distended, a rope dangling from his neck.
“I think we found the mats, Mama.”
The goat burped.
“Yes,” said Jochebed, “and perhaps someday I might laugh about this, someday when my back has healed from the beating I’ll get.”
Miriam stared at her mother, turned, and sped from the yard.
Jochebed watched her go, too tired to question her daughter’s behavior. She dragged herself into the house and knelt before the hand mill. Taking an extra handful of grain, she began grinding it. Tomorrow her back would be covered with rod welts. She would make extra bread today to spare tomorrow’s pain. It may not be fresh, but stale bread was better than none, and Miriam would need to spend the morrow caring for Aaron.
She had just begun to knead in the yeast from yesterday’s dough when the door was pushed wide open with its telltale squeak. Old Sarah ambled inside and closed the door with a firm shove.
“Well, your son kept me up all night with his noise, not that it’s the first time, mind you. Couldn’t sleep a bit, not that I ever complain. If I want to sleep tonight, guess I’ll have to take matters into my own hands, as if I didn’t have enough to do. Didn’t your mother teach you how to tie a goat?”
Jochebed leaned against the wall and burst into tears. She was pregnant, exhausted, her husband gone, her child sick, her week’s work goat fodder, and a beating awaited her.
“Never seen pity get the mats done.” Sarah squatted, pulled the wooden trough closer, and began to knead the dough.
The door swung open again, and Lili, still looking fragile with grief, slipped in the house. Through her tears, Jochebed glanced at Aaron. He must be feeling better to sleep through this racket.
“Miriam and Deborah’s oldest girl are gathering more grasses, and Benjamin has gone for Shiphrah and Puah. They’re already nearby because Judith had her—” Lili’s voice caught. She swallowed hard. “She had another son last night, and Deborah was keeping Ella. Come on, Bedde, we can make enough this morning so maybe the Egyptians…” She choked on the word. “Maybe they will only yell at you.”
But when Aaron woke and began to whimper, Jochebed cried harder. “I just can’t do it all. Mother could have, but I can’t, and I’m just so tired, I can’t think.”
“Good,” said Shiphrah from the open doorway, “then maybe you’ll let someone help.”
Lili watched Jochebed without acknowledging the midwife.
Puah, who had followed Shiphrah into the house, lifted Aaron before he could turn his whimpers to wails. She whispered into his ear, and Aaron nodded.
“Mama, here are some reeds for you to start with. I know it’s not enough. And Benjamin is building a pen for the goat.” Miriam dashed out the door, and Jochebed rubbed the tears from her face.
The weavers worked steadily, avoiding conversation, and the pile of mats grew quickly as Miriam kept them supplied with rushes. Sarah set the bread to rise and tidied the house, fussing cheerfully.
“Never saw such a mess in my life. I raised eight of my own and never was in such a fix. Not that I’d ever criticize, but I can’t imagine not knowing how to tie a goat.”
The sun began its descent before the women agreed the stack of mats was high enough and Jochebed might avoid a beating.
“You need to hurry.” The urgency in Lili’s voice was unmistakable. “And you shouldn’t be alone this far along in your pregnancy.”
“Bedde, I’ll go with you,” Shiphrah said. “Sitting all day is as bad for my leg as walking too long.”
“Do you want her with you if you have a boy?” Sarah sniffed and squinted at Jochebed. “She’s half Egyptian, and you don’t know what she’ll do.”
Shiphrah blanched.
“Nonsense! I trained her myself,” said Puah, thwarting Sarah’s inference. “I’ll stay with Miriam and Aaron.”
Sarah stopped her happy grumbling. “Well, I guess I know when I’m not needed.” She stomped out.
Lili glared at Shiphrah. “So that leaves me to soothe Old Sarah’s ruffled feathers.”
Jochebed brushed her tears away. “Please, my friends—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Ground by countless feet carrying the burdens of slavery, the path to the overseer was lined with rocks kicked aside in anger and frustration. Each week the human beasts trudged with their goods—produce, cheese, baskets, incense—to beg and barter for ten more days of life under Egyptian bondage.
Each offering—measured, weighed, or counted—was recorded by the attending scribe, who sat cross-legged, his papyrus taut across his lap, a palette of inks and brushes by his side. Variance was unacceptable, as was mercy.
Dropping the slings of mats too close to the overseer’s feet, Jochebed cowered as dirt puffed up over his legs. The scribe coughed and waved at the cloud as Jochebed licked dust from her lips and tried to swallow. Arriving this late in the day was not in her favor either.
Arms crossed, the overseer regarded her from beneath lowered brows and tapped his whip against his arm. After staring at the bulge beneath her dress, he motioned for her to back away. The number and size of the mats were noted as well as the additional baskets she had brought, and although he frowned, the overseer dismissed her after nodding at a guard.
Standing in front of her, the soldier spat in her face. “Bear a boy. The crocs are hungry.” Jochebed stood with bowed head, not daring to wipe away the spittle until the man turned away.
She did not realize how nervous she had been until, walking away, she started to breathe again. Light-headed with relief, she searched the crowds for Shiphrah, waiting not far from the beggars’ well.
“He did nothing, thank God.”
“Yes, thank God,” Shiphrah echoed. “A beating would have hurt your baby.”
With trembling hands, Jochebed covered her belly and nodded, unable to voice her thoughts.
“If something happens to this last child of my Amram…”
“Let’s go home, Bedde. It’s been a long day, and you need to be away from these beggars. There is a smell of dead flesh in the air. I hope it’s not leprosy.”
“Shiphrah, I don’t want to think of what would have happened if you hadn’t helped…,” said Jochebed as they started away.
“But I did.”
“Sometimes when I feel most alone, missing Amram and Mother, I think God has abandoned me. Then there are da
ys like today…”
“This was a good day?”
“No, Shiphrah, listen to me. Days like this show me God’s hand and why He brought you into our lives. Today you may have saved my child’s life just as Mother may have saved yours.” Jochebed gave a little shrug. “I think maybe He had a reason for connecting our lives.
Shiphrah, it’s almost as if”—she dipped her head and blushed—“we’re woven together.”
Shiphrah reached for Bedde’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Bedde.”
Chapter 27
Ramses stood behind a shadowed screen and watched Nefertari reclining on a blue silk cushion beside her pool. As she stretched to reach a water lily floating by on the surface, the sunlight glinted on her bracelet of gold and ebony. She lifted her arm as if to admire her husband’s gift.
The other wives, seeing it, clamored over the delicate workmanship. Jealousy coated their words as they wondered aloud why Ramses did not give them such treasures.
Their foolishness amused him. Nefertari was his home, his haven, a place where he could be simply Ramses—not Ramses the pharaoh, or Ramses the general, or Ramses the high priest, but Ramses the man.
Silently he thanked the gods for his father’s wise choice of Great Wife. The first time Ramses met her, he had been a young vizier reigning with Seti I, his father. He had decided then that he would crown her the Queen of Egypt, the Great Wife of Pharaoh. He shook his head in amazement. She did not understand the power she held.
She was well schooled in court etiquette, he realized anew, as Nefertari smiled and nodded to the babbling court wives. Her face remained blank as if she were oblivious to the comments regarding the bracelet’s value.
The antics of pet ducks, another gift to his Nefertari, caught the women’s attention. The court wives dipped their hands into the scented waters and splashed the ducks, and Nefertari joined their laughter.
He must honor this woman of laughter and wisdom.
He knew many accused him of being a harsh man, a ruthless leader, but they would also complain if he were weak and indecisive. The god of Egypt must be strong, fearless, confident in action. It could not be otherwise. To the world he must be thus, but with her it was safe to show kindness, tenderness. She had vowed to never break his trust. She never had.
He understood he had become her lodestone. She wore the styles he liked, served the food he favored, and lived to please and serve him. Consequently, she had become the most influential person in Egypt other than himself.
Willow trees swayed in the breeze, tickling the water’s surface, and Ramses let the women’s chatter roll over him as he waited for Merit-Amun to arrive in obedience to her mother’s summons.
High-pitched voices warned him that their eldest daughter approached with her ever-present gaggle of squawking maids.
“Mother, whatever happened to your hair?”
“I’m well, my dear. Thank you for asking, and how are you?” Nefertari corrected her daughter with gentle words. “It’s so warm today I decided to enjoy the northern breeze. Come sit with me, dear. I was about to take some refreshment.” She lifted her hand to receive the silver cup and nodded for her maid to pour a second one.
Merit-Amun accepted a cup, sniffed, and motioned for it to be removed. “You know I don’t care for plain well water, Mother. It is unbearable without honey.”
Ramses saw his daughter level a bored look at Nefertari.
“Are you just sitting here doing nothing?”
Nefertari answered her with a graceful smile. “Serenity comes with age, child.”
“Don’t say that, Mother. You are not ‘aged,’ and I hate it when you talk like this.”
The lips so like her mother’s pouted, and although the voice was petulant, Ramses heard the fear underlying the words. Nefertari must have heard it, too. She shooed away the maids and court wives.
“My dear, you are, as always, beautiful, yet you seem troubled. Did the bad dream come upon you again, Merit-Amun?”
“Oh, Mama.” The arrogant girl disappeared, and in her place sat a child with frightened eyes. “It comes so many nights, and I wake up with my heart pounding, afraid to move. Every time, I’m boating with my friends and maids on the river when my favorite necklace—you know, the one with the lotus blossom carved in ivory, the one from Nubia—falls over the boat’s side. It doesn’t sink, I can see it floating just below the surface, but when I reach in the water and pull it out, it’s no longer a necklace. It has become a crocodile which tears apart our family and then destroys all of Egypt.”
“Have you consulted with your priests again?”
In her delicate face, Merit-Amun’s amber eyes appeared huge. “Several times—countless times. They tell me not to go boating because I will fall in, or that it is a sign from the gods I am vain, or that I have displeased the river god and need to make sacrifices.” She studied a perfect oval fingernail. “If their answers are from the gods, why are they all different? Do the gods change their minds?”
Nefertari paused before answering. “There are times, my lovely one, you must heed the advice of those wiser than yourself, whether they are priests or parents or even a servant.” She held up her hand as if to still an expected protest. “Let me finish. And there are times you must listen only to the voice within yourself.”
Merit-Amun clasped her hands and wailed. “But how do I know when to do which?”
“That, my dear, is the harder question. Would you like to know how I decide to whom I shall listen?” Without waiting for an answer, Nefertari continued, “Ask, ‘Why?’ For example, why would the priest think you offended the river god? Have you done something to anger either the priest or Hapi, the river god? Answer yourself truthfully.
“Then ask yourself, ‘Why should I listen to the voice within? Is there something I know which no one else does?’”
Nefertari sipped her drink. “At times I ask myself, ‘Why do I want to do this? What is my real reason?’ If you are completely, brutally honest with yourself, you will discover the answer. The secret is asking yourself, ‘What is my why?’”
“So I should try to understand the dream myself?”
“Perhaps. No one knows you better than yourself … or your mother.”
Merit-Amun laughed.
“Be ruthlessly honest with yourself, my dear. What are you hiding? What do you fear? What is your deepest desire? It may not interpret your dream, but it will reveal you to yourself.”
“Mama?”
“Dear one.”
“Mama, my deepest desire is to … I know that as Pharaoh’s daughter, I carry the right to kingship within my body, and if you retire to the harem in Faiyum or walk in the eternal afterlife, I could be crowned Great Wife to my father. Since my father will be my husband in name only, what chance will there ever be for me to have my deepest desire, to bear a child?”
Ramses raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought of that, but it was true.
“Someday I may be a queen of Egypt, yet I cannot have the one thing I want—someone to call my own, someone I do not have to share with Egypt.” For an instant, her chin trembled. “Will anyone ever call me Mama?”
“I’m sorry, dear one. You would have been a good mother.”
Mother and daughter sat quietly, and then Merit-Amun stood and kissed her mother’s forehead. “Thank you, Mama.”
A whiff of jasmine reached Ramses’s thin nose as his daughter left the courtyard, oblivious to her father’s presence. He stepped from behind the screen as Nefertari approached him.
“You would be a good priestess, Nefertari. If you ever tire of being the Great Wife…”
She placed a finger over his lips. “I am content to simply be your beloved. I wish to serve only one god—you.”
Chapter 28
The day was still, heavy with heat, when Jochebed felt the familiar tightening, signaling her time of labor was near. After she sent Miriam to find Shiphrah, she gathered what would be needed: water, cloths, and a small b
asket lined with combed wool to cradle the baby. Shiphrah had her own small knife to cut the cord binding mother and child.
The pain wrapped around her, tighter this time before releasing its grip. Jochebed picked up a half-finished basket, twined the strands in and out, crossing them in the middle. It was an easy weave, one that could be started and stopped without too much thought, one Mother taught her in the beginning. If only Mama were here.
Thankfully, Aaron slept, having finally cried himself to exhaustion. Even in his sleep he pulled his ear and tossed fitfully.
Jochebed gasped as the pangs came again. Shiphrah needed to hurry. Always before, Mother had been here, talking to distract her, wiping her head with a cool cloth, handing her a drink of water, telling her she was being brave. If only Mama were still here. Would she ever stop missing her? She would have been pleased to have another granddaughter to hold.
She finished another row and bit her lip. It was coming so fast. Her body wanted to push, wanted to bear down. She put the basket aside, no longer able to concentrate. Where was Shiphrah?
Shiphrah and Samuel watched Lili a short distance away. For a long time, neither spoke.
Lili stood in the same place as always, on the riverbank where the Egyptian soldiers had trampled the reeds before throwing the babies to their deaths in the teeming river. Some days she stood from early morning to late evening staring at the water as if expecting her son to reappear.
Lili’s husband had given up trying to keep her at home. At first the family feared Lili would walk into the water looking for the child and be swept away by its deeper currents. No trace of the killings could be found, and sometimes Shiphrah wondered if it would have been easier on Lili if she could have prepared and buried the tiny body.
“Will she always have these times, Shiphrah?” The chiseled lines on Samuel’s face deepened. “Sometimes I think she has finished grieving, and some days it seems she’s just begun.”
“I wish I knew.” The bleakness in his voice worried her. It was not just Lili who suffered from her child’s death; it was all of them. All of her family, her friends, everyone in the village ached for Lili who had finally borne a child only to have it torn from her breast. One never completely recovered after losing a child.
Slender Reeds: Jochebed’s Hope Page 21