by Angela Hunt
“I should be going.” He pushed himself up from the rock, his private anguish almost overcoming his control of his voice. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“You said the vizier was unhappy with you.” As she lowered her hand Menashe could see the silvery tracks of tears on her cheeks. But she looked up and offered him a sweet smile of concern. “Why is your master unhappy? Are you in terrible trouble?”
“I suppose so,” he answered. “I have been in the wilderness with a group of Hebrews who are preparing to launch an invasion into Canaan. God Shaddai promised that land to Yisrael’s descendants. Now that Yaakov is dead, there is no need for the sons of Yisrael to remain in Egypt.”
“An invasion?” She shivered. “But why must you go to war?”
“God called me,” he answered, “and I must obey. But since the vizier does not understand or approve, I have left his house.”
Her hand flew to her throat. “These Hebrews—is Efrayim with you? Is he in danger?”
“No,” Menashe answered, his voice dry. “Efrayim is content to remain in the center of Thebes.”
A shadow of satisfaction crossed her face, then her countenance settled back into delicate, composed lines. “All the same, troublesome slaves are whipped, my friend. I would not like to think of you being punished.”
Her hand fell on his, burning his skin with her touch, and emotion clotted his throat so he could not speak. “I would be honored if you would think of me, Jendayi,” he finally answered, extending both hands to help her up. Still holding her hands, he stepped back to regard her in the golden light of sunset. She would be a welcome addition to Efrayim’s household if Pharaoh chose to make her a gift to his prospective son-in-law. But she would not be happy as Efrayim’s slave, for he would give her no more attention than he gave the prowling housecats which rid the villa of vermin and occasionally demanded an affectionate stroke.
What should love do? Work toward what she wanted, or what was best for her? The question hammered at him.
“Jendayi, I must return to the vizier’s house for a few days, but I will do what I can to help you,” Menashe promised, his voice breaking. “While I am gone, accept my farewells and know this—the path toward Efrayim is not the best one for you.”
One delicate brow lifted. “And have you knowledge of another secret garden door?”
“That all depends—” he dropped her hands “—on where you want to go.” He turned and made his way down the bank of the canal. When he turned for a last look, she had vanished into the wall surrounding Pharaoh’s palace.
Jendayi turned and slipped back through the wall, stunned by the void she felt when Chenzira left her alone. But she was only being foolish. Like a child who shivered when a cloud blocked the sun, she was growing used to the hope of Efrayim, and now she was alone again, with only a slave’s promise of help.
She would have to accept her role in life, realize once again that she was nothing but a slave.
But one of Chenzira’s questions kept slipping through her thoughts: By heaven above, Jendayi, do you love Efrayim so much?
“If you only knew, my friend,” she whispered, feeling the cool breath of the garden on her face. “I must love or die forever. And Efrayim is the one who can best show me how.”
Chapter Nineteen
Akil scarcely had time to hide himself behind a sycamore tree before Jendayi slipped back through the little door and brushed herself off. The chironomist stood very still, keenly aware of the girl’s heightened sense of hearing, and only dared breathe again when she began to make her way back over the garden path.
Leaning on the gnarled tree trunk with one hand, he shook his head, amazed that she had managed to attract trouble even while safe behind the guardian walls of the king’s palace. She had always given him more cause for concern than the others. Kissa, the lutist, was as lovely as the harpist, and the oboist, Sakmet, flirted constantly with the guards, but trouble focused on Jendayi with the unblinking eye of a god. When she was but a child, another slave trader had recognized her gift and tried to abduct her from Akil’s tent, a hundred jealousy-spurred rumors had attempted to sully her name, and even in the vizier’s house the younger son had taken her lovely face in his hands…
Thoughts of the vizier’s sons lit a hot, clenched ball of anger at Akil’s center. They were always appearing when he least expected them, upsetting his tidily ordered world. Today Sakmet had come running to report that Jendayi was leading a man into the private garden, so Akil hurried out to safeguard his treasure. His annoyance turned to speechless shock when he recognized Menashe, the vizier’s elder son, and shock evolved into panic when the pair disappeared through the escape door. If Menashe was helping Jendayi escape, Akil knew his head would be in a basket before sunset. And so he had followed, sneaking like a viper up into the branches of a sycamore where he saw and overheard enough of the riverside conversation to know that Jendayi did not plan to escape. Menashe had come to say goodbye before departing to join a military corps intent on an invasion of Canaan.
The chironomist rubbed his expressive hands together and considered the information he had just gleaned. Pharaoh would not approve of this armed force; any action not sanctioned by the king would be construed as a direct slap against his authority. A mighty lion could not have two mouths or two heads, so the king possessed complete military power in Egypt.
The master musician smiled. Such information, dispensed at the right time and to the right person, could be invaluable. And Akil, who prided himself on his hardheaded pragmatism, knew this report would have to be presented with the utmost discretion. The mighty Amenhotep would never listen to a lowly musician, but other, more receptive ears had tilted toward Akil in the past…
Tiy would grant him an audience. The queen often asked for his impressions of the people who visited her throne room, for he was the perfect observer and routinely ignored by her guests. More than once after a pompous nobleman had passed out of the queen’s chambers, Akil had ended that man’s lofty ambitions by drizzling gray disapproval. Tiy, marvelous judge of character that she was, trusted him.
For news of impending treason, the queen would be most grateful. And if Akil handled this situation with Jendayi as quietly as he had others in her past, she would not be affected. She would never even know what had happened to her false friend.
“How do you know this is true, Akil?” Tiy asked, resting her chin on the dainty tip of her thumb. Her intelligent dark eyes shimmered with light from the torches in her chamber, and Akil found it difficult to find his tongue. No matter how humble her origins, she was a goddess, surely as divine as Pharaoh.
“I heard their conversation with my own ears,” he said, lowering his forehead to the marble floor where he had prostrated himself. “The vizier’s son said he had to return to the desert where the invasion force was training. So I took a boat at once to bring you word—”
“A military force,” the queen echoed, her voice dark with restrained power. “Pharaoh should be told of this.”
“That’s what I thought.” Akil dared to lift his gaze to her august person. “But who am I to tell him? My humble words would be but a buzzing in his ear.”
“I will tell him.” Tiy’s dark hair swung about her proud shoulders as she stood. Akil bowed his head again, unable to bear the sight of her curving, regal figure at so close a distance.
“Thank you, Akil,” she said, her voice now coolly impersonal. “Speak of this to no one else, and I will send a message to Pharaoh on the ship that carries you back to Malkata. But I will urge him to do nothing until I have had an opportunity to spy out the matter. If the situation is what it seems, something must be done.”
Speechless with admiration, Akil nodded.
“It is unfortunate, of course, for the young man.” Tiy’s dark eyes, too hard for beauty, were now as flat and unreadable as stone. “I liked Menashe, he seemed a great deal more sensible than his brother.” She tapped the fingertips of her hands together. “But trea
son cannot be tolerated. We would commit a great injustice if we executed our vizier’s son without proof of his sedition, so we will give him time, and a little rope…and wait to see whether or not he will hang himself.”
What a glorious gift of the gods she was! What a song he would write to praise her cunning!
“Now go.” Her words echoed in the chamber. “And remember—tell no one.”
Buoyed by the knowledge that he had been of service to the queen of his heart, Akil backed away.
The inky sky faded to indigo and then to deep purple; the silver stars gradually withdrew into the vault of heaven, leaving Yosef alone with his thoughts. He had left his home before sunrise for several reasons, chief among them his wish to avoid a confrontation with Menashe. Last night Ani had come into Yosef’s chambers and reported that the wayward son had finally returned to the villa. With an uplifted brow the old man had lifted the unspoken question—do you want to see him?—and Yosef had been forced to admit that he did not.
Why, Menashe? he questioned, walking through the nearly deserted streets. He locked his hands behind his back and kept his eyes intent on the smooth path beneath his feet. Why did you embark on this foolish task without asking for my permission, even my advice? Could we not have discussed your ideas?
As he approached the docks, his mind supplied the answers. Menashe wouldn’t talk to him because he knew how Yosef would respond: God is not calling the sons of Yisrael back to Canaan; I have already decreed that our people will remain in Goshen. He was a decisive, busy man, he had no patience or time for theory or postulation or suppositions. In over twenty years, in fact, he had no time for his son. His time belonged to Amenhotep, to Egypt.
On his loneliest days, in snatched moments between the endless interviews and appointments, Yosef wondered if his burden was too much for one man to bear. But he had been fulfilling these responsibilities for over twenty-seven years, and he was still as strong and capable as any man in Pharaoh’s service. He could serve another thirty years if God Shaddai so willed. Amenhotep trusted him, and such confidence was a rare gift.
The stars had completely faded behind a sky of dark blue velvet by the time his felucca reached the palace at Malkata. The guards at the gate bowed and allowed him to pass, and Yosef automatically turned through the halls that would lead him to Pharaoh’s bedchamber.
Every morning after the divine pharaoh had been awakened by his hymn-singing priests, and then perfumed, painted and bedecked in a spotless kilt and the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, Yosef was the first official to greet him. Today, as the god-king ate his breakfast, Yosef sat at a respectful distance and outlined his work of the previous day.
Yesterday, he reported, he had interviewed three governors of Egypt’s southern nomes, read an assortment of agricultural and tax reports from all the nomarchs and inspected the king’s bodyguard. He had dispatched a detail to investigate a disturbance at one of the northeastern military posts, and asked for information from navy officials who commanded forts on the Nile. He had heard accountings from the leading priests of Thebes’s temples, received a full report from an assistant in charge of overseeing the valuable timbered lands and asked for a summary of the Nile’s progress from the Nile readers at Elephantine. After completing this work he had returned to his villa, where a long line of complainants waited for him to hear their cases and pronounce judgment.
He paused. Amenhotep, who usually ate his breakfast and listened to Yosef’s report with few comments, sat silently, ignoring the priests’ offerings, and gazed at his vizier like a bird staring at a snake.
Supposing that the king had an upset stomach, Yosef continued to read. “Four hundred healthy cattle were gathered in taxes from the city-states of Syria,” he said, consulting the scroll in his hand, “with two hundred bushels of grain, three hundred barrels of wine, two hundred of oil, two hundred of honey. And the princes of Mitanni have sent five hundred deben weight of silver to secure your marriage to Astra, daughter of one of their kings.”
Ordinarily the mention of a woman would have elicited an exclamation for good or ill, but Amenhotep still said nothing. At the sound of Pharaoh’s silence, Yosef lowered the papyrus parchments to his lap.
“What is troubling you, my lord?” Yosef asked. “By the love I hold for you and the trust you place in me, I beg you to speak freely.”
Amenhotep’s square jaw tensed. “Last night,” Pharaoh said mockingly, “I learned that your son Menashe has been training a secret military force in the wilderness east of Tura.”
Yosef’s body tightened, then he forced himself to take a deep breath. Whatever had happened in the desert did not matter now, for Menashe was home where he belonged. Though Yosef had not yet spoken to his son, the young man was certainly no longer involved with the scheme to retake Canaan. That escapade—the misadventures of a few hot-blooded Hebrew youths—had been concluded.
Yosef shook his head. “There are no secret military forces in Egypt, my king. I am your vizier, and I would know if such a thing were true.”
“Do you know every secret, then?” Amenhotep threw the words like stones. “Does your god tell you everything that goes on in this kingdom?”
“Not everything, Pharaoh.” Yosef tipped his head back. “But He has given me guidance about all matters of importance.”
The king’s brows flickered and he settled back in his seat. “All matters of importance,” he repeated, tracing his finger along the curved arm of his gilded chair. “Is your family not important, then? For I have it on good authority that your elder son has been recruiting my Medjay warriors for a foray into Canaan. He was seen here, yesterday, striking hands with my giant. If the rumor is true, he is planning to invade lands that have been under Egypt’s authority and defense since the time of Tuthmosis III. How shall I explain to the Canaanite governors that my warriors are attacking territories under my protection?”
For an instant Yosef could not think. A wave of grayness passed over him, a dark premonition. For though the king’s charge was preposterous, he knew with pulse-pounding certainty that Pharaoh spoke the truth. Menashe was stubborn and he might yet persist in this unreasonable and foolish notion. But would he go so far as to appear at Malkata to brazenly recruit Pharaoh’s elite guards?
His temper rose. What would make a young man dishonor his father and even the king? Deliberately, consciously and in full knowledge that he would severely damage his father’s reputation, Menashe had rebelliously plowed through a carefully cultivated character and position.
Anger and frustration surged in Yosef’s soul, accompanied by a deep sense of shame. If his lack of parental control was obvious to Pharaoh, it would be apparent to the entire kingdom. Word of this misadventure would spread throughout the palace by nightfall and be repeated in the nobles’ houses by the following sunrise. By week’s end, every man and woman in Thebes would know that Zaphenath-paneah had foolishly allowed his son to anger Pharaoh—
By heaven above, what if Pharaoh cast Yosef off? He would have every right to do so, for Yosef had permitted his son to commit an abominable act…
Yosef slipped from his chair and lowered himself to the floor, feeling for the first time in his life that he groveled before his king. “Forgive me, my lord, for disappointing you and failing as a father,” he whispered, choking on the words. “And forgive my son for his senseless actions. I will remedy the situation immediately. I will do whatever has to be done.”
Pharaoh stretched the silence, his eyes icy and unresponsive, then commanded his vizier to rise. When Yosef stood again before him, the king smiled in a way that only emphasized that he hadn’t smiled before. “Find your son—” Amenhotep spoke in the tone a father might use to reprimand a child “—and keep him at home. The gods have blessed us since you and your people came here. We have no wish to see you leave. And we will not hold the shame of one son against the other. If your son Menashe forgoes these foolish plans for battle, your son Efrayim shall marry my daughter Sitamun. And our two
houses shall be joined forever.”
Intensely humiliated, Yosef could only nod.
“Now, back to your report.” Pharaoh dipped his hand into a bowl of succulent grapes. “Tell me more about this daughter of the Mitannis.”
“Did you not stop to think how this action would appear to Pharaoh?” Yosef heard bitterness spill over into his voice, but he did not care. Menashe stood before him, his hands hanging at his side, his eyes closed, his head unbowed. A proud figure, who might have swelled Yosef’s heart with admiration if the signs of pride had not reminded him so much of himself.
Yosef had chosen to address his wayward son from the authority of the dais in the grand reception hall. The regal height of the chamber only seemed to emphasize his son’s solitary figure. Thirty men waited outside in the vestibule, anxious to whine, complain or beg for justice, but at the moment Yosef had no time for anyone but his own stubborn son.
Menashe said nothing, and Yosef clenched his fist, torn between confrontation and forgiveness. If Menashe would only confess and apologize, all would be forgotten. Amenhotep could be distracted from this mistake, the wedding plans for Sitamun and Efrayim would provide a pleasant diversion.
Yosef took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. “Pharaoh has promised to forgive if you abandon this foolhardy venture.” He gripped the armrests of his chair. “He has promised that Efrayim will marry Sitamun, thus linking our houses for all time. In a few months, if you please the king, you may be offered one of the younger princesses—”
“I do not want to marry a princess.” Menashe’s voice grated in the spacious chamber. He lifted his gaze to meet Yosef’s face. His eyes, cold and proud—oh, how well Yosef understood them!
“Well, then. If the royal women do not suit you, there are yet a hundred noble families in Thebes who would be happy for their daughters to be joined with Zaphenath-paneah’s house.”