by Angela Hunt
Menashe felt his heart constrict, knowing that the king pointed to Jendayi. No one had dared to suggest that she and Ani were anything more than slaves obeying their masters’ will, but she was still property, and she had belonged to Pharaoh…
Amenhotep turned to Yosef, his finger still stretching toward Jendayi. “Have you any objection, Zaphenath-paneah?” The beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “After all, I did return the girl to you.”
Menashe pressed his lips together as his father shook his head. How could he object? Pharaoh had already stripped Yosef of his life, his calling and his sons. What did it matter if he repossessed one blind harpist?
“Then that is how it shall be.” Pharaoh lowered his hand and folded his hands in satisfaction. “The winner wins his life and the harpist. The loser forfeits his life. And this god of the Hebrews will decide the course of the game…which we shall play on the morrow.”
He smiled, anticipating the event to come, and Tiy rose and extended her hand. Taking the hint, Pharaoh stood as well, and the two of them departed the throne room, trailed by a sea of daughters, priests, wives and counselors.
Motivated either by compassion or spite, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard put Efrayim and Menashe into different cells separated by a far expanse of sandy courtyard. Menashe thought the arrangement a good idea, for depression had engulfed him after Pharaoh announced the bizarre contest. Efrayim had always enjoyed more luck at games and sporting events than had Menashe, and he found he had little to say to the brother who would undoubtedly win the game. The comforting words he would have called out across the courtyard would not move past the knot of jealousy in his throat.
So this is the meaning of grandfather Yaakov’s blessing, Menashe thought, stretching out on a thread-worn strip of blanket some other prisoner had left behind. Efrayim shall be the greater nation because Efrayim will live long enough to beget sons and daughters! Whereas I shall die on the morrow, and the last thing my eyes will see is Pharaoh placing Jendayi’s hand in Efrayim’s.
His misery was so acute that his heart ached worse than his physical pains, which were considerable. He turned onto his bruised side and moaned, regretting but not surprised that life had boiled down to a choice between him and his brother.
He lowered his head to his arms and sighed. His father would not be sleeping either. Despite his own unhappiness, Menashe felt a stab of compassion for the man who had risen from slavery to the dizzying heights of power. But the tide had turned. Now Zaphenath-paneah had no wife, no power and little respect. Would God also take his sons? He had already lost one. Though Yosef kept his features deceptively composed during the audience with Pharaoh, Menashe knew the day had been especially agonizing for him when Amenhotep, Yosef’s surrogate son, visibly and publicly demonstrated that he cared so little for Zaphenath-paneah’s judgment that he would consult a game board before asking advice from the former Father to Pharaoh.
Menashe closed his eyes and lifted a prayer. “God Shaddai, forgive him for not believing. You have spoken through him for so long, he has found it difficult to accept that You would speak through someone like me.” He gulped as a hot tear slipped down his swollen cheek. “I still find it hard to believe myself. You led me into the wilderness where we met with failure, You have led me to Pharaoh’s court where I will probably die on the morrow. But I am willing to do whatever You require. I beg You to make me ready.”
Deep within the palace at Malkata, Pharaoh tossed and turned, refusing to be borne to the world of dreams. Beside him, stretched across the spacious bed fit only for a king, Sitamun lay asleep, her gentle snores punctuating the darkness.
Looking at her, Pharaoh frowned. He would never have agreed to marry his daughter if not for the queen’s insistence. He knew Tiy’s insecurity could be traced to her own humble roots, but sleeping with his daughter was about as thrilling as counting bricks in a pyramid. Once Sitamun produced an heir, he would send her to the harem and let her live out her days in peace.
Tiy’s other suggestion, the game of Hounds and Jackals, had at first struck Amenhotep as delightfully fitting, but now it bothered him. Should a man’s destiny be determined by a roll of the knucklebones? Zaphenath-paneah would never agree to adjudicate a case this way, and the former vizier’s injured, sorrowful expression had revealed to the entire court just how deeply the queen’s idea offended him. Amenhotep knew he should not have wounded Zaphenath-paneah, for the people still revered him and his unseen god. Though very few even knew how to worship this God Shaddai, Amenhotep could not refute the consensus of opinion that an invisible god had blessed the Black Land for the sake of its vizier.
That opinion had grown stronger in the days since Zaphenath-paneah’s departure from court. A host of intolerable situations had recently developed—an incurable fungus had blighted the harvest at Opet, a rich vein of black granite had disappeared at the Ibhet quarry, even the normally easy-to-please harem women had developed a habit of ceaseless squabbling. Someday soon, he realized, he might have to bring Zaphenath-paneah back to court…
Amenhotep could never openly espouse belief in God Shaddai, but having Zaphenath-paneah next to him as a shield had deflected trouble before. He would be wise to restore his old friend to the vizierate, but nothing could be done until this matter of Efrayim and Menashe had been settled.
But—the contest! It was too late to pardon the young men; he had already publicly declared that he and God Shaddai knew the game’s outcome.
Sitamun moaned softly in a dream, and Amenhotep rolled his eyes and chewed on the edge of his thumbnail. The game would have to be played. One son would live, one would begin the long journey to his tomb. And, after burying one of his sons, Zaphenath-paneah would hear the king’s offer to return to the vizierate, spit in Amenhotep’s face and be promptly executed for his effrontery.
Pharaoh covered his face with his hands, tasting defeat for the first time in his life.
“Hush, my girl, don’t weep,” Ani whispered, his thickened voice rising above the wails of other slaves in Pharaoh’s prison. He and Jendayi had been thrust together into the same rank pit, two pieces of property not worthy of any special considerations for modesty or propriety.
Jendayi lifted her face from the matted straw and tried to swallow the sobs that kept rising from her throat. “I can’t help it. I don’t know what to do. It is too terrible, Ani, too unjust. Menashe has hurt no one, and Efrayim sought only to help his brother.”
“You speak both their names with affection.” A slight trace of cynicism lined Ani’s voice. “How convenient, since it appears you will leave Malkata tomorrow belonging to one or the other.”
“But I don’t want anyone to die!” Her anguish peaked to shatter the last shreds of her control. “I only want to be loved.”
“My dear girl, don’t weep.” The straw rustled as Ani slid to her side. She felt aged hands on her head, and he pulled her to his shoulder, cradling her in his arms. “If you want to be loved, do not fear. I believe you already are.”
“I know,” she murmured in a despairing whisper. “I see that now. I thought Efrayim loved me, but all the time it was Menashe, quietly caring, trying not to hurt me—”
“Hush, child.”
Bitter laughter bubbled to her lips. “I never knew how blind I was until last night. Menashe’s love was there all along for me to see, to test, and Efrayim never gave me any indication that he cared. Oh, I do not fault him, for I imagined and invented every sign of affection I thought I saw…”
She closed her eyes and flung out her hands in simple despair. “I didn’t see anything! Menashe asked me to have faith in him, but I couldn’t! I could only hear Efrayim’s voice. I dwelt on memories of Efrayim’s kiss. I put Menashe out of my mind—”
“No, child, you didn’t.” Ani spoke with cool authority. “You didn’t forget him. And when he called for you, you risked everything to answer. Whether you know it or not, you have already made the choice…to love.”
Jendayi listened in silence, then gave the old man a grateful kiss on the cheek. Perhaps he was right. Curling up in the straw, she carried the hope in his words back to the bitterly cold caves of her lonely soul.
Could she choose to love? Was the answer to her nightmare really so simple?
Only the gods could tell.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Though adults and children alike enjoyed the game of Hounds and Jackals, there was no sign of childish merrymaking when a squadron of Pharaoh’s warriors escorted Menashe and Efrayim into the royal garden the next morning. Pharaoh and Queen Tiy had already been seated in tall chairs before the reflecting pool, and a host of curious nobles lounged behind a specially cordoned observation area. A team of archers, Menashe noticed with a grimace, stood stiffly at the far end of the garden, ready for the execution order.
Abnu was not among them. Menashe had heard from one of the guards that the giant and his loyal comrade had been transferred to the palace at Thebes just after the sick man in their care mysteriously escaped. Pharaoh was not pleased with the mercenary Medjays, but he valued them too highly to discipline them harshly.
“Look.” Efrayim nodded toward the archers. “Our pharaoh is not willing to risk criticism in his handling of this matter. The sentence will be carried out before anyone can protest.”
“Who could protest?” Menashe rubbed his stiff arms. “He has already announced that God Shaddai will rule this contest. And so one of us will be dispatched to the Other World according to the will of Almighty God.”
“I am not worried,” Efrayim answered, swinging his arms across his chest as if he prepared for a wrestling match. “You think I have no faith in God Shaddai, but I do. And I know Pharaoh is right in at least one thing—the god of Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov will prevail here today.”
“If you have such faith, why didn’t you go with me into the desert?” Menashe lifted a brow. “If you believe in God, you should have believed Canaan is our home, for it is what He promised—”
“I didn’t go with you into the desert because I didn’t want to go,” Efrayim interrupted. He shook out his arms, then slapped his hands on his hips and gave Menashe an abashed smile. “I hate the desert. I hate sand, and heat, and lousy food. And I hate pain, the kind you felt when someone plastered those bruises on your face. But today, brother, I have no choice but to follow you. And if I have to endure pain, I hope God will be merciful and dispatch me quickly.”
Baffled, Menashe stared at the brother he loved more than he cared to admit. Charming Efrayim could tell you his worst faults with a smile and still you’d want to take him home and keep him forever.
Menashe’s gaze moved over the crowd until he spied Jendayi, Ani, Yosef and Tarik. The four of them stood apart from the others in a little knot, united by fear and despair. His father’s eyes, large and fierce with pain, were fixed on nothing, while Tarik looked straight at Menashe. Concentrate, the captain’s piercing eyes seemed to say, take care. Remember all I have taught you. Jendayi’s unseeing eyes were wide, but a look of intense, clear light seemed to pour through them as she nestled against Ani’s birdlike chest.
Which brother did she want to win? In either case, she would belong to a man who would take care of her. So why did she cling to Ani as if she were afraid?
Menashe stepped forward as the king’s guard gestured to him. One of the king’s new viziers, a portly fellow who only a month before had been a scribe tending to requisitions for the king’s tomb, mounted a stand and held up his hands. When the crowd fell silent, his gaze focused on Efrayim and Menashe. “You must each choose a representative to roll the knucklebones for you.” His brown eyes flickered. “Whom shall you choose?”
With the cocky grin of earlier days, Efrayim lifted his head and searched the crowd. Menashe shook his head when his brazen brother flashed a smile at Sitamun. “I would enjoy the honor of having Queen Sitamun cast the bones for me,” he said, fixing her in a dark-eyed vise.
Murmurs swept through the crowd, but the new queen rose from her chair and moved with fluid strides toward the tray containing the bones.
“And you?” the vizier barked at Menashe.
Menashe looked over the crowd again. He could not ask his father to participate in an activity that might condemn Efrayim, and poor Ani would be just as torn between them. But Tarik—he caught the bantam guard’s gaze and saw the captain nod. Tarik was a warrior with a heart of steel. His courage would see them through this day.
Menashe shifted his gaze back to the undeserving vizier. “I choose Tarik, captain of Zaphenath-paneah’s guard.”
The stout man nodded and rubbed his hands together. “Good. You, Menashe, will be the hound. You will run this course.” He pointed toward a looping pathway which wound through the eastern half of the garden. “And you, Efrayim, will be the jackal, and will run the opposite course.”
Efrayim gave the vizier a grudging nod, then positioned himself before the first tile. Menashe looked at Efrayim, they shared a smile, then Menashe moved to his starting position and turned toward the small dais where Sitamun stood next to a polished stand.
As Tarik shouldered his way through the crowd, Sitamun gathered the bones from their tray, cast a winning smile at Efrayim and tossed the knucklebones with a triumphant flourish.
The vizier bent over the pan and read the bones. “Six!” The sixth tile, to which Efrayim proceeded in a burst of energy, was linked to the lower half of the jackal’s course. Efrayim paused on the tile, and in an instant the bark-carriers appeared with the fanciful carved boat of Amon-Re. They lowered it, Efrayim climbed inside, and then, amid a smattering of applause from the observers, the slaves lifted the long poles to their shoulders and carried Efrayim forward to a point only eight tiles away from the end of the course.
Menashe watched, astounded both by the casual attitude of the staring nobles and his brother’s nonchalance. He was surprised Efrayim did not wave as the boat passed by.
Tarik stepped to the dais where the vizier held the metal pan containing the knucklebones. Tarik picked them up, jostled them in his palm and dropped them clattering into the open container.
“One!” the vizier called out. Menashe closed his eyes in relief and took a step forward. Though his roll had not been nearly as favorable as Efrayim’s, at least he had been able to begin the game. Many times as a child he had sat in morose silence waiting to throw a one or a six while Efrayim gallivanted around the game board.
Bowing from the waist, the vizier presented the metal tray to Sitamun, who cast a longing look at Efrayim as she scooped up the knucklebones and pressed them to her lips for good fortune. Menashe cast a quick look at Pharaoh to see if he noticed the unspoken language between his wife and the accused criminal, but Pharaoh’s eyes were fixed on the crowd, not the course.
The crowd stilled as Sitamun shook the bones, then released them into the tray.
“One!” the vizier called, his face pinking with eagerness. Sensing that Efrayim was the royal favorite, a few observers applauded as he took the next tile.
Tarik stepped forward again, his chin lifting in iron determination as if he would not allow Menashe to fail. With vigorous intensity he picked up the bones and clattered them together in his hand, then released them with a vigorous gesture.
“Six!” the vizier called. A chorus of ahhs rose from the crowd as Menashe paced out the allotted number of tiles. He had missed linking with the shortcut by one tile, but as he reached the sixth he bellowed in delight.
“This tile is marked with the ankh!” he called, rejoicing in the small but satisfying victory. Efrayim’s insanely inappropriate gaiety was contagious. “Roll again, Tarik!”
The vizier’s mouth spread into a thin-lipped smile as he handed the bones to Tarik again. Tarik picked up the stones, held them in his hands and then did something Menashe had never seen him do before. In the manner of the Hebrews, Tarik the great Egyptian captain held his hands aloft, lifted his face to heaven and moved his lips in a
silent prayer.
The vizier’s eyebrows rose. “By the power of Hathor’s sun disk, what are you doing?” he asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
Pharaoh leaned forward in his chair and stared, but did not speak until Tarik lowered his head. “Captain,” Pharaoh said, his impersonal tone breaking the uncomfortable silence, “if this is some form of protest—”
“It is not, my king.” Tarik dipped his head in a formal bow. “But since you said God Shaddai’s will should command this event, I thought one of us should ask His blessing on it.”
Pharaoh sank back in his chair and clapped his hand to his cheek. Tiy leaned forward, her face marked with loathing. What might she do? Menashe tensed when Tarik shook the bones again.
“Three!” the vizier called when the bones had come to rest in the pan. Menashe took three giant steps forward, only to grimace when he realized that the third tile connected to a shortcut that would force him backward. The toothless old priest tipped his basket and a pair of cobras slithered forth to chase Menashe back to the beginning of the shortcut. He retreated, but noticed that the tile where he finally stood was one ahead of where he had begun at the beginning of his turn. He tossed Tarik a smile of encouragement.
While a pair of shaven priests chased the harmless cobras through the skittish crowd, Sitamun stepped forward to roll the bones again for Efrayim. There was a clatter, a clang, then the vizier yelled, “One!” and Efrayim moved forward again.
Jendayi grew more uncomfortable with every moment the game progressed. She had scarcely rested the previous night; she had not even slept long enough to visit the netherworld of her nightmare. But still the old fears haunted her. She awakened in a panic, her mind congested with doubts and regrets that did not vanish in the activity of the morning.
Ani had taken her arm and escorted her from the prison to the palace, but exhaustion blurred the scents and sounds in the garden around her, blending her nightmares with reality. Now she stood on tiles that radiated heat just like the glowing tiles of her dream. And even though she clutched the comforting fabric of Ani’s cloak, eerily familiar sounds seeped through her darkness to haunt her. Those in the crowd who rooted for Efrayim were now howling like jackals, giving voice to Anubis and his gleaming ebony eyes. Somewhere in the gathering a papyrus reed scratched across parchment, recording every action just like Thoth the Scribe. And was that sound the clatter of bones or her teeth chattering in fear? The object clanging in the pan was her own hard heart, the useless and atrophied vessel which would compel her toward the vicious jaws of the One who Eats the Dead…