Counted With the Stars (7 page)

T
orch 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 another, 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?

I pulled back the linen cover on Tekurah's bed and gasped.

Not just one or two, but twenty or more little frogs nestled in Tekurah's bedclothes.

I lifted the light higher. Hundreds of tiny frogs blanketed the floor. Tekurah hyperventilated, pleading with me to do something. What could I do? Frogs crept everywhere.

I rushed to the corner to retrieve a straw broom, recoiling
whenever I stepped on a frog with my bare feet. I attempted to sweep the tiny creatures out the doorway. However, the weak predawn light illuminated a hallway that swarmed with frogs as well.

Tekurah stood on top of a stool in the middle of the room, petrified, pointing out each frog she saw and urging me to hurry. The frogs terrified me, too, but the luxury of standing on a stool, ordering a slave about, belonged to her.

Latikah came from the servants' sleeping quarters to help, but as many frogs as we found and scooped out the windows and into the hallway, more took their places. Where were those cats when they were actually needed?

“This is useless, mistress. We have been working for hours, but they just keep coming. We are fighting a losing battle.” I wiped sweat from my face with the back of my hand, another vain gesture.

“Go get Shefu,” she commanded. “Latikah will keep at it.”

I took my broom, swiping at the tiny beasts before each step. Some of them clung to the straw, and I was forced to shake them off every few steps. By this time, I'd given up being scared of the frogs. Now every time one jumped at me, I gritted my teeth and lashed out with angry force, only to face more of them scuttling my way.

A sea of tiny, green and brown creatures swarmed the hallway, hopping wildly. I swept my way to Shefu's quarters and knocked on his door. One of his handservants, Lefar, answered.

“Mistress Tekurah requests the presence of Master Shefu in her quarters.” I bowed my head.

Shefu appeared in the doorway. “What, pray tell, does she expect me to do? The same curse plagues us here.”

“She's terrified, master. She's been on a stool for hours.”

He covered his eyes with a hand. “All right.” He groaned. “Lefar, bring your broom.”

Lefar and I swept a path back to Tekurah's room.

Using the broom I'd given her to defend against the onslaught, Tekurah swiped at the frogs that hopped high enough to reach her feet on the low stool.

“Do something!” she screeched as Shefu entered.

He slid the little monsters aside with each step and approached her. “What would you have me do, Tekurah?”

“Get more slaves in here to clear out my quarters!”

He shook his head. “All the servants in the household are using every broom, shovel, and basket on our property to clear out the frogs. The entire city is besieged. I can no more control this plague than you can.”

“Then go to the temple and make a sacrifice to Heket, the frog goddess. Anything to stop this horror.” She slapped at more of the creatures with her weapon.

“The priests are already sacrificing to her, Wife. I went to the temple court before dawn as we became inundated. They are incanting and consulting the oracles, to no avail.” He rubbed an eyebrow with two fingers. “Strangely, I think somehow it has made it worse. Even more frogs have come pouring into the city over the last couple of hours.”

“Well, do something!” She lifted her arms. “Please!”

Shefu shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and left the room, swiping the frogs aside with his sandals.

Tekurah stood on the stool, arms outstretched, staring at the empty doorway. When she finally dropped her arms, her shoulders slumped and her black eyes were rimmed with tears. Was it fear of the frogs? Frustration with Shefu? Did his apathy wound her? I held no tenderness for Tekurah, but her reaction confused me. My mistress seemed lost, pathetic.

It took only a couple of heartbeats for her to snap back to her normal posture. “Why have you stopped sweeping? Keep working. I don't care how many frogs there are in this city. There will be none in my room by the end of the day.”

Tekurah could not order about the frogs as easily as her servants. We worked all day, but nothing staunched the flow of the tiny creatures. The entire household worked to remove them, to no avail.

The tiny frogs slipped in through cracks and doors. Normally the ibises and herons kept the frog population well under control, but many of them had flown away when the Nile turned sour and so many fish died. The few birds remaining were completely overwhelmed by the teeming multitude of croaking little pests. The villa pool overflowed with them. They blanketed the floors in the bedchambers, the storage rooms, even the kitchen courtyard. The kitchen slaves kept a close eye on the bread, but even so, the little frogs crawled into the ovens and were baked inside the loaves.

I woke, stiff and unrefreshed, as I had for a week. Sleep eluded me—and Tekurah—for days. She screeched at me every so often to shake out her covers when she felt frogs creeping around on her bed. No matter how tightly I wrapped the linens around Tekurah, or myself for that matter, they wormed their way in. My skin crawled every time one brushed my face when I lay on my pallet. So I leaned against the wall in the corner, propped on a three-legged stool, trying to sleep, if only for a couple of hours, until Tekurah's next tantrum.

The first thing that struck me was silence. The incessant croaking had ceased. I looked down and gasped. Hundreds of tiny frogs lay dead or dying on the tiles.
Did the priests' spells finally work?

“Ugh. What is that horrid stench?” Tekurah sat up on her bed with a hand clamped over her nose. When she saw the frogs, her eyes went wide. “They are dead?”

I nodded.

“Then why are you still sitting there?” She removed her hand from her nose and swirled it in the air. “Go get Latikah, and get to cleaning.”

Latikah and I scoured the room, scooping up tiny carcasses with shards of pottery to deposit on burn piles outside the villa gates. Burning only strengthened the death stench of the frogs. I soaked a linen cloth in rosewater to tie about my face, attempting to mask the smell, but nothing helped. With every breath, I gagged at the taste of rot on my tongue.

After inspecting her room to ensure not one frog remained, Tekurah ordered us to help clear the rest of the villa with the other slaves.

Assigned by the steward to clean the family sanctuary, I trudged with my frog-collecting basket toward the small outbuilding that lay in the western corner of the property. Gardeners raked together more burning piles in the center of the gardens as I passed. My linen cloth needed another soak of rosewater; the decay, ash, and burning flesh smell assaulted me once again, and I jogged the rest of the way, trying to avoid a deep breath. A voice—singing? humming?—met my ears as I tripped on the threshold entering the sanctuary. Not the most respectful way to enter, but at least the incense in here masked the reek.

Oh no.
Incense
. My vision blurred, and lights flashed.

“Hello there. Come to help?” Shira's crouched form swam in front of my eyes.

“Mmm.” I closed my eyes. Needles seemed to be digging into them.

Shira's face seemed to float out of nowhere, flashing blue, red, and yellow lights. “What is wrong?” Her hands gripped my wrists.

“The smoke. It gives me . . .” I shook my head against pain-wrought confusion. “Headaches.”

“Oh. Let's get you out into the fresh air.” She dragged me by the wrists out the back doorway of the sanctuary. I barely registered the gold and silver idols nestled in alcoves all about the room. Were they leering at me? Whispering curses?

Behind a tall rosebush, I leaned against the side of the house, head between my knees. I tried to suck in fresh air and managed only decay-infested breaths. At least my vision began to clear after a few minutes. Shira disappeared and then came back, looking over her shoulder with a mug of fresh water from the kitchen. I downed the refreshment.

“Better?” Shira's concerned face hovered, clear now, in front of me.

“Yes, thank you. But we need to clean the sanctuary.”

She waved a hand at me. “All done. You didn't even need to come in.”

“You did it all?”

She nodded. “I work fast when I sing.” A smile dimpled her cheek.

“That was you singing?”

She looked over my shoulder. “The idols in there . . . they . . . Well, I was singing to keep my mind off them staring at me. There is evil in that room.” A slight shudder jerked her shoulders.

My defenses shot up. She dared accuse my gods of malevolence?

“You said your God brought about the bloody waters. Isn't that evil?” I threw the accusation at her like a dagger.

She ignored the thrust. “And the frogs.”

“Oh, he cursed us with the frogs, too, did he?”

She winced.

Annoyed with her silence, I pressed harder. “What kind of god does such things?”

She looked down at her hands and then to the north, where
her family lived in the Hebrew quarter. “I don't know the mind of Elohim. I wish I did.”

She sighed. “But I know there is a reason for everything he does, and even if my human mind can't wrap itself around his plan, I will follow. All I know is what my father told me from the time I was a tiny girl. Elohim will rescue us, and as we suffer under the hand of Pharaoh, he is building us, preparing us for something.”

“For what?”

“For something we cannot even imagine.” Her strange green-gray eyes searched mine for a long moment. “Perhaps he is preparing you, too.”

T
he bites on the back of my neck burned like fire. Although they were healing now, I could not stop scratching; even thinking about the lice set me to ferociously itching again.

Our hair, our eyelashes, our skin, our clothes: everything had crawled with tiny vermin for days. Cows, goats, dogs in the street—even Tekurah's precious cats—had incessantly scratched and rolled in the dirt, trying to assuage the itch. At times I wished I could roll in the dust, too.

We washed every bit of cloth in the villa in scalding-hot water, but nothing staved off the infestation. I had spent the last week alternating my time between sponging Tekurah's lice-ridden body with vinegar, applying aloe and natron to sooth her sores, and shaving her body and head daily.

Out of sheer vanity, I had refused to shave my own head. Instead, I coated my scalp and hair with olive oil. Tekurah was so miserable she did not even complain that I had used her oils—instead she asked me to apply some to her scalp as well.

Tekurah had sent me to the market today for a stronger ointment for her slow-healing sores. Since I came alone for once, I decided to chance a visit to my mother.

Palpable relief and a jubilant air hung over the city. The insects that had seemed to appear from the very dirt under our feet finally had vanished. Strangely, it seemed to happen overnight, as if someone had simply spoken a word and made them disappear.

After dodging donkeys, rambunctious children, and the pushing and shoving of customers who were packed shoulder to shoulder, I found myself pressed against a table laden with platters of indigo, saffron, vivid red carmine, henna, and dyes and pigments of every hue. If only the copper deben I carried in the satchel around my waist were my own to trade, I would buy every color for Jumo to mix into vibrant new paints. This stall boasted powdered malachite, the perfect green for depicting feathery papyrus plants—or for stormy green eyes.

Would Eben be here today? The instrument shop was not far away from where I stood. An almost irresistible urge to search it out twisted through me, nearly forcing my path to veer the opposite direction from my mother's stall. Perhaps for Shira's sake I should try to make peace. But the image of Eben's glare lingered in my mind, and I shook off the idea.

My father must have recently returned from his latest excursion up the Nile with many goods, for my mother's stall seemed well-stocked. My father never stayed in town long, and never came to the marketplace. He faced only the slap of the river waters against his boat, never the sting of shame in the market.

Customers crowded around my mother's booth, bartering loudly, demanding her attention. One man offered three fresh fish for a small stack of linens. My mother caught sight of me, and a broad smile lit her face even as she shook her head and countered his ridiculous offer. The man left a few minutes later, lighter by four fish and a turquoise bracelet. Nailah drove a hard bargain.

Tekurah was attractive, elegant, and carried herself well, but
she held nothing over the magnificent beauty of my mother. As the jewel in my father's crown, my mother once enjoyed status as one of the most popular women of Iunu. My father had always indulged her with the latest fashions and finest jewelry he could obtain.

But my mother did not need gifts from Pharaoh, the sheerest of linens, queenly fashions, or expensive cosmetics to be beautiful. Regal by nature, she bore herself with elegance—even now as she traded wares in the marketplace.

When the last customer finished his purchase, she pulled me into a fierce embrace. Tears glinted in her honey-gold eyes. Mine were the same shade, and just as wet.

Safe in my mother's arms, if only for a moment, I burrowed my face into her thick black hair, drinking in its almond-oil scent, trying to ignore the accusations that bubbled to the surface.

“My girl. My girl.” She tightened her grip for a moment, and I wondered if conflict was raging inside her as well. Would she finally tell me why—here and now?

How could I account for a mother who seemed to love me so much yet allowed my freedom to be sold in exchange for her own? Had she known? Why had she not come to my rescue? Where was she that day? And what of Shefu? So many swirling questions jumbled inside my head that I could not untangle any of them. Besides, I lacked the courage to ask—I feared the answers.

She released me abruptly to refold a stack of linens toppled by hurried customers. I straightened my shoulders and expertly pressed down the desire to beg for answers; it was not the time or the place for such conversations.

“I don't have much time, Mother . . . only enough to say hello. Where is Jumo?” Usually he was here with her, painting and studying the people passing by.

Jumo's pots, painted with vivid flowers, and his brilliant papyrus wall-hangings enticed customers to my mother's stall. Trained by no master, he simply practiced and perfected his craft on old pottery shards and spare scraps of well-worn papyrus.

“He was tired today, and his bites are still healing. I made him stay at home.” She scratched absentmindedly at the wounds on her own arms.

“Were you both affected severely?”

“Weren't we all? That Hebrew sorcerer is torturing us. He brought on the blood and the frogs—and now lice.”

A large woman with a wig dyed a bright henna-orange pawed through a pile of woven mats. She overheard our conversation and interjected, “Pharaoh's priests have more magic. The plagues went away, didn't they?”

My mother nodded. “But my husband just returned from Avaris this morning. The city is ablaze with rumors. He told me the sorcerer wouldn't lift the affliction until Pharaoh gave in to his demands.”

“Which demands?” asked the woman.

“That he let the Hebrew slaves go worship their god in the desert,” my mother scoffed.

So Eben's information had been correct. Mosheh had indeed demanded the Hebrews' release.

“And why, if this Moses is so powerful, were all the Hebrews bitten by the lice as well?” The vitriol in the woman's voice struck me. “The frogs hopped in their homes, too. The Hebrews strained their water right alongside the rest of us.”

My mother laughed and winked. “Perhaps their slave-god can't tell the difference between a Hebrew and an Egyptian.”

Someone jostled me from behind and, still unsettled from the direction of my mother's conversation with the rude woman, I glared at the perpetrator, but then startled when I recognized her face.

Shira? With her hair covered with a brown headscarf, kohl-lined eyes, and her face half hidden behind a veil? Without blinking, Shira mumbled an apology. Then, so slightly only I would notice, she tipped her head toward the north end of the market. Eben's stall.

I nodded as if to accept her regrets and turned back to my mother. “I must head back to the villa. Tekurah's sores need tending.”

My mother winced but kissed my cheek. “Come again soon. It's been far too long.”

“I will do my best. Give Jumo my love.”

I threaded my way through the buzzing, chattering crowd. Pungent spices mingled together with the tang of raw meat hanging in the butcher stalls and the acrid smell of unwashed animals and bodies. Jangling bells and the clang of metal from a blacksmith shop nearby composed a chaotic harmony. Two men seated on low stools argued over a heated game of Senet as barbers shaved their heads.

There, at the far end of the marketplace, the musical instrument stall nestled in a gap between two-story buildings. Only this time, another slave, a Kushite, sat behind the table. Eben was nowhere in sight.

A hand gripped my elbow. “Come, let's walk fast. I must get back.” Shira's brittle tone shocked me.

“Why are you dressed like that? And your eyes—?”

“It's the only way I can brave the market. Hebrews are not welcome here anymore.”

I stumbled on an uneven cobblestone, twisting my ankle, but she pulled me along.

“Shira, what is wrong?”

“Things have gone from bad to worse for my people.” Her voice trembled. “Pharaoh is furious over Mosheh's threats. To punish Mosheh and turn the people against him, Pharaoh ordered
that no more straw be delivered to the brickmakers. They have to scavenge in the fields to find enough to strengthen the bricks.”

“Won't that slow down progress?” Our Pharaoh seemed to be on a pursuit to surpass the glory of any other king before him, and extensive building projects were underway all over Egypt.

“It will. But he told the overseers that the quota of bricks is not to be lessened. Their burden is twice what it was before.”

“Are your people angry at Mosheh?”
Some Deliverer.

She glanced at me. “Many are. The increase of hardships, along with the abuse, is difficult to bear.”

“Abuse?”

She pressed her lips into a harsh line, her brows gathering. “I have to disguise myself to come here. Five men have been beaten in the marketplace in the past few days. Eben is forced to stay out of sight in Akensouris's workshop.”

“Why?”

“Many blame us for these plagues or mock us for worshipping our invisible god.” Shira looked north toward the Hebrew quarter.

“Can you blame them?” I blurted without thinking.

Tears of hurt welled in Shira's eyes. I had not meant to wound her, but I spoke the truth of my heart.

“Perhaps not.” She dropped her gaze, and her hand fell from my arm. “But as my friend, could you not have the least bit of compassion?”

She trudged away from me, shoulders dropped, heading back to the villa.

I should have hurried to catch up with her, apologized. My heart wanted to, but my feet seemed like iron weights.

She was right. I should have compassion for her people. I had been sold into slavery through no fault of my own. Mosheh, and his sorcery, were responsible for the heavy burdens of his people, just as my father was for mine.

Shira, and all the Hebrews, trusted in a nameless, merciless god of slaves. A god just as unwilling, or powerless, to free them as Akhum had been for me.

The Lord of the Two Lands held the power in Egypt. His mighty name commanded fear throughout the earth. How could anyone believe in an invisible god? Pharaoh was here among us; it was he who would protect us from any threat that could possibly come at Egypt. He, the Divine One, would call upon Ra, upon Osiris, upon all the gods who had made our country great among the nations and would put Mosheh, a mere mortal, in his place.

Yes, strange occurrences plagued Egypt, but I was not convinced they were supernatural. An unusual inundation, the frogs fleeing the Nile after the fish died and their food sources were destroyed, their natural enemies the birds having also fled. And with millions of rotting carcasses of frogs and fish came the bugs. These were natural events.

Had it really been all that serious? Like the woman in the market had said, we dug wells along the Nile and survived the red waters, the frogs died, the lice vanished. And along with us, the Hebrews suffered as well—Shira's skin was as dotted with sores as mine.

I was sorry her people were burdened more. I did not wish them to carry a heavier load, but their God wielded no more power to relieve their afflictions than I did to alleviate my own.

Besides, how could a powerful god who loved them, as Shira insisted he did, let them live in slavery and watch them suffer?

Tekurah stroked the golden cat in her lap and gazed into the tranquil garden pool. Clusters of fruit hung heavy from the date palms that shaded us from the vicious afternoon sun—further evidence that the country flourished again. I stirred the still,
dry air with a white ostrich-feather fan, grateful it cooled me as well. White lilies dipped and swayed to the rhythm of Tekurah's foot swirling in the water.

“I am so glad things have returned to normal.” She pulled her foot out of the pool and lay back on the heels of her palms. “There will be a bountiful harvest in a few weeks.”

“Yes, mistress.” Her placid tone and unexpected conversation alarmed me. “Master Shefu is blessed of the gods.”

“That he is.” She tilted her head to peer at me. “Thankfully, he is not such a fool as your father, losing everything in one huge gamble.”

She was baiting me. She must be bored, in need of entertainment on this quiet day. Little did she know, I agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment.

“As you say, mistress.” I dipped my head toward her, forcing a disinterested tone.

“And your mother, Nailah. An even bigger fool for marrying such a dolt.”

She knew how to get under my skin, this vengeful, jealous woman. I bit my cheek to restrain myself from responding.

Pure evil dripped from her smile. “And now that Akhum is married to my niece, Hapturah, he has been saved from a similar fate.” Her brows arched.

Blood iced in my veins as my heart contracted. Until now, I had kept reminders of Akhum at bay. Each time he flickered through my thoughts, I whispered a prayer to Bastet to wipe my mind clean of such memories.