Dreamers (28 page)

in her bedchamber. At one point, she tore Yosef’s kilt, then

watered it with tears in a wave of regret.

She would have no child. No throne. No love. The proph-

ecy, this day, her expectations, were part of an elaborate jest

Ramla had anticipated and arranged.

By the time the first servants returned to the villa, Sagira

was weak from weeping. A slave girl found her lying across

her mussed bed, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “My

lady!” the girl exclaimed, stepping over broken pottery as she

hurried to Sagira’s side. “Who has done this?”

Sagira lifted her head from the mattress and gazed toward

the empty doorway. “Paneah.”

“Where is your mistress?” Potiphar tossed the reins of

his chariot to the boy in the stockyard. “I came as quickly

as I could.”

The wide-eyed boy pointed to the house, and Potiphar took

the steps of the porch in three long strides. A host of silent

slaves, white-faced and somber, stood outside Sagira’s bed-

chamber. He pushed the door open and found Ramla crouched

in a corner of the room and Sagira lying on her back, her arms

folded across her chest in the pose of the dead.

Potiphar glanced at the destruction in the room. “What

happened here?”

“Ask her,” Ramla said, nodding toward his wife.

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The still form moved. “Potiphar?”

He strode forward and sat on the bed, lifting Sagira into

his arms. “What happened, little one? Why did you remain

here without a guard?”

“I thought Paneah would take care of me,” she murmured,

her voice as heavy as a sleepy child’s.

“I have given her a potion to calm her nerves,” Ramla ex-

plained. “She was hysterical when I arrived.”

Potiphar brushed damp strands of dark hair from Sagira’s

eyes. A faint bruise marred her cheek, and he traced it with

his finger. “How did this happen, wife?”

She groaned softly at his touch. “Paneah.”

“Where is he?”

“He—he threw me down. He came into my room and—”

She lifted an arm and pointed to a dress thrown over a chair.

Even from where he sat, Potiphar could see that it was

ripped and torn.

Potiphar smoothed her brow. “Surely you are mistaken.

Paneah would give his life to protect you—”

“Paneah attacked me.” Her eyes opened and blazed with

fury. “See this?” Reaching forward, she pulled a man’s kilt

from under a linen sheet on the floor. “I threw a vase at him

and he ran. But he forgot his kilt. Don’t you recognize it?”

Potiphar looked at the garment and recognized the fine

pleated kilt Sagira had recently ordered for Paneah.

“Whatever he says, don’t believe it.” Her eyes narrowed.

“He is a Hebrew, and the Hebrews lie, husband. On their

account Egypt has suffered before. And this Hebrew, this

slave you bought, came in to make sport of me. As I raised

my voice and screamed, he left his garment and fled—”

Potiphar patted her shoulder as she broke into honest

weeping. “Break into teams of two,” he instructed one of the

slaves who stood by the door. “Summon my guards for help.

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Search the grounds, the fields, the riverbank. No one sleeps

tonight until Paneah is found.”

“There’s no need to search, master,” a voice called. “The

man is here.” The assembled slaves parted as Paneah ap-

peared, a ragged strip of linen tied around his waist.

Like an awakening giant, rage rose within Potiphar as he

stood to face his trusted steward. “Should I repeat what my

wife has told me?” he asked, his face burning.

Paneah did not answer, but lowered his gaze. Potiphar felt

Sagira’s eyes boring into his back; outside the chamber, more

than a dozen slaves waited to see how justice would be meted

out to the greatest man in Potiphar’s house.

Potiphar pointed to the garment in Sagira’s hand. “Paneah,

is that your kilt?”

Paneah lifted his head and met Potiphar’s eye. “Yes.”

“Did you come in here to sleep with my wife?”

Paneah glanced at the woman on the bed, then locked his

gaze on Potiphar’s. “No, master, I did not.”

“Did you—” Potiphar pointed toward the torn dress “—do

that?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

Paneah pressed his lips together as if he waited for some-

one to confess, then he closed his eyes.

“I suppose there is no one else who could have done this,”

Potiphar said. “You were the only one here. If you will not

speak in your defense, I can only assume you are guilty.”

Sagira wailed afresh, the sound grating on Potiphar’s

nerves. Something came up behind Paneah’s eyes; he was de-

fending someone or something, but Potiphar had neither the

time nor the patience for games. Too many eyes were watching,

too many tongues would carry the tale from this chamber.

He stood and looked at his steward. “You have never lied

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to me,” he said, an unchecked emotion clotting his throat.

“You have been like a son. So instead of ordering your exe-

cution, I order you to prison. Go from this house, Paneah, and

do not return again.”

The proud head bowed before the sentence, and Potiphar

watched the servant he had trusted as a friend turn and walk

away between two guards.

Yet as Sagira whimpered behind him, he wondered if he

would not be better served by ridding himself of his faithful

wife and keeping his unfaithful servant.

Yosef

And Yosef ’s master [Potiphar] took him, and put him

into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners

were bound: and he was there in the prison.

Genesis 39:20

Chapter Twenty-One

With a show of fierce protectiveness, Ramla urged Potiphar

to leave Sagira’s chamber. The whispering crowd of servants

and guards dispersed, and the priestess closed the door. Turn-

ing to Sagira, her malformed hand stroked her chin in a

thoughtful gesture. “Was he not all you thought he would be?”

Sagira scowled. “Have you no respect? I was attacked,

injured so badly that I cannot rise from my bed—”

“Tell the truth, Sagira. Your handsome Hebrew would not

have you, would he? The little cobra was delightful in form,

but decidedly deadly in an embrace.”

Sagira lifted her chin, seeing no reason to deny the truth.

Ramla knew her far too well. “He had the gall to deny me,”

she whispered, humiliation assaulting her anew. “On the ap-

pointed day, after years of preparation, he who swore undying

obedience and love refused me!” Tears stung her eyes. “He

was ready, Ramla, he belonged to me, but then he cried out

to his god and ran as if I had sprouted horns!”

“His god?” Ramla lifted a brow. “The Hebrew god who

sees and knows all?”

“What does it matter which god he called? In that moment

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I realized that my precious, priceless love meant nothing to

him. I loved him truly, Ramla, I did! He awakened feelings I

never knew existed, yet in one instant he spurned not only my

body, but my heart and soul.”

She shuddered and lowered her voice. “And my love, as

limitless as the Nile, has turned into an abhorrence I shall

carry to my grave. I hoped Potiphar would slay him before

me so I might steal the kisses I crave from his dying body,

and yet my husband ordered him to the prison.” She released

a dreary laugh. “And so I lie on my bed while my much loved

and hated Paneah rots in a prison cell only a few steps from

my chamber. My nerves are on edge. I cannot sleep. I will lie

here and listen for his cry in the night. I tremble to think that

he might escape and try to kill me in the darkness. For I know

any feelings he ever had for me have become a hate as strong

as mine. The love that might have blessed us both has become

an enmity that will destroy one or the other of us.”

“Or both of you,” Ramla said, her eyes as hard as the

goddess’s stone gaze.

Sagira sat up and crossed her arms, ready for the fight

she’d been anticipating. “Enough about Paneah, I want to

talk now about you, Ramla. You and your divining bowl have

lied to me. You said this night was ordained for my child’s

conception, yet there will be no child. You said I would live

forever in the memories of men. You said Paneah would walk

before all Egypt and every knee would bow at his approach.”

Her eyes locked on Ramla’s. “You lied, Ramla, now I see

it clearly. A foreign slave cannot become King! I don’t know

how you convinced me to believe you. You have never spoken

a true word. You use your powers to prey on wealthy women.

I demand to know why you have manipulated my life!”

“You are pitiful.” Ramla stalked toward Sagira, her mouth

drawn into a disapproving knot. “I have always spoken the

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truth to you. What I read in the future will come to pass. And

as for missing the chosen night, the fault is completely yours.

You have had more opportunities than any woman in Egypt,

and yet you fail the goddess on every occasion.”

“I did not fail!” Sagira said, violence bubbling in her blood.

“I did everything in my power! Paneah failed me! He failed

the appointed time! But regardless of your prophecy, I shall

yet be remembered, I can still have a child! I will find another

man, Ramla, a man of strength and glory, a man in whose

frame dwells the brightness of the sun and the beauty of the

lotus. I will find such a man, and I will prove I am capable of

bearing the first in a new line of pharaohs.”

Ramla lifted her head in a stiff gesture. “I told you not to

attempt this liaison with a slave, but you would not listen. I

waited as you set your plan into motion, and now you have

failed. The goddess does not give second chances.” Her face

emptied of color as she moved closer. “I am leaving. I had

hoped to follow you to glory and power. I will not follow you

into failure and self-pity.”

“You are leaving me? I am casting you out!”

Ramla turned to leave. “Good.”

“Wait!” Sagira cried. Ramla turned, one brow raised, and

Sagira lowered her voice to a childlike whisper. “If you go,

who will I have?”

A corner of the priestess’s mouth rose in a half smile. “You

have the finest house in Egypt, a gaggle of slaves to wait on

you hand and foot, and a husband who spoils you more than

you deserve. Take pleasure in that—if you can.”

Yosef smiled in grim irony as he approached the tall wall

dividing Potiphar’s house from Pharaoh’s prison. He had

never given the prison much more than a disdainful glance,

but Potiphar had just decreed that he would spend the rest of

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his life amid the squalid, sun-bleached stone buildings behind

the wall Yosef had heightened and thickened. He knew he

ought to be grateful, for Potiphar could have ordered his exe-

cution, but his nerves tensed when he thought of the situation

that had brought him to this place. Sagira, the woman he had

believed his friend, had lifted the veil of pretense and revealed

herself as an indulged, lustful, bloodless creature. Far worse

than Sagira’s defection was the knowledge that Potiphar no

longer trusted him.

The guards wasted no time securing their prisoner, for

night had swooped over the walls and no guard wanted to tarry

in Pharaoh’s prison after dark. The chief jailer assigned Yosef

to one of the deep, ancient pits he had chosen to hide rather

than improve.

As the star-filled sky wheeled about its axis, the Hebrew

who dreamed sat with his back against the warm stone and

swallowed against an unfamiliar constriction in his throat.

Yosef awoke with memories of the previous day edging his

teeth. Because he had chosen honor over ambition, he had

become a prisoner for life. What had God done to him now?

He sat up and examined the pit into which he’d been

lowered. Somber stone walls twice his height rose from four

sides of the rectangular cell while thin streams of light poured

through cracks in the thatched covering overhead. He pressed

on the orange-tinted walls, testing the strength of possible

handholds, and felt the dry mud crumble beneath his fingertips.

The cell held nothing but two leather buckets, one filled

with cloudy water and the other intended to serve as a toilet.

Last night he had been given a kilt of rough hemp that

scratched at his skin. From studying the prison accounts,

Yosef knew he would receive one daily meal, a bit of rough

bread and greens, which would be lowered in a basket each

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morning. He would be allowed no visitors, no companions,

no comrades, for henceforth he would be regarded as a non-

person, the lowliest of all prisoners.

He leaned against a wall and crossed his arms. He did not

deserve to be in prison; he had done nothing wrong. Surely