Dreamers (8 page)

Angela Hunt

59

Someone had tended him—probably this slave. Yosef lifted

his head to look at the fine shape of her mouth and the slender

column of her throat. A blush colored her cheeks when her

dark gaze caught his, but she didn’t look away. A half-hearted

smile tugged at his lips and she returned it, her face shimmer-

ing like sunbeams on the surface of the ribbon of river that

ruled this land.

Perhaps, Yosef thought, steeling his heart against grief and

despair, God had shown mercy by bringing him to a girl who

could be a well of understanding and hope in this heathen

wilderness.

After her arrival at Potiphar’s house, Tuya was spared from

her new master’s attention because the sick slave needed a

nurse and no one else in the household seemed willing or able

to care for him. And during the days that she nursed Paneah,

Tuya discovered that although Potiphar owned a vast villa with

many rooms and many servants, the poorly organized estate

barely functioned. Because he spent most of his time on

military expeditions or in the presence of Pharaoh, Potiphar had

neither the time nor the inclination to oversee his own property.

But Tuya’s first concern was for her patient. On the day the

master placed him into her care, the young man from Canaan

was flushed with fever beneath the stubble of his beard. Under

the dirty bandage around his arm, Tuya found an oozing

wound from which bare bone protruded. While the young man

was unconscious, she sent for a surgeon to set the bone and

pour wine over the broken skin. After manipulating the bone

and wrapping the arm in clean bandages, the surgeon assured

her he had done all he could do. Now the young man’s fate

rested in the hands of the gods.

Tuya sat by the side of her fellow slave and worried. She

had tended to this young man’s physical body, but what if the

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gods wanted appeasement before he would be healed? She

knew she could never make an offering to Bastet. Though that

goddess had been the favorite in Donkor’s house, Ramla’s

cool betrayal had hardened Tuya’s heart against the cat god-

dess. Finally she begged one of the kitchen slaves for a stone

statue of Montu, the war god and guardian of the arm.

The statue depicted a man with a hawk’s head surrounded

by the golden disk of the sun. Tuya took the statuette to the sick-

room, where she placed it in a shaft of sunlight and began a

healing chant: “As for the arm of Paneah, it is the arm of Montu,

on whose head were placed the three hundred and seventy-

seven Divine Cobras. They spew forth flame to make you quit

the arm of Paneah, like that of Montu. If you do not quit the

temple of Paneah, I will burn your soul, I will consume your

corpse! I will be deaf to any desire of yours. If some other god

is with you, I will overturn your dwelling place; I will shadow

your tomb, so you will not be allowed to receive incense, so you

will not be allowed to receive water with the beneficent spirits,

and so you will not be allowed to associate with the Followers

of Horus.

“If you will not hear my words, I will cut off the head of

a cow taken from the forecourt of Hathor! I will cut off the

head of a sacred hippopotamus in the forecourt of Set! I will

cause Sebek to sit enshrouded in the skin of a crocodile, and

I will cause Anubis to sit enshrouded in the skin of a dog!

Then indeed shall you come forth from the temple of Paneah!”

Every morning Tuya threatened the statue of Montu with

her fierce refrain, and every morning the young man on the

bed seemed stronger. He ate gruel from her bowl before the

first week had ended, sipping the broth from the wooden

spoon without speaking, his dark eyes flickering with a re-

serve Tuya couldn’t understand. Why didn’t he seem more

grateful? He was a slave, as she was, and slaves were not often

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blessed with the tender care he had been allowed to receive.

He could have been sent immediately to work in the fields;

few masters would care if a slave costing only twenty deben

weight of silver dropped dead over a furrow.

As he slept, Tuya studied the stranger. Though his illness

had left him wafer-thin, finely defined muscles slid beneath his

skin’s golden tan. A head taller than most Egyptians, his dark

hair flowed in gentle waves to his shoulders and was perfectly

matched by the beard that had filled in the clean purity of his

profile. His hands, with long, sensitive fingers, were well-kept,

and Tuya noticed the lack of calluses on his palms. Perhaps she

was wrong in assuming that he had been born to slavery.

After a few days he began to speak and gesture with his

good arm. In the weeks that followed, he proved to be a will-

ing pupil as Tuya schooled him in the basics of the Egyptian

tongue. He had a sharp and clear mind; rarely did she have to

explain anything more than once.

“Who is that you pray to?” he asked one morning when she

had finished bowing to the statue in the sunlight.

Tuya rose and reverently put the statue away. Montu had

met all her requests; he deserved to be handled with respect.

“Only the king has access to the gods. Only he can pray. I

was chanting before Montu, an ancient war god. He has

healed your arm.”

Horror flashed in the young man’s eyes. “Please don’t

think such a thing! It is an abomination for my people to bow

before any stone object. We worship the invisible god, the one

and only creator of heaven and earth.”

Tuya sank to a papyrus mat on the floor. Only one god!

Despite his quick intellect, this youth was utterly unsophisti-

cated. She tilted her head and looked at him. “Does your god

have a name?”

“The god of Avraham, Yitzhak and my father Yaakov spoke

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to my forefathers as El Shaddai,” he answered, lifting his

chin. “He is God Almighty, the unseen god.”

Tuya shook her head. “Amon is the invisible god,” she ex-

plained in the voice she would have used to teach an ignorant

child. “He is Amon-Re, king of the gods, the chief god of our

king’s empire. He is the creator, the one who rose from chaos

and created maat, the principle that guides our actions. He

created all things that move in the waters and on the dry land,

then he took a form like ours, becoming the first pharaoh.

After a long life, he ascended to the heavens and left the other

gods in charge of the earth.” She couldn’t resist smiling.

“There are many gods, Paneah. Our land grows gods as freely

as it grows grain.”

The young man gave her a quick, denying glance. “My god

is not Amon-Re. And my name is not Paneah. It is Yosef.”

Tuya lowered her voice. “Our master gave you a new name

in the hope that you would survive. The name is a gift, for

Paneah means ‘he lives.’ This Yosef is foreign to our ears, and

the master will not like it.”

The young man did not answer, but regarded her silently

for a moment. Then a shy smile tweaked the corner of his

mouth. “If my master will not call me Yosef, then you must.

I give my true name to you and you alone, for you are the only

one in this land who has shown kindness to me.”

His eyes touched her with warmth, and Tuya struggled

with the inner confusion his smile always elicited. “All right,

Yosef,” she said finally, managing the foreign pronunciation

as best she could. “But I will not speak that name in front of

the master. I will do nothing to offend him, for a slave who

offends will be sold.”

His heavy eyelids closed. Outside the small chamber, dark-

ness approached with the silken slowness of a languid tide.

Shadows lengthened in the room, and Tuya shifted uncom-

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63

fortably as she looked out at the fading light. Sunset had been

her favorite time of day in Donkor’s house, the time when she

and Sagira relaxed and settled down to sleep. Now darkness

brought nothing but phantoms of the past.

She swallowed hard, over a throat that ached with sorrow.

“Was it so terrible?” Yosef asked, his voice quiet and low

in the darkening room.

Tuya started; she had assumed he slept. “What?”

“Whatever it is that fills your face with sadness.”

His gaze held her tight, and Tuya had an odd feeling that

he had forgotten himself and cared only for her. No one had

ever made her feel that way before. She shivered, recalling her

overwhelming feeling of helplessness, her fear of facing

Pharaoh as a concubine, her still uncertain future. “Why does

the past matter?” she finally answered, whispering in the

gloom. “You have faced terrible things, too. Your hands tell

a story, Yosef, and they say you were not born a slave.”

His nod was barely perceptible. “I was betrayed and aban-

doned by my brothers,” he said, his voice somber and flat. “I

once dreamed of greatness, and now I am a slave on an in-

valid’s bed.” In his eyes Tuya caught a glimpse of some internal

struggle, but he did not weep or grow angry. “All I have seen

teaches me to trust El Shaddai for all I have not seen.”

Bitter tears stung her eyes. “I was abandoned by one who

called herself my sister,” she whispered, tearing her gaze

from his face. She stared into the darkness, reliving those

terrible hours. “During the one night I spent in Pharaoh’s

house I dreamed that I stood on a round disk while the sun-

god threw his arms around me. In that moment I felt pro-

tected, safe and loved.”

She looked up at Yosef again. “I don’t believe in dreams,

because we slaves always wake up to a new fear. There is no

escape, because a slave cannot know what lies ahead.”

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“God knows,” Yosef answered, his hand reaching for hers.

Stung by the unexpected gesture, Tuya withdrew her arm, then

relented and placed her fingers in his strong grip. She did not

want to become attached to this youth, for Potiphar might sell

him once his health had been restored.

But for now, she felt blessed to have a friend.

Chapter Seven

Tuya had entered Potiphar’s household at the beginning of

the inundation, the four winter months of the year. Within two

weeks the fever had left Yosef’s body, but since he could not

work in the house or the fields with a broken arm, Tuya began

to teach him the written language of the Egyptians. She had

learned the seven hundred signs of the hieroglyphic language

along with Sagira, and though her rendering of the pictorial

elements would never be as perfect or as elegant as those of

a professional scribe, Yosef had no trouble understanding the

meaning of her scratchings.

As the Nile receded and the fertile silt-laden land reap-

peared, his mind became occupied with learning. Tuya found

that Potiphar did not care what his slaves did; his concerns

centered on Pharaoh, the prison and his guards. So each morn-

ing after bringing Yosef his breakfast of bread and parched

corn, she spread before him several shards of broken pottery

and a basket filled with flakes of limestone. A papyrus reed

made a fine pen, and Yosef often detained her, asking ques-

tions as he practiced his writing and honed his understand-

ing. His brain was like a sponge, always absorbing, always

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demanding more. In a few months he would master what the

royal scribes took years to learn.

“What is the sign for ‘captive’?” Yosef asked one day,

looking up from the shards he had covered with scrawlings.

Tuya peered over his shoulder. “It is the sign of a kneeling

man that you have drawn, but the hands extend behind him

and are bound,” she said. “The sign can also mean ‘enemy’

or ‘rebel.’”

Yosef chewed on the end of his pen. “What is the sign for

‘Pharaoh’? And how may I show it with other signs?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Tuya took a step back. “Pharaoh’s

name is sacred. To write it is almost a sacrilege. If it is abso-

lutely necessary to write his name, you must enclose it in a

circle, the sign of the sun.”

Yosef turned back to his writing, and Tuya hurried out the

door with the breakfast tray. Distracted by her thoughts, she

nearly stepped into a pile of dung in the courtyard. She gritted

her teeth, annoyed that someone had left the cattle pen open.

She’d have to speak to the stockyard boys.

Donkor’s prosperous household and Potiphar’s estate were

like a tree and its reflection on the Nile, Tuya decided. The

former thrived in prosperity, the latter, being insubstantial,

only appeared to flourish. Though Potiphar’s large estate was

well-situated, his slaves were a disjointed mass of workers, a

hive without a queen. After a week of trying to function in

total disorganization, Tuya called the servants together, an-