“Potiphar.”
He raised his eyes, looking toward the curtained entryway that led out of the small private study where he liked to sit in contemplation amidst his collection of scrolls. The dark-eyed young woman who had spoken his name was smiling at him, leaning in from the outer corridor, her body partly sheathed in the beaded strands of curtain that covered the open entryway. Her large black eyes were elegantly lined with kohl, and her dark hair fell past the slim straps looped over her shoulders, holding up a thin linen dress. A bright blue stone set in a circle of pounded gold hung around her neck on a golden chain, a gift from her husband to remind her of the overarching power of Ra that watched over their priestly family.
“Your steward is back,” she told him.
“Ah.” Potiphar carefully rolled up the mysterious text and rose to his feet. Setting the papyrus back in the open box where he kept the sacred scrolls, he stretched his arms and smiled, moving toward the young woman. She smiled back at him as he slid an arm around her waist and leaned down, giving her a quick kiss. She wore her long black hair naturally that afternoon, separated into several braids and uncovered by any of her wigs, and her sparkling eyes stood out from her smooth, sun-brushed skin. Her face was not quite so remarkable as to stand out from the other well-mannered and well-dressed women born into the world of the king’s court, but she seemed to have a natural affinity for attraction—an easy, knowing coyness, a charming, friendly banter—and he had been one of many men who noticed her.
Who still, he thought to himself with a slight smile, noticed her.
For his wife’s part, the decision to marry one of the king’s most esteemed young courtiers was not a difficult one. That the man was handsome and young, still in the prime of his strength and an important member of the king’s inner circle through his current position as captain of the king’s royal bodyguard—well, there was a great deal to be admired and coveted by the other women, and when he had pursued her particularly, it had been to her great pleasure.
But the pomp and celebration of their marriage had soon grown quiet, and the activities of the court and her childhood friends had been replaced by the stillness of her new home and the passing of days. A year had gone by, and another, and yet one more, and still the placid sophistication of the home remained unruffled by tiny squeals or uncertain footsteps. The two of them never spoke of it.
“Come along with me, if you want,” Potiphar said, taking her arm.
She smiled.
Brushing through the curtained entryway, they moved arm-in-arm, walking down the corridor away from the private rooms of the house and out into the open central courtyard. A servant opened the heavy wooden front door, bowing, and they stepped out into the bright sunshine of early summer, with Potiphar’s young wife putting up a hand to shield her eyes. Potiphar’s steward, the man who managed his estate and household staff, stood waiting for his master with four other men, their chests bare, heads uncovered, standing with downcast eyes as Potiphar approached.
“Amosis.” Potiphar smiled, patting his wife’s hand as she slipped her arm away.
His steward bowed. “I have found three more men to tend to your fields, Potiphar.”
Potiphar glanced from Amosis to the men who stood beside him. “These three?” he asked, gesturing to the bare-headed man who stood directly next to his steward and the two who followed him. The men stood slightly shorter than their new master (though taller than his broad, stout steward), with well-defined arms and weathered skin that spoke of previous exposure to the life of a field-worker.
Amosis nodded. “They said they’ll be willing to work hard for a good master.”
But Potiphar was looking toward the fourth man, standing at the end of the line, his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back. This one’s arms were not nearly so broad as the other men’s, and his skin looked burned beneath the dirt and dust of the road. His head was covered with dark, loose curls—the sort of hair, Potiphar thought with a smile, that his wife might envy—and the young man’s jaw was shaded with an unkempt dark beard.
Potiphar nodded toward the man. “Who’s this one?”
Amosis looked down the line. “One of the ‘Aamu. An Asiatic brought in on a recent caravan.”
“Can he understand anything?”
“A little.”
The slave raised his eyes, and Potiphar saw that he had a young man’s face, unlined, with a certain disarming delicacy.
“Can you understand me?” Potiphar asked, speaking slowly.
The slave hesitated, then nodded.
Potiphar looked back at Amosis. “What were you told about him?”
“Seems he was picked up by an Ishmaelite caravan,” Amosis said with a shrug. “Quiet. No trouble. Said he was found in the desert.”
“Found,” Potiphar repeated, glancing back at the bearded slave, who was watching the exchange as though trying to follow what was being said.
Amosis lowered his voice slightly. “Those tribes sell each other to slave traders from what I hear. That’s how the trade is.”
Potiphar was quiet a moment. “How much was he?” Amosis told him. Potiphar looked a little surprised. “Who sold him to you?” Amosis gave the name, and Potiphar looked back at the ruffle-haired young man. “You see how valuable Asiatic slaves have become in Kemet?”
The young man’s expression did not change.
“I don’t think he can understand you,” Potiphar’s wife murmured, standing behind her husband.
Potiphar paused a moment, then speaking slowly, asked, “What is your name?” The slave looked at him. “Your name,” Potiphar repeated.
The young man glanced at Amosis, then back at Potiphar, then said quietly, “Joseph.”
Potiphar nodded. He looked back at the native field slaves. “I’ll look forward to good work from you,” he said. “You belong to the house of Potiphar now, and we watch over our own.” Amosis grunted, nodding in affirmation. “Well.” Potiphar glanced back at the foreign one and found the young man still watching him with those intense dark eyes. He nodded slightly. “Take them out for a wash,” he told Amosis. Then he turned back toward his wife, offering her his arm.
“Come on, then,” Amosis said, gesturing away toward another part of the estate. The native slaves moved with him, understanding the order, but the desert boy paused. Amosis turned back around, gesturing with his hand. “Come on,” he said, and the boy, after another hesitation, moved after his fellows. His eyes gazed across the estate—open pools of water surrounded by palm trees, tumbling patches of brightly fragrant flowers, fig trees lining the property within the walls.
“Your master is an important man,” Amosis was saying, “captain of the king’s bodyguard, head of all the soldiers and the prisons and one of the king’s most important counselors. People say he may even be vizier one day.”
The field-workers nodded appreciatively, but the Asiatic slave was still looking around the garden. The boy’s back was straight and his head as yet unbowed. He was a strange one, really, pretty almost like a woman, and projecting an uncanny sense of comprehension, even though he seemed to understand only a little of what was said to him. He had been that way in the slave market, too, watching, waiting, returning the gazes of the men who came to haggle over him.
“Joseph.” Amosis repeated the name as Potiphar had, stumbling slightly over the sounds and gesturing to the boy with one hand as the slave looked over at him. “This way.”
Joseph followed, walking with the other slaves out of Potiphar’s elegant garden and passing through the gates of the estate, crossing out onto the dusty road. They moved in a line, walking away from the villa and on down toward the lapping, murmuring River that flowed lollingly past, stretching far across to the opposite bank. The water was flanked on both sides by abundant greenery—thin grasses bending in the breeze, tall reed stalks jutting up out of the shallows, and some wondrous, delicate flower, unfolding in white and blue blossoms and perched on a spreading green pad resting
gently on the undulating current.
Wading carefully through the plant life, still clothed only in a loincloth, Joseph stepped into the chill of the water, at such contrast with the beating heat of the day. Steeling himself, he bent down and began to wash the water up over his dusty, dirty skin. The rivulets began trickling away the heat and humiliation, with the physical layer of memory sloshing away into the river as he washed, and splashed, and scrubbed. Wading out a little further, he bent his knees and sank down into the River, dipping his head back and immersing his entire body.
When he emerged with the others, fresh and dripping, Amosis led them back across the road and through the gates of Potiphar’s estate. This time, the little procession moved away from the villa and went further on into the private garden. They followed a walkway lined with palm trees, their wet feet slapping the dirt and leaving a speckling of water in their wake as they headed toward a small mud-brick building at the edge of the walled estate. Pausing, Amosis said something to the other three men, pointing across the garden to another mud-brick building of identical composition, and the three walked obediently in the direction of his outstretched hand. Then Amosis turned back to Joseph.
“Come,” he said, gesturing. Joseph followed him, and Amosis pulled back a woven mat hanging over the entry space of the closer mud-brick building. The straight-walled room was mostly bare with a single fire pit situated toward the far side of the room. A series of tightly woven mats were unrolled and lined up on the floor. One end of each mat touched the wall, with coarse linens and wooden boxes marking the head of the sleeping spaces.
“House slaves sleep here,” Amosis told him, following Joseph inside, and Joseph looked back at the steward. “House slaves,” Amosis repeated, pushing back the entryway’s woven covering again and pointing in the direction of their master’s home. “You,” he pointed at Joseph, “work at the house.” He pointed through the open entryway across the estate. “The house.” Joseph looked over his shoulder, toward the villa, then back at Amosis, and nodded.
“Now,” Amosis let the covering fall and pointed to the sleeping mat nearest the curtained entryway, barren of either wooden box or linens, “you sleep here.” He turned and moved toward a large wooden crate, stored apart from the sleeping spaces. He bent down, lifted the lid off, and pulled up another bundle of folded sleeping linens. He turned, holding the linens out, and Joseph stepped closer, taking the bundle in his arms. Amosis pointed, and Joseph set the linens on the mat that was evidently his new sleeping place.
“Good.” Amosis lifted another object out of the box and rose to his feet. “Kneel down,” he said, pointing to Joseph and bending his knees. Joseph, looking as though he were guessing at what Amosis wanted, balanced his body carefully down onto his knees. Amosis stepped closer, and Joseph saw that the object in the steward’s hand was a blade—a shimmering, polished bronze blade—and his eyes fixed on the sleek, sharp edge. Amosis glanced down at the blade as well and then looked back at Joseph.
“Like this,” he said, and raised the blade to his own head, pretending to run the edge over his naked scalp. Joseph kept staring at him. Amosis sighed, stepping closer, and placed a steadying hand on Joseph’s head. He could feel the boy’s blood pulsing quickly under the skin. Joseph closed his eyes, and Amosis drew the blade carefully along the top of his scalp—once, twice, and the dark curls began tumbling loose, flopping onto the cold dirt floor.
When the boy’s head was completely bare, Amosis stepped back. Joseph glanced up, then lifted his hand and touched his fingers to the freshly exposed skin. Amosis was already turning to the boy’s face, and Joseph closed his eyes as his young beard was sheared, falling among the curls on the floor. Satisfied with his work, Amosis stepped back again and this time held out the blade to the boy. Joseph took the blade uncertainly, watching as Amosis gestured to his own bare chest before pointing at Joseph’s unshaven skin.
“Every slave must be clean,” Amosis told him. “You wash every day, and shave.”
When Joseph handed the razor back, Amosis gave an approving nod. The dirty desert creature had been quite transformed with the help of a bath and a blade. He looked almost civilized enough to enter the house.
“Your new name,” Amosis told him, speaking slowly in hopes the boy would understand, “is Sasobek.” He put a hand on his chest. “Amosis. I am Amosis. You”—and he put a hand on the young slave’s shoulder—“are Sasobek. Son-of-Sobek. You know Sobek?” Amosis slapped his hands together, like a snapping mouth. “Crocodile god. Sasobek.” He paused, watching the boy’s lips silently form the name. “Sasobek,” Amosis repeated.
“Sasobek,” the boy said.
Amosis nodded. “Now you are one of the people of Kemet.” He put his hand back on the boy’s shoulder. “Kemet. You are Sasobek, of Kemet. You understand?”
The boy averted his eyes. After a moment, he nodded.
“Good.” Amosis stepped back, gesturing with his hand. “Come.”
Rising uncertainly to his feet, brushing a strand of fallen hair from where it clung to his shoulder, the boy whose name was now Sasobek stood and followed Amosis back into the sun.
Chapter 21
Sasobek
Lying in the damp heat of the night, the new slave Sasobek lay curled on his side, his closed eyes flitting back and forth, his head cradled protectively in the crook of his elbow.
He dreamed that he was standing in the desert, naked except for a linen kilt around his hips, yet he did not feel the sun’s heat, did not even feel the sting of the sand against his bare feet. He turned and looked around but saw nothing except desert stretching out and out, as far as the horizon in every direction. Looking up at the harsh, white-blue glare of the sky, he held up his hand to shield his eyes with shadow, and still there was nothing, nothing but fierce, open air, as inhospitable as the desert below.
But then he heard a sharp, crackling rise of voices and turned back and saw, where before he had seen nothing, a shielded outcropping of rock, a natural shelter in the midst of the desert. He moved closer to it, still holding his hand to shield his face and squinting through the trembling waves of heat. The voices grew louder as he drew closer. He touched the rock that should have been too hot to grasp but was not, and he pulled himself up so he could glimpse whoever had gathered to take refuge.
“Joseph!”
His brothers Levi and Asher looked up, waving, from where they were sitting in a circle with other desert shepherds. Joseph slid down over the other side of the rock at their friendly beckoning, and Levi moved over, opening a place for Joseph in the circle. As he drew closer, Joseph felt suddenly self-conscious and bare, wearing only his loose linen kilt, but Levi just smiled, waving him closer. Joseph was trying to see the other faces in the group—bearded, smiling, looking like his brothers but not his brothers—as if he should know them, had known them, but knew them no longer.
Then his heart beat faster as he suddenly recognized his father—his beloved, trusted father—sitting there in the circle. The patriarch turned his great white head.
“Father.” Joseph could barely get the words out. He tried to raise his voice, desperate for his father to hear him. “I’ve been trying to find you . . .”
But his father was talking and laughing with the others and turned away as if he had not seen him.
“Father,” Joseph tried again. “It’s me.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I’ve been waiting for you, but you haven’t come . . .”
As if hearing something vague, like a buzzing fly, Jacob glanced toward his son, scrutinizing Joseph’s lean, linen-clad appearance, and pointed to something lying in the midst of the circle. Joseph looked down.
A lamb lay stretched across the sand at his feet, the head thrown back and its wool partly shorn with blood staining its open belly.
“You are your mother’s son,” he heard his father say. His mother, Rachel, whose name meant Little Ewe.
Joseph stepped back, feeling a heavy, haunting warning.
; “Your brothers are happy now,” his father told him. “There is peace for our people . . .”
His father was holding a knife.
Joseph’s feet stumbled in the sand, suddenly unable to find their proper grip, and he heard Levi calling out after him as he ran, tried to run, but his feet were sinking down, and down, and his hands collided with the ground in a spray of sand—
A hand on his shoulder, gentle, drawing him up—he turned and looked into the face of a woman standing there beside him, her hand steadying on his skin and her smile gentle. Somehow, he thought, he knew her—
He reached out, toward her face—
The vision faded as his eyes opened, and he surfaced once more into consciousness, reaching out in the soft darkness—
He gasped, and his body jerked back, away from the crouching desert scorpion and its quivering tail.
Choking, Joseph tried to swallow, but his mouth was ragged and dry. Evidently having concluded that this skinny, unrecognizable foreigner was no real threat after all, the scorpion lowered its tail and scuttled away.
Still trying to gather his breath in the heavy, unfamiliar night, Joseph raised his eyes toward the mud-brick ceiling closing off the stars.
He knew, at last, that his father was not going to come for him.
“My lady.”
Djeseret, wife of Potiphar, turned from where she sat before her mirror, carefully relining her eyes with a brush dipped in thick black kohl. The golden disk surrounding the blue-stone amulet around her neck sparkled with her movement, and her eyes, framed by a thick, shoulder-length wig, settled on the short, well-rounded woman standing in the entryway to the room.
“Please, my lady,” the serving woman was saying, “a breeze came up and scattered some of the master’s scrolls. He left them out, and . . . I don’t know where they should go. He’ll be so angry . . .”
The Eleventh Brother Page 10
