“Oh.” Djeseret set the kohl brush down and rose from the small wooden stool, coiling her long, loose dark hair over one shoulder with her slim fingers. “I’ll come help you.”
“Thank you, my lady,” the serving woman stammered. “Of course I don’t know up from down with those things . . .”
Djeseret just smiled. Leading the way, she brushed back through the curtained entrance to her room and moved down the open corridor toward her husband’s private study. But as they reached the entryway, both women stopped. There, crouched on the floor, was the new foreign slave with one of the tumbled scrolls in his hands.
“You!” the serving woman snapped, and the slave looked up, startled. “Those are the master’s. You can’t just—”
But the mistress of the house glanced at her serving woman, held up a hand, and looked back at the young man. He had risen quickly to his feet, plucking up another fallen scroll as he rose.
“Where are the others, then?” the serving woman demanded, sweeping her hand across the room. “Been meddling in here, have you?” The new slave glanced at an open box on the floor, and the women could see a handful of other scrolls already neatly stacked within. The serving woman raised her hands in accusing frustration. “You can’t just put them anywhere you please!”
“They go here,” the young man said, his accent clinging determinedly to the words.
The serving woman set her hands on her hips. “And how do you know that?”
“Don’t worry,” Potiphar’s wife cut in. “I can sort them out.” She walked across the bare floor of the study toward the slave who stood holding two of the fallen scrolls. She held out her hands, trying to give him a reassuring smile, and he quickly handed her the scrolls. She took the first one and unrolled the papyrus, glancing over the inscriptions; then, glancing at him, she handed the first scroll back and unrolled the second. “These are sacred scrolls,” she murmured and looked at the wooden container on the floor. The slave quickly bent and set the scroll back with its fellows, then lifted up the small scroll box and held it toward her. Her eyes flicked between the wooden box and the young man’s expectant expression. She set the scroll she was holding back in the box and plucked out a third, unrolling it carefully.
“Should I fetch someone else?” The serving woman was standing in the entryway, quivering like a hound for the chase. “Amosis?”
“No,” Djeseret said, speaking quietly, looking down at the unrolled scroll. She glanced over her shoulder. “It’s fine. You can go.”
A moment of quiet passed; then, shooting another look at the interfering foreign slave, the woman ducked away and disappeared in a ripple of curtain.
When the serving woman was gone, Djeseret raised her eyes to look properly at the young man who was standing there, still holding the box. Thin, worn looking, nervous, he could not be much older than she—he might even be younger—and he was infinitely further from home.
She spoke slowly, taking care to enunciate the words, pointing to the foreign servant and to the scroll in turn. “How did you know where to put the scrolls?”
He shrugged. “I read them.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You read them?”
He pointed to the tiny ink strokes on the exposed papyrus, still unrolled between her hands. “Here.” He pointed to the word. “Sacred.”
She pointed down at the characters written in careful columns across the scroll. “Can you read this?”
He looked down and was quiet for a long moment. Then, looking a bit sheepish, he glanced back up at her and nodded.
Keeping her finger pointed toward the characters and raising her voice slightly, as if increased volume would make the language easier to understand, she asked, “How can you read our language?”
He looked back down again, then said, “My father.”
“Your father?” Now she looked thoroughly confused. “Is your father from Kemet?”
He shook his head. “No.” She sensed that he was trying to summon the right words. “He had . . . scrolls.” He pointed at the parchment. “And I read them.”
She was watching him closely now. “Why did your father have scrolls?”
He was quiet again, and this time it seemed that he was struggling for words he had no real way of capturing, so she waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter,” she said and reached for the scroll box. Their fingers brushed as he handed her the box. “My name,” she told him, “is Djeseret.”
He inclined his head respectfully.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
He looked up and was silent, as if unsure how to answer. At last he said, “Sasobek.”
Potiphar walked with slow-crunching footsteps toward his villa, carrying a small papyrus scroll in one hand and watching as the sun sank in brilliant splatterings of gold. His body was only somewhat less weary than his mind after what had become a tediously long day at the king’s court. He’d had to deal with three different prisoners and reorganized the watch of the royal guards, and he felt a sense of relief at seeing the soft candlelight wafting out into the evening air, beckoning him toward a meal and the comfort of rest.
Greeted at the front door by a servant who stood aside for him to pass, Potiphar headed across the central courtyard of the house and down a flickering corridor. As he walked, he could hear voices and scuffles coming from other parts of the villa, carried through the mud walls, and his stomach grumbled. It was certainly past the time when he would have liked to eat his dinner.
Brushing through the curtains hanging over the entrance to his bedroom, Potiphar stretched and made his way toward his bed with its fine, carved wooden frame and soft linens. Tossing the scroll aside, he pulled off his wig and sat down, letting out a slow breath. He was just running a hand over his bare, shaven head when his wife appeared at the entrance to the room. Smiling, he rose to his feet to greet her as she moved toward him.
“You look tired,” she said, giving him a kiss.
“A little,” he admitted.
“Busy day?”
“Too busy.” Potiphar shook his head. “And not over yet.” He sighed. “Really, I don’t have time to manage the affairs of this household and the affairs of state at the same time.” He gestured back to the scroll, lying on the bed. “I still have to look over the agricultural plans tonight.”
“Can’t Amosis do it?”
Potiphar grunted. “Not unless he’s suddenly been blessed with literacy.”
Djeseret smiled. “Perhaps when you’re vizier—”
“That,” Potiphar said, “is an honor and an office to which I do not aspire. Dealing with prisoners is one thing. Taking on the law of the entire country is another.”
“Everyone says there would be no finer man to do the job.”
He shook his head, smiling, and then paused, seeing someone suddenly appear behind the curtains leading into the room. “Yes?” he called. The curtains parted, and one of his house servants—the Asiatic slave, the new one—looked in, hesitant. “No one sent for you,” Potiphar told him, but Djeseret turned around.
“No,” she said, “stay.” She looked up at her husband. “I asked him to come.” She held out a hand toward the slave. “It’s all right,” she said. “Come.” The slave came closer, and Djeseret reached out, putting her hand on the boy’s arm, as if seeking to steady him in Potiphar’s presence. She looked back at her husband. “He can read.”
Potiphar glanced from his slave to his wife. “Read?” He sounded incredulous. “What does he read?”
“Some of your scrolls were knocked out of place today,” Djeseret said, “and he knew how to put them away—”
“Which scrolls?” Potiphar asked, voice sharpening.
“There was no damage,” Djeseret assured him.
“Those are my private writings,” Potiphar said and looked again at the slave.
“I understand,” Joseph said, speaking at last in his accented speech. “I know them. They are sacred.”
Now Potiphar stared at him with more perplexity
than annoyance. “How would you know these writings?”
“My father,” said Joseph.
Potiphar looked over at his wife. “What do you know about this?”
She shrugged. “He couldn’t really explain more than that.”
Potiphar looked at Joseph and then back toward Djeseret, who nodded encouragingly. Potiphar took a step closer to his new slave before stepping suddenly back and picking up the scroll he had left lying on the bed.
“All right,” he said, holding out the scroll. “Read this.”
Joseph took the scroll, and Potiphar crossed his arms, watching as Joseph unrolled the papyrus and looked down at the characters inscribed around what appeared to be a diagram of a field. Potiphar could see the slave’s eyes moving and saw the young man frown slightly. Potiphar glanced at his wife, a little smugly, but Djeseret stood there calmly and waited.
Finally, Joseph raised his eyes. “A field plan,” he said.
Potiphar blinked and glanced again at Djeseret, who smiled.
Joseph had already turned back to studying the scroll, his eyes darting over the characters. “To—create—more harvest.” He raised his head. “For the year.” Then, almost meekly, he offered the scroll back to his master.
Staring at Joseph, Potiphar took the scroll. “May I ask how a young Asiatic slave learned to read our language?”
Joseph glanced quickly at Djeseret.
“He seems to read more than he can speak,” Djeseret told her husband and glanced at Joseph.
Potiphar considered this. Then he took a step closer, clasping his hands and holding the scroll behind his back. “Sasobek,” he said, and the slave looked at him. Potiphar remembered those same observant eyes from the day Amosis had brought the foreign boy to the household, staring back from a face that had looked much more foreign then than it did now. Potiphar brought the scroll from behind his back. Joseph hesitated before reaching out and taking the offered document. “Do you know,” Potiphar asked, “what a scribe is?”
Joseph blinked, then nodded.
“I will train you,” Potiphar told him, “and you will take care of my records.” He looked at him. “Is this pleasing to you?”
There was silence, and then, after another moment’s hesitation, Joseph nodded again.
“Ah,” Potiphar said, “you understand?”
Another nod.
“Well,” Potiphar said, “good.” He tapped the scroll with his finger. “Take this”—he pointed in the direction of his study—“and put it with the others. Yes?”
Joseph gave a slight bow and, carefully holding the scroll, turned and walked from the room, brushing through the curtain.
When he had gone, Potiphar looked at his wife. “I’ve never seen such a thing.”
“Nor I,” she said, and laughed, putting her arms around her husband’s waist. “He’s a little wonder, isn’t he? Very solemn.”
Potiphar just shook his head and leaned down to kiss his wife on the cheek.
Lying quietly that night, after checking his bed to make sure the lurking scorpion was nowhere to be seen, Joseph did not sleep. The other servants of the house lay around him in the darkness, breathing slowly, while he alone stared up into the quiet. He kept trying to focus his thoughts on the image of the field plan, trying to remember the descriptions and indications for planting recorded on the document and trying to understand why something about it seemed . . . imbalanced. He had a sense, turning the diagram over in his mind, that there was something better, that it could be improved . . .
What could he do about it, though? It was his father—
Joseph stopped the thought, frowning. It was his father who had the gift of prosperity.
Well, that might be, but his father was not there.
Joseph had held out hope, at first, that his father would come, a hope that sustained him through those first stark, sunburnt days and comforted him in the mind-spinning fear that descended with the first nights. Surely and inevitably Jacob would learn the truth and come hurrying after the caravan. When the caravan arrived in Kemet, Joseph imagined that his father would appear in the marketplace with silver to trade for his beloved son—because his father would not just abandon him; his father would never let him go; his father would come and find him, and it would not be hard, for there was only one place the slaves were brought . . .
But neither his father nor his treacherous brothers had come.
Instead, they had allowed him to be sacrificed. He thought it bitterly as he came to understand it, as the days passed and his hope was worn away, eroded beneath the weight of his growing realization.
And to whom had he been sacrificed? What had been the purpose of the offering of his flesh and his life and his memory? Was it the God of his fathers who demanded such propitiation, who would forever bless his father’s family with survival and promised increase now that he, the focus of all their contentions, had been removed?
Where had the God of his fathers been that day in the desert?
Abruptly, as he always did, Joseph turned from the welling darkness that threatened when he lingered too long over that question. His thoughts turned instead, and suddenly, to his sister, Dinah—Dinah, who had always been so kind to him, who had watched over him, who had taken such a special interest in him after his mother died.
And then he thought of his master’s wife, Djeseret. She would be about Dinah’s age. She had been kinder than he thought she would be.
He closed his eyes, and soon he slept.
Across the room, the scorpion still crouched, hidden, in the darkness.
Chapter 22
Countrymen
“Excellency.”
Zaphenath turned from where he sat with a small group of officials in the midst of discussing the king’s Oasis development project. Although the proposed site of the development was not far from the capital, based in the region where the king was already building his pyramid, some of the officials were still hesitant about the prospects of transforming the marshland into agricultural acreage. The guard made a slight bow. “You asked to be alerted when the Asiatics returned.”
It took Zaphenath a moment to understand what the guard had said. When he did, a strange, almost light-headed rush washed through his body, and his hands felt suddenly cold.
“Have they been detained?” he asked.
“As you ordered, Excellency.”
They came back, he thought. They came back for Simeon.
The guard bowed and left, and Zaphenath turned back to the other men, including the king and his son. Senusret raised his eyebrows, but Zaphenath avoided his eyes. Asar merely smiled.
“Let us continue,” Zaphenath said, clearing his throat and returning the attention of those present to the diagram sketched onto the unrolled papyrus. “With the improvements we’ve discussed, these areas can easily be drained and cultivated, but we will have to install more sophisticated drainage trenches.”
“What about the labor costs?” one official demanded. “We can conscript the workers, but there’s still a cost.”
Zaphenath shrugged. “If you want to invest in this land,” he said, “the necessary labor costs will have to be undertaken too. Otherwise your crop will inevitably be threatened by high water levels and the investment is senseless. Moreover,” he said, his voice a little testy, “the additional crop yields we would gain by converting a portion of the Oasis for agriculture would be far more beneficial to the country right now than the usual royal fishing trips.”
The man who had asked the question turned to the fellow next to him and murmured something under his breath. Zaphenath ignored them.
“Please,” Senusret said, redirecting the attention of the grumbling officials and glancing at Zaphenath. “Continue.”
Asar was sitting back, arms crossed, watching the discussion with a slight smile on his face as Zaphenath continued speaking. And he remained quiet as the other officials asked questions. It was only when the other men were rising to leave, their busine
ss concluded for the time being, that he asked, “What was that about Asiatics?”
The question muted all other chatter. Zaphenath looked over at the prince, who sat waiting for a response.
“It’s a state matter,” Zaphenath said.
“Ah,” said Asar, “well, then it’s probably too complicated for me.”
A few chuckles met the remark. “I’d be happy to discuss the matter with you privately,” Zaphenath told him, “if that is what you’d like.”
“Oh,” Asar said, waving a hand and rising to his feet, “that’s fine. I understand if you don’t want me asking about it.”
Some of the other men in the room began to look at one another.
“I mean,” Asar was still smiling, “it’s an unsavory business to have to meet personally with suspected spies. Though I understand, of course.” He looked straight at Zaphenath. “I’m sure it’s the simplest thing to do, seeing as they are your own countymen.”
Zaphenath could feel the other officials in the room focusing on him, their gaze triggering a spreading flush up the back of his neck.
“I think,” Senusret said, “our business is finished here.” He gave a nod, and the other officials, taking their cue, began to shuffle out of the room, a few glancing over their shoulders as they left. Zaphenath bent down to roll up the diagram with the field plan he’d sketched out, but Senusret held up a hand. Reluctantly, Zaphenath straightened again. “You too, Asar,” the king told his son. The prince crossed his arms, while Zaphenath bent back down and finished rolling up the papyrus, waiting for the room to empty of the others.
“Well,” Senusret said at last, when the three of them were alone. “Asar, if you have a sincere question for my vizier about state matters, please ask him. Otherwise, I’m sure he has other business to attend to.”
Holding the scroll in both hands, Zaphenath looked at Asar, who glanced back at him.
“Well,” Asar said at last, “I haven’t said anything about the spies.” That slight smile again. “But since other people may talk, I just wondered what exactly your relationship is to these people.”
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