Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  Cheftu looked back at the assembled caravan: seventy of the finest families’ sons, thirty of their slaves, one hundred donkeys, a handful of priests, N’tan, and himself. Prime plucking for a team of brigands, especially on the return trip. Once again he considered that bringing the gold through the desert was not a smart way to transport it, not unless they had an army escort.

  The sun would soon set, and they would walk some more. In an effort to acclimatize the men, especially those from the cooler hills of Jebus and the Galil, they were walking at night. It also made the lack of wine and sex less apparent when the men woke at dusk and fell asleep at dawn.

  Cheftu wished his body and mind were so easily retrained. He could be nearly dead and would still want his wife, not solely for physical release, but because his home was with her, within her. He sipped some beer, lukewarm, then got to his feet, pulling his thoughts from Chloe. Something unsettled him about this journey; something wasn’t right.

  His gaze raked the far hills, washed in the dying light. They were being watched, but by whom he didn’t know. He wished he had a blade; but only freemen did.

  “I will give you one,” N’tan said, stepping beside him, discerning his thoughts.

  “Adon,” Cheftu acknowledged the tzadik. Nathan, of the Bible; it was too much to believe at times. “How may I assist?”

  The prophet twisted his beard with long brown fingers, his eyes narrowed against the sun. “What is your name?”

  “You know my name.”

  “Chavsha is not your name, Egyptian. What is your name?”

  Cheftu felt a prickle of nerves but said nothing. He might have been called on his falsehood, but he was unwilling to share the truth. N’tan waited in silence.

  “When you give me your name, tell me how you came to be a slave in Ashqelon, then I will entrust you with a blade.”

  “That seems an unfair price, adon,” Cheftu said coldly. “Trade my spiritual defense for a physical one?”

  “It will reveal which world you fear most,” N’tan said, turning to walk away.

  “What is your true name, adon?” Cheftu asked, irritated. N’tan turned to him. “If you are who I think you to be, then you know my name. You know my family, my forebears. If you are not, then I will not reveal myself to you.”

  Cheftu stood rooted, looking at this slightly built and dark-eyed man with long, curling hair and long curling beard. N’tan half smiled. “See what is, not what you hold to be.” His smile vanished at Cheftu’s confused frown. “Move out, slave.”

  Cheftu picked up his belongings and stepped onto the path that would lead to his freedom.

  WASET

  RAEM STARED at the counting chart. It was hopeless. There was no food for Egypt. There was barely food for the royal family! Crops had failed nationwide. The floodwaters had barely dampened the soil. Without the tears of the Nile, there was no black land, only the encroaching red of the desert.

  She had found old storehouses, sealed with the cartouche of Amenhotep. When the doors were opened, soldiers had picked up torches and preceded her.

  Into emptiness.

  Nothing remained. Not a stalk, not a kernel, not a seedling. There was no food.

  Akhenaten had said aye, of course they had eaten it. RaEm swallowed hard, recalling that he was Pharaoh, she was here on his sufferance; even though she was co-regent, it was a status that could change any moment. Aii, how could this have happened?

  Instead she had pledged her body to him in yet another letter while her mind sought a plan, a path. Once she would not have cared if everyone around her starved and died, as long as she was well. Then she had woken in another place and time, terrified of being in the dark, covered in blood, fearing for her life.

  The pouch on her back had yielded nothing that she understood. A box that spoke, but how had the person gotten inside it? A thick pad of papyrus, but much better hammered than she’d ever before seen. Something oblong that smelled like food and proclaimed to be a “5th Avenue.” Though she could read the words, they meant nothing.

  Every nightmare had come true when she’d opened a round, flat case. From inside it, a kheft, a demon, had stared at her, red hair waving like flames around a face whiter than the papyrus, with bulging brown eyes beneath bloodstained brows.

  Now, safely in Egypt, RaEm touched her skin, assuring herself: brown. Her head was shaved, but her brows were black. She was safe. Temporarily banished from Akhenaten’s side, but safe.

  Then, however, fearing she was in the afterlife, she had shrieked, thrown the circle away, and cowered in the darkness, waiting for the bite of fangs and nails.

  “It’s okay,” she’d heard in her mind as she’d trembled violently. Nothing had happened. She’d peeked over her arms. The kheft hadn’t come after her. Hugging the ground, she had crept up on the round, flat case, trying to see if the kheft was still in there or if it had flown free. She saw nothing except the ceiling and a light shining in from a distant opening. After she had circled it, realized it was safe, she’d reached out to seal it—

  The kheft had returned! It stared boldly at her. RaEm screamed, clipping the case shut, sealing the demon inside. Then she saw her skin. The demon had poxed her! Spots of brown and reddish pink ran up and down her arms. She looked at her legs; they too were covered! “HatHor!” she had screamed.

  RaEm never felt a part of Chloe’s world. Even when she learned the box that talked was a CD player; the 5th Avenue was a candy bar for “snacking”; the pad of papyrus was Chloe’s sketchbook; and the “demon” she saw was none other than her own reflection in the mirror of an Estée Lauder compact—still, she was lost.

  Slowly things had begun to enter her mind, but they were hard to comprehend, for she had no rational memories, no way to link what she heard to anything that she already knew. Everything was bigger, complicated. Even the people, the emotional memories she had, confused her. Eventually she had found her way into Chloe’s life, but it was months and months before she began to understand The Future. She’d never thought of “the future” before … there was no future, only the present and then the afterlife.

  Trapped in a hospital bed, surrounded by confused doctors who asked questions she didn’t know how to answer— “Why are you in Egypt?”

  “Where is your father now?”

  “Pick up this pencil and draw for me, please”—had made it worse. Her nightmares were awful; she awoke screaming every time she closed her eyes. When she woke up, however, the nightmare was real. She had become a kheft.

  Finally the nurses tired of her. They “turned on” the black box in the ceiling and left her alone. There was no way to turn it off; she couldn’t even reach it when she stood beneath it. So she’d begun watching Sky TV.

  When finally she’d realized what had, impossibly, happened, she’d stepped hesitantly into the world. Now that she had more images, more knowledge, and understood the little bit of Chloe Kingsley who remained in her mind, she could grasp what was being said or done.

  She never felt at ease. Her very skin repulsed her. She tried to find Egypt in the dark-eyed people who now lived in the Nile valley, but Egypt was lost. Terrified to leave the red and black lands, RaEm had swallowed her pride and begged forgiveness from Phaemon, the lover she’d tried to murder, the man she’d pulled through time with her.

  At least she wasn’t alone.

  There were fabulous things about the future. Electricity, neon, cheese that came in so many different flavors. Condoms. High heels. Magazines. TV. Nothing was hers, though.

  RaEm looked over the empty audience chamber. Empty because this was a feast day for Amun-Ra, the outlawed god of Waset. She was seated on the throne of Egypt. The crook and flail fit in her hands. Hatshepsut had sat here; now she did. It was hers. Egypt was hers. RaEm had to preserve it or it might vanish and she would be left alone again.

  But Egypt’s murderer was RaEm’s beloved, her lover, her brother.

  She considered her choices again: her lover or herself?r />
  CHAPTER 8

  MAMRE

  THERE WAS NO DIRECT TRANSLATION for my words: Duh! Also, it probably wouldn’t be the best etiquette. So I settled for a complacent nod.

  “You heard haMelekh’s challenge a few weeks ago,” Yoav said, getting up and pacing. Out of battle attire, wearing the one-sleeved tunic dress of the Israelites, he looked as though he might rip through the woven fabric and gilded fringe, he was so beefy. “Whoever gets into the city of Jebus wins the position of Rosh Tsor haHagana forever. I want that position.”

  Big surprise.

  He turned to face me. “You will get this position for me.” That was surprising. “Me? How, how can I … ?” I looked at Avgay’el. Her dark gaze was calculating, which made me wonder what she got out of this, why she was here.

  Yoav turned away, pacing the room again. “Blind and lame can get in,” he said.

  The hair on my neck rose. He wasn’t going to suggest they blind and deafen me, was he? Instinctively I stepped back.

  “Put your eyes back in your head,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I know rumors of a waterway that runs from outside the walls to the main city well.”

  “A waterway?” I repeated, trying to understand him.

  “A woman, only a woman, will be allowed to the well,” Avgay’el said to me.

  I remembered the jar I’d carried all afternoon. “What has this to do with me?”

  Yoav ran a finger over his mustache. “You are a woman, a clever woman.”

  My cheeks heated, even though I knew he was using his flattery for a reason.

  “Moreover, I have what you want.” He faced me, legs braced, shoulders straight, his body a perfectly proportioned specimen. “Your freedom.”

  “I do not know what you mean,” I said, trying to appear calm.

  “When your husband returns, he will be free.” I said nothing.

  “This is a chance for you also to be free.”

  “You want me to go into the city of Jebus?” I said. “As a well woman?”

  “Ken.”

  “And do what?”

  “Give me the city.”

  “I’m going to overpower the guards? Open the city gates?” I hoped my tone of voice revealed my disdain for his plan. “One woman alone, you must be mad!”

  His green eyes flashed at me. “Be wary what you say, isha. Your tongue will land you in trouble if you aren’t.”

  You’re a slave, Chloe. Slave. S-l-a-v-e. Think of all those harem women with their petty demands, all those pitted dates. Slave! Behave like one! I bit my tongue. “What would you have me do?”

  “Go from the well, down through the waterway, and lead us in.”

  “What kind of waterway?” I repeated. Were these sewers we were discussing?

  “The well, drinking water.”

  “What if I get caught?”

  Yoav shrugged. “You are no tribesman, so they will not suspect us. If anything, they will cast a fretful eye toward the Pelesti. It is no matter.” He unsheathed his knife, pausing to let the lamplight flicker over its bronze blade and stone-encrusted handle. “If you don’t get me the way into the city, the Jebusi will kill you as a Pelesti spy. If, however, you don’t get me the way into the city, I will kill you myself.”

  “So: You will kill me if I try and fail, and if I try and get caught, I’m dead. But if I don’t try, then you will leave me alone?”

  He exchanged a glance with Avgay’el. “Once I assure myself that you won’t betray me, ken.”

  My skin turned goose bumpy beneath my dress. “What assurance could I give you?”

  Yoav slid his blade into its sheath. “I cut out your tongue.”

  I started trembling all over, uncontrollably. “You … jest? Surely?”

  He spread his hands, palms up. “I must protect myself. I have yeladim.”

  It was hard to believe he was a father, yet could cut my tongue out with no compunction. I spoke slowly, for my tongue suddenly felt thick and swollen. “If I get in, then I get set free?”

  “If you get in and let us in, nachon. You are free.”

  “You don’t give me much choice,” I said wryly. This was unbelievable.

  He sheathed his knife. “Of course I do! Yoav ben Zerui’a is no uncircumcised pagan. You can continue slaving with the expectant mothers, the nursing mothers, the women in their cycle, for every day for the rest of your seven years in slavery.”

  “Tongueless,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Why me?” I demanded. “Why not another woman?” Yoav glanced at Avgay’el, then back at me. “You are not a woman of our tribes, it is apparent in every move you make. Also, you are not a …” His hands moved through the air as though he were pawing for the word. “You lack a femininity. You are as a widow, capable of handling her husband’s affairs, not needing a man’s help.” He looked troubled. “B’Y’srael …”

  In Israel, the lexicon scribbled on the chalkboard. “… our women leaders have had this sense, this ability. All have been as widows, from the great D’vora, the judge, to Ya’el, who went against her husband’s wishes. Even Yefthah’s daughter seemed a woman alone when she went into the desert.”

  I had no idea who these people were, and I certainly wasn’t a widow. And just because I could scale a wall and hit a target didn’t mean I wasn’t feminine. I glowered at him while I tried to recall that he was an ancient man, fairly progressive for his day and age, but he still had a long way to go. However, was he an idiot? Did he really think I could get into a city that four armies had been incapable of invading? “Let me understand.”

  “B’vakasha,” he said, giving me the floor.

  I fought to keep my tone respectful. “You want me, a Pelesti slave, to open the city of Jebus, so that you, the same highlanders who sacked my sister cities, can sack another? You think that I, because I lack femininity and carry a jar of water, can persuade these Jebusi to let me into their well, their sole source of drinking water, then somehow find my way through the city, and return that same way with an army at my heels?”

  His gaze moved over me slowly, appreciatively. His dialect changed again; another one I understood, but that Avgay’el did not. “There is nothing lacking in you, isha. It is that you know how to manage yourself. You can think. You can hide when someone is following you. You know to be wary of strangers.”

  His eyes met mine again. “But it is not because you are anything less than comely. In fact, you will need a disguise.” He said the last in Hebrew, or Akkadian, or whatever this common patois was. “That is another task for Avgay’el.”

  “Ata meshugah! ” I shouted at him. Crazy as a bedbug, that was what he was!

  “Is that a refusal?” he asked, his hand going to his blade. I was trembling, trying to figure an angle but too scared for clarity. “Why do you do this?” I asked, turning on Avgay’el.

  “I want my own palace,” she said. “I want to stop hearing about the wonders of this city and how Dadua’s nefesh longs for it. I want the constant beseeching prayers to stop. I want him to have his dream so we can get on with our lives.”

  “HaMelekh is nagging you to death, so you’ll pay any cost?” I choked out.

  “Nachon!”

  “Never mind that it might take my life and the lives of these soldiers?”

  “You have choices,” she said. “Dying or being mute!”

  Her gaze dropped.

  Use another tactic, Chloe. “Why support Yoav? Why not one of the other many gibori?” I asked. They were all jockeying for this position of Rosh Tsor haHagana.

  Avgay’el glanced at Yoav. “No one has ever been more faithful to the heart of my husband’s desires,” she said in her melodious storyteller’s voice. “Yoav knows what Dadua wants, even when Dadua claims he doesn’t want it.” She looked back at me. “Yoav has earned this position already. He has won it through blood.”

  This was way too bloody a place for my comfort. “It was not”—she seemed to search for the words�
�“the most honorable action for haMelekh to make this a, a competition among his men.”

  “Lo. They should be comrades at arms, not at each other’s throats,” I said, trying to be reasonable in the midst of this insanity.

  “You’ve served as a soldier,” Yoav said flatly. “With the Ashqeloni?”

  My look toward him was not respectful. “What is the plan?” I asked. Did I stand a chance? Certain muteness or optional death? “Do you even have a plan?”

  “You will go with two of my trusted men to observe the city. You need to find where this waterway comes out.”

  Reconnaissance, b’seder. “You don’t know where this passageway is?”

  “Lo, that is part of your job as a spy.”

  My father would be so proud. “What if I can’t find—” I didn’t even finish the statement; I didn’t need to because he immediately reached for his knife. Apparently not finding a way in fit into one of the categories. Choice: mute or dead. “What if there isn’t one?”

  “You are a clever woman.”

  That was beginning to feel more like an excuse than a compliment. I licked my lips, taking another deep breath so I didn’t scream again. “B’seder, then what?”

  “Then you will go into the city as an itinerant well drawer.”

  “This is a common thing?” I asked.

  Avgay’el shrugged. “Common enough. Perhaps you should say you are a widow.”

  Fair enough. “You will be Pelesti, fleeing from the cities because we destroyed them,” Yoav suggested.

  It was always good to keep one’s lies close to the truth. “B’seder. What reference is the blind and lame?” I asked.

  “The curse that Abdiheba, the present king, lays on those who try to invade him.”

  I waited. Was there more? “Do these things upset you?” he asked. “That I must betray a people in order to have my freedom? Or that he lays a curse against me—I, who am already cursed by slavery and separation from my husband?”

  Yoav exchanged a glance with Avgay’el. “I did not know you pagans revered marriage so much. So: Have you sacrificed your children?”