Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  He kissed the back of my hand, but it wasn’t a leading kiss, it was a thinking kiss. “There is the statement about no gods before Shaday.”

  “Ken. Because his name is Zealous, he is a Zealous god.”

  “The statement to not cast an image of him.”

  “True. Especially after the disaster of them worshiping HatHor only months after Shaday got them through the Red Sea.” How could they have doubted? I wondered. I’d seen the sea part, and my life had been changed forever.

  Well, tweaked, at any rate.

  Okay, so I was no different. I doubted, too, even after seeing the seas part.

  “Then, instead of the laws about friends and family, honesty and covetousness, there are all these laws about sacrifices and holidays,” I said.

  “Memory is the tool to perpetuating this faith,” Cheftu said. “Just as N’tan explained. If they remember Shaday, remember him in all the little ways—from blessing wine and bread before consumption, to keeping their lives separate from foreigners just like they keep apricot orchards separate from pear—then they will remember Shaday more easily in the large ways.”

  We walked into our still-undecorated, because almost everything was undecorated, house. Cheftu lit the lamp while I went straight to our view.

  I didn’t doubt the point he was making. That those Commandments were missing, how they were, was my question. “How could they go from being about one thing, to being about another?” I turned to look at Cheftu. He was staring over my shoulder, fixed on some private horizon.

  “Perhaps … ,” he mused. “Perhaps we have it backward.”

  I watched him, waiting. His eyes were circled with kohl, the little bit of light flickering off his earrings. How could it be backward? This was the Ten Commandments we were talking about.

  “These laws formed a group of slaves into an organized army,” he said slowly.

  “Ken?” I encouraged.

  “Perhaps these were the first laws, the first try at the organization.”

  He’d lost me. My expression must have said as much. “They came from Egypt, having been slaves for decades. What does a slave do?”

  “Slave?” I asked jokingly.

  Cheftu raised a brow at me.

  “B’seder. They serve, they wait, they—”

  “They don’t make decisions for themselves,” he said.

  I fell silent. Slaves don’t get a chance to think for themselves. We’d been slaves for only a few months. We’d been fed, clothed, sheltered, told where to be and when. After a few hundred years of that, people would become untrained in making decisions and following through. Not because they couldn’t, but because it had been beaten out of them. So the Apiru always had someone telling them what to do: then overnight they were responsible for themselves?

  “So they had exchanged an overseer for Shaday?” I asked. Dadua and his theory of Shaday being a slave owner was popping up again.

  Cheftu sat on the ledge, pulling me beside him. “Think on it. The first laws were simple, basic. Mostly dealing with sacrifice, because that is something, as slaves, they would have understood and seen.

  “Because they lived among people who revered their firstborn, the laws about redeeming one’s firstborn, about not appearing before Shaday without a gift, these laws gave them the feeling of worshiping a god who was similar to, though not identical to, their neighbors. It was a familiar pathway.”

  He kissed my shoulder, then continued speaking. “Other laws dealing with holy days were another concept they comprehended because of their Egyptian heritage. The religious calendar and the taboo against following idols were the first things to learn.”

  “Because they were foremost in their minds?” I asked. “Ken. They had recently served HatHor, the golden calf. They had to be told what was right and wrong in what they had done.”

  I nodded, following.

  “These other laws you recite, the ones I recall from catechism, were more complex. They were for a people who had adapted to the idea that they owned themselves.”

  “So Moshe didn’t write those?” I asked. “Shaday did.”

  “Then I’m confused,” I said in English. “The first tablets, Shaday wrote them, nachon?” Cheftu asked.

  The Ten Commandments movie flickered through my brain, the face of the actor replaced with the dark-eyed visage of Moshe, former crown prince of Egypt. Lighting, ostensibly the finger of God, had written the laws on stone tablets. Then Moses had walked down the mountain, thrown down the stones, and broken them.

  “According to the Sages,” I said hesitantly.

  Cheftu laughed, kissing my neck, tightening his arms around me. “Ken. That is what the tzadikim say. Then after punishing the tribesmen, haMoshe climbed the mountain again, taking down the Commandments in his own hand.”

  I turned to him. “Are you saying they dumbed them down, second go-round? Just because the people were too simplistic? So the Ten Commandments that I know, the ones my Mimi used to quote to me, these were the first given, but they were too complicated so Moses and God came up with a learner’s version?”

  He shrugged, the epitome of Gallic nonchalance. “Abraham bargained with Shaday about other things, so who is to say?”

  It was a startling thought. “Do you think that the rules Shaday handed, the broken pieces, were the Ten Commandments we eventually got? So the ones haMoshe ended up reading to the populace are the ones that he received the second time around?”

  I couldn’t be still. I hopped up. “These laws that N’tan is reciting, they are the ones Moses received second? These are the simple ones, the training Commandments? These are the ones he wrote down?”

  Cheftu was silent for a long moment. “It would be reasonable, for the Ten Commandments we know as such were far too complex thought processes for a herd of slaves.” He smiled, catching the ends of my hair in his hand. “It would be like Shaday to make two plans, one for right then and one for posterity, yet neither contradictory. These we are observing now, these are very physical commands. Later, the laws become spiritual, they govern our inner selves. Those are the ones you recognize, but both are in the Holy Writ.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I agreed with that or not. “What language did God write them in, you think?”

  “One is tempted to say Hebrew,” Cheftu said. “The Urim and Thummim are inscribed in Hebrew, so we know it was around. Written by then.”

  “What did Moshe write his in?” I asked.

  Cheftu opened his mouth; just then I felt the kick he did. “Hieroglyphs?” His voice rose an octave, incredulous.

  It was another thing I’d been thinking through. “Where are the pieces that God wrote?”

  “In the Ark of the Covenant.”

  PART VI

  CHAPTER 15

  RAEM WOKE UP TO THE SOUND OF A scuffle outside her tent door. Instantly alert, she crept forward. The soldier on duty sighed as his neck was slit. She was panicked a moment until she heard the words of the killer. “I come from Horetaten, My Majesty.”

  “Did you have to murder him?” she asked, opening the door, gesturing to the body on the ground.

  “Aye. It was necessary.” When the person stepped into the tent, RaEm saw that he was a she. A young, flat-chested woman, shaven headed and adorned like a priest, but female.

  “What is the meaning of this?” RaEm asked.

  “Horetamun, I mean—” She stumbled. “He was my master, My Majesty.”

  RaEm’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

  “He was—” The girl inhaled raggedly. “They killed him, My Majesty.”

  RaEm felt terror. He was her sole ally! Her only tool! “Killed him?”

  “The priests of Amun-Ra are on the rise, My Majesty. They seek to destroy the Aten and Pharaoh.”

  “Tell me everything,” she said, gesturing for the girl to seat herself.

  “The Inundation was poor.”

  “This I knew.”

  “The gold you sent, it wasn’t enough.”

>   RaEm winced against that thought. The tribesmen had thought themselves so clever to bury the gold with the rotting corpses. However, RaEm had personally lashed any soldier who would not dig. They had retrieved a lot of gold—armor and weapons inscribed with Hatshepsut’s cartouche, a pharaoh none of the soldiers had ever heard of. RaEm had whipped them again, just for that oversight.

  But it wasn’t enough gold.

  Then she had sent the tribute from Dadua, a nice contribution, but not enough to bribe all the nobles, all the priests, who had greedy palms.

  “What happened?”

  “He was praying to Amun in the god’s room. He had dismissed the other priests, so as he prayed he dug out the stones, the gold, the riches that only he would know were missing.”

  It was a desperate measure. RaEm hoped the god would understand his reasoning was because of his love for Egypt.

  “The, the other priest”—the girl wiped her nose with the back of her hand—“he was always jealous. He broke in with the guards and caught Horetamun in the act.”

  RaEm’s eyes closed. She could imagine the scene, the jealousies, the rivalries. Temples were highly charged places for people who lusted for power. He had been kneeling, probably digging at the floor, when the door would have burst open.

  “Did they kill him there?”

  The girl shook her head. “He was executed.”

  “Aii, Isis, nay!” RaEm whispered. That meant he had endured a week of torture, ten full days of experiencing different “hells” that it was believed his soul would endure once he died.

  He would have been covered with honey, left for ants. His fingers severed and fed to Sobek, the crocodiles, while he watched.

  Whipped in strips until he was a mass of blood, then left in the sun.

  His tongue cut out, his teeth torn from his head.

  Surgically eviscerated as he watched, but kept from dying.

  His sex cut off, stuffed in his mouth.

  Then blinded.

  His body dipped in pitch and set aflame.

  Nothing would remain; his name would be removed from every papyri, his seal sealed over, his ashes scattered on the winds in the desert, then his household sold to foreigners into the meanest slavery.

  RaEm wept for him. She tore her clothes, beat her breast, covered her face and head in ashes, and sat in the darkness for three days, mourning him. But before she did that, she made sure the girl had gold, clothing, and sent her to Yaffo, to sail for the farthest island.

  On the way, RaEm’s agents, disguised as priests of Amun-Ra, would overtake her, kill her, and leave the body. The real priest would have trailed the girl. It would not do to have them connect the deposed high priest and the reigning co-regent of Egypt.

  However, her death would be quick, painless. RaEm herself would see that she was mourned, her name written in many scrolls so she would live forever.

  At the end of three days RaEm adorned herself as Smenkhare, summoned her traveling chair, and set off for the audience chamber of Dadua.

  She’d lost her ally; she needed another.

  Time had come for action. The golden totem would enter the city in a month. RaEm wondered if Akhenaten had that much time left. If he was assassinated, without her being behind it, then she would be viewed as the enemy also. Her priest Horetamun was supposed to have done it, then given the credit to her, the reigning pharaoh of Egypt. As Hatshepsut had treated her nephew Thutmosis, RaEm would have placed Tuti under house arrest and usurped his reign.

  However, her tool had been discovered. She needed to return to Egypt soon, she needed to return with gold, and she needed to return with a triumphant army bearing spoils of war, the image of Egypt long ago.

  The time was now; Horetamun had been dead almost a month.

  I WAS STANDING ON MY BALCONY, grinding my own grain, since I had no slave, when the rains began in earnest. They’d been teasing along, sprinkling, a shower here and there. A little squall from cloudy skies most every afternoon. All week long it had been growing cooler. The fields had been plowed and planted; the grapes trampled into wine; the olives preserved; the pomegranates plucked; and the grain harvested.

  Now the rainy season began.

  It was my time to be “on the straw.” As I watched the rain fall, I felt like crying. Which was ridiculous because everything was going well, really well. Better than any other time period I’d been in.

  “You need a hobby,” I told myself aloud. “One that will keep you from talking to yourself.”

  I missed my art, the wonder of creating something. Bread did not count as a creative outlet, though I had gotten very good at baking. I heard a knock on the door, so I set down the stone and ran for it. The mushroom stood in the pouring rain, dancing with a smile.

  Right, she liked dancing in the rain. Footsteps of God or something.

  “Avgay’el invites you to the first carding,” she said. “This afternoon.”

  I stared at her; the girl was becoming a woman. Moreover, she was exquisite when she moved. Did she have any bones in her body? “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “B’seder, but when?”

  “Now.”

  “Uh, do I need to bring anything?”

  “It’s a carding,” she said. “Are you coming?”

  Why not. I closed the door behind me and followed her into the rain.

  I plodded along, she danced. Even as she walked, she danced. She was unaware of the glances, the men who stopped in their tracks, reaching out to their friends to see this woman.

  Ahead I saw a group of giborim. She was a child even though she moved like pouring oil. “You might want to walk normally for a bit,” I said under my breath. She danced. They hadn’t sighted her yet. One of them was the Klingon. Maybe we could just go around them?

  Thunder.

  Suddenly the rains changed from a straight, medium shower into a monumental downpour. I looked around for an overhang, but the mushroom shouted in delight. In the fading afternoon light she gyrated, twirled, and arabesqued her ways through the street.

  The Klingon Uri’a saw her; I saw his face go slack with lust. Another gibori stepped forward, but Uri’a stopped him with his sword—Pelesti iron. They exchanged comments, which I could imagine were on the lines of “I saw her first.”

  And the mushroom danced on, her face raised. Your childhood is over, I thought. Uri’a watched. Angry at her, angry at myself, I stalked through the deluge, ripped off my head covering, and threw it around her. Then I grabbed her by the shoulders and we marched through the rain. She protested, but I couldn’t forget Uri’a’s expression.

  Avgay’el and Shana needed to know this.

  We arrived at the palace dripping wet, runny nosed, and generally gross.

  An Egyptian stood in the courtyard, an Egyptian I hadn’t seen before. Though he was dressed as a priest, he wore a sword like a soldier. His kohl had streaked down his face; in fact, he was drenched. No one was around. Curtly I told the mushroom to go the women’s quarters. ’Sheva glanced balefully at me, then moved on.

  “You have been attended, my lord?” I asked in Egyptian. He was startled at the sight of me; his fingers moved in the air, making the motion against the Evil Eye since I had red hair and green eyes. “Nay, my, uh, lady,” he said.

  “Whom are you here to see? Pharaoh Smenkhare camps on the opposite hillside,” I said, attempting usefulness. His eyes narrowed. I began to think I’d done the wrong thing. “Or are you here to see haNasi Dadua?”

  “I bring news of a new pharaoh,” he said.

  “Akhenaten has flown to Osiris?”

  “Akhenaten denied the existence of Osiris,” he said coolly.

  Okay, I was doing really well here. I decided to shut up while I could.

  “Is the boy, Tuti, is he with Pharaoh?”

  Was it my imagination or did the word pharaoh come with a lifetime of sarcasm? I shrugged. I didn’t know. I offered him water, then headed to the women’s quarters. Once inside, w
ith Dadua’s screaming, running children, I sought out Shana, told her of the messenger. Then I told her of the mushroom and Uri’a. She tch’d and sent me to the straw.

  The children were laid down for a nap, and we were all passed tufts of wool and two pieces of wood: a tool with two prongs, another with only one. I was convinced, between carding wool and kneading dough, I would never have to tone again. It was hard work, and a hard workout, being an ancient woman.

  Was I always going to be one? I touched my stomach and fought back tears. Did I want to be?

  “Tell us a story, Avgay’el!” the women demanded. Avgay’el was pregnant, though you couldn’t tell. On the other hand, Dadua’s newest wife, a foreign princess, was largely pregnant. In one sense it seemed weird; on the other, not. Polygamy, theoretically, seemed acceptable to me; was I becoming an ancient woman?

  The skies had opened above Tziyon, drenching us. We could hear the pounding on the roof; the storms had darkened the room. Ahino’am bade the mushroom light lamps. Then I noticed that ’Sheva had slipped away. More rain dancing, I thought. At least now she was in the safety of the palace.

  Avgay’el picked up her tools and began scraping her cotton tuft, speaking in time to the sound, her voice strong and melodious. “Given the weather,” she said, “I think I know which story to tell.”

  The women laughed. I focused on tearing apart my wool tuft so I could begin carding it.

  “The story begins after the First Family had grown,” Avgay’el began. “They covered the face of the earth. Now there was a race of giants, anakim: sons of heaven entered into the daughters of men. Hero figures roamed the land, men and women of mythic fame.”

  I squirmed around on my bit of straw, stretching out my puff of wool. Did this mean that the Bible made allowances for those creatures of mythology? Did I even have the same Bible? Somehow I thought if I’d read about God having a picnic, or giants and mythological figures being real, I would have been more interested.

  Instead it had seemed like a lot of thous and begats.

  I looked around the room, the one nursing woman, the two expecting wives, the four concubines, all in various stages of pregnancy: the begats were pretty accurate.