by Angela Hunt
Chapter Nineteen
M andisa had not walked more than ten paces from the garden when she sensed that something was amiss. The ordinary, usual noises of the house had abruptly ceased and waves of silence seemed to reverberate through the hallways.
“Adom!” she gasped, fearing the worst. He could have run from the garden and dashed under the hooves of a chariot horse, or run in front of Tarik’s archers as they practiced their marksmanship.…
The hard fist of fear tightened in her stomach when she saw a crowd gathered on the portico at the front courtyard. The house slaves and servants had clustered in a knot on the front steps; herdsmen, stable boys and guards ringed the periphery. Every eye was intent upon something in the distance, every mouth remained silent as the members of Zaphenath-paneah’s household strained to hear whatever was happening near the gatekeeper’s lodge.
“What is it?” Mandisa cried, struggling to push her way through the crowd. “Is anyone hurt?”
One of the women on the portico turned, and Mandisa nearly melted in relief when she recognized Halima. “Halima, what has happened?” Her hand flew to her throat as a new thought struck her. “Have the brothers from Canaan returned?”
“We could not be so fortunate.” The slave girl shook her head. “I don’t know why the men are behaving like such fools. The master buys new slaves at least once a month.”
“New slaves?” Mandisa’s mind whirled. “All of this—the guards have gathered—just to look at new slaves?”
“One slave,” Halima corrected, envy twisting her voice. “They’ve come pouring out of the woodwork to look at her. ”
Mandisa stared in confusion, and Halima pointed over the heads of the men in front of her. “Ani and Zaphenath-paneah visited the slave market this morning. I’ve already heard the story from one of the guards who accompanied them. It seems she was up for auction, and creating quite a disturbance, when one of the onlookers challenged Ani to buy her. He refused, knowing full well that such a woman only causes trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“In fact—” Halima lowered her voice as she pulled Mandisa from the crowd “—one of the bodyguards told me the master had already turned to go, but then, without explanation, the master ordered Ani to buy the woman and bring her here.”
A shadow of distress crossed Halima’s face. “I was thanking the gods because the Canaanite had calmed. But now our master has brought us another troublemaker—and this one will create a different kind of difficulty.”
Halima stalked away, still muttering under her breath. Driven by curiosity, Mandisa wormed her way through the group of onlookers until she could see the gatekeeper’s lodge. A woman in a gauzy garment stood there, her wrists and ankles shackled. Ani stood behind her, urging the gatekeeper to hurry and remove the woman’s bonds.
Mandisa would have known the newcomer as a harlot even without the earrings, the nose ring, the bracelets and bangles. The woman’s curled hair flowed down onto her shoulders in a soft dark tide that shone in the sunlight. Her bearing was about as subtle as a parade, her shape as sensuous as her ripe mouth. She stared out at her audience like a black panther, darkly beautiful and deadly. For some inexplicable reason, Mandisa felt her stomach contract in an odd little spasm.
“Who is she?” she murmured, not expecting an answer.
“Her name is Tizara,” a guard next to her replied, his eyes as fixed as a stone idol’s. “She is our master’s new slave.”
Amid a scattering of nervous laughter, one of the kitchen slaves joked, “I don’t think the mistress will be letting the master anywhere near her.”
Obviously uncomfortable, Ani lifted his eyes to the congregated slaves and clapped his hands in disapproval. As the slaves, guards and servants reluctantly returned to their duties, a guard took Tizara’s arm and escorted her to the slave quarters.
Mandisa had nearly reached her own small chamber when Ani appeared at her side. “You must help me,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I don’t know what I’m to do with the creature, but I could not dissuade the master. I tried to convince him she’d be a problem, but he insisted I bring her here.”
“Why did he buy her?” Mandisa asked. “Can’t he see what she is?”
“He said something about no soul being beyond redemption, and how could I argue with that? You know he has a softness in his heart, he is continually buying slaves in order to free them.”
“But what does she know how to do?” Mandisa interrupted. “I mean, of what practical use is she?”
“I don’t know.” Ani wrung his hands. “But if I put her in the kitchens, the men will fight over the opportunity to grind corn next to her. And if I send her to the fields—Oh, by the gods, I could never do that. Nothing would ever get done, and she’d be too far away, I couldn’t watch her. I could never assign her to the master or mistress, and I have no use for her.”
Mandisa shook her head. “I still can’t see why he bought her. He is not the type to be moved by a woman like that.”
“Our master did not even look at her,” Ani answered, color rising in his cheeks. “He had walked away, but the auctioneer called the woman’s name and said she was from Shekhem.”
Shekhem. That bloody business at Shekhem…
“She is a Canaanite,” Mandisa said, not daring to look Ani in the eye. He would not understand, but she grasped at least a little of the reason for the master’s compassion. This woman was from his country, from Mandisa’s and Shim’on’s.
“So? What am I supposed to do with her?”
“Why don’t you assign her to the children?” Mandisa suggested, giving the steward a small smile. “She can keep an eye on Efrayim and Menashe when they are not having lessons. Since the Canaanite captive has come, I do not have as much time for them as I used to. The slaves who have been watching the boys would rather be back to their former work.”
A cry of relief broke from the older man’s lips. “Ah, Mandisa, you are a jewel! For now, at least, you have solved the problem. And since this is your idea, you must help me. You must make certain that the girl never goes into the Lady Asenath’s presence, that would never do. And since you are a lady of noble bearing, perhaps you can teach her how to be modest and carry herself like a proper lady.”
Mandisa put up her hands. “Wait, Ani, I don’t want to care for your little scarlet bird. The master told you to buy her.”
“But what can I do with her?” The old man clapped his hand to his balding head. “You, my dear Mandisa, are the one to oversee her. Promise me you will.”
“I won’t.”
“But it is your master’s wish.”
“He has said nothing to me about it.”
“But he will. All I have to do is put a word in his ear.”
Mandisa paused, knowing Ani spoke the truth. The same compassion that had inspired Zaphenath-paneah to ask if Mandisa would be willing to comfort Shim’on would soon ask her to guide this offensive harlot. Because she loved her master and his wife, she could refuse them nothing…and it would be more gracious to volunteer before being asked.
She lifted her hands in resignation. “All right, I’ll look after her. Send her to me in the morning after our mistress is dressed, and I’ll take her on a tour of the villa and tell her how to care for the children.”
“Mandisa, I could kiss you,” Ani said, clapping his hands together. And then, while she gasped, he pulled her forehead to his lips and did just that.
Two weeks later, as Thebes celebrated the arrival of a new year, Tarik was less concerned about the boisterous drunks in the streets than keeping peace within the walls of Zaphenath-paneah’s villa. Standing by the gatekeeper’s lodge, he stiffened as the new woman sashayed across the courtyard, two mystified boys in her wake. A man would have to be made of stone not to notice her, even burn for her, as she passed by. Her slow and swaying walk summoned lustful thoughts from their hiding places, and when her eyes turned toward a man, his face and blood grew hot.…
“Tarik.” A soft voice wrested his attention. Halima stood next to him, undisguised hurt in her eyes.
“What is it?”
“There is trouble in the kitchen. The baker says he is to serve Tizara and the children at the midday meal—the vintner insists it is his duty. An hour ago they came to blows. Though they have ceased striving for the moment, I am afraid one will kill the other.”
“They are fools,” Tarik muttered under his breath, willing himself not to take one last look toward the vixen in the courtyard. Placing his hand upon the knife in his belt, he strode toward the kitchen, dimly aware that Halima followed.
“Will you little monkeys be quiet?” Tizara forced the words with studied calmness, afraid that one more boyish outburst would force her to scream.
Efrayim, the most naturally quiet of the pair, looked up. He lay under his brother in the sand of the courtyard, the loser in a lopsided wrestling match.
“Tizara?”
“What?”
“Can we splash in the garden pool? If we promise not to make much noise?”
She sighed. If they got wet, she’d have to march them past a hundred scorn-filled, disapproving sets of eyes and into their chambers for fresh kilts and a hair-washing. But at least they’d be entertained for a while.
“Yes, but walk, don’t run, to the garden. I will join you in a bit.”
The boys took off like jackrabbits as Tizara bent to gather their tops, toys and sandals. What was she doing here? Try as she might, she could not put all the pieces together.
She had not been surprised when she brought a high price at the slave auction, nor was she shocked to learn that she had been purchased by the grand vizier of Egypt, regent to the young Pharaoh. Her special skills were in great demand; she felt her power every time she walked before a crowd and adopted the role the men seemed to expect of her. The act was second nature to her now—a certain way of walking, a manner of half closing the eyes, a bold smile that promised a moment of immortality, a sensuous purr…
But a nursemaid needed none of those skills. So why had the vizier paid a top price for her and assigned her to his children?
She had gaped in disbelief when the steward told her of the vizier’s wishes. “Children?” she asked, stammering in confusion. “The vizier does not want me—for himself?”
“The vizier contents himself with the charms of his wife,” the steward answered, his expression taut and derisive.
“Then perhaps he intends to give me to Pharaoh.” She smiled and studied her manicured, henna-tinted fingertips. “Perhaps you should double-check with the vizier before you send me to care for children.”
“Believe me, young woman, if given my choice, I’d send you into the street,” Ani answered, his eyes narrowing. “But the vizier expressly asked me to find you a job, and I’m assigning you to his children. It is my wish—therefore it is your command.”
Throughout her twenty-two years men had vied for her and lied for her. She had seen them make fools of themselves in order to spend a week, even a night with her. She had been used and abused, petted and praised, bartered and sold. She thought she had seen everything and nothing would surprise her again.
But Zaphenath-paneah had. She caught a glimpse of the handsome vizier in the slave market and sighed in relief when she learned he would be her master. Most of the men she encountered had been hardened by desire and uglied by determination. Whether they were soldiers, priests, husbands, fathers, farmers or kings, they all wore the same twisted, lecherous look when they came into her tent. At the slave market she suspected that Zaphenath-paneah might be unusual, but she had no idea how different he would prove to be.
As the weeks passed, Mandisa rejoiced that at least one male in the household remained free of Tizara’s influence. Since Shim’on’s last visit with Adom had not gone as she expected, he had remained confined to his chamber and so had neither seen nor heard of Tizara. Mandisa was determined that he would not. The man was difficult to manage even in his calmer, resigned state of mind, so his boiling blood did not need to be stirred by the sight of a harlot from his own country.
Grudgingly keeping her promise to Ani, Mandisa met with Tizara each morning to outline the slave’s duties with the children. After watching a blush run like a shadow over Adom’s cheeks the first time he met Tizara, Mandisa decided that he did not need a nursemaid. Efrayim and Menashe, on the other hand, needed constant supervision. And though they were old enough to realize Tizara was pretty, they were young enough not to care.
Each morning Mandisa listened to Tizara’s complaints with a vague sense of unreality. Though the slave understood well her effect upon men, she could not understand why the women of the vizier’s household seemed to regard her with disdain. “Women just don’t like me,” she told Mandisa one morning, lifting a slender bare shoulder in a gesture that captivated the guards twenty paces away. “I have no idea why.”
Mandisa wanted to scream that perhaps it was because Tizara was shallow, flighty, egotistical and lazy, but she had promised to help, not hinder. So she bit her tongue and walked toward the garden, reluctantly resigned to the fact that Tizara would follow.
Mandisa was willing to admit that Tizara provoked them all to jealousy, but her willowy beauty, while exceptional, sprang more from attitude than physical perfection. What was it that made her seem more sensuous than other women? Tizara’s eyes were wide, her nose straight and her lips full. But occasionally Mandisa caught the slave in an unguarded moment of deep thought, and the hard, bitter look on Tizara’s narrow face was anything but beautiful.
The slave had but one duty—to watch over and attend to the master’s sons—but while the boys studied with Ani, Tizara flitted around Mandisa like an annoying mosquito. The former harlot had both a low tolerance for routine and a wild imagination, and Mandisa found it difficult to keep her temper when the girl buzzed around with complaints and wild stories.
Through a stream of constant babble Mandisa learned the slave’s history. Tizara had been raised in Shekhem, sold into slavery at a young age and trained in the “art of pleasing” before she reached maturity. A group of camel traders had owned her first, carting her from settlement to settlement, offering her services for silver. She had known both pleasant and brutal masters, she told Mandisa, but never thought to enter as boring an existence as the one she had come to know in the vizier’s house.
“I am caring for children!” she exclaimed, following Mandisa into the garden. “I don’t know why. I will never have them and I don’t really know what to do with them.”
“You’ll never have them?” Mandisa interrupted, stopping. Despite her irritation at the woman’s ceaseless and shallow chatter, she was curious. “Surely it is a possibility for any woman.”
“Not me. One of my masters paid an Eastern physician to do something to me.” For a moment, Tizara’s eyes went as empty as a blind man’s, then she shrugged. “But I never wanted children. What are they but helpless little people?”
“Some would say they are the most precious treasures on earth,” Mandisa answered, bending to snip a few lotus blossoms for Lady Asenath’s afternoon bouquet. “Our master and mistress adore their boys. And your duties are not difficult. Some would say you are fortunate to care for children.”
Tizara shook her head at the words. “I’ll admit that life here is pleasant. There is enough food, and the steward does not beat his slaves. But I am not happy, I yearn for something…more.”
Mandisa placed the flowers in her basket and shot Tizara a penetrating look as she straightened. “You live in the finest house in Thebes. Only the king’s palace is greater. You have a kind master. You care for two charming and delightful little boys—”
“Have you never wanted more, Mandisa?”
The question caught Mandisa off guard, and she felt herself stammering. “Of course not. I am happy to serve my master and mistress. I have a wonderful son. What more could I want?”
“Perhaps you have ev
erything then,” Tizara answered, “but I don’t. I want to do something that matters. I want to know someone who cares. I want to feel again.”
A dim flush raced like a fever across her pale and beautiful face, and for a brief moment her countenance seemed to open. Behind the mask Mandisa saw bewilderment, fear and pain, then Tizara drew back inside herself.
She arranged her lips in a pout when she saw Mandisa watching her. “Don’t take me so seriously, woman, no one else does. And tell me again why I shouldn’t take the boys to the temple of Min. She is a fertility goddess, and her priests and priestesses perform the best dances.”
“Our master’s sons must learn to read and write, not dance.” Mandisa sighed as she moved away from the lotus plants in the garden pool. “Please, Tizara, just make sure they practice their lessons. That is all you have to do.”
Later that afternoon, exhausted from debating with Tizara, Mandisa picked up Shim’on’s tray from the kitchen and took it to his room. She found him in a more sullen mood than usual.
“What, no greeting?” She set the tray on a stand. “No ‘Thank you, Mandisa, and how are things in the world today?’”
“Why should I care?” he growled. He was sitting on the floor in a darkened corner of the room, ignoring the fine furnishings Ani had supplied to replace the broken objects. Mandisa had assured Ani that the prisoner would not break anything else, but now, seeing the gleam of fire in his eye, she wondered if she had been too hasty in her promise.
“What’s wrong?” She folded her arms and leaned against the wall in a pose of weary dignity. She would have to speak to Zaphenath-paneah. Because of her master’s good nature and compassion, she did nothing these days but endure stubborn Canaanites.
“What month is it?” he snapped, not looking at her. “The house rings with the noise of celebration, and I’ve picked up enough of the Egyptian language to know that the people look forward to the coming of a new year.”
