Brothers

by Angela Hunt

  The guests, both Egyptian and Canaanite, rose from their chairs and prostrated themselves upon the polished floor as the retinue entered. As Mandisa moved to her position between the vizier and the youngest brother, Tarik barked the order giving permission for the guests to rise from the floor.

  Shock ran through her when Mandisa’s eyes met those of the young man next to her. This Binyamin looked remarkably like her master. If they would take the time to look, surely the others could see the resemblance!

  Zaphenath-paneah took his seat in the gilded chair high upon the dais. Before the meal could begin, the oldest brother came forward and dropped a heavy pouch onto the floor before the vizier. “If it please you, my lord,” he said, pulling several smaller sacks from the pouch, “our father bids you accept these gifts from the land of Canaan. We have brought you balm and honey, aromatic gum, pistachio nuts, almonds and myrrh.”

  Mandisa hurried the translation, for tears were already rising in her master’s eyes. He would have to be careful, or these men would know he understood them. She rushed through the list of gifts, stumbling over the elder brother’s words, then folded her hands as her master indifferently summoned a servant to take the generous tribute away. Bounty from Canaan! Did Zaphenath-paneah’s heart yearn to touch and smell and taste the things of home as strongly as hers did?

  The vizier sat forward and looked intently at the brother before him. “You spoke of your old father when you first stood before me—Is he well?”

  Mandisa translated the question and answer: “Yes, my lord.”

  “And this—” The master pointed toward the man next to Mandisa. “Is this the youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?”

  “It is, my lord.”

  Scarcely waiting for the translation, the master leaned forward to peer into the younger man’s face. Binyamin turned a vivid scarlet. Mandisa lowered her gaze, her heart aching with empathy, as her master swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “May God be gracious to you, my son,” Zaphenath-paneah whispered in a choked voice. Then the vizier of all Egypt leaped from his gilded chair and ran from the room.

  Tarik followed without a moment’s hesitation. After a moment of uncertainty in which the assembly stiffened in shock, Mandisa left, too. She found the master and his captain in the vizier’s chambers where Zaphenath-paneah had once again fallen prey to his feelings. Deep sobs racked him for the space of a quarter-hour, then he lifted his head, wiped his streaked face with a square of linen and asked Mandisa to reapply the painted lines of his eyes. He did not speak as she ministered to him, and Mandisa found herself silently asking the vizier’s Almighty God to provide her master with the strength to confront yet another crisis.

  When she assured him that he looked as dignified as before, he led the way as she and Tarik followed him back to the banquet hall.

  Without a word of explanation, the vizier took his seat and commanded that the meal be served. The hungry Canaanites shifted in their chairs, unused to the Egyptian custom that often expanded dinner into a two-or three-hour ritual. Each tray or bowl had to be presented first to the master, who either kept it by his side or sampled it and sent it on its way to his other guests. Thus the hand of the vizier literally provided every dish.

  While Zaphenath-paneah pretended to sample the feast of roasted duck, braised lamb, softened sweet breads, beans flavored with sweet oils and honey-basted gazelle, Mandisa listened to snatches of Canaanite conversation around her. The brothers, who still rejoiced at Shim’on’s reunion, remarked upon the bounty of the vizier’s table and the striking fact that the Egyptian had unwittingly arranged them in birth order.

  Afraid that her face might reveal too much, Mandisa kept her eyes from Shim’on, forcing herself to concentrate upon her master and his concerns. But Shim’on’s booming voice, his wide gestures and his resounding laugh seemed to fill the room, reinforcing her feelings of emptiness.

  She had not visited his chamber in weeks, not since the night of his escape. Lady Asenath had needed her in the aftermath of that bizarre episode, and the master had requested that Mandisa remain with his wife. Tizara had been elected to feed Shim’on and listen to his complaints, so Mandisa was certain that the former harlot’s image now filled his heart.

  Amid the music of harpists and the twirling of dancing girls, the guests accepted food from the vizier’s generous hand and filled their hungry stomachs. Mandisa shot Tarik a wry smile when she realized this was no ordinary banquet—Halima and the other kitchen slaves must have worked themselves into a frenzy to prepare so much on such short notice! And yet bowls continued to arrive from the kitchens: lumps of fat served with cumin and radish oil, bowls of brown beans, bright chickpeas sprinkled with soft lotus seeds and flavored with marjoram. Slaves bore pitchers containing fresh grape juice flavored with pomegranates, figs, mint and honey. After the round of meats and vegetables came the sweets: bowls of shining pomegranates, grapes, jujubes, honey cakes, heads of garlic and delicately flavored sycamore figs.

  Though tradition demanded that he at least pretend to sample every dish, the master ate little, but feasted instead of the sight of his brothers, particularly the youngest. Every other dish went to Binyamin, until an obvious crowd of serving women clustered around the young man’s chair. The Egyptian guests whispered among themselves at this peculiar demonstration of favor, but Zaphenath-paneah seemed oblivious to everything but the handsome, shy man seated at his right hand.

  Was he, Mandisa wondered, trying to incite the others to jealousy? Or was his heart overcome with longing for this long-lost shade of himself?

  As she studied the faces of those eating and drinking in the reception hall, she realized that the twelve sons of Yaakov had been reunited for the first time in over twenty years.

  But only one of them knew it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  B inyamin held up a warning hand as yet another dark-eyed slave approached with a platter from the vizier. “No, I couldn’t eat another mouthful,” he said, hoping the Egyptian girl would understand. He patted his stomach and smiled. “It is delicious, but I cannot eat any more.”

  The vizier’s kind attention was embarrassing. He had, of course, been awarded such bounty because he sat closest to the vizier. The other Egyptians, stretching out to the vizier’s left, had received comparatively little, but the vizier was obviously more interested in the men from Canaan. Did he still suspect they were spies? Or did he consider them unusual because they were eleven sons from one father? Re’uven had warned him of the great man’s peculiarity, but Binyamin had seen nothing unpleasant in the man’s aspect or behavior.

  His eyes caught the dark gaze of the vizier’s, and Binyamin turned away quickly, a blush burning his cheek. A moment later, the interpreter’s soft voice cut into his thoughts. “My master says you have not eaten enough. Would you like more?”

  Binyamin looked up and into the man’s dark gaze. No trace of hostility dwelled there, only compassion and a certain overarching kindness. “Thank him, but I have eaten my fill.”

  The woman translated, and a strange, faintly eager look flashed in the Egyptian’s eyes. He spoke again and the woman repeated his words. “My master asks if you are well? What do you think of Egypt? How many children have you?”

  Binyamin laughed, amazed that the great man would care for such trivial opinions and facts. “I am well, I am astounded by all I see, and I have nine sons,” he said, feeling the man’s sharp eyes upon him as he talked. “My wife is expecting another child soon.”

  “Nine sons?” The vizier’s answer came through the woman. “Are you trying to fill the earth with Avraham’s descendants completely by yourself?”

  The teasing question caught Binyamin off guard. What had his brothers told the Egyptian at their first meeting? How did he know of Avraham? Yaakov’s grandfather had sojourned in Mizraim for a time, but the people of the Black Land would not know of El Shaddai’s promise to make Avraham’s descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea.

&
nbsp; “My lord,” Binyamin asked, directly facing the vizier. “How do you know so many things? You have seated us according to our birth order, you know much about our father and our people. And yet you are a stranger to us.”

  The vizier watched Binyamin with an impassive expression as the woman translated.

  “Who but God can reveal truth?” the vizier answered through the woman, caressing a graceful silver bowl as he spoke. The vessel had been engraved with the images of Egyptian gods, and Binyamin had seen similar bowls in the tents of many nomadic peoples. He recognized it as a divining bowl, used to foretell the future. A supplicant would fill the bowl with water, then pour oil on top of the water. The gods supposedly revealed truth in the swirls and designs of the floating oil.

  “Perhaps God revealed these things to me,” the vizier answered, lifting his gaze from the bowl. “And more which you shall know in time.”

  Binyamin could not think of a suitable answer, and after a moment, the vizier smiled and turned away. After lifting his hand and pronouncing a blessing of some sort in Egyptian, Zaphenath-paneah stood and left the room, his entourage trailing behind him.

  “Another child on the way? Binyamin, you spend too much time at home!” Shim’on teased, punching the young man in the arm. The brothers had been given bedding in a large chamber of the vizier’s house and welcomed as guests for the night.

  “At least I am not yet a grandfather!” Binyamin answered, returning Shim’on’s playful jab. “Your oldest, Jemuel, is searching for a wife even now. You will have grandchildren piling on your knee before the next harvest.”

  “Jemuel is a fool.” Shim’on rolled onto his stomach. “Marriage is for men who have no other options.” He propped himself on his elbows, grateful that the servants had furnished them with blankets and furs instead of those sissified Egyptian beds. His brothers would tease him unmercifully if they knew he had lived in a dainty Egyptian chamber during his time of captivity.

  Levi lifted a brow. “Are you sorry you married?”

  “A man may marry if he needs sons, but I have six sons already,” Shim’on answered, propping his head on his hand. “That’s five legal heirs too many. I will never marry again.”

  “But men need women,” Binyamin protested, sitting up. “Father says God Shaddai decreed it was not good for men to be alone.”

  “What men need there are women aplenty to give,” Shim’on interrupted, snorting. “Right, Yehuda?”

  A silence, thick as wool, wrapped itself around them. Shim’on stared at Yehuda, daring him to contradict his opinion, for they all knew that pious Yehuda had once unknowingly hired his own daughter-in-law as a prostitute.

  “Indeed there are,” Yehuda answered, his voice gruff, “but there are snakes in the desert, too, and I would not recommend that a man sleep with one.”

  Several of the brothers laughed, and the mood lightened. Shim’on glanced around the circle, grateful for each bearded, sunburned face. “So, tell me,” he said, looking at Levi. “Father is well, but how is our sister?”

  Yehuda groaned and buried his head in the furs beneath him while Levi’s handsome face twisted in a smirk. “Dina is as Dina is,” he said, shrugging. “She has not changed.”

  “Has she married?” Shim’on tried to keep his voice light.

  Levi shook his head. “Nor will she. She sits in our mother’s tent, alone most of the time except when the servants enter to help her. Sometimes she sews. Sometimes she makes baby clothes.”

  Shim’on said nothing, but stared at his hands, the same hands that locked Dina into the past by taking her baby and lowering it to the desert sands.…

  The remorse that pricked his soul was the mere tip of a long seam of guilt that snaked through the years back to Shekhem.

  “Forget Dina.” Levi’s broad hand fell upon Shim’on’s arm. “Tell me about the pretty woman who interprets for the vizier. When you were not aware of it, she studied you.” His lips parted in a sly smile. “Or perhaps you were aware of it.”

  Re’uven’s lower lip edged forward in a pout. “I thought she was watching me.”

  Yehuda lifted his head. “She was definitely watching our Shim’on, so explain the sudden color in your face, O Destroyer. You have been in this house a long time, so you must know the woman’s name.”

  He knew much more than her name, but he’d forfeited everything the night he tried to escape. She would never look at him as she once did, she would never think of him in the same way…

  “Her name—” Shim’on closed his hands “—is Mandisa. She is the Lady Asenath’s handmaid.”

  Levi cracked an irreverent grin. “And why would a lady’s maid care so much about you?”

  “She was also my…attendant,” Shim’on said, searching for a word to describe the relationship he had not completely analyzed himself. “She spoke Canaanite, so the guards asked her to tend me. We became—” he paused “—friends.”

  While the others wailed in laughter, Levi pretended to choke in disbelief. “You cannot be a woman’s friend,” he protested. “A woman can be your mother, your sister, your wife, or your lover. And since we know this Egyptian is not your mother or sister—”

  “She is not wife or lover or Egyptian, either,” Shim’on interrupted, looking at his hands again. “She is a Canaanite, and she is a friend. You may leave it at that.”

  Something in his voice silenced them. Outside the chamber the wind groaned and a group of servants tumbled into laughter, but silence filled the room until Binyamin lifted his head. “Will she be upset when you leave tomorrow?” he asked, the light of concern in his dark eyes. “Perhaps you should say your farewells tonight, when you may have a private word with her.”

  “There is no need.” Shim’on flipped onto his back and pillowed his head on his hands. “She is no more to me than the cook or the guard who watched my room. I am ready to go home, brothers, and I suggest we sleep.”

  The others mumbled in reply and settled on their beds. From far away Shim’on heard the familiar sounds of food being scraped from platters and the fountain splashing in the garden. Would he ever hear those sounds again? He knew he would never again enjoy the anticipation of Mandisa’s gentle rap on his door. He might even miss the sharpness of her quick tongue.

  He lay awake a long time.

  Something moved in the darkness and Mandisa sat up, trying to see what had slashed her sleep like a dagger. “Who’s there?” She drew the linen sheet to her chest, then reached out to wake Adom.

  “Don’t wake the boy.”

  Shim’on’s voice spoke to her, but she could not see him in the darkness. A moment of sheer black fright swept through her—had he come to take revenge for his imprisonment?—then she stiffened at the challenge his presence presented.

  “You should not be here,” she said, steeling her voice with authority. “Come forward and show yourself, or I’ll scream for the guards.”

  He stepped from the darkness at the rear of her room into a small square of light left by the waning moon. He looked tough and sinewy in the darkness, more powerful and determined than any man she had ever seen.

  Heat stole into her face as she remembered their last private encounter. “I should probably scream anyway.”

  He moved a step closer. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You have made a mistake. Didn’t you mean to seek Tizara’s chamber?” She cringed at the bitter tone of her voice. “I know what you want of a woman, and Tizara is better equipped and, I dare say, more willing to provide it than I.”

  His lips thinned in anger. “Woman, will you be quiet and listen?”

  Adom stirred on his bed. Mandisa and Shim’on stared at each other across a sudden ringing silence, neither of them willing to wake the boy. When Adom turned and stretched out, still deep in sleep, Mandisa clenched her fist. “You have no more sense than a stone, coming to a woman’s chamber at this hour. If you were a servant, Tarik would have you flogged for this.”

  “I am a prisoner
here no longer,” Shim’on answered, “and my intentions are honorable. I came to ask if you will leave with me tomorrow. Adom, too. There is room in my tent for both of you.”

  The concern in his expression amazed her even more than the proposal. “You want me to go with you? To Canaan?”

  His expression stilled and grew serious. “It would not be right for me to leave you behind. I am now free. You should be, too.”

  Too stunned to answer, Mandisa said nothing as Shim’on knelt beside her bed, lifted her hand and pressed it to his heart. With a sureness that made her breath leave her body, his eyes moved into hers. “Mandisa—” intensity marked his voice “—I owe you so much. I am sorry if I have behaved wrongly toward you, but you must understand, I was not at my best in this place. But now I am free, so journey with us and leave this Black Land. Return to Canaan, the place of your birth.”

  She turned her hand to clasp his, not daring to trust her turbulent feelings. Was this a dream? No, his flesh was warm, his hand all too real. For a long moment, she looked at him. “Are you asking me to be your wife?”

  “By heaven above, no.” He dropped her hand as resolutely as he’d taken it. “I will never marry again. I’ve had two wives, and while they lived I made both of them miserable. Since I have a legal son, I have no further need of a wife.”

  Her mind reeled with confusion. “So you would have me live with you as what? A concubine?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We will make whatever arrangement you like, but I won’t marry you. You have told me about your first marriage and its misery, and I saw how my father tormented my mother. So you shall remain free and independent. I will protect and provide for you and Adom. That is the least I can do to show my gratitude. But since marriage makes men miserable, you will be free to go anytime you please.”