by Angela Hunt
Mandisa took a quick breath of utter astonishment as hot, bitter tears slipped down her mistress’s cheeks. Asenath had not given any sign that she would not accept the master’s brothers. Mandisa had assumed she would be thrilled and delighted for her husband’s sake.
“You are a loving woman.” Mandisa left the wig on its stand and sank to her mistress’s feet. “You charm all who meet you, my lady, and you are dear to my master’s heart. But you have been ill, you are not yourself.”
“You are right, I am not myself,” Asenath repeated, closing her eyes. “And I have done something terrible.” She took a breath as if she would speak again, then apparently thought better of it. “My wig, please.”
Mandisa stood and lifted the wig, fluffed it and fitted it onto her lady’s head. Asenath’s countenance remained immobile, but the atmosphere of the chamber cooled as dramatically as if a rainy wind had blown through the house.
Mandisa pressed her hands to her knees and bowed. “If that is all, my lady, I will see if the master needs me.”
“Wait.” When Mandisa looked up, Asenath’s bright eyes had clouded with hazy sadness. “Have you noticed, Mandisa, that the master is not…happy about the coming child?”
Torn by conflicting emotions, Mandisa hesitated. Did Lady Asenath really believe she could deceive those who knew her best? Against all human convention and reason, her husband had continued to support her. Was his love not enough? Did Asenath expect him to exult in the result of her infidelity?
But it was not a servant’s place to rip away the veil. “The master adores you, my lady,” she answered, taking her mistress’s hand. “Because he loves you, he will love any child that comes from your womb. But I am certain he fears for your health.”
Asenath managed a weak laugh of relief. “I have made arrangements for continual offerings to be made to Taweret, the goddess of prospective mothers. I know both the baby and I will be safe.”
“I pray you are right, my lady.” Mandisa bowed again, masking her inner turmoil. Asenath needed a comforting counselor, someone who would speak plainly, but Mandisa did not think that her mistress would listen to a handmaid.
And Shim’on and his brothers were waiting. Mandisa backed out of the room and left her mistress alone in her chamber.
Chapter Thirty-One
Z aphenath-paneah, Tarik and a host of guards and servants had assembled in the reception hall by the time Mandisa arrived. Ani and the brothers were not in sight, and Mandisa realized that again she was to play a part in an unfolding drama. Today, however, though the stage was set for business as usual, everyone in the room sensed that some momentous event was about to take place. The vizier’s excitement was palpable; he exuded it like a scent.
Zaphenath-paneah smiled at Mandisa in gratitude as she took her place at his left hand, then Ani entered and bowed before the vizier. “They are in the vestibule, Master, and as anxious as hens with one chick,” he said, lifting his bright eyes. “Shall I send the Canaanites in?”
The vizier crossed his legs at the ankles and gripped the arms of his chair. “Yes.”
Ani scuttled away, and Mandisa turned to catch Tarik’s eye. A gleam of mischief shone there, and she drew in her breath, curious about the drama they were about to enact. Who had devised the script? Tarik obviously knew his part, and perhaps Ani, but she had no idea what might happen in the next few moments. Might Shim’on be forced to remain behind again?
She closed her eyes, silencing the thought. Don’t wish it. Don’t wish for him. He cares nothing for your heart. He does not love you. He has no idea what love is.
The doors to the vestibule opened and the brothers rushed in, their former deference swallowed up by frantic worry. The youngest man, Binyamin, walked between two guards. His wrists were bound, albeit loosely, his legs hobbled by a sturdy papyrus rope. One of Tarik’s lieutenants brought forward the vizier’s silver bowl and placed it on a stand by Zaphenath-paneah’s chair.
At the sight of the waiting vizier, all eleven of the brothers prostrated themselves on the floor.
“What is this you have done?” Zaphenath-paneah said through Mandisa, addressing the youngest brother, Binyamin. “Do you not know that God speaks to me? You could not have hoped to escape.”
Binyamin lifted his head to speak, but one of the older brothers shushed him and rose to his knees. “What can we say to you, my lord?” he asked, opening his hands in entreaty. “I am Yehuda, and I have no words to offer in explanation. What can we say? How can we justify ourselves? God has discovered your servants’ crime.” He hung his head; the silver threads of his hair glowed in the diffused light of the chamber. “Here we are, servants to my lord, we and the one in whose hand the bowl was found.”
Mandisa froze when Zaphenath-paneah did not wait for the translation. “Heaven forbid that I should do this to you,” the vizier answered in fluent Canaanite. “The man in whose possession the cup has been found shall be my slave. But as for the rest of you, go in peace to your father.”
Yehuda shook his bushy head. “Please, my lord,” he said, apparently too worried to notice that the vizier now spoke his language, “may your servant please speak a word in your ears. And do not let your anger flare up against me, for you are equal to Pharaoh! We know this. We would not take advantage of you.”
Mandisa looked at her master. He nodded in regal assent, and Yehuda advanced until he stood only two paces from the master’s elevated chair. The two men stared at each other eye-to-eye.
“My lord asked his servants,” Yehuda began, lowering his voice, “‘Have you a father or another brother?’ And we said to you, ‘We have an old father and a young son of his old age, whose brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to us, ‘Bring him down to me, so I may set my eyes on him.’ But we said to you, my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave, his father would die.’ But you said to us, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.’”
“Why are you telling me what I already know?” Zaphenath-paneah interrupted, his brows slanting in a frown. “I am not a forgetful old man, that you need to remind me of anything.”
“I beg your pardon.” Yehuda hung his head. “But there is more to the tale, an episode you have not heard.”
Zaphenath-paneah’s jaw tensed. “Tell it.”
Yehuda thrust his hands behind his back and stiffened his spine. “When we returned to your servant my father, we told him your words. And after a while our father said, ‘Go back, buy us some food rations.’ But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down, for we cannot see the Egyptian’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’”
Yehuda fell silent, trembling with the intensity of his memories. “Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know my true wife bore me two sons, and the one went away from me, and I said, ‘Surely he is torn, torn to pieces!’ and I have not seen him since. And if you take this one also from me, and harm befalls him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.’”
The roar of absolute silence filled the chamber as Yehuda paused. Zaphenath-paneah sat still, his eyes narrow, his posture militant. Mandisa knew she watched a volcano on the verge of erupting.
“So now—” Yehuda snatched a deep breath “—if I return to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us—in whose life his own life is bound up—it will be, that when he sees the lad is no more, he will die. And we will bring the gray hair of our father down to the grave in sorrow. But since I pledged myself for the lad to my father, let me bear the blame for this deed before you and my father forever.”
Yehuda dropped to his knees. “Now, therefore, please my lord, let me remain here instead of the lad. I will be a slave to you in whatever capacity you wish, but let the lad go up with his brothers.”
“You would give yourself in his place?”
“Yes.” Yehuda lifted his eyes and h
is hands in a gesture of supplication. “For how shall I return to my father if the lad is not with me? I cannot bear to see the evil that will overtake him. I cannot watch him die.”
Silence loomed between them like a heavy mist. Yehuda seemed to melt in the tension, floundering before the brilliance of Zaphenath-paneah’s gaze.
“Tarik,” Zaphenath-paneah finally said, his granite eyes locked upon Yehuda’s, “clear the room of everyone but these men.”
Tarik’s face folded in disappointment as he gave the terse command. The fan-bearers, guards, servants and incensebearers filed out of the chamber. Mandisa hesitated, not sure whether or not she should stay, but then she heard a soft message from her master’s lips. “Mandisa, your mistress will need you now.”
She slipped away from the chamber, following Tarik. The double doors had just closed behind her when the reception hall filled with the sound of the master’s weeping.
“I told you he was a lunatic,” Shim’on said, lifting his head as the vizier broke into loud, wrenching sobs. Such a noise! And why? Zaphenath-paneah ought to be angry. He should have thrown them all into prison, but the grand vizier of all Egypt had just thrown his arms around Yehuda and wept now as though his world had come to an end.
“What should we do?” Levi asked, warily rising from the floor. “Is he truly insane? What if he attacks us?”
“Be quiet. He understands you,” Dan cautioned. “Did you not hear him speak Canaanite? He has deceived us, brothers.”
“We are eleven against one.” Shim’on rested his hands on his belt and gazed at the inexplicable sight before him. Locked in the vizier’s embrace, Yehuda turned slightly and threw Shim’on a bewildered glance as he patted the vizier on the back, soothing him the way a woman comforts a hurting child.
“Do nothing yet,” Re’uven cautioned, keeping his voice low. “He has done us no harm.”
Pulling away from Yehuda, the vizier turned to face them. “Ah, my brothers, I do not blame you for thinking me deranged.” He palmed tears from his cheeks, then opened his hands at his sides. “Do you not see?” he asked, gazing at them with a look of mad happiness. “Can you not hear that I speak Canaanite as well as you do? Do you not know me?”
Shim’on looked at Levi, who frowned and wrinkled his brow.
“I suppose I cannot blame you, for I am much changed,” the vizier went on, looking at them with no trace of his former animosity. “I am your brother.”
Wave after wave of shock slapped at Shim’on. Yosef. That voice. The familiarity. He should have known, he should have seen. Who but a son of Yisrael would tell his servants about El Shaddai? But it was impossible!
Levi stumbled backward. “It is a trick.”
Shim’on peered at the man who had held him captive, then stepped forward.
“Shim’on, do you not recognize me?” the vizier asked, swiping at the makeup on his face. “Look.” He tore the alien wig from his head to reveal a close-cropped haircut, then lowered his hands in an almost humble posture. His voice, when he spoke again, was low and husky. “I am your brother Yosef, whom you sold into Egypt.”
“It is! It is Yosef!” Binyamin shouted, running across the room. Laughing, the vizier threw his arms around the younger man and pressed him to his chest, one joyful heart pounding against another.
Levi watched through narrowed eyes. “Yosef was half-dead when we sold him to the slave traders. How can one rise from the grave to a throne?”
“By the power of God,” Yehuda answered, his face lighting up like sunshine bursting out of the clouds. He ran forward to join the embrace.
The murmurs of the others rose like a fog around Shim’on.
“Can this be true?”
“Over twenty years ago.”
“He was only a boy.”
“And we nearly killed him.” A thin thread of suspicion still laced Levi’s voice.
Shim’on stepped closer to hear what the vizier was saying to Binyamin. “Do you recall how you always wanted to go with the older brothers, but Father made you stay with me?” Zaphenath-paneah asked, his eyes darkening with emotion. “We would tease Bilha and Zilpa until even Aunt Lea was ready to chase us out of the camp. And of the women, you must tell me—how is Dina, our sister?”
“By heaven above,” Shim’on murmured, “he is Yosef.” For though he had often mentioned the names of Yaakov’s wives to Mandisa, he had never thought to tell her the names of the maidservants who became Yaakov’s concubines. And how else could the vizier know that Yaakov set Lea’s sons to work in the fields while Rahel’s sons remained safe in the camp?
Shim’on’s blood ran thick with guilt. Had he, in his innermost heart of hearts, known the truth? He had certainly hated Zaphenath-paneah with the same intensity he once hated Yosef. But now the Egyptian vizier who had held Shim’on’s life in his hands reached out to welcome the brothers who had abandoned him to slavery, even to death.
“Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here,” the vizier said, his deep-timbred voice so different and yet so like Yosef’s, “for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. The Almighty God sent me before you to make you a remnant on earth, to keep you alive as a great body of survivors.”
Yehuda shook his massive head. “But—we sold you.”
“You did not send me here, but God,” the vizier answered, his eyes glowing. “God Shaddai has made me Father to Pharaoh, lord of the royal household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” The man’s tearstained face broke into a smile. “Hurry and return to my father, and tell him all that has happened to me. Tell him that God has made me lord of all Egypt, and tell him that I wait for him to come down here. You shall all live in the land of Goshen, where there is good land for grazing, and you shall be near me, you and your children, your children’s children, and your flocks and herds and all that you have. There I will also provide for you through the five years of famine to come, lest all of you be impoverished.”
“Can it be?” Levi whispered, his voice still heavy with doubt.
Yosef’s paint-lengthened eyes met Levi’s gray ones. “Here, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Binyamin see, that it is Yosef speaking to you. Now you must tell my father of all the weight I carry in Egypt, and all you have seen, and you must hurry and bring my father down here.”
And while Shim’on watched, still wondering how such a thing could be true, Zaphenath-paneah, no, Yosef, flung himself upon Binyamin’s neck and wept anew, and Binyamin wept upon his neck. And then Yehuda and Re’uven, Yissakhar, Zevulun, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naftali and Levi went to him, one by one.
Shim’on was the last to greet his brother but, like the others, he kissed Yosef on both cheeks and mingled his tears with the vizier’s.
Chapter Thirty-Two
A ni squinted at the shard of clay in his hand. He had scribbled several items of concern upon the pottery, things to do before the master’s brothers departed for Canaan.
Such a to-do, such a surprise! He never would have guessed that the noble Zaphenath-paneah could spring from the same stock as Canaanite herdsmen, but when the vizier mingled among them Ani could see a family resemblance. Of course the vizier was a bright star whose glory far outshone the others, but the youngest man, Binyamin, possessed a similar glow and good nature.…
Ani clicked his teeth, urging himself back to the duties he had yet to fulfill. Two days of feasting and rejoicing had been hurriedly planned to welcome the vizier’s brothers to Thebes. Even Pharaoh and his house had been informed so they, too, could celebrate this important event. The young Pharaoh had been most gracious, offering the vizier’s family a place in the best land of Egypt as shelter against the famine. Pharaoh had also offered a fleet of wagons for the brothers to take with them to Canaan in order to bring their wives and little ones to enjoy the Black Land’s bounty.
The vizier had also
been more than gracious. To each of his brothers he gave a luxurious set of garments, but to Binyamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver—far more rare and valuable than gold—and five sets of garments. To his father, Yaakov, he planned to send ten male donkeys loaded with frankincense, scented oils and medicinal herbs, the best products of Egypt, and ten female donkeys bearing grain and bread, sustenance for the coming journey.
The vizier’s household had been completely shaken by the incredible news. Ani had been a little offended to learn that Tarik and Mandisa knew of the vizier’s relationship to the Canaanites long before the weighty revelation, but his hurt had been assuaged when Zaphenath-paneah clapped him on the shoulder and told him he knew a man of Ani’s wisdom would enjoy the challenge of seeking the truth far more than being told outright.
“You were right, as always, my lord,” Ani had answered. “And I had discerned something special about these men. My gods were not far from revealing your secret, I am certain.”
In the glow of Zaphenath-paneah’s happiness and Pharaoh’s blessing, the entire house rejoiced. But, Ani noticed with some anxiety, there had been no signs of rejoicing from the mistress’s chambers. After formally meeting and greeting her husband’s brothers, Lady Asenath had withdrawn to her rooms, ostensibly to give her husband more time alone with his family.
Asenath was not the only woman to avoid the brothers’ reunion. Tizara and Mandisa also took pains to remain out of sight. Tizara hid herself, Ani reasoned, because she wanted to remain on good terms with the master who had shown her mercy. Mandisa, on the other hand, probably wanted to avoid meeting Shim’on.
Ani worried about Mandisa. Under less hectic circumstances he would have sought her out and inquired after her feelings, but now he had no time for affairs of the heart. Donkeys waited to be packed, wagons needed to be oiled and inspected, a populace yearned for information about the vizier’s great news. The women, Ani decided, would have to work through their own problems.
