Moshe's black eyes twinkled. “Elohim will protect us, Egyptian, but you must watch for stragglers. Alert people as you travel to your camp.” He turned away and spoke over his shoulder. “Y'shua, my boy, go wake Aharon and tell him to get the tribes up and walking. We shall push hard to the sea.”
Cheftu ran through the camp, shouting to wake up and break camp. He did not answer any of the questions thrown at him but raced along to catch Chloe.
The tribes had managed to put several more henti between them and the approaching army when Cheftu finally saw the sand cloud from chariots and horses. He could not find Chloe in this mob of white-clad, black-haired women. Though she was his heart, he did not recognize her. D'vorah, Meneptah, and Elishava were also mingled in, unidentifiable. Cheftu had finally reached the back of the camp, fear of the Great House encouraging the families to walk faster, leaving their belongings strewn behind them in their rush to the sea.
When the front of the lines reached the sea, the words of fear and terror at the imposing body of water washed back like the tide. Suddenly the uncertainty that had nipped at the heels of the tribes was a veritable controlling force.
Frantically Cheftu ran back and forth among the people, searching for Chloe.
Night had fallen. The tribes were captured between the funnel of fire before them and the Red Sea at their backs. Cheftu cringed away, fearing the fire's destructive power, even though it radiated only protection and safety.
They could no longer hear Pharaoh's approaching army, and Cheftu knew they were unseen to the army because of the fire. They were massed on the furthermost point of land. Across eight henti of water they could see another desert. The people were crying out, and he saw Moshe, standing high above them on a rock, hands raised in the air. The wind whipped the people, and the roaring rush of waters surrounded them. The howling power of the wind was so fierce, it immobilized Cheftu. He could move neither forward nor back. Crouching, he pulled his linen cloak closer, his eyes tearing as he searched the crowd. Eventually he slept.
When the wind died he raised his head and noted it was sunrise. Before them stood a bridge of land, dry land. It was roughly two miles wide and spanned the distance to the other side. Already the tribes were swarming across it, pulling along their animals and running for safety. Although he had always heard the story, he had never rationally believed it … any of it. Even the Bible writers claimed “yam suph,” translated into the Sea of Reeds, a marsh on Egypt's northern border, had been the dry land the Hebrews had crossed. Had they, like Cheftu, doubted it was the Red Sea? Cheftu fell to his knees.
Here was the Red Sea, parted.
He panicked as he remembered Chloe. Scrambling down to the rocky shore, he searched for her among those crossing, but from this distance the figures were indistinguishable.
The sky was bright, and those standing close to Cheftu were running down the now dry shoreline toward the path to freedom. Cheftu looked behind him. The cloud was gone, as was the pillar of fire, and he knew Pharaoh's army would be up and following soon. Most of the tribes were in the sea by now, as Cheftu continued to look for Chloe.
Fearing she had fallen, was lying hurt somewhere, he searched the Sinai coastline for her. There was very little area where someone could go unnoticed, and Cheftu began to fear she had crossed the sea without him. Even now she could be on the other side.
Cheftu ran for the shore but halted when he heard the cries of Pharaoh's army behind him. Panicked, he turned and noticed a crevice in some rocks along the shoreline. He had barely reached it before Pharaoh's army thundered down the mountainous slope to rein in at the water's edge.
“We shall pursue!” he heard Hatshepsut's strident tones. “They shall repay in blood for the damage done to our beloved land! Behold! Even the gods of the Red Sea recognize our right of vengeance!”
Cheftu looked out. Hat stood alone in her chariot, the brilliant sun glinting off the gold spokes in its wheels and the gold breastplate she wore. She whipped her steeds and took off at a gallop, her chariot jouncing in the sand as she fought to hold on to both horses.
The soldiers were an elite contingency of Pharaoh's select troops. The Wadjet tattoo embraced every arm. He felt sick when he saw Ameni close behind Hat. With battle cries they swept into the sea. Cheftu watched, paralyzed. He knew what would happen. It was the reason he could not make it safely across to join Chloe on the other side.
The tribespeople were nearing the end of the pathway. Cheftu saw the army gaining on them, the small figures, jots of color, moving quickly but not fast enough to outrun the finest horses and chariots in the world. Cheftu noted with a twisting gut that the entire force—four thousand soldiers and six hundred chariots—was now in the sea.
The walls of water fell, crashing with such force that his ears rang. Cheftu ran to the edge of the sea, watching vainly as horses reared and screamed, their fear mingling with the terrified shouts of men who stabbed vainly into the water. For a fleeting second his gaze met Hat's; the wild blackness of her eyes embedded itself into his consciousness as he watched her go under the crashing waves.
Within seconds Cheftu was standing knee deep in water. He began to climb back up the rocks, frantically seeking higher ground. The fear in his stomach had become a live thing, twisting and turning, fomenting rebellion against this gracious God of the Hebrews—and of his own true faith. He sat in a crevice overlooking the sea.
The roiling waters were filled with heads and arms and hands, all reaching for salvation. Their cries were lost in the battering waves. He stood, searching for a glimpse of Hatshepsut's chariot—and found it. It was bobbing sideways in the white water, Hat's body thrown across one of the wheels, impaled on a gold-plated finial, her face a mask of hate. No longer living forever…
Egypt was dead.
The Egyptian warred with the Frenchman in Cheftu. He felt all the grief the real Cheftu did, but he felt it through a prism. The knowledge that God had indeed rescued the Israelites, just as the parish school books said, competed with the awareness that there was no way to retrieve Hatshepsut's body for a proper burial.
The gods would forget her, she who had brought such prosperity and peace to the two lands. For a moment he remembered the companion he had trusted, respected, and loved from afar for so many years. She'd drawn him: her strength, her commitment to peace, her desire to beautify the land and restore splendor to the gods. Cheftu remembered the banquets when they'd sat together, the songs they had sung while away from Waset, and always, the golden goddess who was merciful to everyone, until her paranoia destroyed her.
He felt empty; an anchor in his life was gone. She had controlled so much of who he was and what he did. He had loved her and followed her loyally, until this. Sand flew in his face as he contemplated his betrayal, necessary but vile. Could he have changed things? Could he have prevented this ignominious death? Guilt burned in his belly.
The path was gone, every trace hidden under khetu of water. Faintly he could make out dots on the other side. He stood at the tip of the Sinai, and they were in Arabia. Yet for all the henti between them, it could have been the distance of a hundred years.
The Israelites were safe.
He was alone.
Wearily he sat down, his kilt drying in the ferocious winds that blew across the water. I should go pull out those bodies that wash ashore, he thought, yet still he sat unmoving. The sun rose, and the reflection off the turquoise water was blinding. Never before had he felt so alone. The mind that had invaded his at age sixteen also seemed to be gone.
Chloe was gone. Perhaps even now she was walking into the desert, searching for him; she would be a Bible character now. He allowed the loneliness to wash over him in waves as destructive as those that had claimed his friends, foes, and pharaoh. He debated drowning himself, joining his compatriots in the blue water.
He stood and picked his way to the shore, trying not to think beyond the necessity of retrieving bodies. Soon he was on the sandy path that had led to “God
's highway.” The waters were still now, just the natural tide of the Red Sea. He scrambled over the rocks and looked in the shallows for bodies.
For hours he searched. He felt his skin burn. The searing heat tormented his recently healed scars. He was blinded without kohl. He found not one body. Finally he crawled under a high rock out of the sunlight and fell asleep.
The cooling breeze of evening revived him. For moments he lay with his eyes closed, reliving the feeling of Chloe close to him in sleep. Murmuring her name woke him completely. It awoke him to the realization that she was gone.
For a few minutes he contemplated how he could travel to find her. After all, he knew where the Israelites would settle forty years from now.
Despairing, he rose to his feet. Rage gurgled within him, and he screamed to the sky, slipping into the French of his true heritage. “Nooooooo! You are unfair!” He stood, head bent, chest heaving. “You show me heaven in the arms and soul of this woman, only to take her away?” He felt his control slipping. Fists clenched, he continued to yell at his unromantic God. “Pourquoi, mon Dieu? Pourquoi? Pourquoi?” His last question was more of a whimper than a protest. Anguish tore the flesh from his bones as he sagged on the beaten sand.
Far behind him on the Sinai beach, the brilliant sunset reflected briefly off the scarab clasp of a beaded bracelet encircling a brown wrist.
PART IV
CHAPTER 15
Cheftu woke on the sand water lapping his ankles. The tide was coming in, and to the east was the tiniest glimmer of salmon and gold, heralding the sun's entrance. He sat up, moving back from the water. His throat was dry and his eyes sore and scratchy. The utter stillness of the dawn was frightening. The solitude was broken by a rush of birds rising from the water as they called to each other. Another day. Wearily he stood, halfheartedly brushing sand from his kilt and cloak.
He scanned the shoreline again, searching for any sign of life, any debris hinting at the thousands of lives lost the day before.
Nothing.
Too exhausted to care, he shielded his eyes once again and looked across the rough sea. Somewhere he knew Chloe would be searching for him, looking among the hundreds and thousands of men with dark hair. His pain at the thought of her, tearstained face, her heavy heart, almost tore him in two. “RaEm,” he said in an anguished whisper.
But he was not truly calling for RaEmhetepet, Lady of Silver and priestess to HatHor. His soul longed for a futuristic love who spoke French, handled a bow and arrow as well as any soldier, had eyes that could flame with passion, and possessed a talent that brought life to papyrus.
Angrily he dashed the tears from his eyes, turned away from the sea, and began the long walk toward Egypt. In the back of his mind was the faint hope that he might die in the desert, but the self-preservation that had served him all these years recoiled at the thought of his eyes being pecked out by scavengers and his body shredded by jackals. I really am an Egyptian, he thought wryly. I cannot bear the thought of my body destroyed. He reached the sandy rise and looked out a final time toward the water.
Egypt held nothing for him. His position and family were destroyed. He looked east—the turquoise mines on the Red Sea were said to kill a man in a quarter of his lifetime. Beyond that? There were a dozen kingdoms where he could go, resume his life. Why would he? He looked again at the water, at the waves lapping on the shore.
There was a movement—he saw it from the corner of his eye. The sun was rising rapidly, and Cheftu shielded his eyes and squinted. Below him, to his east, just above the incoming tide, was something…. He looked harder. Was it a bird? A body? He saw a glitter on it, sparkling in the sunlight, and heard a rushing in his ears as hope surged through his body.
“Chloe,” he breathed. Energy coursed through his veins as he ran to her. “Chloe!” Then he had her in his arms. She was here! He lifted her and carried her farther away from the tide. He pulled off his cloak and laid it underneath an overhang, then laid her gently upon it. Sitting beside her, he brushed her matted hair away from her face, his hand trembling. She had a nasty cut on her cheek and abrasions on her head.
Instinct took over, and he examined the wounds carefully, checked her eyes. She seemed to be suffering a mild concussion. Here, with no fresh water, no way of taking care of her, this could be deadly. Fear began to overtake the joy he felt.
Even now she could be lost.
Cheftu bowed his head and, for the second time in the last twenty-four decans, wept and prayed. Only this time it was for wisdom and guidance … and in repentance.
God had rescued Chloe for him. Of this there was no doubt. Elohim had not taken her away. He watched the fluttering of her eyelashes anxiously as she fought for consciousness. She lost the battle, and Cheftu's fears mounted.
She should not sleep; it could result in death or a waking death that was even worse, for then the physical needs of the body must be met but the ka was trapped between two worlds.
He seized the water skin still tied around her waist and ran to the shore. After filling it with the cool morning sea, he raced back to her and threw it full into her face.
She came around—with a vengeance. “What the bloody hell!” she shouted in English, sitting straight up. The sudden movement made her clutch her head with both hands and cry out in pain. But she was alive! She was here! Cheftu didn't care if she damned him to all of Dante's Inferno, one eternity after another. She glared at him, then looked around, her face altered. He knew she had suffered the same terrible loss he had.
She threw herself into his arms, kissing his face, then winced, her hands to her head.
“You were hurt,” he said, touching her abrasions. “How do you feel?”
She squinted at him, panting through gritted teeth. “My head is about to break.”
Cheftu took her hand in his, massaging her palm with firm, circling strokes. The tension in her face eased and she lay very still. “Chloe!” His voice was sharp, and she answered with a mumble.
“Chloe!” He slapped her face, bringing her around in an-instant.
“What was that for?” she said holding her cheek where the red pattern of his hand marked her sunburned skin.
He drew her close. “I am sorry I struck you,” he said. “But you cannot sleep. You are hurt and must stay awake. I … I saw you falling asleep, and I”—his voice cracked!—“panicked I guess. I was afraid you would not wake up.” He knew his grip must hurt, pressing all the bruises on her back and rib cage, but the fear inside him was a taloned thing. Bitter bile filled his throat. They sat, uncomfortably close but unwilling to move, to relinquish their holds. Cheftu pulled her to his chest, caressing her hair as he spoke about the night. “What happened to you?”
Chloe grimaced “Well, you ran off to tell Moshe about Pharaoh …” She sat up, her tone changed. “Where are the bodies?”
He traced his finger across her cheekbone and down into her matted black hair, grasping it with his hand. “Gone. The waves drowned them, just as the Bible said.”
“But the bodies! There were thousands.…” The sun poured into his eyes so that they looked like honey, clear transparent gold. “Gone?” she repeated.
“‘And Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.’ Apparently they are on the other side.”
“That's impossible! Currents do not run like that,” Chloe scoffed.
She sat up, looking out at the blue waters brushing peacefully against the shore. The rise above the sea had been almost leveled by the thousands of feet: humans, horses, geese, sheep, and finally Pharaoh and her soldiers. A gull cried sharply as it raced off across the water. The other side was visible, and in the quiet of dawn they could hear a faint jingle, like a sistrum or tambourine.
In her mind she placed the tribes in a biblical illustration, a Doré or an Alma-Tadema. Occasionally laughter drifted across the waves. Aside from that, they were frozen in time: no longer Meneptah, D'vorah, and Elishava—instead The Children of Israel on the Shores of the Red Sea. Flat, almos
t a caricature, lacking the life and passion and intrigues of reality.
The water caressed the shore gently, smoothing over the rocks that jutted out now, but in Chloe's time would be sand. Where were the bodies? The armor? All the gold of collars, bridles, and swords? Had God taken even that proof? Or was it only on the other shore, where it couldn't be retrieved and honored? A final slap to the Egyptians?
“A bead for your thoughts?” Cheftu said.
“I saw it.”
“What?”
“The parting. It was as though a spell fell across everyone but me. Thousands of people were standing up, dead asleep. I could see the waters churning, boiling as it built into walls. Then the wind changed and blew directly between the walls, all the way across the sea. I could not feel the slightest breeze, but I watched the sand dry, the remaining crustaceans blown to Arabia. It was like a funnel of air, parallel to the ground. It took all night; the stars came out, the moon shone, and the wind kept blowing.” She looked back at him. “It was so loud, I still can barely hear.” She looked at the calm waters.
“Before dawn came, people started awakening. Conveniently, those closest to the water awoke first. They were astounded!” She smiled at the memory of the families gathering their things and descending to shore, then walking onto the sand—one guy had even picked up a handful and thrown it into the wind, where it had scattered like dust. Children had been fascinated by the wealth of coral along the sides, but mostly people had run. The walls of water were towering high, shrouding the highway in shade. “I watched for you,” she said. “Everyone was traveling in families, so it should have been easy to find you. As the day went on, and more people crossed, I did not see you.” She looked down. “Meneptah's clan crossed, and I began to get scared. I couldn't believe this was really happening, and it seemed that every picture was etched into my memory, every face, every detail. Then I heard the army.” Cheftu sat beside her, drawing her close, bracing them against the overhang.
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