POTIPHAR WAS A TALL MAN with a placid temperament, having been gelded at the age of ten. He had been bred as a courtier, and he was everything a courtier should be: a witty conversationalist, an elegant dancer, an adept at card games, a hunter, a drinker, a bureaucrat, and a shrewd politician, who knew just when a compliment would delight or a snub sting. Because he was immune to sexual indiscretions, and therefore less vulnerable to palace intrigues, he was considered to be particularly trustworthy. He had known Pharaoh since childhood (they were second cousins) and had been rewarded for his faithful service with a palace in the city, a country estate, and a wife from an old noble family, a woman of superior education, whose ambition was gratified by her husband’s steady rise in court circles. She was comfortable with her enforced chastity, not missing what she had never had. Looking beautiful, basking in the favors of Pharaoh, and being talked about with admiration and envy by everyone who mattered—that was enough, she thought.