“L ife and health to you, Lady Asenath! We are so glad you have returned!” After delivering a formal greeting and bow to his mistress, Tarik gave Mandisa an exaggerated wink as she climbed from the litter. The perspiring litter-bearers, who had jogged in the merciless heat with only occasional breaks, looked as though they would expire on the spot. Lady Asenath did not even glance back at them as she hurried up the stairs of the villa’s portico.
Mandisa turned to the commander of the guards who had escorted them from Heliopolis. “Refresh your men and these slaves in the garden,” she murmured. “Take care not to disturb the family. I will send food from the kitchens and fresh water from the well.”
The commander gave her a stiff salute, appreciation gleaming in his eyes. Mandisa walked toward the house, then looked sideways, surprised that Tarik had fallen into step beside her. “Is there something I can do for you, captain?” She halted, her heart jumping in her chest. “Has something happened to Adom?”
“No.” Tarik offered her a quick, reassuring smile. He gestured toward the path that led to the kitchens and led her away from the villa. “Shall we walk together? Your son is fine, except he continues to thoroughly bedevil Ani during the young masters’ lessons. Apparently Ani’s recounting of the primeval creation does not agree with what you have told your son.”
Mandisa smiled. “I don’t know what is to be done about that. I have taught Adom what my father taught me, and I believe it is the truth. But Ani is a stubborn old man. He will not change his ideas.”
“That is not why I sought you out.”
“What, then?”
Stopping in the path, Tarik thrust his hands behind his back. “In your absence, the duty of looking after our lord’s Canaanite prisoner has fallen to me and Halima.”
She laughed at his somber expression. “And that chore has not been pleasant?”
“He grows more unruly and dangerous with each passing day. He has not eaten in nearly a week, for we cannot go near the door to bring him food. He throws things.” The captain’s brows drew downward in a frown. “If he were any other captive, I would have whipped him long ago, he would learn that such behavior will not be tolerated! But the vizier will not let us harm him. We are to leave him alone and let him rage.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
The guard’s tight expression relaxed into a wry smile. “I have tried other ways to calm him. To thwart his devious plans, I removed all his clothing but a kilt, and we have not replaced the furniture, the vases or bowls. As long as he rages, we do not even enter to clean his, er, uh…private area. He sits in a loathsome, stinking shambles, and he still roars.”
“A starving animal will bellow until it is nearly dead, Tarik,” Mandisa said, moving along the path again. “And this beast is a particularly proud one, I dare say. He may not stop howling until he is too weak to be saved.”
Tarik flashed a killer smile. “That is why the gods have returned you.”
Oh, no. She’d seen smiles like that before; they were bait for hungry fish. Well, this minnow would not bite.
“You think I can reason with him?” She grinned. “Ah, Tarik, you have been praying in vain. All the gods in Egypt couldn’t force me into that room.”
“But the vizier asked you to help.”
“And I did. For several days. And the man hated me as much as he hates you.”
“But he was not as violent when you visited him. And you are the only one fluent in his language. Surely you can reason with him.”
Mandisa was about to argue, but movement caught her eye. Halima stepped out of the kitchen and offered a shy wave of greeting. Her singularly sweet smile faded, though, when she saw Tarik, and Mandisa did not need to be told why the girl’s cheeks flooded with color.
Mandisa had long suspected that the slave girl was hopelessly in love with the vizier’s captain. How could the foolish man not notice?
Smiling in the calm strength of knowledge, Mandisa returned Halima’s wave, then looked back at the desperate guard. “I don’t know how I can help, but if Halima will help me and if you stand guard when we go in, perhaps the three of us can manage the brute.”
Tarik looked over his shoulder, saw Halima and nodded in greeting. Mandisa watched, amused. Did he have any idea that love had bloomed in the poor girl’s heart? Apparently not, for he only turned back to Mandisa and demanded to know if they could go immediately to face the Canaanite captive. “His room stinks. It is an affront to heaven itself, and if the vizier happens to wander in that part of the house—”
“I will go soon,” Mandisa interrupted, moving past him to have a private word with Halima. “When I have refreshed myself. I am yet covered with dust from the journey.”
After tending to her mistress and unpacking the baskets of belongings brought from Heliopolis, Mandisa went in search of her son. She found him in the garden with Efrayim and Menashe. “Adom!” she called, her heart singing with delight at the sight of him.
“Mother!” He left his young playmates and threw his arms around her shoulders in a light embrace. “I am glad you are home!”
“I am happy, too.” She breathed in his sweet scent. “But I hear you have been interrupting Ani’s lessons.”
“He tells the story wrong.” Adom lifted his chin in a stubborn gesture as he pulled out of her arms. “He said that God Almighty created other gods.”
“You should not contradict a teacher, especially an elder.” She pressed her hand on the smooth skin of his shaved head and playfully tugged on the single long lock of hair growing from his temple. Soon he would have to surrender this childish coiffure and grow his hair out to a more manly length. Efrayim and Menashe still wore the long forelocks of children, but Adom was nearly grown. At some point in the near future he would have to find an occupation, something to fill his days, a way to earn a wage and make a life for himself.
“Adom,” she said, drawing him near in a sudden rush of emotion, “I have prayed that El Shaddai would send someone to us. Someone who can teach you.”
“Ani has taught me many things. I can read, and even write a little.”
“Other things, my son.”
“Will I have a tutor?”
She cringed inwardly at his assumption. He was a servant’s son, and yet he too often assumed he was like the vizier’s children, born to the aristocracy. Had she made a mistake in allowing him to spend so much time among people born above his place in life?
“Not exactly a tutor,” she said, sinking to a garden bench. She pulled him to her side and ran her hand over the olive skin of his bare back. “I have asked God to send someone who can teach you things I cannot—how to work in the fields, perhaps, or how to mind the animals.”
He nodded. “I like the horses. I wouldn’t mind working with them.”
She wrinkled her nose. The stables would not have been her first choice, but as long as the boy had something to do…“I suppose you could be of use to the stablemen. But I’m not certain who will come, or what he will teach you. But when this teacher comes, Adom, you must treat him with respect, listen to him and learn from him. Do you understand?”
He regarded her with a wide, speculative gaze. “Is it the man in the locked room?”
Mandisa felt her mouth drop open. “The prisoner? By heaven, child, why would you think such a thing? Do you think God would send us someone as brutish as that?”
Adom shrugged. “I heard the slaves say he was from Canaan, the same place you were born.”
“Well,” Mandisa answered, annoyed with the gossiping slaves, “just because we come from the same region doesn’t mean we are connected in any way. No, son, I am praying that God would send us a good man, an honorable teacher.” She brightened her smile. “And I don’t think the captive is particularly good or honorable, do you?”
Adom’s mouth twitched with amusement. “No, Mother. I’ve heard him curse. He doesn’t know I can understand him, but he yells the same words I’ve heard the sheep herders use.”
“Don’t listen to him or the herders.” Mandisa gave him a playful nudge. “Now find the little ones and enjoy the time you have with them. But do not contradict Ani again.”
Adom loped away. Mandisa took a moment to adjust the edges of her heavy wig, then turned toward the slave quarters. She had barely had time to bathe and reapply her makeup, but she had been determined to do so before facing the roaring lion of Canaan.
She frowned, remembering Adom’s question. The prisoner as a suitable teacher—how had Adom come by such an outlandish idea? The captive was a feral monster, his hate a living, visible thing. Mandisa had seen bitter men like him before.
But she had agreed to help him. Girding herself with resolve, she walked with stiff, brittle dignity toward the captive’s chamber.
Not willing to deal with the heightened emotions of Halima or Tarik for this first meeting with the Canaanite, she pulled one of the gate guards from his post. “Remain in the hallway and do not let the prisoner see you,” she told him in a low voice. “I am going into the chamber alone.”
The young man’s brow furrowed. “But he is violent, and Tarik says—”
“Tarik has asked me to see to him,” she said, cutting him off. “But I do not want him to escape and harm anyone in the household. So watch from behind the wall, out of sight, and if he leaves the room without me, summon help immediately. But if my suspicions are correct, there will be no need for a general alarm.”
The guard shot her a half-frightened look. “The captain will not approve of this, lady. We are under orders that no one approaches that chamber without Tarik, and absolutely no one removes the bolt unless another guard stands near to offer assistance.”
Mandisa waved aside his protests. “The stain of disobedience will be on my head, then, not yours.”
Shim’on tensed as he heard the slow rumble of the bolt. Had the guard come back? With that pale-faced wench who squeaked like a weasel every time he looked at her?
His stomach growled in anticipation of food; his anger strangled the sound. He glanced around the room, but he could find nothing else to throw. Broken shards of pottery and timber littered the floor; no furnishings remained but a down-filled mattress. Every costly piece of furniture and bric-a-brac had been shattered or ground to dust, a just penalty for the guard’s foolish decision to take Shim’on’s clothes from him. A decent man did not walk around half-dressed, not even in sweltering Egypt!
Crouched with his back against the wall, his hands gripped the sturdy linen of the kilt wrapped around his waist. If the guard came in, he’d lunge forward and kill the man with his own bare hands! Weak from hunger and numb from the monotony of confinement, Shim’on’s strength and patience had completely evaporated. He would not bear another day of this torture.
The bolt fell to the floor outside with a hollow, thumping sound; the latch clicked. Shim’on frowned. The approach was different, the intruder’s movements too carefree and confident. Could it be that the great vizier himself stood behind the door? If so, a hundred guards probably waited outside, as well, each eager to aim a javelin at Shim’on’s throat.
He slid upward along the wall, not even feeling the rough plaster as it scraped his skin. Cold sweat ran from his pores, beaded under his arms and on his upper lip. God above, if this is the moment I must die…
“Grace and peace be unto you.” The words were Canaanite, the voice a woman’s. Shim’on slumped back to the floor, his knees weak as the adrenaline left his body. His head swam as the door swung open. Then his eyes met the invader’s, and he recognized her. The interpreter. The traitor.
“Grace and peace?” he snarled, wishing he had the energy and inclination to send her away. “What would you know of grace or peace? Only someone born in Canaan would speak as fluently as you do, so you have sold your heart and soul to these idolatrous people.”
“I have sold nothing and am not for sale,” she remarked, calmly stepping into the room. She actually turned her back on him as she lowered a water jug from her hip and closed the door.
Surprise siphoned the blood from Shim’on’s head and dragged the power of speech from his tongue. He could think of nothing to say as she entered and pulled a fresh loaf of bread from a bag slung over her shoulder.
She kicked a few pieces of broken pottery out of the way, then knelt before him and extended the bread. “My family sold me to a passing Egyptian who thought to have me as his wife,” she said, her paint-lengthened eyes intent upon his. “He brought me here and disappeared a year later. I am certain he is dead. He left me with a mountain of debts and a son.”
Only half listening, Shim’on focused on the door and the hallway beyond. He could not hear movement of any kind outside the door, so this was not a trick…unless it was a clever one. This foolish woman had apparently come to him unescorted, and though his strength had been depleted by hunger, he knew he could overpower her if he needed to. In this room, at least, he held the upper hand.
But he did not have to strike her now. Carefully, he reached out and took the bread. He sniffed it; the aroma was strong and hearty, without a trace of suspicious odors. And the loaf was crusty, not soft and mushy like that the other woman brought.
“So tell me,” he said, breaking the loaf. “How did you come to live in the house of the mighty vizier?”
The beads in her braided hair clacked softly as she tilted her head. “I was sixteen when my husband disappeared. For three years I did whatever jobs a woman alone could find, but even in the time of plenty my son and I nearly starved. The man who owned the house where I lived threatened to throw my son and me into the streets because we owed him so much, and he finally brought his case before Zaphenath-paneah. Standing before the vizier, I had to admit I had no silver. And Zaphenath-paneah ruled that the landlord was right to collect what I owed him.”
Her delicate features softened as she smiled. “I thought we would be sold into slavery and I would never see my son again, so I begged for mercy. And the one they call the King’s Shadow Dispenser brought shade into my life. He paid my debts and restored my freedom, then he asked if I possessed any skills. When I replied that I would learn any decent trade in order to serve him, he said his wife, Lady Asenath, needed a handmaid. So Adom and I came to this house. We have been here nine years.”
Shim’on ate silently, absorbing her words as his stomach rumbled in appreciation of the bread. She spoke with complete transparency and without hesitation, so she either spoke the truth or was an accomplished liar. But why would she lie? And why was she here? She had probably been ordered to feed him, and she had, but still she remained. What sort of plot was this?
“How many are outside the door?” he growled. “And why do I not hear them? They make me nervous, these plotting, prowling Egyptians—”
“No one is outside the door.” She folded her hands. “One guard watches from down the hallway, but he is neither prowling nor plotting. I have been away with my mistress for many days, and thought you might like to talk with someone who speaks your language. Ani tells me that speech is civilization itself, so if we are to keep you civilized, you must be engaged in conversation.”
Converse? With a woman? Was that why she lingered? Shim’on grinned and looked away, biting back the urge to laugh in her face. He might have missed the company of his brothers, his family, even his sons, but never in his life had he missed the conversation of women!
“Did I say something funny?”
Unable to stop himself, Shim’on threw back his head and let out a great peal of laughter. “By all the gods of this Black Land, yes! Why would I want to talk to a woman? Especially a painted harlot with an adder’s tongue, a creature who serves the demented madman who holds me captive!”
She stood in a regal, powerful gesture. A crimson flood colored her face and belied her calm exterior.
“Ani also says isolation leads a man to depression, paranoia and self-destruction,” she said, moving toward the door. “But if it is only food you want, food is all you shall have.” She paused and crinkled her nose as she looked around. “I had hoped we might clean this room.”
“I am a herdsman. I like living like an animal,” he snapped. Then, as he exploded in bitter laughter, she slipped from the room and slid the bolt back into place.
Shim’on knew she would not return that day, and something within him wondered if she would ever come again. By his harsh words he had probably sentenced himself to weeks of visitation from the captain and the squeaky slave girl, neither of whom cared enough to offer Shim’on a decent or interesting word. For the first time in his life, Shim’on began to regret something he’d done.
No one came the next morning, and Shim’on spent an hour tossing broken pottery chips at the door, certain that the Egyptians had decided to starve him. After a week had passed, perhaps longer, they would haul his emaciated corpse from this ruined chamber and disembowel it in one of their bizarre mummification rituals. Then, when his brothers returned with Binyamin to prove the vizier had imprisoned an innocent man, the deranged Zaphenath-paneah would summon servants who would bring in Shim’on’s desiccated mortal shell. “Take this back to your father the old man,” the vizier would shout. Yehuda would grow pale, unsophisticated Binyamin would faint and Levi would throw himself at the guards, only to be killed by the steely eyed captain.…
Yes, Shim’on decided, sitting on the dusty floor with his hand over his ever-growling belly, he had definitely misspent his last chance for survival. He had almost been enjoying his conversation with the woman, until in one moment he insulted her beauty, her master, even her morality.…
And women didn’t forgive easily. He had only to remember his mother to understand that truth. After Rahel’s death, his father had continued to spend his nights in Rahel’s tent with Yosef and Binyamin, for he found little comfort in Lea’s cold shoulder.
Yet at sunset, when Shim’on had almost given up hope, the woman returned. The bolt slid away as before, the door opened and she stood before him, her slender neck rising above a silken gown like silvery tissue. But this time she kept her eyes averted from his. Though she came into the room as bravely as she had the previous day, the bold and cheeky attitude had disappeared.
“If you are hungry, here is bread.” Her sharp tone stabbed the air. She did not move to extend her hand.
“I am hungry,” he admitted, rising to his knees.
She pulled the loaf and a bit of cheese from the pouch at her waist. Cautiously, she extended both, and as he stood to take them, her eyes lifted to meet his.
Ah, the pain there was like Lea’s, dark and brooding. For a brief instant her eyes shimmered like pools of appeal, then she lowered her gaze and turned toward the door.
“Don’t go.” The words slipped from his mouth before he had even willed himself to say them.
“Why should I stay?” Her back was to him, yet she lifted her head. “You are hungry, I brought you food. Surely there is nothing else you need. You like living like an animal, remember?”
“I was wrong.” His voice grated in his own ears. “You were right, I would like—I need to talk to someone.” Levi would faint if he could hear me now . “I would like to apologize. Please forgive me.”
She turned, and the heavy lashes that had shadowed her cheeks flew up. “ Forgive you?”
By the sun and moon, would she make him repeat himself? But these were conditions of war, and a man was allowed to do anything necessary to remain alive. “Yes. I must beg your forgiveness.”
She tilted her head like a queen granting favors, and he thought he saw a faint look of amusement on her face. “I accept your apology.”
He sank back onto the floor, attempting to put her more at ease, and unwrapped the square of cheese she’d given him. Cautiously, she knelt in a small cleared space by the door. “I suppose we could start with introductions,” she said, tucking her legs under her. She folded her hands in her lap. “I am Mandisa, handmaid to Lady Asenath.”
Shim’on nodded and swallowed a mouthful of cheese. “I am Shim’on, second-born son of Yaakov.” His realized his tone was as dry as his mouth. “And I suppose you remember why I am here.”
“Of course.”
A long silence followed, and Shim’on cast quickly about for a topic of conversation. He was unused to the social company of women. He had married two, buried two, slept with them, eaten their food and disciplined their children, but he couldn’t ever recalling conversing with a woman. Except Dina.
“How old are you?” he asked.
Caught off guard, she laughed, the most delightful sound he’d heard in weeks. “Why do you ask?” she said, her hand creeping to her brightening cheek. “Do you think me a horse, that you could buy me? Would you like to count my teeth?”
His mouth trembled with the need to laugh with her. “No.” He looked at the bread in his hand, again at a loss for words. “Yesterday you said you were not for sale. I believe you.”
They sat in silence, then Shim’on bit off a huge hunk of bread. As long as he chewed she wouldn’t expect him to talk. And as long as he behaved, she wouldn’t leave.
He didn’t know why it was so important that she stay. She was unlike any other woman he’d ever met. She’d walked boldly into his room when he was at his worst, not flinching at his stench, his words or his threatening aspect. And while most women chattered among themselves like a mob of sparrows, this woman weighed her words. Perhaps it came from working for a high-born lady, or perhaps her quiet spirit was innate, like his own quick temper.…
She leaned forward. “Tell me about your family.”
And so he did. As he ate he told her of his mother, Lea, and his father, Yaakov. He laughed, describing the comical exploits of his children, and sobered as he spoke of Re’uven and Levi, Yehuda and Dan. And as he talked, he found that revisiting his memories somehow brought his loved ones near, kept them close.
He might have talked for an hour or more; he only knew he was disappointed when she stood to leave. “Must you go?” he asked, glad the gathering darkness hid the blush upon his neck.
“My lady will need me to see her to bed,” Mandisa answered, moving toward the door. She paused for a last look at his room before leaving. “I will send a maid to clean this pigsty if you promise not to throw things at her.”
Shim’on flushed. “I will not…throw anything.”
She smiled. “I will return tomorrow, and you can tell me more. Until then, sleep well.”