M andisa sighed as she lifted the breakfast tray her mistress had not touched. The morning sky was a faultless curve of blue from one edge of the garden wall to the other while the air shimmered in honey-thick sunshine. Ordinarily Asenath would have rejoiced in a day like this, but today she lay silent and still on her chaise longue, one hand over her stomach, her pale face contorted by nausea.
“Dear wife—” Zaphenath-paneah reached to pat his wife’s free hand “—I must know if you want to attend the party for Queen Tiy. Since Pharaoh’s new bride is a commoner, he wants to invite as many of the nobility as possible. The guest list will be enormously complicated.…”
His voice drifted away when Asenath did not respond. Two worry lines cut into his forehead as his gaze caught Mandisa’s. She shook her head, silently warning him off, and the hopeful glint in his eyes faded.
Mandisa clicked her tongue in quiet pity. In the months since Asenath’s shocking announcement, the master had behaved more nobly than she expected; indeed, he had done the complete opposite of what any other betrayed husband would do. Instead of casting his wife aside, he had said nothing of her obvious infidelity. With inconceivable patience he looked on her with tender pity even when Asenath battled the nausea and exhaustion of pregnancy.
The vizier was an endless surprise; his continued attention and affection toward his wife simultaneously baffled and thrilled Mandisa. Zaphenath-paneah remained at Asenath’s side for longer periods of time than usual, took care that luxurious bouquets of blue lotus blossoms, her favorite flowers, filled her chambers and asked Tizara to keep the boys quiet whenever Asenath was ill or resting.
The slaves, servants and visitors who were not privy to the entire truth soon surmised that Asenath expected another child. Mandisa felt a curious, tingling shock the first time she saw Zaphenath-paneah accept a round of congratulations with his customary polished charm. Immediately afterward, however, she caught sight of her master in an unguarded moment, and her heart broke at the flash of grief that ripped through his eyes. The heartbreak she had experienced over Shim’on paled in comparison to the torrent of anguish her master endured.
Mandisa removed the tray from the stand near her lady’s chair. She was about to murmur some foolish pleasantry to lighten the dismal atmosphere when Ani burst into the garden. Zaphenath-paneah looked up, and even Asenath managed to turn her head in the steward’s direction.
“Life, health and prosperity to my lord and mistress,” Ani babbled. He bent at the waist, a token effort to lower himself to the ground, but obviously had no time for formalities.
“Remain upright, Ani, and tell me what brings your aged legs here in such a hurry,” Zaphenath-paneah answered.
“The Canaanites from Hebron,” the old man gasped, an expression of wonder creeping over his face. “They are standing outside the gates of your villa.”
The master stared at his steward, tongue-tied and stunned, while Mandisa took a wincing little breath. Ani still had no idea of the brothers’ connection to the vizier. “Shim’on’s brothers?” she asked, finding her voice.
Ani’s head bobbed like a cork on the river. “Yes, the loud one’s bearded kin. Ten of them, my lord!”
All color drained from the vizier’s face. “You say there are ten?”
Ani grinned like a well-fed fox. “Yes. The nine who came before, and another one, a younger man.”
A muscle quivered in Zaphenath-paneah’s jaw. “Tell the gatekeeper to hold them outside the villa. And send Tarik to my chambers at once. I will meet him there.”
The vizier pressed his hand over Asenath’s for a brief moment, then rose and left the women in the garden.
After inspecting the positions of his guards, Tarik turned with a quick snap of his shoulders and nodded toward the vizier’s gatekeeper. The double gates swung open and the ten Canaanites, wide-eyed and wary, progressed through the courtyard toward the portico.
Watching them, Tarik marveled. These shepherds, who had been indignant and insistent when they last stood before his master, had returned to submit to the vizier’s demands. The strong-willed brothers who had rejected Zaphenath-paneah a lifetime before and argued with him a few months ago had returned to humble themselves.
A few moments earlier, Zaphenath-paneah had given Tarik clear and concise directions. “Hold them at the portico so I may study them from the balcony of my chamber,” he said, his voice simmering with barely checked agitation. “If they are desperate, or if our father is truly unwilling to release my younger brother, they may try to slip an impostor by us. But if the younger man truly is Binyamin…”
Tarik had bowed and left, understanding his orders. Now he stared at the visitors, knowing that his master also studied them from behind a screen of palms on his balcony.
“Halt!” Tarik commanded, hoping his scant knowledge of the Canaanite tongue would prove adequate. “Line up, so we may be certain you would not dare bring a sword into the vizier’s house.”
Obediently, the brothers stretched out in a line, shoulder to shoulder. Tarik’s guards moved among them, patting their heavy garments with the flat edges of their swords in a calculated demonstration of diligence. While his guards worked, Tarik found his eyes drawn to the younger man who stood in the center of the group, his hands hanging at his sides. A blush burned the man’s cheek. His black hair gleamed in the bright morning sun, growing upward and outward in great masses of curls. His clothing was simple, but rich; his head hung in the attitude of one who lives in a perpetual state of embarrassment. Dark eyes framed a handsome square face.
“By Seth’s foul breath, those eyes!” Tarik muttered. “They are my master’s!”
After a moment, Ani’s thin, tremulous voice spiraled down from the balcony. “The master says bring them in,” the steward called to Tarik. “I am to slay a lamb. The men will dine with Zaphenath-paneah at noon.”
Levi’s head throbbed as he climbed the chiseled steps before the vizier’s portico. Like the others, he worried that the Egyptian might wish to detain Binyamin as he had Shim’on. And what had happened to Shim’on? He had not been brought out to meet them.
“What if this vizier has sold our Shim’on to slave traders?” Asher whispered, hugging his arms as he walked. “Suppose the vizier realized he was not paid for our grain? What if he sold Shim’on to make up the difference?”
“What if he chooses to sell Binyamin, too?” Naftali asked. “Or all of us? It is not good that he has summoned us inside. If nothing were amiss, he would have taken our silver, given us Shim’on and our grain and sent us on our way.”
“The Egyptian is odd, there is no predicting him,” Re’uven answered, leading the way into the reception room. “Yet we are at his mercy. Whatever his judgment, we shall deserve it.”
Lethal calm filled his eyes when he looked at Levi. “In the past few months I have thought many times of Yosef, whom we sold into slavery. Can any of us say we do not deserve to suffer the fate we decreed for him?”
“Hush, Binyamin will hear you!” Yehuda hissed. Their collective gaze turned toward their younger brother. Aloof and distant as always, Binyamin wandered alone through the magnificent assembly hall, his hands behind his back, his eyes lifted to the bizarre paintings on the walls.
Dan nodded toward the other side of the room. “Look, now, what’s this?”
A host of Egyptians, richly dressed in golden collars and white kilts, entered the room from another doorway. The latecomers stiffened when their painted eyes caught sight of the brothers. Levi cast them a withering stare in return.
“They look at us as if we are a bad smell,” he muttered in a low voice. “I would like to wrestle that tall one with the earring. I’d show that self-important snob that we are not the stinking herders he thinks we are.”
“Hush, Levi,” Yehuda murmured, turning toward the entryway. “Someone else approaches.”
A pair of sandaled feet shuffled through the doorway, then the bald, wiry man who had spoken from the balcony stood before them. “Greetings from my lord Zaphenath-paneah, Nourisher of Egypt and the World, Guardian of Pharaoh’s Shadow,” he said, speaking Canaanite in a clipped, careful accent. “You have been invited to eat the midday meal with my master.”
Yehuda lifted a brow. “We have news for him, but we do not require much of his time.”
“You shall eat with him,” the little man answered. “My name is Ani. I am Zaphenath-paneah’s steward.” He glanced past them toward the portico and the courtyard, then rested his hands upon his scrawny, birdlike chest. “My master has instructed me to see that your donkeys are provided with fodder, and that your feet are washed.” He lifted his hands and clapped; immediately a half dozen servants appeared with basins, towels and pitchers.
The steward’s lined face arranged itself into a careful smile. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Our brother.” Levi stepped out of the circle. “What has become of Shim’on?”
The steward bowed his head. “He is preparing for you now. He will be restored to you soon.”
“There is one other matter,” Yehuda said, moving closer. “When we arrived home after our last journey to Thebes we found that our silver had been returned to our sacks. We didn’t take it, and we want to pay for what we bought. So today we have returned the silver we owe, and we have brought more to buy what our families need.”
“We have also brought gifts,” Re’uven interrupted, “for your master.”
The old man smiled again, an odd mingling of wariness and amusement in his eyes. “Be at ease, do not be afraid,” he said, nodding. “Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks. I had your silver. Now, if you will excuse me, here is your brother.”
The steward turned and moved aside. A quartet of guards stepped smartly through the passageway and separated when they reached the reception hall. Levi half expected to see the mighty vizier step out from behind them, but Shim’on stood there, as massive and self-confident as ever.
Levi put his worries aside with sudden good humor. “Shim’on!”
The Destroyer’s eyes flashed with approval. “Brothers! How well you look!”
Ignoring the servants and the assembled Egyptians, the brothers surrounded Shim’on with much embracing and slapping on the back. He accepted their greetings with good nature, then slipped his burly arm around Binyamin. “My little brother,” he said, his bushy brows rising in pleasure, “I have never been so pleased to see anyone in my entire life!”
“Did they treat you well?”
“Were you in the prison pits?”
“You look well-fed, Shim’on!”
“Not only well-fed—someone has been pampering our brother!”
They laughed, poked and jabbed at one another in merry glee. After a few moments Levi pulled himself from the fray and stepped back to study his brother. He and Shim’on had been close; their mother said they were two of a kind, cut from the same cloth. He and Shim’on had always understood each other without a word of explanation.…
But this was not the same Destroyer they left here months ago. Some quality in him had changed, an edge had softened, the warp and woof of the man had altered. The old Shim’on would have come charging out with threats of revenge and retribution, daring his hosts to take up arms.
Shim’on caught his eye and laughed. “Why, Levi, do you look at me like that?”
The others grew still and parted, their faces painted with surprise.
“I thought you’d be glad to see me,” Shim’on went on, “but you’re looking at me as if I had sprouted horns.”
Levi felt the chasm between them like an open wound. Perhaps Shim’on had been tortured. Pain could account for the way his voice had softened, for his carefree humor and the solicitous way he inclined his head toward Binyamin. Though physically he bore no marks or scars, the Egyptians might have bewitched him or forced him to participate in their vile idol worship. Shim’on would have fought them, of course, but even the Destroyer’s strength had limits.
But he would never admit them. And he would never confess that he’d been broken. But when they had returned to the tents of Hebron, Shim’on would heal and become his old self again.
“It is nothing,” Levi murmured, his mind drifting away from the unsolvable mystery. He waved Shim’on’s concerns away. “You look different, that’s all,” he said, shrugging. “You’re wearing a kilt instead of a robe. And someone has cut your hair.”
“Bah, it couldn’t be helped, the Egyptians have foolish ideas about such things.” Shim’on made a face as the others laughed. “At least I managed to keep my beard! But those things are done, my brother. I am ready to go home.”
“Good,” Levi answered, smiling thoughtfully.
Mandisa found her place beside Tarik in the master’s entourage and resisted the urge to cast a questioning glance at the captain. The vizier had already given them strict instructions. “My brothers must be tested,” he had explained, his arms behind his back as he prowled his chamber. “They have brought Binyamin, which is good, but how can I know they will not cast him aside as they once did me? If their hearts are not loyal, I must be there to catch my younger brother when they cast him away. I would know the extent of their devotion. I must be sure their stony hearts have softened.”
The master did not say exactly how he planned to prove his brothers, but Mandisa knew the elaborate stratagem would begin at dinner. She and Tarik were to enter the chamber ahead of the vizier’s bodyguard, then she would take her place at Zaphenath-paneah’s right hand while Tarik stood on his left, ever-ready to defend.
One of the young fan-bearers coughed softly as he moved into line behind her, and Mandisa glanced back. Zaphenath-paneah stood behind the fan-bearers, a stiff and regal expression on his face.
Mandisa’s heart stirred with compassion as she looked at him. For an instant wistfulness stole into the vizier’s expression as he met her eyes, then he smiled.
“He is ready,” she whispered to Tarik.
A trumpet sounded. Like actors in a play they swept down the passageway and into the hall. The servants had already done their work, providing each guest with a chair, a foot-stool and an empty dining tray on a stand. Behind each chair a servant waited with an amphora of scented water, a copper washbasin and fresh linen for drying the hands.
Zaphenath-paneah had been quite explicit in his directions regarding the Canaanites: they were to be positioned far away from his Egyptian guests, and seated in a particular order. The oldest, Re’uven, was to be seated farthest from the vizier, and the youngest, Binyamin, at the vizier’s right hand.
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.