B inyamin held up a warning hand as yet another dark-eyed slave approached with a platter from the vizier. “No, I couldn’t eat another mouthful,” he said, hoping the Egyptian girl would understand. He patted his stomach and smiled. “It is delicious, but I cannot eat any more.”
The vizier’s kind attention was embarrassing. He had, of course, been awarded such bounty because he sat closest to the vizier. The other Egyptians, stretching out to the vizier’s left, had received comparatively little, but the vizier was obviously more interested in the men from Canaan. Did he still suspect they were spies? Or did he consider them unusual because they were eleven sons from one father? Re’uven had warned him of the great man’s peculiarity, but Binyamin had seen nothing unpleasant in the man’s aspect or behavior.
His eyes caught the dark gaze of the vizier’s, and Binyamin turned away quickly, a blush burning his cheek. A moment later, the interpreter’s soft voice cut into his thoughts. “My master says you have not eaten enough. Would you like more?”
Binyamin looked up and into the man’s dark gaze. No trace of hostility dwelled there, only compassion and a certain overarching kindness. “Thank him, but I have eaten my fill.”
The woman translated, and a strange, faintly eager look flashed in the Egyptian’s eyes. He spoke again and the woman repeated his words. “My master asks if you are well? What do you think of Egypt? How many children have you?”
Binyamin laughed, amazed that the great man would care for such trivial opinions and facts. “I am well, I am astounded by all I see, and I have nine sons,” he said, feeling the man’s sharp eyes upon him as he talked. “My wife is expecting another child soon.”
“Nine sons?” The vizier’s answer came through the woman. “Are you trying to fill the earth with Avraham’s descendants completely by yourself?”
The teasing question caught Binyamin off guard. What had his brothers told the Egyptian at their first meeting? How did he know of Avraham? Yaakov’s grandfather had sojourned in Mizraim for a time, but the people of the Black Land would not know of El Shaddai’s promise to make Avraham’s descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea.
“My lord,” Binyamin asked, directly facing the vizier. “How do you know so many things? You have seated us according to our birth order, you know much about our father and our people. And yet you are a stranger to us.”
The vizier watched Binyamin with an impassive expression as the woman translated.
“Who but God can reveal truth?” the vizier answered through the woman, caressing a graceful silver bowl as he spoke. The vessel had been engraved with the images of Egyptian gods, and Binyamin had seen similar bowls in the tents of many nomadic peoples. He recognized it as a divining bowl, used to foretell the future. A supplicant would fill the bowl with water, then pour oil on top of the water. The gods supposedly revealed truth in the swirls and designs of the floating oil.
“Perhaps God revealed these things to me,” the vizier answered, lifting his gaze from the bowl. “And more which you shall know in time.”
Binyamin could not think of a suitable answer, and after a moment, the vizier smiled and turned away. After lifting his hand and pronouncing a blessing of some sort in Egyptian, Zaphenath-paneah stood and left the room, his entourage trailing behind him.
“Another child on the way? Binyamin, you spend too much time at home!” Shim’on teased, punching the young man in the arm. The brothers had been given bedding in a large chamber of the vizier’s house and welcomed as guests for the night.
“At least I am not yet a grandfather!” Binyamin answered, returning Shim’on’s playful jab. “Your oldest, Jemuel, is searching for a wife even now. You will have grandchildren piling on your knee before the next harvest.”
“Jemuel is a fool.” Shim’on rolled onto his stomach. “Marriage is for men who have no other options.” He propped himself on his elbows, grateful that the servants had furnished them with blankets and furs instead of those sissified Egyptian beds. His brothers would tease him unmercifully if they knew he had lived in a dainty Egyptian chamber during his time of captivity.
Levi lifted a brow. “Are you sorry you married?”
“A man may marry if he needs sons, but I have six sons already,” Shim’on answered, propping his head on his hand. “That’s five legal heirs too many. I will never marry again.”
“But men need women,” Binyamin protested, sitting up. “Father says God Shaddai decreed it was not good for men to be alone.”
“What men need there are women aplenty to give,” Shim’on interrupted, snorting. “Right, Yehuda?”
A silence, thick as wool, wrapped itself around them. Shim’on stared at Yehuda, daring him to contradict his opinion, for they all knew that pious Yehuda had once unknowingly hired his own daughter-in-law as a prostitute.
“Indeed there are,” Yehuda answered, his voice gruff, “but there are snakes in the desert, too, and I would not recommend that a man sleep with one.”
Several of the brothers laughed, and the mood lightened. Shim’on glanced around the circle, grateful for each bearded, sunburned face. “So, tell me,” he said, looking at Levi. “Father is well, but how is our sister?”
Yehuda groaned and buried his head in the furs beneath him while Levi’s handsome face twisted in a smirk. “Dina is as Dina is,” he said, shrugging. “She has not changed.”
“Has she married?” Shim’on tried to keep his voice light.
Levi shook his head. “Nor will she. She sits in our mother’s tent, alone most of the time except when the servants enter to help her. Sometimes she sews. Sometimes she makes baby clothes.”
Shim’on said nothing, but stared at his hands, the same hands that locked Dina into the past by taking her baby and lowering it to the desert sands.…
The remorse that pricked his soul was the mere tip of a long seam of guilt that snaked through the years back to Shekhem.
“Forget Dina.” Levi’s broad hand fell upon Shim’on’s arm. “Tell me about the pretty woman who interprets for the vizier. When you were not aware of it, she studied you.” His lips parted in a sly smile. “Or perhaps you were aware of it.”
Re’uven’s lower lip edged forward in a pout. “I thought she was watching me.”
Yehuda lifted his head. “She was definitely watching our Shim’on, so explain the sudden color in your face, O Destroyer. You have been in this house a long time, so you must know the woman’s name.”
He knew much more than her name, but he’d forfeited everything the night he tried to escape. She would never look at him as she once did, she would never think of him in the same way…
“Her name—” Shim’on closed his hands “—is Mandisa. She is the Lady Asenath’s handmaid.”
Levi cracked an irreverent grin. “And why would a lady’s maid care so much about you?”
“She was also my…attendant,” Shim’on said, searching for a word to describe the relationship he had not completely analyzed himself. “She spoke Canaanite, so the guards asked her to tend me. We became—” he paused “—friends.”
While the others wailed in laughter, Levi pretended to choke in disbelief. “You cannot be a woman’s friend,” he protested. “A woman can be your mother, your sister, your wife, or your lover. And since we know this Egyptian is not your mother or sister—”
“She is not wife or lover or Egyptian, either,” Shim’on interrupted, looking at his hands again. “She is a Canaanite, and she is a friend. You may leave it at that.”
Something in his voice silenced them. Outside the chamber the wind groaned and a group of servants tumbled into laughter, but silence filled the room until Binyamin lifted his head. “Will she be upset when you leave tomorrow?” he asked, the light of concern in his dark eyes. “Perhaps you should say your farewells tonight, when you may have a private word with her.”
“There is no need.” Shim’on flipped onto his back and pillowed his head on his hands. “She is no more to me than the cook or the guard who watched my room. I am ready to go home, brothers, and I suggest we sleep.”
The others mumbled in reply and settled on their beds. From far away Shim’on heard the familiar sounds of food being scraped from platters and the fountain splashing in the garden. Would he ever hear those sounds again? He knew he would never again enjoy the anticipation of Mandisa’s gentle rap on his door. He might even miss the sharpness of her quick tongue.
He lay awake a long time.
Something moved in the darkness and Mandisa sat up, trying to see what had slashed her sleep like a dagger. “Who’s there?” She drew the linen sheet to her chest, then reached out to wake Adom.
“Don’t wake the boy.”
Shim’on’s voice spoke to her, but she could not see him in the darkness. A moment of sheer black fright swept through her—had he come to take revenge for his imprisonment?—then she stiffened at the challenge his presence presented.
“You should not be here,” she said, steeling her voice with authority. “Come forward and show yourself, or I’ll scream for the guards.”
He stepped from the darkness at the rear of her room into a small square of light left by the waning moon. He looked tough and sinewy in the darkness, more powerful and determined than any man she had ever seen.
Heat stole into her face as she remembered their last private encounter. “I should probably scream anyway.”
He moved a step closer. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You have made a mistake. Didn’t you mean to seek Tizara’s chamber?” She cringed at the bitter tone of her voice. “I know what you want of a woman, and Tizara is better equipped and, I dare say, more willing to provide it than I.”
His lips thinned in anger. “Woman, will you be quiet and listen?”
Adom stirred on his bed. Mandisa and Shim’on stared at each other across a sudden ringing silence, neither of them willing to wake the boy. When Adom turned and stretched out, still deep in sleep, Mandisa clenched her fist. “You have no more sense than a stone, coming to a woman’s chamber at this hour. If you were a servant, Tarik would have you flogged for this.”
“I am a prisoner here no longer,” Shim’on answered, “and my intentions are honorable. I came to ask if you will leave with me tomorrow. Adom, too. There is room in my tent for both of you.”
The concern in his expression amazed her even more than the proposal. “You want me to go with you? To Canaan?”
His expression stilled and grew serious. “It would not be right for me to leave you behind. I am now free. You should be, too.”
Too stunned to answer, Mandisa said nothing as Shim’on knelt beside her bed, lifted her hand and pressed it to his heart. With a sureness that made her breath leave her body, his eyes moved into hers. “Mandisa—” intensity marked his voice “—I owe you so much. I am sorry if I have behaved wrongly toward you, but you must understand, I was not at my best in this place. But now I am free, so journey with us and leave this Black Land. Return to Canaan, the place of your birth.”
She turned her hand to clasp his, not daring to trust her turbulent feelings. Was this a dream? No, his flesh was warm, his hand all too real. For a long moment, she looked at him. “Are you asking me to be your wife?”
“By heaven above, no.” He dropped her hand as resolutely as he’d taken it. “I will never marry again. I’ve had two wives, and while they lived I made both of them miserable. Since I have a legal son, I have no further need of a wife.”
Her mind reeled with confusion. “So you would have me live with you as what? A concubine?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We will make whatever arrangement you like, but I won’t marry you. You have told me about your first marriage and its misery, and I saw how my father tormented my mother. So you shall remain free and independent. I will protect and provide for you and Adom. That is the least I can do to show my gratitude. But since marriage makes men miserable, you will be free to go anytime you please.”
“And so will you.” She pressed her lips together, trying not to lose her fragile control. He could walk away at any time, just as he had planned to escape and leave her behind forever. He would abandon her just as surely as Idogbe had.
“You are wrong, Shim’on,” she answered, her cheeks burning as she stared at him. “Marriage doesn’t make men miserable. Men make marriage miserable, and you have already brought me more misery than a hundred husbands.”
His eyes gleamed with honest surprise, then a bemused smile crossed his face. “Consider my proposition carefully. I know you love me.”
She pressed her hand to her forehead, unable to believe what she’d just heard. “How could I love a man so filled with anger and bitterness that he cannot see God’s plain truth before him?”
“There is only one truth to consider here.” His hand gripped her arm. “You love me, and you need someone to care for you and the boy.”
“Adom and I were fine before you came, and we’ll be fine after you leave.”
“You are a slave, can’t you get that truth through your lovely little head?”
“I am a free woman.”
“No, you are bound to Zaphenath-paneah, his wife, his children and his house, as surely as if you wore chains of iron around your dainty ankles. Your master says ‘do this,’ and you jump, your lady says ‘I want,’ and you would fly to the moon to fetch whatever she desires. You weep over your master’s sorrows and celebrate his joys when you ought to be creating your own.”
“His sorrows are my sorrows, and my lady’s joys are my joys because I love her, Shim’on. If you knew how to love, you would understand.”
His eyes, black and dazzling, seemed to impale her. “You are a fool.” He lifted his chin and released her arm. “I offer you the freedom to go where you want and do as you please, and you reject it. I offer you my gratitude, and you scorn me. So be it. As you labor for your mighty vizier and work yourself into an early grave, think of me.”
“I will think of you,” she answered, her flesh burning where he had touched her, “every time I hear one of the guards lose his temper and every time Tarik disciplines an unruly slave.” The words poured from her like a river, impossible to stop. “You are a difficult man, impossible to endure! First you insult me by asking me to be a concubine, then you flatter yourself by saying that I love you. How could I? No woman could love a man like you because you have no idea what love is. You think love is only found within a woman’s arms, but it is truly found by a woman’s side, facing together the good and bad life brings. But you would weather a storm by storming the weather! You stomp through life, trampling the hearts of those who would love you if only you would let them.”
“Love.” The word fell from his lips like a curse. “Yaakov loved Rahel. That love condemned the rest of us.”
“Even if your father did wrong, Shim’on, you cannot continue this way. Reach out to him, care for him.”
He chuckled, a cold and bitter sound in the darkness. “How can I care for someone who does not care for me?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question,” she answered. “And I have realized one thing—you cannot offer love with a clenched fist. It must be given freely. I have tried to offer love to you, Shim’on. But you would not accept it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stood, defiance pouring from his dark eyes. “It is you, Mandisa, who will not be loved. You hide yourself behind the distinguished and noble Zaphenath-paneah. You refuse freedom in order to spend your life serving a man who will never consider you more than a slave.”
She shook her head. “You are wrong.”
“I am right.” He bent forward until his face hovered only inches from hers. “When you think of me in the lonely years to come, remember that I behaved nobly toward you. In gratitude, I offered you a way out of the Black Land, and you refused it.”
“I will remember this night until my dying day,” she whispered, turning away. “But I will not be lonely without you, Shim’on.”
She didn’t know when he left, but a chill wind blew through the chamber, and she shivered, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life.