“M andisa, you seem anxious,” Lady Asenath said, lazily waving her hand. “I should think you’d be relieved that the rabble of relatives has gone.”
“I am relieved, my lady.” Mandisa forced a smile and turned toward the couch where Asenath lay. “Though they have only been gone a short time, the house seems quite empty without them.”
“I think silence is sublime,” Asenath answered, lifting her head so Mandisa could slip another pillow beneath it. “And I do wish my husband would hurry back from the palace. Pharaoh is demanding too much of his time these days.”
“Pharaoh has much on his mind,” Mandisa answered, sinking into a chair by Asenath’s side. The lady’s belly had grown rapidly in the last few weeks, and she was increasingly uncomfortable in social situations. Her gowns, designed to be worn like a second skin, did not forgive the bulge of impending birth at her middle. Asenath preferred to sit at home in a loose-fitting robe rather than wear the pleated gowns that served as maternity wear in upper Theban circles.
“When Zaphenath-paneah comes in, send a runner to fetch him to me,” Asenath said, closing her eyes. She sighed and clasped her hands over her belly. “This is the seventh month, Mandisa, do you realize? The babies I lost died in the fourth month. The gods will be good to me this time. Just as they performed the miracle at conception and allowed my husband’s seed to grow within me out of season—”
“The master knows, my lady.” Mandisa bit her lip, horrified that the words had fallen from her lips. She was too tired, that was the problem, she had felt listless all week. Her eyes burned from sleeplessness and an overwhelming numbness had weighed her down ever since the brothers departed.…
“He knows what?” Asenath lifted her head. Her eyes were wide with false innocence, but her voice was thick and unsteady.
Mandisa sighed. She had spent every possible moment of the last month with her mistress, and she felt like a parent who has spent too much time with a hyperactive child. The lady’s charade had drained her.
Gathering up her slippery courage, she leaned forward. “May I speak as an honest friend, Lady Asenath?”
Her mistress nodded.
“Your husband, my master, knows the child you carry is not his.”
“You lie!” The lady’s expression clouded. “The child is his, the gods have worked a miracle! And my husband believes in miracles, he is always talking about the wonders of his God—”
“This is not a miracle,” Mandisa answered, sudden tears stinging her eyes. “And your husband knows it.”
Asenath took a deep breath as if she would argue, but let her head fall back to the couch. After a long moment, she pressed her hand to her forehead and began to weep. “I have done a terrible thing,” she whispered as tears found their way down her cheeks. “I went to visit a priest at the temple of Min.”
Mandisa shook her head. “I do not know this god.”
“He is the god of fertility, the bestower of potency. He is the god who brings rain to the parched earth, the one who quickens life within a woman’s womb.”
A sense of foreboding descended over Mandisa with a shiver. “You gave this god an offering?”
“An offering of silver…and of myself. The priest promised that I would conceive, and he swore that only he and Min would know of it.” Raw hurt glittered in her dark eyes as she turned to her handmaid. “And now you tell me that my husband knows! And if he does, why does he treat me with such kindness?”
“Your husband,” Mandisa answered, carefully choosing her words, “loves you as he loves his own flesh. When you turned from him to another, how could he not know it? But he treats you kindly because he loves you.”
Asenath shot Mandisa a quick, denying glance, then looked away. A host of emotions—denial, anger and fear—flickered across her face, then she looked at Mandisa with something fragile in her eyes.
“Why? Why does he—How could he still love me?”
“Because,” Mandisa admitted, her words dredged from a place far beyond logic and common sense, “sometimes passion is unreasonable.” She strengthened her smile. “You need never fear, mistress, I know Zaphenath-paneah. At first I thought he would cast you aside, but now I know he will never abandon you. You are fortunate, my lady.”
“Fortunate,” Asenath echoed. The hand that had been stroking her belly stilled. “Will my husband feel fortunate to provide for another man’s child?”
Mandisa squirmed beneath the touch of her mistress’s gaze and the look of pain behind her question. “Zaphenath-paneah loves all children,” she finally said. “Do not be anxious, my lady, about his heart. But have mercy on my master, and do not ask him to pretend.”
When Asenath finally slept, Mandisa left her guilt-ridden mistress in her chamber and walked to the garden to consider her own situation. In good weather, if all went well, the journey from Thebes to Hebron would take about two weeks. More than a month would pass before Shim’on could return. But once they arrived in Hebron the brothers would have stories to tell and plans to make, so perhaps they might tarry as long as two months, even three. But before the season of Shemu had passed, Shim’on and his family would return to Egypt. Though the people of Yisrael were to abide in Goshen, Shim’on might come to visit the house of Zaphenath-paneah. And he might press his case a third time; perhaps he would even try to prove he had changed. Or, because she had insulted him, he might visit with a Canaanite wife by his side.
In either case, she couldn’t face him again, but what options did she have? Unless she could convince Lady Asenath to take an extended journey to Heliopolis, Mandisa had no place to go. But Lady Asenath had been complaining of discomfort for weeks, and was in no condition to travel.
A hoarse call from the balcony interrupted her musings. “Mandisa!” Tizara shrieked, her face ashen under the bright sunlight. “Come quickly! And bring Ani! The time of travail has begun!”
The baby would not come. Through hours of intense labor that wracked Asenath’s frail body, the child refused to be born. Ani sent for priestesses of the goddess Taweret, but while they twirled and whirled daggers at invisible spirits, Asenath grew pale and weak upon her couch. A pool of sour, stinking blood covered the bed linens like a crimson mantle, and though Mandisa had tried to change the soiled cloths, Asenath screamed and wept whenever anyone attempted to move her.
Zaphenath-paneah, who had been summoned from Pharaoh’s house as soon as it became apparent that his wife was in danger, insisted upon remaining at her side. He sat at the head of the narrow birthing cot, his hand grasping Asenath’s, his lips at her ear.
As night fell, amid the shrieking and wailing of the priestesses, Mandisa heard the midwife exclaim, “Thank your gods, my lady, you have a son!” Zaphenath-paneah’s face went white at the words, and only then did Mandisa understand the full import of the midwife’s statement. If the baby had not yet come forth and the midwife could see the male part of the child, the birth was breech.
“My mother,” Zaphenath-paneah said, turning to Mandisa, “died when Binyamin was born this backward way.”
“Do not be anxious, my lord.” Mandisa gave him a smile more confident than she felt. “Asenath is in God’s hands.”
“Is she?”
Asenath’s labor continued into the night. By sunrise on the second day, the exhausted priestesses of Taweret abandoned the vizier’s wife to her fate. The frustrated and tired midwife grew ruthless, attempting even to force her hand into the birth canal to turn the child. But the pressure and pain caused Asenath to faint, and the cord of life, visible through the birth opening, ceased to pulse.
When it became apparent that the baby had died, Zaphenath-paneah cradled his wife’s head and shoulders in his arms and whispered words of comfort and encouragement.
By sunrise on the third day, everyone in the house knew the mistress stood on the threshold of the Otherworld. Weeping and silent, Tizara brought Efrayim and Menashe to say their farewells; they embraced their mother and kissed her on the cheek before Tizara led them away. Tarik, Halima and a host of other servants paraded through the chamber and promised to do their best to prepare Asenath for her eternal life, but she had already closed her eyes and seemed not to hear their frantic assurances.
By midafternoon on the third day, both Mandisa and the master were exhausted, drained of will and thought. “Why don’t you go to your chamber and sleep for a while.” the master asked, stepping away from Asenath’s bedside. He turned toward the high window and seemed to study the shaft of sunlight that trapped slow convections of dust.
“If it please you, my lord, I will remain until the—until she no longer needs me,” Mandisa answered.
For another hour the two of them waited without speaking. They traded places: Mandisa stood beneath the window, lost in her own thoughts, the master sat at the side of Asenath’s bed, imprinting his memory with the image of his beloved wife, still carrying the unborn child.
Without warning, the lady opened her eyes. “My husband?” Her words were jagged and sharp, sounds torn by the blade of a knife.
“Here, beloved.” Zaphenath-paneah lifted his head and took her pale hand in his.
“I have been foolish, my lord. I thought another child would make you happy.”
“All I ever wanted was you, Asenath. Children are an added blessing from God.”
She spoke in a weak and tremulous whisper. “I have played the harlot with another god—”
“Shh, Asenath, don’t talk now.” As the husband lowered his face to his wife’s, Mandisa retreated into the shadows of the room, unwilling to intrude upon the private moment.
The burning pain of her loins had faded to a distant memory, and Asenath’s hands and legs had gone as cold as an empty bed. She felt surprisingly light and carefree; the heaviness that had pressed upon her stomach, back and legs had completely vanished. The only burden upon her now was guilt, but Zaphenath-paneah sat by her side, his dark eyes inches from hers, his gaze probing her soul.
“I did something,” she began, forcing the words from her stubborn tongue.
“I know all about you, beloved,” Zaphenath-paneah said, his tone unfailingly patient and compassionate. “Your denial has kept us apart these last few months, but I was ready to listen anytime you wanted to talk. Nothing you could ever do would make me turn you away.”
“I was so selfish. When God Shaddai would not give me what I wanted, I left him for another.”
His fingers fell across her mouth. “You don’t have to talk.”
She closed her eyes, too weak to resist him. “Please.” His fingers lifted, and she ran her tongue over her parched lips, struggling to find the words. “I left your God, the Almighty One, because He seemed too distant and unaccommodating. Because He said no.”
Zaphenath-paneah did not answer, and with an effort she opened her eyes to look at him. His usually lively gaze sparkled with weariness. She blinked in surprise when she saw that he held her hand pressed to his cheek; she hadn’t felt the pressure of his skin against hers.
“Beloved wife,” he said, “God honors a repentant heart.” His voice, without rising at all, had taken on a subtle urgency.
“I know.” Tonight there were no shadows across her heart, only a feeling of glorious happiness within it. “When you did not cast me aside, my love, I knew your God would not abandon me, either.”
He drew her into his arms, and Asenath closed her eyes, glorying in the shared moment.
Her ragged breathing stuttered and died, and then there was nothing but silence and the pounding of Yosef’s own aching heart.
“Beloved?”
Her mouth was as pale as her cheeks, her eyes closed in eternal sleep. Yosef sat up, still clutching her icy hands, his sense of loss beyond tears.
Why couldn’t she trust his love? He had spent the last years of his life protecting her, trying to convince her that she was the most precious person in his world, and yet she would not believe him. He had seen the pain in her eyes when he denied her requests, but he had only refused her out of love.
“Oh, Asenath.” He cradled her against his chest as he traced her cheek with his fingers. “How like a child you were! Could you not know I would give my own life rather than allow you to suffer like this?”
Somewhere outside the villa a pair of servants broke into a brawling argument, giving voice to the unuttered shouts and protests lodged in Yosef’s own throat. He pressed Asenath to him, breathed in the scent of her skin and hair one last time, then released the keening wail of grief.
Tarik stood at attention by the gatekeeper’s lodge, his eyes raking the face and figure of each guest. Hundreds had already filed through the villa to pay their respects to Zaphenath-paneah in the loss of his wife and unborn child.
The priests of Amun had come first to prepare Lady Asenath for mummification. Mandisa had helped them wash the body, excise the baby and anoint the skin with oils and unguents. The tiny, perfectly formed child was washed and wrapped in linen. The unnamed son would be placed in Asenath’s arms, and together they would sleep in a coffin within a sarcophagus within a tomb.
Such great sadness after such great joy! Though Tarik stood like a warrior, stiff and proud, his spirit whirled in chaos. A war of emotions raged within him, a battle more vicious than any physical conflict he had ever experienced. Rumors within the household fueled his unrest. Some servants were saying that the mistress had tried to induce the labor of the child after discovering it would be the offspring of a Canaanite herdsman. Wiser, more practical voices proclaimed that the physicians had long said another pregnancy would result in Asenath’s death. The incident had only proven the physicians right.
How could a man at the pinnacle of power be so vulnerable to pain? Tarik had never imagined that any earthly relationship could engender such feelings of loss and devastation, but he suffered with his master, and Zaphenath-paneah suffered greatly. The joy had gone out of the vizier’s eyes, and despite the pleasure he found in making arrangements for his family’s arrival in Goshen, sorrow had carved merciless lines on his strong face, muting his youth. Tarik wondered if the vizier would ever find a way to lift the shadows of pain from his countenance.
And yet Zaphenath-paneah persisted in his worship of the invisible and Almighty God. If Wepwawet had led Tarik through such a torturous experience, the captain knew he would have cursed that god and followed another. But the vizier did not condemn his God or cry out. He continued in his silent and steadfast devotion, preferring solitude to the noisy Egyptian ceremonies designed to speed Asenath to the Otherworld.
There remained the traditional seventy days of mourning, the necessity of filling and preparing the lady’s tomb and the mummification of the body. It was a pity, Tarik decided, that Lady Asenath would not meet Yaakov, Zaphenath-paneah’s noble father. Perhaps in the afterlife the Egyptian noblewoman and the Canaanite prince would be friends.