Dreamers (33 page)

continue the hunt.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The time of her travail caught Tuya by surprise. She barely

had time to send for the priestess of Taweret, the patroness of

childbirth, before her son dropped into the world.

As the grotesque priestess paraded throughout Tuya’s

chamber striking at invisible enemies with her ceremonial

daggers, Tuya drew the mewling infant to her breast and

tenderly wiped the birth fluids from his skin. How perfect he

was, and how unique! He was the only thing in the world that

had ever belonged to her, and she would never surrender him

to anyone. She had been born a slave, but this child would

forever be free.

“What will you call him?” one of her maids asked, her

hands folded reverently. “As Pharaoh’s grandson, he should

have a fine name.”

Tuya pressed her finger to the child’s cheek and smiled as

the boy turned his head, seeking a life-giving breast. She was

about to answer when the door slammed open. Abayomi crossed

the threshold, his eyes wide, his face stiff with fear. “I came as

quickly as I could,” he said, struggling to catch his breath.

“Would you like to see your son?” She smiled at the baby

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in her arms. “He has just been born. I think he would like to

meet his father.”

Abayomi panted his way through the knot of maids and

knelt at Tuya’s side. He studied the baby for a long moment,

then his worried face arranged itself into a grin. “He’s beau-

tiful, my wife,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “What baby

name will you give him?”

“I think—” she offered the baby to his father “—I shall call

him Yosef.”

Abayomi did not protest the strange-sounding name, but

she knew he had a taste for the unusual. “Yosef,” he mur-

mured, taking the baby into his hands. “He is a fine son.”

“He is,” she murmured, running her hand over the baby’s

damp hair.

The prince looked at her with something fragile in his

eyes, then returned the child to her arms. “I should go.”

“Why?” she asked, startled. “You have a right to be here.”

“But you have done
this,
” he stammered, lifting his hands

in a helpless gesture. “You have done a great thing! I want to

get you something.”

“Abayomi.” She reached for the hand of the boy who was,

in a way, as much her son as the infant in her arms. “You have

given me a child, the greatest gift a man can give a woman. I

ask for nothing more.”

“I wish you would,” he whispered, but she laughed off his

suggestion and turned again to the baby, dimly aware that

Abayomi watched as if she were some unparalleled work of art.

As a hot wind blew clouds of yellow dust down the alley

between the walled cells, Yosef paused outside the structure

where Pharaoh’s newest prisoners had been incarcerated. His

hands, calloused from hauling buckets to and from these cells,

tingled with exhaustion after a long day in the blinding sun.

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He lowered the buckets and wiped the sweat from his brow.

He had hoped to return to his cell and go to sleep, but a riotous

clamor had broken out beyond the prison walls adjacent to the

streets of Thebes.

“What is the cause for this noise?” one of the new prison-

ers called. The two men in this cell, both servants from

Pharaoh’s palace, had been imprisoned nearly five months

without an opportunity to stand before the king.

The one who had spoken finger-combed hair from his

eyes to better glare at Yosef. “It is not a feast day, nor a

festival, nor Pharaoh’s birthday. Why does pandemonium

rise from the streets?”

“Let me talk to him,” another voice muttered. The second

inmate pushed his way to the small opening in the iron door.

He was a dusty man with an aging yellow face and deep half-

moons under his eyes, but his smile seemed genuine. His

gaze flickered over Yosef, then he bowed his head. “Do you

know why Thebes celebrates?”

Yosef lifted the bolt on the door. “I do not know.” The two

prisoners stepped back as he moved inside to exchange a full

bucket for their empty one.

The second man clapped his hands. “I may know the

reason. It is time for the princess to deliver her child.”

“Another royal brat,” the other man groused, dropping onto

the reed mat that served as his bed. “Another mouth to feed!

I’m beginning to think I don’t want to go back to Pharaoh’s

kitchen.”

The second man wagged a scolding finger at his compan-

ion. “The lovely Tuya could not produce a brat if she were

wed to Anubis.”

Yosef’s blood rose in a jet. “You know Tuya?”

“Know her?” The man laughed and leaned against the

wall. “I’ve known her since she was a child. I was the butler

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for Donkor, and she a maid for Donkor’s daughter. No one

was more astounded than I to discover that she’d grown into

a woman lovely enough for Pharaoh’s son.”

Yosef reached for the wall to steady himself. He had not

dared to speak Tuya’s name in five years, but her image rose

before him, vivid and close, opening the door on hundreds of

memories he’d tried to bury. The impulse to ask a thousand

questions was hard to resist, for this man had talked to her,

toiled with her, perhaps his work-worn hands had even

gripped Tuya’s slender fingers—

“Is she…well?”

The prisoner squinted at him, then nodded slowly. “Can it

be that you have also known Tuya?”

Yosef nodded.

“Then let us talk.”

“Please.” Yosef overturned the empty bucket, then used it

as a stool. “There is much I would like to know.”

The prisoner lowered himself to his mat. “I am called

Taharka,” the man said, watching Yosef through eyes that had

clouded with age. “I was summoned to work in Pharaoh’s

vineyard many months after Tuya left Donkor’s house. Later

she told me she had served in the house of the captain of

Pharaoh’s bodyguard.”

“Potiphar.” In a moment Taharka would mention his name,

for surely Tuya had told her old friend about the love she

shared with a Hebrew slave…

But Taharka only scratched at his arm. “Yes. And Potiphar

later returned her to Pharaoh. The kitchen slaves are fond of

saying that the young prince fell in love the moment he saw

her. So she was married to Abayomi, and when I left the

palace a royal child grew in her womb. Unless she met with

misfortune, it is time for her baby to be born.”

Yosef felt his smile twist. He could not picture Tuya with

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another man or with a child in her arms. He had heard that

Tuya married a boy-prince, but in the void of prison life he

had forgotten that time did not stand still outside the stone

walls. If Tuya’s prince was mature enough to father children,

she was married now to a man…

“I think we ought to discover,” the dark-haired prisoner

interrupted, “why the mention of our princess’s name inter-

ests this slave.”

Yosef turned, about to stammer out a truthful reply, but

Taharka’s eyes flashed a warning. Yosef looked away and

shook his head. “Who has not heard of the lady’s beauty?” he

finished, shrugging. “Every man in Thebes has heard songs

that praise her beauty. I never thought to speak—” his eyes

met Taharka’s “—with a man who had actually met her.”

An understanding was reached and returned in that glance,

and in that moment Yosef realized that Tuya’s life at the palace

was no more secure than it had been in Potiphar’s house.

Terrorized by nightmares, three prisoners stirred in their

sleep and awoke with clear and unsettling memories of the

night they’d passed.

Yosef awoke slowly, burdened by the rueful acceptance of

a terrible knowledge. The meaning of his dream was all too

clear. He’d seen Tuya standing on the opposite bank of the

Nile in the flood’s ominous gray expanse. She wore an expres-

sion of incredible sadness on her pale face, but she carried a

baby in her arms as a young boy clung to her skirt. Yosef

watched as a wide crocodile rose from the engorged Nile and

advanced toward her, its golden eyes focused on the babe in

her arms. As Yosef called to her, the wavelets that had flecked

the surface of the river flattened out, and a second crocodile

crawled toward the unsuspecting Tuya.

She did not see, for her eyes were fastened on her child.

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From the opposite bank, Yosef struggled to reach her, but

his arms were held by iron bonds. He threw back his head

and released a guttural cry, but his voice would not carry

across the river.

Understanding hit him like a punch in the stomach, and

Yosef awakened fully aware of what God wanted him to know.

Tuya and her child were in danger. And if the boy clinging to

her skirt was intended to represent her husband, his life would

be also threatened.

But what could he do to warn her?

Seeking an answer, he climbed the rope from his pit and

proceeded to go about his work. For the first time in years,

the comments of the condemned prisoners did not register, so

intent was he on recalling every detail of his dream. There had

to be a way to reach Tuya. God would not have warned him

unless he could do something to help. “Show me,” he whis-

pered, turning from the pits to the stone cells. “O God of

understanding, make the way clear.”

Abruptly, he remembered Taharka, Tuya’s friend. If God

would provide a way to release the cupbearer, Tuya could be

warned. He quickened his steps down the path, eager to speak

to Pharaoh’s servant.

But Taharka was in no mood for conversation. A cloud of

gloom lay over both of Pharaoh’s servants, and Yosef dared

not ask for a favor while the cupbearer and baker were in such

foul moods. “Why are you upset?” he asked instead, tucking

their empty food basket under his arm.

The butler scowled at his companion. “I didn’t sleep well.

The baker and I both had disturbing dreams that stole our rest.”

“Why speak of it?” the baker groused, lying back on his

mat. He shaded his eyes and frowned at Yosef. “And why

do you care?”

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“Interpretations belong to God.” Yosef knelt beside

Taharka’s mat. “Tell me your dream.”

Taharka’s worried expression softened into one of fond

reminiscence. “I dreamed I walked again in my vineyard. A

vine sprouted in front of me, and three branches grew on the

vine. It budded, its blossoms came forth, and its clusters

produced ripe grapes, the finest I have ever seen. Pharaoh’s cup

appeared in my hand, so I took the grapes and squeezed them

into Pharaoh’s cup, then put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.”

Yosef smiled. “God, the Almighty One, does not want you

to be confused. This is the interpretation of your dream—the

three branches are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will

forgive you and restore you to your place, and you will once

again put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand as you used to do.”

As a smile of relief spread across the old man’s features,

Yosef touched his arm. “Please, Taharka, keep me in mind

when it goes well with you. Do me a kindness by mention-

ing me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison. You will not

be circumventing justice, for I was kidnapped from the land

of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve

being put into a dungeon.”

He did not dare mention Tuya, for he knew nothing of

court life and did not know if even this man could be trusted.

But Pharaoh could pardon any prisoner and if Yosef were

free, he could keep a watchful eye on the situation at court.

From a distance, he could search out danger that might

threaten Tuya and her child…

“Fascinating,” the baker remarked, his voice dry. “If I

promise to speak to Pharaoh, will you give me a favorable

interpretation, too?”

Though he was impatient to continue his conversation

with Taharka, Yosef nodded to the other man. “Tell me of

your dream.”

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The baker crossed his legs on his mat. “I saw three baskets

of white bread on my head,” he began. “In the top basket were

all sorts of baked foods for Pharaoh, and birds were eating

them out of the basket.” He grinned. “In three days I’ll be

serving Pharaoh again, correct?”

Yosef lowered his head as he struggled for words. “The

three baskets are three days,” he whispered, a pang of regret

striking his heart. “Within three days Pharaoh will lift you

from this place and will hang you on a tree. The birds will eat

your flesh from your bones.”

The baker trembled as though a chill wind had blown over

him. A full moment passed before he protested. “That can’t

be right,” he said, smacking his fist into his palm. “How do I