The Pharaoh's Daughter (15 page)

Anippe discovered the true benefits of being an amira during the days of her red flow. Remaining sequestered in her spacious chamber and private courtyard, she ordered her Hebrews to connect a walkway and bathhouse to one of the canals branching off the Nile. During the inundation, the Delta became an
oversoaked cloth with every wrinkle and crease filled with life-giving water. The Avaris villa and its buildings stood on high ground, but the cool, soothing Nile rose to Anippe's threshold like a welcome suitor.

The constant chanting of Hebrew slaves at work had nearly driven her mad, but Anippe watched from her sitting room, cloaked in shadows, while the slaves finished the last tiles on the walkway and placed pillows in the bathhouse. Even in her foul humor, she recognized the favor of the gods. The slaves were finishing now—the walkway and private bathhouse complete on the very day she would present her cleansing offering to Lady Hathor.

Perhaps Ummi Amenia had been right all these years, lauding the importance of Lady Hathor's cleansing ceremony.
“After your days of seclusion, you must thank Lady Hathor, goddess of love, for the end of your red flow and then ask that she continue to flow through you—now with love for another.”

“But my lover is gone,” Anippe whispered to no one. “Will Sebak still love me when he no longer thinks I bear his child?”

Puah's herb bundles accused Anippe from her embroidery basket. She'd hidden them there with the certainty that her strong soldier would never shuffle through needles and thread. Had she been wrong to deceive him? Surely her kind and gentle husband would never have demanded she bear a child despite her fear. Or would he? “
You need only be honorable, faithful, and loving to our children.
” Clearly, his love hinged on her childbearing.

A quick knock, and her chamber door was flung open. Ankhe bent her knees to enter, balancing a large basket on her head with one hand, carrying a silver tray with the other.

Fruit, cucumbers, and an amphora of wine precariously slid to the edge of the tray. “Take this,” Ankhe said. Anippe jumped to obey, and Ankhe lowered the basket, showcasing its contents. “Three sacks of grain, two bundles of dried figs, thirteen raisin cakes, three hins of barley beer. The priests of Seth will be furious that we're sending a portion of their offering to Lady Hathor's temple in Dendara.”

Anippe set the tray aside, glaring at her sister. “The priests receive an offering—meaning I offer it to them. Besides, what can they do to me? Refuse to fill my water clock?”

She rolled her eyes, and Ankhe giggled—an unusual sound, like a rat's sneeze.

Anippe studied her. “Why are you so happy?”

Sobering, Ankhe plucked a date from the fruit tray and began nibbling. “I'm glad you're not pregnant, and I'm happy for a private bath. Those stupid Hebrew house slaves try to make me feel like one of them, but I'm not. I'm Pharaoh's sister.” Her passion rose with each word, bulging her neck veins.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them.

“I'm sorry, Ankhe.”

Her sister lifted stormy eyes. “I shouldn't have to be your handmaid, Anippe. You could change this.”

“I can't. What if Tut found out I released you against his command? We'd both be punished—perhaps lose our lives.” Did she believe that, or was she as guilty as the others of pressing Ankhe under her thumb? Regret seized her, and words slipped out before she considered their impact. “What would you do if you were no longer my handmaid?”

Ankhe's eyes brightened. “I would lounge by the river with you. We could talk of travel and marriage, and we could curse the old hens at Gurob.”

Pity surged when Anippe heard Ankhe's dream world. “How can we speak of travel when we've only been to Memphis and Gurob? How can we speak of marriage when I've known a husband for three months and you've never married?” She reached for Ankhe's hand. “Even as amira, I must be productive. Wouldn't you like to spin or weave? Maybe work in the gardens? Let's find something you enjoy but maintain the title of handmaid should Abbi Horem or Sebak return from battle unexpectedly.”

Ankhe removed her hand from Anippe's grasp and stared into the distance. Anippe waited, hoping for some kind of response—confirmation, disappointment, even a temper tantrum. Silence stretched into loneliness.

Finally, Ankhe painted on a smile and assumed a pleasant air. “Let's take our bath. You bring the scented oils for the ritual. I'll bring the fruit and wine.”

Anippe watched her go, a sense of dread creeping through her. Ankhe had stored up too much anger in her short life. If a spark ever caught fire, her rage might be unquenchable.

Mered made sure his morning duties took him near the river. He'd check the retting process of the flax—ensuring his workers removed every seed head with rippling combs before stalks were soaked. Avaris flax was planted, harvested, processed, and spun in shifts so that every step of the procedure was occurring at all times. A delicate process, to be sure, but not nearly as delicate as the one he'd witnessed this morning before leaving for the day's work.

Jochebed had chosen her best papyrus basket, large enough to carry her son. She and Amram coated it with tar and pitch to make it seaworthy, as God had instructed Noah to coat the ark generations before. They wrapped the babe in specially woven red-white-and-black-striped cloth to represent the Levites—their clan of Jacob's descendants.

Amram had gathered them all together and pronounced his blessing: “Let this child be wrapped in the promise of Israel. He is a son of Levites, son of Israel, the son of Isaac, the son of our father Abraham. We place him in this ark on the floodwaters—in the hands of God Almighty.”

Jochebed had then placed the basket under one arm and taken Miriam by the hand. She had planned to set the basket afloat near the craftsmen's village, where it would float past Qantir and to the Great Sea, but Mered's flax harvesters had already begun work along the shoreline—their slave drivers too alert to set Jochebed's basket a sail. Mered had watched the weary mother search for a
secluded spot, walking, walking, walking … until she passed the quay. Miriam followed her, pretending to help harvest reeds for basket making.

Mered had lost sight of them in the bulrushes south of the villa. He was certain Jochebed and Miriam could invent an excuse for their presence near the villa, but he'd searched in vain for a floating pitch-covered basket on the Nile.
Please, El-Shaddai, protect the babe who must now sail past Avaris and Qantir to the Great Sea.

The sound of wooden mallets hitting stone brought Mered back to the moment. Glancing upriver, he noticed additional guards posted near the amira's new privacy wall. Hebrew laborers had gossiped about the secluded bathhouse connected to the master's private chambers. No one had seen the amira since Master Sebak left—not even the workers. Some said her mind was addled. Some said she suffered morning sickness and would birth a Ramessid heir before harvest. Mered simply prayed her guards didn't notice a lone papyrus basket floating by.

He walked along the riverbank, checking water gauges for his report to the king's tax collectors. Yet all the while he kept hoping to see the small basket sailing past.
Oh please, El-Shaddai, hide the small vessel from Ramessid guards and reveal it to traveling merchants or foreign royalty.
If El-Shaddai could create the heavens and the earth, if He could give Abraham a son at age one hundred, surely He could shelter a tiny ark with such precious cargo.

Mered greeted the villa slaves as he walked among his linen workers along the shore. House slaves were seldom released to visit their families in the skilled or unskilled camps, so on days like this, Mered tried to station family members close to each other so they could at least complete their tasks side by side.

With his mind so thoroughly distracted, he meandered too close to the bulrushes and planted his left sandal in the deep black mud. He bent to retrieve the mired sandal and glimpsed a disturbance at the corner of Anippe's private wall.

“Lord God, no.”

It was little Miriam. Guards running toward her and shouting. Ankhe appeared from behind the new privacy wall and yanked the girl into seclusion, leaving the guards stunned—and retreating back to the shore.

“Get out!” Ankhe screamed at the guards. “This is the amira's private bathhouse, and no one comes past this wall. You'll feel your captain's strap if you come a step farther.”

“But the girl.” One of the Ramessids reached for the little Hebrew's arm, and Ankhe reached up and slapped him. Startled—then enraged—the soldier drew back his fist.

“Hit Pharaoh's sister and die, Ramessid.”

The guard hesitated. “What do you mean
‘Pharaoh's sister
'?”

“I am King Tut's and Amira Anippe's sister—fallen out of favor—but I assure you they will feed you to the crocodiles if you lay a hand on me.”

Anippe watched from the edge of the wall, staying hidden in the bulrushes. Ankhe had more courage than a hundred Ramessid soldiers.

The big guard shoved Ankhe. “Get behind the wall and take the Hebrew brat to Pharaoh's real sister.” He trudged toward shore in the waist-high water, and called over his shoulder, “The next Hebrew we keep for sport.”

Ankhe spit at his back and grabbed the little girl's arm to keep her head above water.

Anippe steadied the basket and moved back toward the bathhouse, giving Ankhe room to come around the privacy wall and introduce their little intruder. She heard a baby's cry from inside the basket and peeked inside.

Before she could inquire of the girl as to the basket's contents, she heard Ankhe scolding her. “Why are you playing in the bulrushes? Don't you know you could be eaten by crocodiles? Or worse, attacked by those soldiers?”

“Ankhe, she's frightened enough without your screaming. Bring her over here.” The girl had obviously followed the basket.

Anippe removed the lid for more than a peek. Black ringlets covered the baby's head. Pink cheeks and gums glistened as he wailed his disapproval. Real tears rolled from tightly pressed lashes, and she nearly wept with him.

“It's a Hebrew boy, Anippe.” Ankhe's flat tone proclaimed more than the obvious.

A Hebrew male
infant.
He should have been cast into the Nile weeks ago.
Months ago. Shiphrah and Puah should have killed him. If Anippe was loyal to her brother, she should drown him right now.

Anippe discarded his rough-woven Hebrew cloth and placed his naked body next to hers. Skin to skin, he nestled into her heart—and his crying ceased. Cooing. Quiet. Peaceful. He snuggled into the bend of her neck, and she felt his warm breath, steady and strong.

Life in her hands. Given by the gods. Without birthing pain. But with its own kind of danger.

She squeezed her eyes closed. Could she keep him? Deceive the whole world? Abbi Horem's warning screamed in her memory,
“Your husband demands your loyalty, Anippe, as do I.”
But wasn't she being profoundly loyal to give Sebak an heir while eliminating her risk of childbirth? She would love this child and make him Sebak's heir. It was the will of the gods.

“No, Anippe.” Ankhe's wary voice shattered Anippe's dream.

“What do you mean,
no
? Don't you see, Ankhe? Hapi, goddess of the Nile, has given us this gift. Our faithful offerings have finally produced some worth.”

Ankhe's disbelief was mirrored by the little Hebrew girl's awe. She openly appraised Anippe's bare form. “You're so … so … smooth.”

Her innocent comment loosened even Ankhe's pinched expression. Considering Hebrews were quite hairy by nature—even their women—a fully shaved Egyptian would seem quite a wonder. “I suppose I am smooth, aren't I?”

The girl nodded, riotous curls bobbing. Droplets of the Nile perched in her hair, remnants from Ankhe's splashing. The sun's rays made them glisten—as bright as the hope in her eyes. “Shall I get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the boy for you?” Her round brown eyes were identical to the baby's. She was probably his sister.

“You will not get a wet nurse.” Ankhe shoved the girl aside and lunged for the baby, but an ummi's instincts emerge quickly.

With a stiff right arm, Anippe seized Ankhe's throat—while her baby rested peacefully near her heart. “The girl asked
me
the question.” Seeing her sister's mouth gape but draw no air, Anippe released her and turned to the little Hebrew. “Yes, go. Ask Puah the midwife to accompany you and a wet nurse to the villa. Do you know Puah?”

The little girl nodded and smiled, revealing two missing front teeth.