Wayward Son (22 page)

“Why, then, have you cast your lot with Moses and his tribe of Hebrews?” Ramesses demanded sharply. His upraised right arm seemed to claw at the air, a tic that Cain had noticed long years before.

Caught off guard, Cain stared at the ruler blankly. With a snap of his fingers, the pharaoh commanded the palace guards to fling open one of the chamber’s side doors. To his amazement, Cain saw the attendants of Khaimudi lead in a dazed-looking little boy. It was Nefran, his young son.

“This is your son, your firstborn?” Ramesses’s reedy voice quivered between a question and a statement.

“He is mine, Pharaoh.”

“And he did not die. Death passed him over. You have sold yourself to Moses and his God. How else to explain the curious survival of your son?” Pharaoh then held up Cain’s contract and glared at him. “And in Egypt’s darkest hour, you would come to my court as a profiteer? You are a traitor, Seti!”

Cain was silent. How could he refute this accusation? Would the story of the deaths of Jacuna and Hati avail him? His own ingenuity had become the jaws of a hideous trap. By passing off Nefran as his firstborn in front of the Pharaoh, Cain had sealed his own doom.

“I could order your execution,” said Ramesses, painfully pulling himself up erect on the throne. “But your father Senejer served me well. And you bear the name of my own father. I will therefore exhibit more mercy than the Hebrew God. Seize him, guards!”

Cain was instantly surrounded. At his side, Khaimudi stepped away, smiling. Cain knew at once that his old friend had betrayed him, doubtless to curry Pharaoh’s favor and to seal an even more prestigious promotion.

“Your fate will be exile. Just as the Hebrew slaves will trudge through the sands and thornbushes of the wilderness, you will be bound and set adrift on a raft beyond the delta in the open sea. Thus will Egypt rid itself of traitors.”

Cain’s thoughts flashed back to the ark.

“Your stores of grain and plantations throughout Egypt shall be seized as the property of the state and distributed to the people. Now, guards, take the boy Nefran! Whatever your destiny, he shall not survive you, Seti. You, too, must bear the pain of losing a son.”

Cain’s tortured scream rang across the throne room as he and Nefran were led in bonds from the chamber, each in a different direction.

CHAPTER 26

The Nile Delta, circa 1230 BC

THEIR FACES GRIMLY DETERMINED, the pharaoh’s guards strapped Cain securely to the raft. Made of stout Phoenician cedar, it measured twelve by eight feet. With the raft in tow, the guard ship, rowed by a crew of thirty marines, made its way out into the lagoon toward the open sea. On one of the islets they passed, he could see three enormous Nile crocodiles sunning themselves in the sweltering heat.

Cain knew they were in the East Delta of the Nile, somewhere near the town of Bubastis. But all his questions of the guards had been met with a stony silence. When he had pronounced the punishment of exile, Ramesses had spoken of being set adrift on the open sea. The sentence was now being carried out. Only time would tell just where the crew would jettison the raft. Naked, Cain flinched as the brackish water stung the wounds on his back and legs where the guards had repeatedly flogged him.

The Nile was now in full flood. Cain knew that the strong river current might carry the raft twenty or even thirty miles out from shore. His chances of rescue would diminish with each mile, since seafarers of the day preferred to hug the shore for safety. Meanwhile, he had to contend with numerous, more immediate dangers, such as storms, hunger, thirst, sunstroke—and crocodiles.

“I should have seen it coming,” Cain thought with acid hindsight. What was more predictable than for Khaimudi to fortify his own position by denouncing Cain as a collaborator with the Hebrews? The charge of treason also allowed Ramesses to claim a treasure trove of supplies at no cost to the state. Both the king and the priest emerged as winners. Cain ruefully reflected that his taste for the halls of power, as well as his greed, had cost him dearly once again.

Not to mention little Nefran. He thought bitterly of how God had taken his beloved Jacuna’s life, and that of Hati, only to “spare” Nefran for what would probably turn out to be a far more ugly fate. How could God justify such deaths, but punish Cain with endless wandering? Or was there a higher purpose to God’s actions in Egypt? Moses, after all, had not been punished for his act of killing.

At least not yet.

They were now at the seaward margin of the lagoon. Cain could see large clusters of whiskered terns, shovelers, and cormorants combing the coastal sands. After loosening the towrope and casting off the raft, the guards murmured a few prayers with their arms stretched out to sea. Cain knew that they were beseeching the gods not to hold them accountable for his death.

Propelled by the Nile’s current, the guard ship made steady progress in the open water, where a freshening offshore breeze capped the waves with crests of white. As the raft bobbed in the sea, Cain could see that land was rapidly receding. At the crest of the next wave, he saw the guard ship in the midst of its turn back toward the coast. As the ship streamed past him, the oarsmen sat stone-faced at their benches, and the pharaoh’s guards pointedly turned their backs to him. It was as if he no longer existed.

It was now midafternoon. With no way to control the raft’s speed or direction, Cain reckoned that his only chance of survival was rescue by a merchant ship. Lying flat on his stomach was a crippling disadvantage, however. A ship might pass very near by the raft, but it was entirely possible in this turbid water that the crew would fail to spot him. Even if he were plucked out of the water, who was to say that such a rescue would be benign? Pirates, Cain well knew, were as common as merchants in these waters.

The powerful river current pushed the raft onward. As land became steadily more distant, Cain saw fewer and fewer birds overhead or in the water. At least the crocodiles had also been left behind, he thought. Still, there were other dangerous sea creatures that might be on the prowl. Cain knew that the Mediterranean was home to several dozen species of shark, some of them measuring over ten feet in length. It would be child’s play for such a predator to heave his raft into the air. He fervently wished that his recuperative physical powers would operate with greater than usual speed to heal the wounds on his back and legs and stanch the flow of blood.

Night descended quickly. At the dark of the moon, the blackness was absolute, and Cain’s only companion was the wind, which blew ever harder. A rare summer storm was brewing. He would have to discipline himself to hold his breath at the trough of each wave in order to avoid swallowing too much seawater. Only at the crests could he breathe freely. It became a monotonous, repeated alternation: trough and crest, trough and crest.

And there was no end in sight.

As the eastern horizon began to lighten, Cain was surprised by two things. The first was that he was still alive; the second was that he could move more freely. Countless soakings of warm seawater had loosened the bonds that lashed him to the raft. Perhaps that was one mistake the guards had made, he thought. This time of the year, the sea was usually placid. His captors had probably anticipated that the prisoner, held immobile in place, would die of hunger, thirst, or exposure before the ropes would begin to disintegrate.

Wriggling free of the restraining bonds, Cain experienced fresh optimism. But his hopes were short-lived. No sunrise adorned the eastern sky. Instead, the dreary firmament glimmered fitfully in gray walls of water stretching to every horizon. The wind, if anything, grew heavier, and it started to rain.

His bonds had been a blessing in the rough sea, Cain now realized—at least they had ensured that a giant wave could not sweep him off the raft.

Just as that realization dawned on him, an oversize swell crested and crashed down on the tiny vessel. With a slamming thud that propelled him into a grotesquely elegant trajectory, he found himself lifted into midair and then plunging toward a yawning trough. When he had shaken the seawater from his eyes, mouth, and nostrils, the raft was nowhere to be seen. He began to tread water, but the struggle against the towering waves and gale force winds quickly wore him down. His head bobbed lower and lower as he swallowed more seawater.

“Oh God,” he cried inside. “Oh God, is death by drowning what you have saved me for all this time?”

Utterly exhausted, Cain’s head slipped beneath the surface as he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER 27

New Hampshire, Sixteen Years Ago

AMANDA SCANNED THE STORM-TOSSED waves from a great height, searching in vain for any sign of Cain. Was this the end of her vision? Would she continue to soar upward until she left the world of Cain entirely?

Instead, she suddenly seemed to rush toward the water, and even as she plummeted, the tumultuous waves morphed into a glassy smooth surface. She was no longer looking at the sea, but rather at a lake surrounded by the glorious ambers, reds, and greens of early autumn. With only sparse wisps of cirrus clouds high overhead, Amanda could feel the sun’s warm rays penetrating the cool air.

A dock came into view, and as she traced it toward the shore, she recognized the log cabin home of her grandparents on Lake Winnipesaukee in eastern New Hampshire. Familiar voices began to reach her ears, and then she was inside the cabin, watching a young girl tap gently but insistently on the blue jeans of Roger James.

“Dad, can I go down to the dock?” begged the pigtailed preteen.

“Uh…sure, but be back in fifteen minutes. Grandma is setting the table in the front yard for a picnic lunch,” her dad said. Inching a bit farther under the sink to position his pipe wrench on the leaky drain, Roger smiled to himself. Amanda had been virtually glued to him during the past week since the funeral services down the street. He felt relieved that his grief-stricken daughter was finally willing to venture out on her own. And on a small island, she could not get lost.

“Take Ruby along with you, sweetie. She needs to get out of the house,” he added, referring to the Irish setter who lounged at his feet, chewing on an old tennis ball.

“Thanks, Dad.” Amanda grabbed the ball and opened the screen door. “Come on, girl, let’s go!” Ruby sprang to her feet, eyes fixed on the yellow object as her tail lashed back and forth in eager anticipation. Amanda hurled the ball down the pebbly trail leading to the shoreline, and Ruby shot out of the cabin in pursuit of her bouncing prey. The spring-loaded door slammed behind her as she gave chase.

Amanda and Ruby soon arrived at the low-slung dock that jutted about fifty feet onto the lake. Located on Bear Island, the second largest of the hundreds of cays that dot New Hampshire’s most scenic lake, this quaint property had been in the family for generations. Amanda came here with her parents every summer and occasionally in winter for as long as she could remember. Except for this trip, the memories were very fond.

Crossing the lake to the island had always been fun. Depending on the season, Bear Island was either a short ride in a small motorboat or a breathtaking dash by snowmobile across the thick ice. However, this visit required a ferry large enough for the many relatives who accompanied Amanda, her father, and Jennifer James’s casket on the short, somber voyage.

The chapel and graveyard on the island were both tiny, yet the service was packed with dozens of distant relatives, people Amanda either barely remembered or did not know at all. They kept telling her how sorry they were for her. It seemed everybody was sorry.

She recalled the moment after the guests exited the chapel and the family was invited for the final viewing. Through tears, her father gazed at his beloved Jennifer one last time, but Amanda looked away. She simply could not tolerate that ghastly image of her mom as her final memory.

That was a week ago, and all the strangers and relatives had left a few days later, giving Amanda, her dad, and her grandparents some time alone. On the night after the funeral, her father called her out to the cabin’s front porch and gave her a surprise gift, handing her a light blue box. She opened it to find a heart-shaped gold locket containing a tiny black-and-white picture of her mom. Her father wanted her to have it, and Amanda obliged him, but she carried it around in her pocket. Somehow it didn’t feel right looped around her neck, at least not yet.

Torn by these remembrances, Amanda distracted herself by throwing the ball toward the end of the dock and seeing if the fleet-footed setter could retrieve it before it dropped into the water. Three straight successes, but then Ruby froze halfway up the dock on the fourth attempt, wheeling around into a pointing stance and growling in the direction of the woods. As the tennis ball splashed over the distant edge, Ruby raced past Amanda and disappeared into the trees.

Figuring a squirrel had gotten the better part of the dog’s attention, Amanda walked to the end of the dock and sat down. She dangled her feet over the side, her tennis shoes just barely above the surface of the water. A couple of months earlier, the rusty swim ladder to her left would have beckoned, but the water temperature was now too cold for a comfortable swim.

With barely a breath of wind near the tree-sheltered shoreline, the lake surface directly in front of her looked like a polished mirror. In the distance, Amanda could see the breeze drawing tiny cat paws across the water, yet they seemed to fade before they reached the dock.

The old icehouse on the distant shore brought a thin, brief smile to her face as she recalled her grandpa’s oft-repeated story of the historic landmark, one of many such structures ringing New England’s lakes and ponds. In the late 1800s, ice blocks could be sold in the summer for a small fortune in New York and Boston. Today, this relic across the lake still stood as a tourist attraction to support the locals.

Amanda shifted position and flopped over onto her belly to watch the tadpoles jetting around just below the surface. She squirmed and reached into her pocket and removed the locket. She flicked it open and shut repeatedly, testing the grip of the tiny clasp. She tried to imagine her mom being there with her. She stared at the picture, wondering what her mom was doing and where she was when the photo was taken. Trying to recall the sound of her voice, Amanda drew a blank. How could the memories of her mother be fading already?