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
254
Dreamers
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.
Angela Hunt
255
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
256
Dreamers
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
Angela Hunt
257
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.
258
Dreamers
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?”
Angela Hunt
259
“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.”
260
Dreamers
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