Sunrise on the Mediterranean (35 page)

THE DESERT

“
T
ODAH
,” C
HEFTU SAID
distractedly to the slave. The other slave, he reminded himself. Until the gold was dug up, loaded, and given to Dadua, Cheftu
was nothing more than a slave, despite his missing ear chains.

He looked out on the landscape. Not even a lizard crawled beneath the blazing sun, no breeze stirred, and the very air smelled
sulfuric.

Squinting against the light, seeing into the distance, he saw that it made no difference; there was nothing but the same terrain.

The Salt Sea stretched beside them, blue green water that reflected the sky. No fish swam in its waters, no animals lapped
at its shore. Chunks of rock, fantastically shaped crags of salt jutted up from the waters, littered the shoreline. Even the
breeze carried the sting of salt in it.

For one more day they would walk through the blazing heat beside these waters that offered no refreshment. To his west, the
hills were distant and flat topped, riddled with rocks, homes for mountain lions and wild goats. And brigands.

Cheftu looked back at the assembled caravan: seventy of the finest families’ sons, thirty of their slaves, one hundred donkeys,
a handful of priests, N’tan, and himself. Prime plucking for a team of brigands, especially on the return trip. Once again
he considered that bringing the gold through the desert was not a smart way to transport it, not unless they had an army escort.

The sun would soon set, and they would walk some more. In an effort to acclimatize the men, especially those from the cooler
hills of Jebus and the Galil, they were walking at night. It also made the lack of wine and sex less apparent when the men
woke at dusk and fell asleep at dawn.

Cheftu wished his body and mind were so easily retrained. He could be nearly dead and would still want his wife, not solely
for physical release, but because his home was with her, within her. He sipped some beer, lukewarm, then got to his feet,
pulling his thoughts from Chloe. Something unsettled him about this journey; something wasn’t right.

His gaze raked the far hills, washed in the dying light. They were being watched, but by whom he didn’t know. He wished he
had a blade; but only freemen did.

“I will give you one,” N’tan said, stepping beside him, discerning his thoughts.

“
Adon
,” Cheftu acknowledged the
tzadik.
Nathan, of the Bible; it was too much to believe at times. “How may I assist?”

The prophet twisted his beard with long brown fingers, his eyes narrowed against the sun. “What is your name?”

“You know my name.”

“Chavsha is not your name, Egyptian. What is your name?”

Cheftu felt a prickle of nerves but said nothing. He might have been called on his falsehood, but he was unwilling to share
the truth. N’tan waited in silence.

“When you give me your name, tell me how you came to be a slave in Ashqelon, then I will entrust you with a blade.”

“That seems an unfair price,
adon
,” Cheftu said coldly. “Trade my spiritual defense for a physical one?”

“It will reveal which world you fear most,” N’tan said, turning to walk away.

“What is
your
true name,
adon
?” Cheftu asked, irritated. N’tan turned to him. “If you are who I think you to be, then you know my name. You know my family,
my forebears. If you are not, then I will not reveal myself to you.”

Cheftu stood rooted, looking at this slightly built and dark-eyed man with long, curling hair and long curling beard. N’tan
half smiled. “See what is, not what you hold to be.” His smile vanished at Cheftu’s confused frown. “Move out, slave.”

Cheftu picked up his belongings and stepped onto the path that would lead to his freedom.

WASET

R
A
E
M
STARED at the counting chart. It was hopeless. There was no food for Egypt. There was barely food for the royal family! Crops
had failed nationwide. The floodwaters had barely dampened the soil. Without the tears of the Nile, there was no black land,
only the encroaching red of the desert.

She had found old storehouses, sealed with the cartouche of Amenhotep. When the doors were opened, soldiers had picked up
torches and preceded her.

Into emptiness.

Nothing remained. Not a stalk, not a kernel, not a seedling. There was no food.

Akhenaten had said aye, of course they had eaten it. RaEm swallowed hard, recalling that he was Pharaoh, she was here on his
sufferance; even though she was co-regent, it was a status that could change any moment.
Aii
, how could this have happened?

Instead she had pledged her body to him in yet another letter while her mind sought a plan, a path. Once she would not have
cared if everyone around her starved and died, as long as she was well. Then she had woken in another place and time, terrified
of being in the dark, covered in blood, fearing for her life.

The pouch on her back had yielded nothing that she understood. A box that spoke, but how had the person gotten inside it?
A thick pad of papyrus, but much better hammered than she’d ever before seen. Something oblong that smelled like food and
proclaimed to be a “5th Avenue.” Though she could read the words, they meant nothing.

Every nightmare had come true when she’d opened a round, flat case. From inside it, a
kheft
, a demon, had stared at her, red hair waving like flames around a face whiter than the papyrus, with bulging brown eyes beneath
bloodstained brows.

Now, safely in Egypt, RaEm touched her skin, assuring herself: brown. Her head was shaved, but her brows were black. She was
safe. Temporarily banished from Akhenaten’s side, but safe.

Then, however, fearing she was in the afterlife, she had shrieked, thrown the circle away, and cowered in the darkness, waiting
for the bite of fangs and nails.

“It’s okay,” she’d heard in her mind as she’d trembled violently. Nothing had happened. She’d peeked over her arms. The
kheft
hadn’t come after her. Hugging the ground, she had crept up on the round, flat case, trying to see if the
kheft
was still in there or if it had flown free. She saw nothing except the ceiling and a light shining in from a distant opening.
After she had circled it, realized it was safe, she’d reached out to seal it—

The
kheft
had returned! It stared boldly at her. RaEm screamed, clipping the case shut, sealing the demon inside. Then she saw her
skin. The demon had poxed her! Spots of brown and reddish pink ran up and down her arms. She looked at her legs; they too
were covered! “HatHor!” she had screamed.

RaEm never felt a part of Chloe’s world. Even when she learned the box that talked was a CD player; the 5th Avenue was a candy
bar for “snacking”; the pad of papyrus was Chloe’s sketchbook; and the “demon” she saw was none other than her own reflection
in the mirror of an Estée Lauder compact—still, she was lost.

Slowly things had begun to enter her mind, but they were hard to comprehend, for she had no rational memories, no way to link
what she heard to anything that she already knew. Everything was bigger, complicated. Even the people, the emotional memories
she had, confused her. Eventually she had found her way into Chloe’s life, but it was months and months before she began to
understand The Future. She’d never thought of “the future” before … there was no future, only the present and then the afterlife.

Trapped in a hospital bed, surrounded by confused doctors who asked questions she didn’t know how to answer— “Why are you
in Egypt?”

“Where is your father now?”

“Pick up this pencil and draw for me, please”—had made it worse. Her nightmares were awful; she awoke screaming every time
she closed her eyes. When she woke up, however, the nightmare was real. She had become a
kheft.

Finally the nurses tired of her. They “turned on” the black box in the ceiling and left her alone. There was no way to turn
it off; she couldn’t even reach it when she stood beneath it. So she’d begun watching Sky TV.

When finally she’d realized what had, impossibly, happened, she’d stepped hesitantly into the world. Now that she had more
images, more knowledge, and understood the little bit of Chloe Kingsley who remained in her mind, she could grasp what was
being said or done.

She never felt at ease. Her very skin repulsed her. She tried to find Egypt in the dark-eyed people who now lived in the Nile
valley, but Egypt was lost. Terrified to leave the red and black lands, RaEm had swallowed her pride and begged forgiveness
from Phaemon, the lover she’d tried to murder, the man she’d pulled through time with her.

At least she wasn’t alone.

There were fabulous things about the future. Electricity, neon, cheese that came in so many different flavors. Condoms. High
heels. Magazines. TV. Nothing was hers, though.

RaEm looked over the empty audience chamber. Empty because this was a feast day for Amun-Ra, the outlawed god of Waset. She
was seated on the throne of Egypt. The crook and flail fit in her hands. Hatshepsut had sat here; now she did. It was hers.
Egypt was hers. RaEm had to preserve it or it might vanish and she would be left alone again.

But Egypt’s murderer was RaEm’s beloved, her lover, her brother.

She considered her choices again: her lover or herself?

MAMRE

T
HERE WAS NO DIRECT TRANSLATION for my words:
Duh!
Also, it probably wouldn’t be the best etiquette. So I settled for a complacent nod.

“You heard
haMelekh
’s challenge a few weeks ago,” Yoav said, getting up and pacing. Out of battle attire, wearing the one-sleeved tunic dress
of the Israelites, he looked as though he might rip through the woven fabric and gilded fringe, he was so beefy. “Whoever
gets into the city of Jebus wins the position of
Rosh Tsor haHagana
forever. I want that position.”

Big surprise.

He turned to face me. “You will get this position for me.” That was surprising. “Me? How, how can I … ?” I looked at Avgay’el.
Her dark gaze was calculating, which made me wonder what she got out of this, why she was here.

Yoav turned away, pacing the room again. “Blind and lame can get in,” he said.

The hair on my neck rose. He wasn’t going to suggest they blind and deafen me, was he? Instinctively I stepped back.

“Put your eyes back in your head,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I know rumors of a waterway that runs from outside
the walls to the main city well.”

“A waterway?” I repeated, trying to understand him.

“A woman, only a woman, will be allowed to the well,” Avgay’el said to me.

I remembered the jar I’d carried all afternoon. “What has this to do with me?”

Yoav ran a finger over his mustache. “You are a woman, a clever woman.”

My cheeks heated, even though I knew he was using his flattery for a reason.

“Moreover, I have what you want.” He faced me, legs braced, shoulders straight, his body a perfectly proportioned specimen.
“Your freedom.”

“I do not know what you mean,” I said, trying to appear calm.

“When your husband returns, he will be free.” I said nothing.

“This is a chance for you also to be free.”

“You want me to go into the city of Jebus?” I said. “As a well woman?”

“Ken.”

“And do what?”

“Give me the city.”

“I’m going to overpower the guards? Open the city gates?” I hoped my tone of voice revealed my disdain for his plan. “One
woman alone, you must be mad!”

His green eyes flashed at me. “Be wary what you say,
isha.
Your tongue will land you in trouble if you aren’t.”

You’re a slave, Chloe. Slave. S-l-a-v-e. Think of all those harem women with their petty demands, all those pitted dates.
Slave! Behave like one!
I bit my tongue. “What would you have me do?”

“Go from the well, down through the waterway, and lead us in.”

“What kind of waterway?” I repeated. Were these sewers we were discussing?