“He’d be hanged from the prow of my boat.”

  She looked horrified. “No! Please tell me you’re not so barbaric!”

  “Not if he’s new. If he’s in training, he gets a taste of the lash. But a soldier doesn’t betray his men. Are these sheep my men?”

  “They are,” said Zeforah. “Or at least, you can think of them that way if it helps you.”

  “Fat ewes with nursing lambs. Well, they’re like soldiers this far—they get drunk every chance they get.”

  She laughed. And so did he. For a moment, at least, it felt as though they were on the same side.

  The same side of what?

  “Suddenly you look so sad,” she said.

  The words surprised him. No, not the words, but real concern in her voice, and the ache that struck his heart, the feeling that tears would come to his eyes if he let them. He turned away from her.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  I don’t know, he thought. Am I so weak that even the slightest sympathy stabs me to the heart? In Egypt, I wasn’t surrounded by affection—it was honor I had there, and obedience. Why should I miss it so much now?

  “I didn’t mean to make you angry,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m not used to. . . .”

  She waited but he couldn’t think what it was he wasn’t used to so he never finished the sentence. He returned to herding the last of the drunken ewes back to the meadow where the rest were gathered.

  He saw how desperately the lambs lunged for the teat, nearly knocking over their unsteady mothers. That’s me, he thought. That’s the pain that I didn’t expect. Neither of my mothers was ever allowed to be mine the way these ewes belong to their lambs. I grew up with plenty of people telling me how to be a man, how to be strong and wise and good. But that tone of voice, gentle, concerned, and those words, Suddenly you look so sad, as if it mattered to someone how I felt.

  What a baby I am. Cut off from Egypt, I’ve come here to the desert to become, not even a shepherd, but a lamb.

  “All done,” said Zeforah.

  “All that work because I couldn’t get my mind off. . . .”

  She waited a moment, then laughed. “Is this going to be another of those sentences that remains a mystery? ‘I’m not used to . . . ’ and now ‘I couldn’t get my mind off. . . . ’ Or are you just . . . hesitating extra long?”

  For a moment anger flashed within him. She was jeering at him! Nobody mocked his stammering!

  But these girls all teased each other. It was their primary manner of conversation. The same attitude that let her speak to him with warmth and sympathy also let her tease him. An attitude of . . . intimacy. Like a sister with her brother. That’s why it hurt so much when she was so readily kind. He had plenty of sisters and brothers. Not just the ones by blood, Miriam and Aaron, but also his adopted brothers and sisters in Pharaoh’s house—the children of Tuthmose II by his concubines. He had been teacher and taskmaster to the children of Pharaoh’s house; he had been lectured and whined to by Miriam and Aaron. But no one had been like this with him.

  Except his fellow soldiers. The boys who trained with him when he was a child. Of course they knew who he was, but they were freer with him than anyone else ever was, before or since, and he missed it. That’s why it hurt, because he had lost that when he became a ruler of men. The closest he had ever come to having a family was in the exercise yard with a wooden sword in his hand. And now, helping drunken ewes regain their balance. With a young woman who would never have earned a second glance from him in his previous life.

  More fool I, if that were so, he thought. Because she is real, more real than any of the daughters and sisters and mothers and wives of noblemen, always trying to impress me. She really doesn’t care whether I approve of her or not, because she has nothing to gain from me. She just . . . likes me.

  “Now I’ve offended you,” she said.

  “I wasn’t sure how to answer you,” he said. “Tease you back, or finish those sentences.”

  “Are you giving me a choice?” she said.

  “I think so,” he said. “I’m not good at either one, though. Out of practice with teasing, and I’ve spent my whole life learning how to speak carefully instead of candidly. You can see how much I’m slipping—because I spoke the beginnings of those sentences aloud.”

  “What was it,” she said, “that you weren’t used to?”

  “Affection,” he said, for now he was sure that was what it was.

  But it was the wrong word. Her eyes went wide. “Thank heaven my sisters couldn’t hear you say that!”

  So affection was too strong a word for her. This was becoming more and more like a negotiation between ambassadors. “What should I call it then? The way you spoke to me? Friendship. Brotherhood.”

  “I wouldn’t know about brotherhood. I just spoke to you . . . like a person.”

  “Now who’s hesitating?”

  She slapped at him playfully. He laughed. She slapped again, and this time caught him a glancing blow across the cheek. His hand, by reflex, lashed out and caught her wrist in a hard grip. At once the smile left her face and her body froze. Just a moment too late he let go of her arm. Her skin had been cool and warm, both at once, in his hand.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Soldier’s training.”

  “All right,” she said. “No hitting. I’ve learned that rule.”

  “Anyway, you see what happens when I finish my sentences? I was right to leave it as a mystery.”

  “What was it you couldn’t get your mind off?” she said.

  “That’s easy. I was sitting there thinking through all the awful things that were bound to be happening in Egypt because I went into exile. How my mother—the Pharaoh, Hatshepsut—how she would be crippled, forced to take an obnoxious boy and give him the double crown. And the Israelites—it’s bound to go worse with them, now that I’ve proven myself to be disloyal to Egypt after having the best that Egypt can give a man.”

  “What a heavy burden to bear,” she said.

  “Heaviest because there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Then it’s not your burden, is it?” she said.

  “The opposite is true. The burden is heavier precisely because I can’t do anything about it.”

  “The guilt is heavier,” she said. “But think about it, Moses. None of the bad things that you’ve mentioned are caused by your leaving. They were always there, waiting to happen. That boy you don’t like—”

  “Tuthmose the third.”

  “Did you conjure him into being? I thought I heard you telling Father that he had already been conspiring with the priests. Had already been anointed.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And as for the Israelites, they were already slaves, weren’t they?”

  “There’s slavery and then there’s slavery.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” she said, “but it still seems to me that you didn’t cause any of these bad things. It seems to me that you were preventing them as long as you were there, but one way or another, they were going to get rid of you someday anyway, and those same things would have happened, only maybe worse.”

  He could only stare at her in astonishment. She was more like Hatshepsut or Miriam than he could have imagined, for her analysis, though based on only the most rudimentary understanding, was correct. He laughed.

  “Oh, now I’ve made a fool of myself.”

  “The opposite, the opposite,” he said. “You’ve made a fool out of me.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not it either. You’ve made me wise, that’s what you’ve done.”

  “Well, now that I’ve solved your stupidity problem, what’s next?”

  “I wasn’t being stupid. I was being vain. Thinking that I caused things that have always been there. Pharaoh’s house has been plagued with politics since before I was born. The very idea of having a woman as Pharaoh is shocking enough—I’m the least of her problems. I helped her last as long as she has, and with the priests conniving against her she couldn’t last forever anyway. And when I was born they were killing Israelite babies.”

  She looked shocked. “Oh! They won’t start that again now, will they?”

  “I doubt it. The ones who hate Israelites didn’t much like what came of that the last time.”

  “What came of it?”

  He laughed wryly. “Me.”

  “You were supposed to be killed?”

  “My mother put me in a basket lined with pitch and set me afloat on the Nile. I could have been tipped out by a crocodile or taken in by some poor family and raised, or caught by the mob and drowned. Instead . . . Pharaoh’s daughter took me out of the water and named me ‘Son.’”

  “What a magical story.”

  “A true one, anyway.”

  “So why are you sad?” she said. “Why do you spend your days mourning whenever we aren’t actually throwing lambs at you?”

  “Is that what I do?” he asked.

  “Everyone is trying to be nice to you because of all that you’ve lost.”

  “How kind.” He didn’t know whether he liked having their pity.

  “All but Keturah. She says that you’re being childish about it because you grew up having more than anybody has any right to expect, and when it ended you could have been killed in Egypt or died on the desert but you’re still alive so it’s like you have a second chance on life if you’d just stop sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “She said such a long speech? Practically an oration.”

  “Word for word.”

  “And you memorized it.”

  “She said it often enough, I couldn’t help it.” Suddenly she burst into laughter. “Look at you! Taking me so seriously!”

  “I don’t know how else to take you.”

  “Not seriously.”

  “Why not? Aren’t you serious?”

  Now it was her turn to look flustered. “I meant. . . . I mean, yes, I’m serious, but not grim. You’re supposed to . . . I don’t know . . . laugh and pretend you think I’m joking but then really hear what I said and think about it.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, voice flat, as if he were reading badly, like a schoolboy. “What a tease you are.”

  She laughed again. “There. That’s it. Now I don’t feel like I’ve offended you.”

  “You’ve never offended me.”

  “Then what were all those silences about?”

  “I wasn’t offended.”

  “Don’t lie,” she said.

  “I wasn’t offended. I was . . . surprised.”

  “Don’t fib, either.”

  “Embarrassed.”

  “Now we have at least the shadow of truth.”

  “As if you knew what really happened in my heart.”

  “I do know,” she said. “Your face is so easy to read.”

  “Is it? A woman who thinks reading is easy?”

  “It is easy. And reading faces is easier yet. Men’s faces, at least. Father’s and yours, anyway.”

  “Then why do you need me to tell you why I fell silent?”

  “Because I want to be the kind of friend you tell the truth to.”

  He thought about that for a moment. Why should he be so afraid of this? “I was hurt,” he said. “I was . . . grieving.”

  Suddenly the playfulness left her face. “I know,” she said.

  “Not for Egypt,” he said. “That was earlier. When you spoke to me, I was grieving because. . . .”

  “And again his voice is lost amid the bleating of the sheep.”

  “Because I wished someone had spoken to me like that all my life.”

  “I would have, but you never invited me over to your house.” She smiled.

  He wanted to ask her, Did God take me out of Egypt so I could find you? Did he see what was missing in my life and force me to go to the one place where I could find it?

  Instead, being foolish and timid, he didn’t say those things. Instead he teased her back. “Well, if your father has his way, we’ll have our whole lives together for you to make up for it.”

  But it didn’t work as he had thought it would. There was no answering laugh, no playful slap. Instead her face froze and she turned away from him. “You may be sure that you’ll have no such burden added to those you already carry, sir.”

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing, sir,” she answered.

  “What’s this ‘sir’? Am I supposed to pretend he didn’t as much as offer you to me the first night I got here?”

  She turned around to him with fire in her eyes. “Father can offer all he likes,” she said, “but he offered what wasn’t his to give.” And she stalked away from him.

  Almost at once the other girls emerged as if from hiding. Not “as if”—they were hiding, of course, quite aware that some kind of scene was being played out, and now that Zeforah had clearly put an end to it, they had to know what it was he said or did to make her walk off in such a sulk. She was rejecting their inquiries, of course, but he could only imagine what report might make its way to Jethro.

  One thing he had learned: It wasn’t just former sons of Pharaoh who didn’t like to have their pride nicked.

  * * *

  On the surface it was a celebration—Tuthmose’s investiture as Pharaoh. To the people it made no difference that because the new Pharaoh was so young, Hatshepsut would continue to guide the kingdom in his name. What mattered was the spectacle, the majesty of gods made flesh among men. What did they know of this boy? The man they knew, Moses, turned out to be an Israelite after all, treacherous, slaveborn; Tuthmose III was of the house of Pharaoh by blood, and now the kingdom was in order again. So the people gladly cheered the processions on land and down the river. Gladly they joined in the prayers and rituals, and gladly they received the extra portions of grain distributed for the grand occasion.

  As for Tuthmose himself, the spectacle meant little. He did his part, making sure the people got their view of majesty. Those in the know were aware that he had very little power, was virtually a prisoner in that he could only go where Hatshepsut gave him permission to go, could only see those she wanted him to see. Only he, Hatshepsut, and—if he still lived—Moses knew that Tuthmose had a bit more going for him than appearances would suggest. He had clout enough even now to insist that his mother be allowed the freedom to come and go from him as she liked, and he insisted as well that the priests Jannes and Jambres be permitted to minister to his spiritual needs. To these requests Hatshepsut acceded, but only after Tuthmose made it a life-or-death ultimatum: Let him have free access to these three, or the only way he’d go through the public investiture was as a corpse. No matter that he had to fight to win even these pathetic concessions. What mattered was that Hatshepsut didn’t want him to have his way, and she had given in.

  What a weak and womanly thing to do! If she had any brains at all, she would have had Tuthmose killed the moment Moses fled into exile, and claim that Moses murdered him. Then she would have had no rival to share the throne with her, and Moses’ exile would have done her some good. Instead, she nattered on about how one must act for the good of Pharaoh’s house, and since, loathsome as he was, he was the only credible heir, she had to leave him alive. Why? An heir became important only when the king died. Why should the king, being dead, care who came after him, unless it were his own child? She had none; therefore her line ended with her. Yet she still acted as if she had some obligation.

  Well, she had one duty, and one alone: To die, not today, but when Tuthmose was old enough to take the reigns of power without the risk of civil war. If she happened to die naturally, that would do; but die she would, and it would be called natural, for what was nature but the will of the gods? And Pharaoh was one of them.

  Pharaoh. That is who I am, thought Tuthmose. Pharaoh after my father. He might have been weak enough to let a woman rule above him; so am I, now, while I’m still a child. But he was content to live in shameful submission throughout his adult life. Not that he held it against Hatshepsut for humiliating his father. If Hatshepsut was the stronger, the more ruthless, the more innately gifted by the gods, then she should rule; if Tuthmose II could be dominated, then he was no Pharaoh.

  But I am not my father, he thought as the double crown was lowered onto his head by the hands of the woman he would someday bury. I will seem to be just like him, weak and compliant, until Hatshepsut dies or my position is strong enough with the army and the priests to make my move.

  His only sorrow was the Moses was not here to see his triumph. Moses, the very model of a man, the perfect son, the perfect teacher, the perfect heir. It was against Moses that Tuthmose always measured himself—his strength, his beauty, his magnanimity, his leadership in battle, his cleverness in tactics, his smoothness in judgment. From earliest childhood Tuthmose had known that he must learn to be everything that Moses was, with one exception: He would not have that fatal sentimentality that made him hold back from the brutality of power. He would not have let the treacherous princess of Saba live! Her disloyalty would have been punished by bringing her dead body home, hanging from the prow of his river barge. Nor would he have restrained himself from killing a young rival who dared to let a priest anoint him as Pharaoh. Oh, it would have been such a pleasure to have Moses there on the day of Hatshepsut’s death, so that he could see how well his student learned from him. He had pictured it so often: Moses on his knees, too proud to beg or weep or even tremble in fear, looking into the eyes of his master Tuthmose III as the man behind him twisted the cord around his neck and strangled the life out of him. Now Tuthmose would have to forego the sweetest fruit of triumph—proving to Moses on his very body which of them was the stronger man.

  Down the river in glory rode Tuthmose III, still a child in the eyes of the people cheering on both banks of the Nile, clearly under the power of Hatshepsut. But he knew their eyes saw something else as well: That she was a woman and should never have shamed the crown by wearing it; that he was young and would outlive her. How soon that day would come, they couldn’t guess.