“The staff into a snake,” said Jannes, “I’ve been doing that one for years. The snake back into a staff, that’s harder, but. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “I assume,” said Tuthmose,” that you’re speaking of the power of the gods.”

  “If the slaves are going to start showing off what their nameless invisible desert god can do, we plan to match them trick for trick,” said Jambres. “My father is an expert at helping the gods show their . . . presence.”

  “So you know that Moses has announced his intention of coming to see me.”

  “We were surprised that you didn’t have him killed,” said Jannes. “Isn’t he under sentence of death?”

  “Yes, well. . . .” Tuthmose stared off into space. “It’s not as if he poses any danger. The army is ready to slaughter Israelites should there be any rebellion. But my observers didn’t mention anything about the Israelites arming themselves.”

  “No,” said Jambres. “Incredible as it may sound, my informers insisted that Moses and his hot-headed brother Aaron utterly refused any idea of armed rebellion. They are going to let their god persuade you to let them go. In fact, Moses and Aaron told the tribal chieftains that you will beg them to go, and the people of Egypt will thrust gold and jewels upon the Israelites as gifts when they depart.”

  “Moses was a better general than he is a prophet,” said Tuthmose. “There’ll be begging, but it won’t be from any Egyptian.”

  Jambres made as if to speak, then said nothing.

  “The priest of Amon is shy before the god Pharaoh,” said Tuthmose.

  “Does a man counsel a god?” said Jambres.

  “You shouldn’t,” said Jannes. “The gods don’t need counsel.”

  “I take counsel all the time,” said Tuthmose.

  “But this is personal,” said Jambres.

  “I forgive you before you speak,” said Tuthmose.

  “Kill him now,” said Jambres. “Whatever game you’re playing is too dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? What, do you think the military will follow an Israelite traitor who’s been tending sheep in the wilderness all these years? Do you think I can’t crush any revolt he might raise? Do you think my guards won’t stand ready to stop any attempt at assassination?”

  Jambres nodded and looked at the floor.

  “Answer me!” said Tuthmose.

  Jambres sighed.

  His ancient father laughed. “I told you not to try,” said the old man.

  “Try what?” said Tuthmose.

  “To persuade you when your mind is already made up,” said Jannes.

  “Persuade me not to see Moses? Why! Do you think I don’t know the man, every corner of his mind? I was his best student. He didn’t know that—I pretended to be dimwitted, not to understand half what he said, so he wouldn’t see the danger that I posed. But I learned everything he had to teach. Do you think he can surprise me now?”

  “Of course not, Pharaoh,” said Jambres. “Thank you for forgiving me.”

  “No, I want your warning! I want to hear it so I can laugh at you later.”

  “But you have already answered my fears. I have no more. I am at peace with the wisdom of Pharaoh.”

  “Do you know what I think, Jambres? I think that whatever it was Moses did at that meeting, the sticks-and-snakes thing, you don’t believe it was a trick, the way your little demonstrations are. I think you’re afraid his god is more powerful than yours.”

  “God is God,” said Jambres. “Amon is the name for him here, and Ptah is also his name; he wears many faces in many lands. But behind all images and dreams and tales and powers of the gods there is the same creator god, the father of all. We know that this creator has stepped away, and left this world to the lesser gods. This nameless Israelite god might be one of those, or might be a name for the first God of gods. But the underlying power is the same. Can God be more powerful than God?”

  “Am I supposed to make any sense of this priestly nattering?” said Tuthmose.

  “You admired Moses as a child,” said Jambres. “You said so to me, even as you told me how you hated him.”

  “What I said then, I said as a little boy, not as a man, and certainly not as Pharaoh.”

  “But it is on the head of the little boy, and the man, and the Pharaoh, that the crown was set.”

  “You think I still admire Moses? He turned out to be weak. Soft-hearted. A follower, like one of those poor little calves or lambs the Israelites cut open and let bleed to death on their altars, back when they were still allowed to do that.”

  “I think you want him to admire you,” said Jambres.

  “Wrong,” said Tuthmose angrily. “I want him to see me where he thought to be! I want him to see all his ambitions fulfilled—but by me, while he’s a rustic, a pastoral clown. Admire me? No, I want him to see what he lost! I want to fill his heart with regret! I only wish he had come back before Hatshepsut died. He missed her by only a few weeks, isn’t that amusing? I wish he could have been here to see her, and then the next day, see her dead. But this is the next best thing. To see me in my glory, and know that he is nothing!”

  Tuthmose was standing now, roaring, his voice filling the empty hall. The last echo rang through the room after he stopped speaking. When it was still, Jannes bowed low, and Jambres bowed, if possible, even lower. “We must make ready,” said Jannes, “to match him power for power, to show him that Amon is as capable as his nameless god.”

  “Go on, get out,” said Tuthmose. “I wish I had been upriver at the palace in Thebes instead of down here in Memphis, so near to where the Israelites do their labor in the lowland mud. The stink is in my nostrils day and night.”

  They were already at the door, but Jambres turned and spoke. “Then why not let them go, when Moses asks?”

  “Hush,” said Jannes, looking terrified.

  “Because he is the one asking me,” said Tuthmose. “Is that what you expect me to say? Is that the kind of Pharaoh you think I am? Well, I am the god of Egypt, caretaker of this land. Do you think I don’t feel that as surely as that sanctimonious Hatshepsut ever did? I will keep the Israelites here because there are hundreds of thousands of them, and if we let them go, they would immediately be an enemy outside of Egypt, an enemy that knows every road, every city, every treasure house, every granary, and every military outpost in the Two Kingdoms. They will never leave Egypt. Egypt didn’t invite them here, but Egypt nurtured them and taught them and fed them and helped them become numerous, and Egypt will not let them go to stand outside our borders and spit on us.”

  The priests left, father and son. Feeble Jannes leaned on Jambres’s arm. When Tuthmose was young, he had envied them their closeness. A father training his son to become his replacement. Tuthmose’s father barely knew he existed. At first this hurt Tuthmose, for he was sure that this meant his father did not mean him to be Pharaoh. Later, he understood that what his father did required no training—play with the trappings of power, indulge the appetites of your body, and let usurpers do the real business of government and military leadership. His father’s every breath was a waste of air. That was why Tuthmose had arranged for his mother to learn the poisoner’s art from Mutnefert, and to use the knowledge to strike his father down. A bad father is a bad Pharaoh, that’s what Tuthmose understood. Jambres had a good father, who did his work well and taught his son with love and rigor. So he could honor the old man until his natural death.

  That was why Tuthmose had been so eager for his queen Sakhmet to bear him a son, which she did on the first try. Little Ptahmose had been a squalling nuisance for the first while, loud when he wasn’t inert. But gradually he became more like a human being, learning to smile, to play with his hands, to laugh. Then to walk, to speak a few words. A miracle every day, and every day Tuthmose went to him. No one but Isite ever saw how Tuthmose got down on his hands and knees to romp with the child. And not even Isite knew that when Tuthmose watched the baby nursing, he sometimes felt so bitter, for the more Tuthmose gave to his own child, the more he realized how easy it would have been for his father to do the same for him.

  The only one who ever showed any interest in him, who ever demanded that he become something, that he make use of his mind, that he meet some standard of achievement, that he obey any kind of rule, was a certain Israelite interloper who had no right to be in the house of Pharaoh in the first place.

  I will be the father I wish I had, that was Tuthmose’s iron resolve. My son will grow up knowing that the gods have smiled on him by giving him to me.

  As for Moses, I’ll show him that I learned all his lessons well. Every move he makes, I’ll counter exactly as he taught me to. I’ll cut his support out from under him. By the time I’m through with him, the Israelites will be eager to drive him back out of Egypt into exile—if they don’t kill him themselves. Let him see what a real son of Pharaoh can do with power.

  * * *

  In the morning Moses and Aaron set out together, staves in hand, to make the trek to the palace at Memphis. It was to be a journey of several hours, and they had to carry their dinner with them, since there would be no friendly house to take them in, and no innkeeper that would dare have them under his roof. Miriam saw them off from the door of her hut, laughing and singing as they departed. Neighbors looked on in awe, and Moses suspected that it was because they had never seen Miriam happy before.

  As they passed along the sledge road where the brick forms were hauled, the people looked up from their labors. There were no cheers, as there had been when Moses returned in triumph from Saba. Instead there were isolated cries: Go with God! God protect you! Let God deliver us from bondage! God is merciful!

  Moses stopped only once, where the workers were especially numerous, and murmured words to Aaron. Aaron stretched forth his arms and addressed them all in a booming voice. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”

  They repeated the phrase. Repeated it, chanted it behind them as they walked on toward the house of Pharaoh. Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

  * * *

  Pharaoh sat on his throne, but he did not even look up when Aaron preceded Moses into the hall. The old priest Jannes stood a few yards in front of Pharaoh.

  “The name of Moses was once familiar here. A common murderer, I think he was, who ran away to escape justice.”

  Moses murmured to Aaron, “Don’t play this game. We have a message.”

  “The Lord God of Israel,” said Aaron, “has sent his prophet Moses with a message for Pharaoh.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Jannes. “I heard of this god. I never quite understood—does he love his people, but hasn’t the power to free them? Or is he powerful, but hates Israel so much that he leaves them in bondage?”

  “Is Pharaoh ill,” said Aaron, “that he must send an old frog to croak for him?”

  All the assembled priests, officers, and courtiers went still as stone. Apparently no one had ever spoken to Jannes so rudely. Aaron worried that perhaps he had gone too far—but Moses had told him that he was to be scornful of everyone but Pharaoh himself, and was to speak to Pharaoh as an equal, not a superior. “You can handle scorn, can’t you?” Moses had asked. “I was born for this,” Aaron had replied. Now Aaron was having second thoughts. But he knew not to turn around and look at Moses—that would show weakness. If Moses wanted him to tone down the arrogance, he had only to ask.

  Pharaoh lifted his head and looked at Moses and Aaron for the first time. Aaron had not realized how young a man he was. He still had his youthful slenderness, and there was a sadness and a hunger in his eyes—just what Aaron would expect from someone so consumed with ambition that he had killed for it.

  “Pharaoh is a god,” said Jannes. “Why should he speak to you?”

  “Moses has heard the voice of the living God,” said Aaron. “There is no one else worth hearing.”

  Pharaoh spoke softly. Jannes turned and knelt to him as he listened to Pharaoh’s instructions. Then he arose and turned to the court. “In his magnanimity, Pharaoh is willing to hear your god’s petition.”

  That little show could not go unanswered, Aaron decided. He turned and knelt to Moses.

  “What are you doing?” asked Moses softly.

  “If Jannes kneels to Pharaoh, I kneel to the prophet.”

  Moses did not smile, but Aaron could see that he wanted to. So my little brother likes how I’ve gotten into the spirit of this. Aaron couldn’t help but be pleased, and he ignored the tiny stirrings of resentment at the thought of Moses condescending to him. Remember, Moses, Aaron said inwardly, I’m doing this for show.

  “You know the message,” Moses murmured.

  Aaron arose and, as he had done out in the brickyards that morning, he spread wide his arms and spoke loudly. “The Lord God of Israel has said, My people will have a feast to honor me!”

  Jannes replied at once. “If the slaves are planning a feast, clearly we have been giving them too much grain.”

  Aaron ignored the interruption. “Let my people go, the Lord has said, three days’ journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifice before the Lord.”

  Jannes turned and knelt again to Pharaoh. His answer, when it came, was intoned in the same declamatory style he had used before, but Aaron could hear the smug delight in his voice. “It is well known that Israelites are thieves and idlers, and Pharaoh knows that this is just a trick to get away from work. Pharaoh has been too generous and lenient with you. Since you have food to waste on feasts, your ration will be reduced, and you can eat those extra animals to keep up your strength. Since you have time to waste on sacrifices, you will no longer have straw delivered to you to help in the drying of the bricks. You must send men to fetch it yourselves. But your daily tally of bricks will stay the same. You can come present your petition again, if there are any Israelites left who still want to sacrifice.”

  Pharaoh arose from his chair and left the room.

  Immediately Moses whispered, “Let’s go.” Aaron followed him as he walked boldly but unhurriedly out of the hall.

  “How did I do?” asked Aaron, when they were outside.

  “Fine,” said Moses. “You have a flair for this.”

  “What now?” said Aaron. “They didn’t even try to negotiate.”

  “This is negotiation,” said Moses. “He’s trying to cut off our support. The plan is to get the Israelites so upset by the new rules that they send us back to beg Pharaoh to remove the extra burden. Or—and this is what he’d prefer—they repudiate us entirely and send other emissaries to beg forgiveness. Then, when we’ve lost all support or have abandoned our mission, he sends soldiers to arrest us and kill us. When we’re dead, Pharaoh mercifully restores the old work rules and he emerges stronger than ever.”

  “How do you know that’s his plan?” asked Aaron.

  “Because I taught him that myself. When faced with a rebellion, don’t attack the leader—that makes a martyr of him. Instead bring harm to the people he represents, and blame their own leader for it. Get them to turn against him, discredit the leader completely, and you don’t have to use a single soldier to bring down the rebellion. They’ll beg you to forgive them and take them back.”

  Aaron thought about this for a moment. “Explain to me now what our plan is.”

  “I don’t know,” said Moses.

  “You know his plan, and you don’t know ours?”

  “I’m just guessing, mind you, but I think that this is the part where you hold the Israelites together in spite of Pharaoh’s harassment.”

  “Me!”

  “You’re the one who understands the Israelites,” said Moses. “We have to get them to trust in God and stand firm with us.”

  “If I’d ever been able to get them to stand firm on anything, we’d be free already,” said Aaron.

  “This time it’s the Lord who’s leading them. If they won’t stand with the Lord today, they aren’t worthy to be free.”

  “But what can I promise them? If they stand firm now, things will get better?”

  “In all likelihood, they’ll get worse,” said Moses. “But they’ll see the hand of God reveal itself in due time. After they’ve proven their faith in God.”

  “It’s possible to have faith in God,” said Aaron, “and not have much faith in us.”

  “We’re the ones that God chose to do this,” said Moses. “If they repudiate us, they repudiate God.”

  “You don’t expect me to say that to them, do you?”

  “Why not?” said Moses. “It’s the truth. And even when it’s offensive, the truth still sounds good to godly men. If you try to deceive them or bribe them or threaten them or shame them, some will stand with you and some against you, just as they would with any other man. But if you tell them God’s plain truth, Aaron, they’ll feel it confirmed in their hearts by the spirit of God, and if they love God they’ll follow us.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Aaron, God promised me that I would celebrate with the children of Israel at the mountain of the Lord.”

  “Yes, but did he specify that you’d be doing this in the flesh? Or in the spirit, having died first?”

  Moses laughed. “Aaron, you’re the spokesman. Speak boldly.”

  * * *

  Miriam was used to people whining and complaining and doubting and raging, so as they began to gather around her house when at the end of the day’s work, she was not at all surprised to hear every possible nasty comment about those meddlesome fools, her brothers. Why did Moses return to Egypt, to make their lives even more miserable? To take away the last scraps of leisure in their lives? To make their children hungry? On and on and on. The choir of complaint. Someone bring a zither, we need to get everyone on the same note.

  By the time Moses and Aaron themselves returned, the crowd was surly and very large. The leaders of the other tribes were notable for their absence. Clearly they didn’t want to be around to face the outcry.

  So it was amusing to see how jaunty Moses and Aaron were as they strode along the road, planting their staves and pushing off with every other step. Hadn’t they heard what Pharaoh’s messengers had declared? About having to procure the straw instead of having it delivered? About the shorter rations?