“All I think about is, what strange new marvel will happen next?”

  “Well I can’t let them go. And even if I could, I wouldn’t!”

  “Then don’t complain to me when the child cries because there are bugs crawling all over his head.”

  “I won’t see them. I won’t talk to them. They can’t make more demands if I cease to listen to them!”

  Sakhmet looked down at the pile of nits, lice, and lice eggs that was building up on the floor behind her stool. “All this from my hair,” she said. “Who could imagine.”

  Tuthmose stormed out of the room.

  * * *

  On the day Moses declared that it would happen, the lice died off as suddenly as they had come. But when Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh’s door, they were turned away with a threat of imprisonment if they ever came again. Aaron smiled and said, “Pharaoh will hear the message of the Lord, even if it sounds like the buzzing of flies. And this time, the Lord will make a division between the Israelites and the Egyptians. Every Egyptian will see that among the children of Israel there is no plague.”

  And so it was that the fourth plague came, flies swarming everywhere. Within a day, every bit of meat and bread was crawling with maggots. The grain had to be sifted before it could be ground into flour, and the flour sifted again before it could be made into bread. Through the open doors and windows of every Egyptian dwelling the flies came, until the entire land was corrupted with maggots. But among the Israelites, not a fly buzzed, not a maggot hatched and crawled.

  On the third day of the flies, a messenger came to Moses and Aaron. They followed him to the palace.

  “Pharaoh has no quarrel with your god,” said Jannes. “Like all the gods, he should be worshiped. We’ll give you a feast day, right there in Goshen. Sacrifice all you want.”

  After a brief conference with Moses, Aaron answered, “In Goshen we live under the eyes of the Egyptians. Our sacrifices are an abomination in their eyes. Israelites have been stoned before, for offering sacrifice here in Egypt. There would be riots, and some of our people would be killed. We must go three days’ journey into the wilderness.”

  Jannes returned and knelt before Pharaoh, who refused to speak, or even meet his gaze. Finally the priest stood and glared at Moses directly. “All right, you can go a little way into the desert. Just ask your god to get rid of these flies while we still have any stores of grain left.”

  “We’ve heard such a promise before,” said Aaron. “And yet on the morrow, we were held again to our tally of bricks.”

  Jannes leapt into the fray. “Pharaoh didn’t break any promise—that would be unthinkable! He is a god! He promised that you could sacrifice, but he never said when. He waited for a more convenient time.”

  “Tomorrow the flies will be gone,” said Aaron. “So tomorrow we will expect to go out and offer sacrifice.”

  In the morning, the flies were dead, but Pharaoh refused to see Moses, and though the overseers did not come to insist on the tally of bricks, there were soldiers on watch, to warn if there were any attempt by the Israelites to leave. The sight of the soldiers made the people afraid, and many of them pled with Miriam and Aaron to intercede with Moses. “He’s going to get us all killed,” they said. “He’s got to stop.”

  “Moses isn’t doing this,” they answered, again and again. “God is doing this, and he promises that if Israel obeys, not one soul of you will be lost.”

  But the people would not consider preparing to leave, with the soldiers standing watch.

  * * *

  Moses stood at the border of Goshen, where a mob of Egyptian herdsmen, armed with clubs and hoes and makeshift spears, clamored and howled. “You killed our cattle! You poisoned our herds!”

  Aaron’s voice roared above the tumult. “You have seen the power of God! I warn you not to set a single foot beyond this point, for God will not allow you to harm his people!”

  That stilled them, for they had learned, even if Pharaoh had not, to fear the power of Israel’s god.

  “Moses!” called an old man. “I was a captain under you in Ethiopia! You’ve made me a poor man, half my cattle dead this morning, the rest dying! What did I ever do to you, except serve you loyally!”

  Moses answered, “If Pharaoh had kept his word, my friend, your cattle would all be alive. How can I restrain the anger of the Lord, when Pharaoh promises one day to let us go out and offer sacrifice, and the next day breaks that promise?”

  “But I never broke a promise!” the man said. “And it’s my cattle that died! While we know perfectly well that a lot of Israelites aren’t faithful to your God—they worship our gods, or the calf of the Hyksos. Yet even the most openly rebellious of your people still has his entire herd today. Is there no justice in your god’s heart?”

  “These are questions that only Pharaoh can answer,” said Moses. “If it were up to me, no harm would come to anyone in Egypt. But look at you—armed to attack my people! If God had not made you afraid of his power, how many Israelites would you have slain today? If you don’t want the punishment of God to come upon you, look to your own hearts, and see how much harm your hatred has caused to the people of the Lord.”

  And the Egyptian mob dispersed to their homes, bowed down by the consciousness of God’s justice.

  * * *

  The fires that burned the bodies of the dead cattle had no sooner subsided than Moses had Aaron take ashes from the furnace where they burned, and together they went to wait on the road where the Lord told them Pharaoh would pass. Pharaoh commanded his men to ride on, but the horses drawing the chariots would not obey, and Pharaoh was forced to wait and watch as Aaron scattered the ashes toward heaven.

  At once painful boils and sores broke out on the skin of man and beast. The horses were crazed by it, and had to be unhitched from the chariots. Pharaoh’s chariot was drawn back to his palace by his soldiers, all of them suffering greatly. In his house, his son wept and scratched himself until his body was a mass of scabs and bloody sores, and Pharaoh was filled with hatred for Moses and Aaron and the god they served.

  When Moses and Aaron came to the palace again, no one barred the way. Jannes and Jambres weren’t there—the slave who painfully carried a tray of food told them that Jambres was caring for his father’s awful sores at home. “Has Jambres no sores of his own?” asked Aaron.

  “As I have mine,” the slave said. “I am not your enemy, but look at my body.”

  “But see how the Lord has blessed you,” said Aaron. “Clearly you’re not suffering as badly as Jannes and Jambres, because they can’t even rise up and come serve in the king’s house—but here you are, serving in spite of your pain.”

  The slave smiled at the irony. “Yes, now that you put it that way, I see that my case is much lighter than theirs.”

  “Whom is that food for?” asked Moses.

  “For Pharaoh and his queen,” the slave said. “And their little boy.”

  “Then let us help you,” said Moses. “As you can see, we have no sores, and I know the way.”

  Gratefully the slave handed the tray of food to them. “If I thought you meant harm to Pharaoh, I would die before I let you touch his food. Even now, he won’t eat it unless I taste it first. And normally I’m watched by guards the whole way.”

  “The only food that Pharaoh does not have to fear,” said Moses, “is the food he takes from my hand.”

  Moses carried the tray himself, leading the way, until they came to the inner chamber where Tuthmose and Sakhmet watched over their son, who slept fitfully. Tuthmose leapt to his feet when he saw Moses and Aaron, preparing to fight; but Sakhmet saw that they had brought the food, and she laid her hand on her husband’s arm to restrain him.

  Solemnly Moses took a taste from every dish and put it in his own mouth. “The cooking here is better than ever,” said Moses. “And under the trying circumstances today, that’s remarkable.”

  “Speak quietly, please,” said Sakhmet. “Ptahmose gets so little sleep.”

  “The sores will heal now,” said Moses. “And the itching will stop.”

  Sakhmet nodded; any word of gratitude she might have said would have infuriated her husband.

  Tuthmose reached out and seized Moses by the arm. “Come,” he whispered, “look at what you’ve done!” He drew him roughly to where the child lay. The sores were indeed pitiable, and the child winced even in his sleep. “Your god makes war on children!”

  Moses looked at the child and remembered his own sons, how tender-hearted they were when they were young. He remembered other children, too, and spoke of them—softly, so Ptahmose would not be wakened. “I’ve seen thousands of Israelite children working all day in the heat of the sun, making bricks because you decided to punish them for no crime at all. And yet even though I’ve seen far greater suffering than this, I also know that this child was born to a house of comfort and power, and he was not prepared to suffer anything at all. The Lord loves little children, Tuthmose, and blesses them with forgetfulness. His suffering is but a moment, and the Lord promises him eternal joy.”

  “You defile my son even to look at him,” said Tuthmose.

  “Seeing such a beautiful child,” said Moses, “it’s hard to believe that any child would ever grow up to murder his father.”

  Tuthmose recoiled as if he had been struck. “Get out of my house. Out of my child’s bedchamber!”

  Aaron stepped between Moses and Tuthmose. “Softly now, please. Let the child sleep.”

  “Give Pharaoh the Lord’s warning,” said Moses.

  “You have nothing to say that interests me,” said Tuthmose.

  “Your kingdom has already lost a large portion of its cattle to the murrain,” said Aaron. “Any cattle or other animals, and for that matter any man or woman that you wish to have survive, bring them in to shelter before morning. For tomorrow any living thing out in the open will be crushed in a storm of hail.”

  “Why do you tell me this!”

  “To show your people the mercy of God,” said Moses.

  “And to show you how your own people believe in the power of the Lord God of Israel, even if you don’t,” said Aaron.

  During the rest of the day, Moses and Aaron warned anyone who would listen, and the word spread throughout Egypt. The boils and sores were healing; the pain was gone. But there was no time to celebrate. Flocks and herds were brought under shelter, and families provisioned themselves so there’d be no need to go outside.

  Ten thousand stars glowed brightly through cloudless night. But no one doubted the power of God to make it hail, even out of a clear sky. The only reason many herds and many servants were left outdoors was because many wealthy and powerful men feared to let Pharaoh see them heed Moses’ warning, showing their belief in the power of Israel’s god. And the hailstorm couldn’t be that bad, could it? The frogs, the lice, the boils, the flies, even the blood in the river—none of them had killed anybody. Even with the murrain that afflicted the cattle, those beasts that didn’t die of it at once soon recovered. Thus they talked themselves into disaster.

  The hail, when it came, was brutal. Stones the size of a man’s head fell among the thousands of smaller chunks of ice. The wind bent ancient trees and then tore them from the ground. And lightning started fires all over the kingdom.

  But in Goshen, no hail fell.

  Moses and Aaron stood in the threshold of the house of Pharaoh, waiting . . . and sure enough, he sent for them. Thunder roared outside, and cold wind howled through all the windows and doors of the airy building. Pharaoh paced fretfully in front of his throne when Moses and Aaron entered.

  “Yes, I admit it!” cried Tuthmose. “I sinned when I didn’t let your people go. The Lord God of Israel is righteous, and my people and I are wicked. Please, make this storm stop before the entire crop of Egypt is destroyed.”

  Aaron cocked his head, calculating for a moment. “I’d say it’s too late to save the barley and the flax,” said Aaron. “But the wheat and the rye are still green. They’ll probably recover.”

  “I don’t need your crop assessment,” Tuthmose hissed at him. “I need you to stop this storm. I’ll let your people go and sacrifice.”

  “Keep your word this time,” said Aaron, “or the disaster that will fall upon Egypt will make all these plagues look like a holiday.”

  “Stop the storm!” roared Tuthmose, but his voice was swallowed up by a clap of thunder far louder than any human voice could hope to overpower.

  Moses and Aaron went outside, and Moses spread his arms before the Lord, supplicating him. As suddenly as it had begun, the storm ceased. The clouds dissipated, the air stilled. The ice on the fields melted, and where the fields were still green, many plants rose up, healing themselves from the damage of the storm. But in the fields where the ears of grain were already set, the destruction was nearly total.

  All the rest of the day, Tuthmose and his officers, now healed of their boils and sores, labored to calculate how much grain and linen they’d have to import to make up for this damage, and how this would deplete the treasury. “They cost us too much, these Israelites,” said Pharaoh when the meeting ended. “They can go when their labor has repaid the losses, and not before.”

  His officers heard this decision with fear and anger, but they had long schooled themselves to let their faces show nothing of what they felt. So Pharaoh heard not one word of opposition. Until Sakhmet spoke from the doorway. “Which will cost more? To let Israel go? Or to keep them here and face even more terrible damage tomorrow?”

  “You don’t understand affairs of state,” Tuthmose snapped. “You don’t understand anything.”

  But then he looked around the room, and saw that his men all thought as Sakhmet did.

  “Is there no loyal man left in Egypt?” said Tuthmose. “Has Moses stolen all your hearts?”

  “Pharaoh accuses when he has no enemy,” said Jambres. “We want only good for you and for your kingdom. But how much more devastation can the people endure?”

  “Why do they turn against me?” demanded Pharaoh. “Why don’t they put the blame where it belongs, on Moses! He was always a traitor, yet they loved him; and now he brings destruction down on Egypt and they still love him!”

  Jambres rose to his feet. “We have served Pharaoh badly. He has charged us to give wise counsel, but we have all been so fearful of the wrath of Pharaoh that we have given foolish counsel, or none at all. Now I’ll say what we all think, even those who deny it, and if Pharaoh kills me for saying it, me and all my family, then I would still say it, for I would rather die with truth on my lips than live as a man who lied to his king.”

  “Say what you have to say!” shouted Pharaoh.

  “We have seen the river run with blood. We have been covered with frogs and lice, with flies and maggots, and finally with boils and sores on our bodies. Our cattle have died of a sudden disease and our crops have been pounded into the ground by hail or burned by lightning. In all of these, the forces of nature have been arrayed against us. Our prayers to the gods have gone unanswered. Clearly the Lord God of Israel has taken over the land of the gods and all of them bow before his power. We are helpless to defend ourselves against these plagues, and it will take years to recover, years in which we’ll deplete the treasury, divert our soldiers to labor in the fields, and become an easy target for the enemies of Egypt. And we endure all this so that lazy, rebellious slaves can make our bricks for us?”

  “Does Pharaoh rule in Egypt or does he not?” cried Tuthmose.

  “I waited for Pharaoh to stretch forth his hand and stop the hail,” said Jambres. “All my prayers to Amon couldn’t do it. So I waited for you. All the people wait for you. One way or another, we all wait for you to end these plagues, because you are the god we trust in to care for us. We pray to you: don’t make us endure any more. Kill the messenger if you want, but hear the message.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Tuthmose, “you’ll see what answer I give.”

  The next day, Moses and Aaron returned to the palace. “Your soldiers still keep watch,” said Aaron. “They still bar the way.”

  “They won’t bar the way,” said Pharaoh. “All your men can go out to the desert to sacrifice. But leave behind the women and children, and all the old men. You don’t need them. We’ll keep them safe here in Egypt, waiting for your return.”

  Aaron conferred with Moses for a moment. “We will go with our sons and our daughters,” said Aaron, “with old and young, male and female, and with all our flocks and herds. We will be feasting in honor of the Lord, and we are forbidden to leave any of our people behind.”

  Pharaoh almost screamed his answer. “I will never let you take your little ones out of Egypt!”

  “Then prepare for a plague of locusts,” said Aaron. “See if any green thing grows in Egypt after they pass through.”

  * * *

  The wind blew from the desert, all the rest of the day, all that night, and into the morning. And before noon, there appeared a low cloud on the horizon, growing and growing, dark and threatening. Only it didn’t cover the sky. When the cloud came nearer, the people could see that it covered the ground and filled the air only thirty cubits or so above the earth. And when it was closer still, they could see the individual locusts leaping, flying, bouncing off the ground and soaring again.

  They covered everything, swarming through the houses, over the fields. Where they lingered, every leaf was eaten, every blade of grass, every stalk of wheat and rye.

  In the midst of the devastation, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron. “I confess my sin!” he cried. “My officers warned me and I didn’t listen. Forgive my sin, only this once, and I’ll let your people go!”

  So Moses once again prayed to the Lord to remove the plague. A west wind came up, as strong as the wind that brought the locusts, and swept them all toward the east until all of them had plunged into the Red Sea.

  But when Moses and Aaron returned, they were met only by Jannes and Jambres. “Pharaoh commands us to tell you,” said Jannes, “that with the entire year’s harvest destroyed, it would be an affront to the people of Egypt to let the Israelites go out and feast as if there were still plenty to eat. Pharaoh says that it isn’t enough for your god to send away the locusts, he must restore what they consumed or he’ll never let your people go.”