“Miriam!” cried Jochabed. “Miriam, what happened!”

  “Mother!” shouted Miriam. In moments she fell into her mother’s arms, trembling with cold, stammering with excitement. “Mother, a great lady lifted him up out of the water and named him Moses!”

  “Named him?” asked Jochabed. “Then she will save him alive?”

  By now the fine lady had arrived.

  “Is this the one?” asked Jochabed.

  “Oh, no,” said Miriam. “This is the one who got all wet bringing the basket to shore.”

  The fine lady spoke. “Woman, the house of Pharaoh has need of a wet-nurse. This girl says that your breasts have milk and yet you have no child to suckle. Is this true?”

  Oh, yes, it was true.

  “Then come with me.”

  “It’s a trick,” murmured one of the elders. “You can’t trust an Egyptian,” whispered another. “They’ll never let your wife come back,” said an old woman to Amram.

  “I am this woman’s husband,” said Amram. “I wish you would tell me, great lady, what child it is that she would suckle. Is it yours?”

  The lady laughed. “I am no great lady. I am only a slave, as you are. It is my mistress who gave birth to a child today. The river brought the baby to her, the way a rush of water brings other women’s babies.”

  “And who is your mistress?” asked Amram.

  “Who else can send soldiers for a wet-nurse?” asked the slave-lady. “Who else can bring her into Pharaoh’s house? I serve Hatshepsut, the daughter of Pharaoh. The baby is her son. She calls him Moses. Someday he will be Pharaoh.”

  The crowd fell silent at the astonishing news.

  “I will go with you,” said Jochabed. “I will be proud to give milk to the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” She embraced Amram, then walked stiffly toward the soldiers.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked the slave-lady.

  “Forgive me,” said Jochabed. “It happens that I gave birth to a child today.”

  “But you said you had no one to suckle.”

  “He was given to the river, and the river carried him where it wished.”

  “How kind the gods are!” cried the slave-lady. “Can we be less kind ourselves? Soldiers, carry this woman gently to the palace. Let her feet not touch the ground from here to there.” And though she was a slave, they obeyed her, because of the authority of her mistress.

  Miriam watched as they carried her mother away. Aaron began to cry. “Don’t worry,” Miriam said to him. “She’ll come home every day, or take you with her. Nothing bad will happen to you, because your little brother will be Pharaoh one day.”

  Thus she was the first to put into words what no Israelite had dared to hope. But now that it was said, Amram could say it too, and loudly. “It will be better than the days of Joseph!” he said. “For Joseph was only next to Pharaoh. Moses will be Pharaoh! This is why God brought us to Egypt! Because this kingdom will be ours! For one of the sons of Israel is now adopted into Pharaoh’s house!”

  But Miriam understood that Father was making a mistake, though she said nothing to him about it. It was Aaron who would grow up hearing the truth from her. “Canaan is the land of our inheritance, not Egypt,” she said. “Your brother was lifted up by God, but not to be Pharaoh. Israel does not belong in Egypt. Israel belongs to another land.” God had made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would not break them now.

  * * *

  The ceremony was not long; it did not have to be. It was enough to have Mutnefert watching from the edge of the room as Tuthmose brought his daughter Hatshepsut beside him, and beside her an Israelite nurse held Hatshepsut’s newborn son in her arms. Word had already spread about Hatshepsut’s bold move, and already Mutnefert’s allies were plotting how to persuade Tuthmose to nullify this mad action. Give the throne to an Israelite? Unthinkable.

  They had no idea what this ceremony was really for. So they remained stunned and silent as Tuthmose began the marriage of his daughter, Hatshepsut, to himself. “She is my wife now,” he said, “and I adopt her child as my own. In fact, I am already father of this child, for it was I, Pharaoh, god of Egypt, who caused this baby to be placed on the Nile, and I, Pharaoh, god of Egypt, who caused my daughter-wife to recognize the child as my gift to her, as all sons are gifts of the husband to the wife, and of the wife to the husband.”

  Thus all the maneuvering based on Hatshepsut’s lack of a husband were swept away. Pharaoh himself claimed fatherhood and took Hatshepsut into his protection as his wife. And, as his wife, she and all her offspring permanently outranked Mutnefert and her precious pathetic son.

  But even this was not enough for Tuthmose. For now he took a ceremonial false beard from his steward and placed it on Hatshepsut’s chin. “I also declare my daughter to be my son! Hatshepsut is a woman when she is my wife and mother of the baby Moses. But she is a man when she appears in this court and rules Egypt as Pharaoh.” With that he took the double crown of Egypt from his own head and placed it on hers. “See this miracle that I, Pharaoh, god of Egypt, have performed for you today! I have made a man out of a woman! A son out of a daughter! And I have made her Pharaoh on the same day that I also made her my wife. Let anyone who speaks against this miracle be blotted out, him and all his children! Egypt, behold your Pharaoh!”

  Whereupon Hatshepsut reached out and took the baby from Jochabed’s arms. “Egypt, behold the son of Pharaoh!”

  The court bowed down, every one of them, even Mutnefert; and Hatshepsut saw with pleasure that the old snake was smiling, pretending to be joyful. She had made her decision—she would do nothing openly against Hatshepsut now.

  But she would plot, Hatshepsut knew it. Yet Mutnefert would never dream of the final move in Hatshepsut’s game. For when her father died and Mutnefert began to plot again—for there was no chance that she would not—Hatshepsut would simply marry Mutnefert’s miserable boy (pretentiously named Tuthmose after his father, though he resembled him in nothing but looks). She would make him co-Pharaoh—Tuthmose II—but the name was all he would get, for she would force him to adopt Moses as his heir and then lock him away in hedonistic confinement with a well-stocked household of concubines, trotting him out for ceremonies but otherwise cutting him and his mother away from all real power. Thus the integrity of Pharaoh’s house would be preserved, but Mutnefert would never again have power in the kingdom.

  And word had reached the palace that already the loyalty of the Israelites had been cemented. Instead of being on the verge of revolt, this skilled and educated people would be her loyal allies. It would be years before they noticed that despite the fact that Moses was an Israelite, and heir to the throne, they were still slaves. And even then, they would be patient in bondage, believing that someday Moses would be Pharaoh and once again prefer them above the people of Egypt.

  It was Hatshepsut’s job to make sure he grew up knowing how to govern—including the skill of playing one group off against another. Moses would know that the Israelites were no more his people than the Egyptians were. Pharaoh is a god, not one of the people at all; the people are his to command, and never to command him. That’s the wisdom her son would grow to understand. And if he did not understand it, then he did not deserve to rule.

  Hatshepsut did understand, and did deserve to rule. And if it took being turned into a man by her father, well, so be it. Her own miracle would be to turn this Israelite baby into a god. What miracles would the baby perform, when he became a man? The gods would have to show him when he came into his power. Hatshepsut could not keep any promises beyond her own lifetime, and so she would make none.

  * * *

  After all the pain, after all the dread, after all the rage that had torn at her heart, it came to this: jostling along in a sedan chair, up the broad stairs into the royal residence, to find herself installed on cushions, where they brought her baby to her, washed and wrapped in linen, hungry for her, as she was hungry for him. As she unwrapped him and held his naked body to her breast, feeling his warmth against her, the milk flowing out of her, their hearts beating, his fast, hers slow, she kept thinking, over and over, He lives, he lives.

  O God, she prayed, thou hast heard the words of thy daughter Jochabed. Thou hast seen the child that was in my womb and thou hadst mercy on him. I will bless thy name all the days of my life. My voice will be heard in all Israel, declaring that the love of God is not gone from his people. For the child of my body has been chosen, the babe at my breast has been named, and the Lord watches over him.

  Sated for the moment, the baby dozed. His lips came away from her nipple, the whitish fluid still clinging to his lips. “Don’t sleep yet, you lazy boy,” she whispered. “You have to drink from both or mama will be uncomfortable.”

  Then she realized what she had said. Mama. She could not let him call her mama. Another woman would hear that name from his lips, when he first learned to talk.

  For a moment it stabbed at her, a pang of regret that could so easily become resentment, anger, jealousy.

  No! Though she made no sound, she shouted it in her heart. I will not be angry. I will not be ungrateful to the Lord. I asked for the life of my child, and it was given. In his mercy, God has even let me be the one whose breast he will suckle from. I will be grateful every day of my life. I will hold no anger in my heart. O Lord, help me keep all darkness from my child’s life. Never let him learn of it from me.

  The baby woke again, his brief nap over. She brought him to her other breast and he attached himself to it, greedy with the innocent need of infancy. What man are you, hidden in this tiny body? What have we made here, God and Amram and I? What is the path of your life? Whatever it is, God has chosen it. Walk boldly on it, my little son, when you let go of my hand and take your own steps into the world, walk boldly, for God will never let go of your hand, he will hold it always, if you only trust him.

  That is what I will teach you, if I can. That is the knowledge that will flow into you with my milk. In the darkest hour, in the night of fear, the hand of God is there for you, his path is open before you, life or death, whatever gift he gives to you, step out with courage, hold to him with faith, for he will lead you to joy, and no one else knows the way.

  To joy he will lead you, like my joy in this hour. Of all women, who is more blessed than Jochabed?

  Chapter 2: Betrayals

  The girl was brought to Moses in his tent overlooking the river.

  “Caught her skulking,” said the captain of the night’s guard. “But she kept saying she had a message for the tall Egyptian in the great chariot and we figured that was you. We’ve made sure she doesn’t have a weapon or poison on her.”

  Moses looked at the girl. Dressed too finely to be a common slave, but then one couldn’t tell much from the clothing of the Ethiopians. They didn’t dress like civilized Egyptians; they wore furs of exotic animals instead of simple linen, and bedecked themselves with gold as if they had never heard of modesty or restraint. So, what was this girl? No doubt she was angry now, if she hadn’t been before, because the soldiers were unlikely to have been gentle when they searched her. The tall Egyptian in the great chariot, she called him, and not by his name. Had she been watching from the walls of Saba? Did the Ethiopians let women stand in such exposed places, when a great army was besieging them?

  “What sort of message . . . do you have for me?” asked Moses.

  “Are you the one?” she asked. Her Egyptian was accented but correct.

  Exasperated, Moses wanted to tell the captain to take her away and include her among the captives being shipped downriver as slaves. But he paused, to keep himself from stammering. And when he had composed himself, he found he did not want her sent away. “What kind of messenger are you . . . if you don’t know . . . whom the message is for?”

  “My mistress doesn’t know your name and didn’t dare to ask. She has seen you from the city walls. She thought you might be Moses, the one they call the Monster, but to her you seemed to be no monster so she thought perhaps you were another man.”

  “I’m whatever man I am,” said Moses. “Who is your mistress? What is her message?”

  “I can speak only when we’re alone.”

  Moses looked at the captain. “Maybe she means to . . . strangle me as soon as we’re alone.”

  “What do you want us to do with your body when she kills you, sir?” said the captain.

  “Give me back to the . . . river, which they say is my true . . . father anyway.” Moses was quite aware that “they” also said many other things far less kind about his parentage. But he was not too proud to joke about the rumors with the men he might have to ask to die for him tomorrow.

  “Call for help if you find she’s too much for you,” said the captain. He left, and Moses was alone with the girl.

  At once the girl approached him and tried to put her arms around him. Moses caught her by the wrists and held her away from him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “My mistress told me to embrace you to show what she will offer you herself if you will only be her husband.”

  Husband? What kind of woman sees an invading enemy outside the walls of a besieged city and sends a servant to offer him marriage? “If your mistress thinks I will lift the . . . siege in exchange for a wife—”

  “She knows that you could have any woman in Egypt. If you are indeed Moses, she knows that you will be Pharaoh someday. So she must come with a dowry to give you.”

  “What sort of dowry?”

  “Ethiopia.”

  “I already have Ethiopia,” said Moses.

  “You do not have Saba,” said the servant girl. “And you will never get it.”

  She might well be right. The city was mostly surrounded by water, and the high walls gave bowmen plenty of time to slaughter any invader before they could get close enough to storm the walls—as if that would do any good. As for sapping, there was no way to dig through solid stone and loose sand; the stone would take too long to dig through, and even if they did, the sand would flow in and fill any tunnel they made. They could besiege the city until it ran out of food, of course, but it was just as possible that Moses’ army would begin to starve first, since the land had been stripped clean by the Ethiopian army before they shut themselves up in the city.

  “I will have . . . Saba whenever I want it,” said Moses.

  “So you simply enjoy camping outside the city, marching around and shooting arrows?” retorted the girl.

  “Were you told to be . . . sarcastic with me?” asked Moses. “Or is that your own . . . flourish?”

  “Do you not know who my mistress is?” asked the servant girl.

  Until she asked the question, Moses had not known; but the imperious nature of the question told him the answer. “Tharbis,” he said. The daughter of the king of Ethiopia.

  “So you see she is herself a great dowry, for she can change war to peace just by marrying you.”

  “But we didn’t come here . . . searching for peace,” said Moses. “We came here to . . . punish Ethiopia for raids deep into Egypt, as far down the Nile as . . . Memphis. Such audacity can’t be . . . tolerated.”

  “We are punished now,” said the girl.

  “But as long as I’ve come this far, why not . . . conquer Ethiopia and . . . make it part of Egypt?”

  The girl laughed in his face. “You have despoiled the river lands,” she said. “But you have not even seen the heartland of Ethiopia. The high mountains, the precious hidden valleys. To conquer that land would take a thousand armies the size of this one, and as soon as you left one valley to attack the next, the one behind would rise up against you. It took a thousand years for my mistress’s ancestors to conquer the land, and even now there is constant war, quelling one revolt after another. My father led one such revolt. My mistress’s father pierced his belly and drew out his—”

  Moses waved her to silence. He had seen the handiwork of the Ethiopian torturers. Fools—they merely guaranteed that his soldiers would not dare to desert him.

  What mattered was that the girl was right. Ethiopia could be defeated and plundered, but it could not be conquered and held—not quickly enough, anyway, for Hatshepsut’s position back in Egypt was always so precarious that Moses dared not be away with the army for long. Ethiopia could absorb many a blow like the one that Moses had inflicted with this punitive invasion; but Egypt could not afford to strike like this again anytime soon.

  “So her father offers . . . Tharbis to me as the . . . price of abandoning the siege.”

  “You misunderstand. The king knows nothing of my errand.”

  “Then she can’t offer me Ethiopia or anything at all!”

  “She can offer you secret passage through the wall into the city, and from there a clever man will know how to pierce the walls and let your army in.”

  “She betrays her own city?”

  “She hears that Moses is a man of honor,” said the girl. “Give your word that you will marry her, and she knows that you will not harm her father or her family.”

  It saddened Moses to hear the ruthlessness of her offer. The common people of the city would, of course, be plundered and pillaged and carried off as slaves. But if the royal house was safe, that could be endured. Such an idea would be unthinkable in the house of Pharaoh. The scepters of Egypt were the crook and the flail. The flail was for discipline, for yes, the people needed to know that disobedience brought punishment. But the crook was for love: Pharaoh only had the right to be Pharaoh because he loved and protected his people, standing between them and danger, not hiding behind them. If Hatshepsut had taught him anything, it was that. Indeed, he knew perfectly well that one of the reasons why he was adopted was because Pharaoh—both his father-grandfather Tuthmose I and his mother-father Hatshepsut—wanted to find a reason to stop the murder of Israelite babies. Even a slave nation like the Israelites were under the protective arm of the shepherd.

  Marriage. Hatshepsut would be furious, of course, but she would soon see that he had no choice. To come home without conquering Saba would be a thin triumph at best, and some might take it as a defeat. But to come home with the plunder of Saba and with the king’s daughter as his bride—that would be a great victory indeed, and Hatshepsut would be seen as a Pharaoh who could protect upper Egypt. Word of the victory would silence enemies at home and frighten enemies abroad.