He could see from their faces that Aaron and Miriam weren’t hearing a word he said. But Jochabed was listening, because Jochabed actually cared whether Moses lived or died.

  “You think Hatshepsut’s manner of ruling is weak and cowardly?” Moses went on. “That all she cares about is hanging on to . . . power for herself? You’re wrong. What she cares about is Egypt. She even cares about the Israelites in Egypt. Because she’s Pharaoh, Israel’s slavery is bearable. Because I’m the heir, because I’m . . . victorious in battle, the mobs aren’t killing Israelites anymore. That’s the truth about how . . . power works in Egypt, and why your fine talk about a ‘higher standard’ is just another recipe for . . . destroying Israel, while Mother’s supposedly cowardly way, her ‘selfishness’ as you call it, is what keeps every single one of us alive and . . . free enough to have this argument!”

  Jochabed looked at him with icy eyes and said, “You call her ‘Mother’?”

  So she hadn’t understood him, either. “You . . . taught me to . . . call her that yourself,” said Moses.

  “When you were little, and I feared she might change her mind and toss you back into the river,” said Jochabed.

  “You never knew her, you still don’t understand her, none of you. Israel has no better . . . friend than Hatshepsut.”

  “God is a better friend than any Pharaoh,” said Miriam.

  “Yes, look how excellent his record is so far,” said Moses.

  Miriam ran to him, tried to slap him; he caught her arm.

  “Don’t you know that it’s . . . death to raise your hand against me?” said Moses. “If anyone saw you! If you . . . struck me and left a . . . mark that I couldn’t hide!—”

  “Don’t you know that it’s death to speak blasphemy against God?” she cried.

  “You’re the one with power,” said Aaron. “You come down the river in triumph as your people live in shame and subjection on either hand. This could be the hour! Even you can see that, if you’d only open your eyes! Raise your hand and set your people free!”

  “Raise my hand and set them free?” Moses laughed scornfully. “They are free. Slaves in Egypt are . . . better off than free men anywhere else. And as for Israel . . . being ‘my’ people, they all look like . . . strangers to me.”

  “If you ever walked among them, instead of hiding here in the palace!” cried Miriam.

  “Israel is your mother, your brother, your sister!” said Aaron. “It’s time to show Israel that you know who you are.”

  “The moment I show myself as an Israelite, I will no longer be the . . . son of Pharaoh and then who would . . . follow me, Egyptian or Israelite?”

  “You are the chosen leader of Israel,” Aaron insisted.

  “No, you are,” said Moses. “Or doesn’t God accept . . . volunteers? This is your obsession, he’s your God, you do it.”

  “Who’s talking nonsense now?” said Aaron.

  “Do you really think I don’t understand you? You want to use me in order to make Israel . . . master of Egypt, yourself master of Israel, and then Egypt, under you, master of the world. You’re every bit as ambitious as . . .” But he chose not to mention Isis and her treason, or her son Tuthmose whose ordained head should, by rights, be on display somewhere.

  Even without the mention of treason, Moses’ words struck home. “Maybe I am ambitious,” said Aaron. “Growing up a slave, growing up hearing Mother and Father and Miriam talk all the time about how you were the chosen one, you were the hope of Israel, yes, I did, I wanted to be the one, I prayed to God to let me be the one to set Israel free. But I grew up, Moses, something you might want to try, and I realized that I wasn’t the chosen one and so all I could do was try my best to get you to do what God has prepared you to do.”

  “Well, if God’s been . . . preparing me to free Israel, I can’t wait for him to tell one of you his plan. I don’t start any . . . campaign without knowing precisely how I intend to win it.”

  “You were planning on that traitorous princess giving you Saba?” said Miriam scornfully.

  “I had a plan. But that didn’t bar me from . . . seizing opportunity when it came.”

  “You cannot resist the will of God,” said Miriam. “You think you understand everything, how power works, what you can and can’t do, but I tell you that God is God! You’re a man. His plans are known to him—why should he consult with you? Do you tell your common soldiers your whole strategy?”

  “At least they know that I exist,” said Moses mildly. “And now, please, let’s have done with this. You’ve told me what you want, and I’ve told you why it’s impossible. If I tried to do these things my power would . . . disappear, and Hatshepsut would be weakened, and in all . . . likelihood Israel would end up far worse off than it is now. The subject is closed. Go away.”

  Moses bent over and kissed Jochabed on the cheek. “I’m glad to come home to you.”

  “Do I get to meet my daughter-in-law?” asked Jochabed.

  Moses winced. “It wouldn’t be a . . . good meeting, Mother. I couldn’t explain to her who you are.”

  Jochabed sighed.

  “Marriage in the palace isn’t like marriage in the . . . village, Mother.”

  “How would you know?” murmured Miriam.

  Moses ignored her, or tried to. “I married her because I gave my word, and I gave my word . . . because it would open the . . . gates of Saba without any of my men dying.”

  “So you’re not going to give her any babies?”

  “I never promised she’d be the . . . mother of a Pharaoh,” said Moses.

  “How canny you are,” said Miriam. “How clever.”

  “Amram never promised me that I’d be mother of a Pharaoh, either,” said Jochabed.

  “You have two wonderful Israelite . . . children who will probably get themselves killed someday,” said Moses, “but in the meantime, don’t they make a . . . mother proud?”

  “Yes,” said Jochabed.

  “But not as proud as you make her, Moses,” said Miriam. “The boy who conquers women from afar with his pretty looks. The boy who will face Ethiopian armies, but shrinks in terror from walking the streets of an Egyptian village as an Israelite.”

  “I walk the streets of . . . countless villages every year.”

  “But as Pharaoh’s Israelite son, not as a common Israelite.” Miriam’s eyes danced with the challenge.

  “I don’t have the . . . costume in my wardrobe,” said Moses.

  “Aaron will gladly change clothes with you, won’t you, Aaron?”

  Aaron looked with distaste at Moses’ Egyptian garb. “I’d be ashamed to be seen in public half-naked like that.”

  Miriam sneered at him. “Oh, you used to wear linens all the time, until you decided it was an un-Israelitish thing to do.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Moses.

  “But you said you’d do what we asked, if it was in your power,” said Miriam.

  “You already asked for . . . things I couldn’t do.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Miriam. “It was a trick—the first request out of our mouths was also the last. You’re too clever for us, Moses.”

  “Moses wouldn’t last two minutes in a village,” said Aaron, “not without his name and reputation, his soldiers and his station in life.”

  Moses knew they were goading him, and it was tempting to refuse their request just to stymie them. But he also found his curiosity piqued. Again, the student in him wanted to know: What was it like to be an ordinary Israelite in Egypt?

  “It’s nice to see you show your . . . true feelings, Aaron,” said Moses. “It’s my name, my reputation, my soldiers, and my . . . station in life that you resent. Tell me, will it be enough for you to . . . bring me as low as you? Or do you also have to be lifted up above me . . . before you can be happy?”

  “Not everyone is driven by pure ambition,” said Aaron. “You pretend to care for Egypt, but all your actions are designed to protect your own position. While I have put everything on the line for the sake of Israel.”

  “Admit it, Aaron,” said Moses. “We’re two of a kind. We both think we’re . . . leader of a mighty nation.” And with that Moses left, feeling rather good, though he couldn’t think why.

  * * *

  Jochabed watched Moses leave, watched Aaron and Miriam as they ranted to each other about how selfish and blind Moses was, and all she could think of was what might have been, if Moses had been able to grow up in her house in the village. He would have been one of those tag-along brothers, following Aaron everywhere, and gradually earning his own way into the games of the boys. Both of them studying together at their father’s knee, learning to read and write, learning the writings of Abraham—of the stars, of creation, of the goodness of God.

  If only she had the power to heal them as if they were truly brothers and sister, so their children could grow up around her. But it wouldn’t happen. Her children were afflicted with greatness. Great ability, great ambition. It would be a miracle if they did get along.

  How could she explain it to them? In the end, after all the arguing and quarreling, after all the loving and embracing in life, we’re alone, each one of us, alone without any true friend who really understands us. All strangers to each other. All we want is for someone else to truly know us. Aaron longing to have Moses see how true and noble his cause is; Moses longing to have Aaron understand that he is already doing all he can to be a good ruler. Each incapable of knowing the other’s virtue, because like all children they only wanted to be known, and cared little about giving that gift to others.

  I can’t give them that gift either, thought Jochabed. Old as I am, I know what it is they need, but I can’t give it. I can love them, but I don’t truly know them either. Only God knows. Only God can understand their hearts.

  O Father of their souls, O Maker of earth and heaven, lightning and river, I know thy great works will come to pass without need of any prayer or plea from me. But if my years and deeds on this earth have earned me the right to one more blessing from thee, let it be this: Somehow, in all the twisting pathways of their lives, for my sake let them twine together, let their lives converge, and when at last they face thee, let them do it as brothers and sister, trusting each other, loving each other, as if they had grown up as close as flowers growing from the same seed. Even if I’m dead by then, thou wilt be alive, and where my love hasn’t even the power to make them polite to each other, thy love will give them the power to be one, three yarns braided into one stout rope in thy hand.

  Hast thou ever had a son? Does God contain within his infinite wisdom the knowledge of how it feels to cast a son upon the waters, to set children free into the terrible heat of the sun? Be merciful with my children, as thou wouldst be with thine own most beloved child.

  Chapter 4: Israelite

  Moses felt drained by his meeting with Aaron and Miriam, but he always did. It took more energy to deal with them than it did to conquer Ethiopia, or at least so it seemed right now. But he also knew that they were merely an annoyance, the bite of a flea compared to the danger posed by the young upstart who had got himself consecrated as Pharaoh when Isis poisoned Tuthmose II.

  This young Tuthmose was imprisoned quite comfortably—a couch for sleeping and reclining and a high table for spreading out scrolls and reading to his heart’s content. And Moses knew that the boy was a good student, for at times Moses had taught him along with the sons of the other concubines of Tuthmose II. Many of them were named Tuthmose, but even among the rival boys it was well known that this Tuthmose was the Tuthmose of his generation, for he had the force of will and the quick grasp of tactics that would make him a powerful Pharaoh. He was also, however, stubborn beyond the point of foolishness, and his vanity and ambition drove him more than his reason or even his heart. The boy loved his father, and so he hated Hatshepsut for the way she made her husband a mere figurehead and hated Moses for being Hatshepsut’s favorite. Yet this boy was ready to step into his father’s place the moment his mother arranged his death.

  “All I want to know from you,” said Moses, “is whether you knew your . . . mother was going to poison your father before she did it, or merely . . . took advantage of it after the fact.”

  Tuthmose looked up from the scroll he was reading, regarded Moses for a long moment, and then looked back down.

  “Is that your refuge,” asked Moses, “to become a scholar now that your hopes of becoming Pharaoh have been dashed?”

  This time Tuthmose did not look up.

  “I see,” said Moses. “You believe you already are Pharaoh, and that it is only an evil . . . conspiracy by Hatshepsut and me that keeps you from your rightful place. So you cannot speak without . . . lying or raging or otherwise doing things beneath the . . . dignity of Pharaoh. Therefore you will keep . . . silence, hoping that this will allow you to . . . survive until you figure out a way to . . . kill me and Mother.”

  Tuthmose languidly rolled up one end of the scroll a little way, slid the whole assemblage over, and unrolled a few new columns of text.

  “Mother and I are trying to . . . decide whether you should be imprisoned here for the rest of your . . . life, or whether you should . . . tragically die of an illness.”

  “The gods curse the one who raises his hand against the consecrated head,” said Tuthmose.

  “Interesting. That doesn’t . . . bode well for your mother.”

  “Father died of an illness.”

  “A very sudden illness. Very much like the illnesses that your . . . grandmother, Mutnefert, caused to happen to Hatshepsut’s . . . brothers in hopes of making her son Pharaoh.”

  “People get sick sometimes.”

  “Your mother killed your father,” said Moses, “and your grandmother killed your uncles. If I were you, I’d be . . . very watchful of the women you take as concubines.”

  “You will never be Pharaoh,” said Tuthmose.

  “On the contrary,” said Moses. “It is very likely that after a decent interval, I will take your . . . father’s place as Pharaoh beside Hatshepsut.”

  “As long as Hatshepsut is in power, Egypt has no Pharaoh,” said Tuthmose.

  “That in itself is . . . grounds for you to die,” said Moses.

  “But you don’t dare kill me for it,” said Tuthmose, “because you know that half of Egypt, including most of the army, feels the same way.”

  “As long as we care how the army . . . feels, perhaps you should take into account the . . . fact that the army holds me in very high esteem right now, and doesn’t know you at all.”

  Tuthmose laughed. “You’re a fool if you believe that, Moses. You’re an Israelite. The army despises you and would love to see you toppled.”

  “They have followed me to war and . . . found victory.”

  “The victory belonged to Egypt. To them. Not to you. Not to your . . . mother.”

  Moses couldn’t help admiring the way that Tuthmose was maintaining his pride, even at the risk of his life. He also understood that this made Tuthmose all the more dangerous, and his advice to his mother would be to have Tuthmose quietly executed for his treason, as the law demanded, for as long as he was alive he would plot, and as long as he plotted there would be those in Egypt who would join with him and help him.

  “You’ve decided to have me killed, of course,” said Tuthmose.

  “Wouldn’t you?” asked Moses.

  “I think I’ve made it clear what I would do with me.”

  “I meant, wouldn’t you have a . . . traitor like yourself executed, if you were in my place?”

  “I could never be in your place,” said Tuthmose. “I have the blood of Pharaohs in my veins. While you have the blood of slaves.”

  “My Israelite blood is the . . . blood of prophets,” said Moses.

  Tuthmose laughed aloud. And Moses himself was shocked by his own words. Since when did he care about prophets? Since when did he defend Israelite blood?

  “At least you didn’t answer me with some mumbo-jumbo about how the Nile is your father and you have the water of the sacred river in your veins,” said Tuthmose. “I appreciate your showing me that much respect.”

  “I have no respect for you,” said Moses, “except the respect a . . . barefooted man has for a snake.”

  “That’s the respect you should have,” said Tuthmose. “But it doesn’t matter whether you kill me or not, Moses. You’ll never be Pharaoh. The people can bear Hatshepsut for her father’s sake, and because she is of Pharaonic descent. But you—you would be unbearable.”

  “That’s the difference between us, Tuthmose,” said Moses. “You want to be Pharaoh at any cost, even the . . . life of your father. While all I care about is the . . . good of Egypt.”

  Tuthmose blushed. “I love Egypt. I loved my father.”

  “Yet you would gladly let either of them suffer whatever . . . torment was necessary to let you become Pharaoh.”

  Tuthmose whispered his reply. “I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t think you did,” said Moses. “But now my question is, what do you, the man who wishes to be the . . . supreme judge of Egypt, what do you think should be . . . done to the concubine Isis?”

  “I think she should be honored as queen and mother of Pharaoh,” said Tuthmose.

  “There are worse things than an Israelite that . . . could come into the house of Pharaoh,” said Moses. And he left.

  Behind him, Tuthmose, his eyes filled with tears of impotent rage, whispered, “I did know. The gods will justify me. Father was weak, and it will take a strong Pharaoh to get rid of Hatshepsut and her slaveboy.”

  Moses didn’t need to hear these words. He already knew the truth. He would counsel Hatshepsut to have the boy killed immediately. But she would not do it. She claimed that she never acted against Mutnefert because it would create turmoil and weakness in the house of Pharaoh, but the truth was that Hatshepsut hadn’t the heart for killing, and that would be her downfall someday, unless Moses was there to protect her.