Counted With the Stars (10 page)

“I don't have time for a bath today. Dress me immediately.”

Setting the jar by the door and relieved that she seemed not to notice my late arrival, I chanced a question. “May I ask, what is the commotion with the steward?”

“The animals are dead.”

“Dead? Which animals?”

“All of them. Every single cow, pig, ram, and goat is lying in the fields, rotting.” Her tone was even and deadly.

Mosheh.

“The steward ran all the way in from Shefu's fields south of town. All of our livestock is destroyed.” She spun her hand in the air, motioning for me to dress her quickly. “I have things I need to do. Get on with it.”

When I'd finished dressing her and applying her cosmetics, she ordered me to go to the marketplace alone to buy a handful of items.

Shefu's house was not the only one in upheaval. Iunu boiled with chaos. Crowds pressed all around the temple. The courtyards overflowed again, everyone shouting at once.

“I've lost everything!”

“Why are the gods cursing us?”

“Where is Pharaoh? Why isn't he protecting us?”

“Why is this happening?”

Jostled by the swarm at the temple gates, I pressed through the river of people rushing to join the chaotic scene.

A nearly deserted market greeted me. Only a few brave customers and vendors spoke in hushed tones around their stalls.

Liat and Sefora's new sandals were ready, and I dropped off an usekh that needed mending with a Syrian craftsman known for his excellent handiwork. Next I had to find beeswax, almond oil, and kohl. Since the marketplace was so barren, I could visit my mother's stall without being spotted by anyone who might report back to Tekurah. In spite of the strange and ominous cloud darkening this day, rays of hope broke through the gloom at the thought of seeing my mother and brother.

Wooden stalls shaded by linen canopies lined the streets, laden with a colorful array of fruits and vegetables, platters of spices that burned my eyes as I passed, and stacks of linen, wool, and flax.

When I found her, my mother was deep in conversation with an idol merchant in the adjacent stall.

“. . . and the Hebrews are to blame.” The man waved a tiny soapstone figure of Osiris in rhythm with his sharp words. “None of their animals died. Not an ox, a lamb, or a goat. Only our livestock decay in the fields today.”

The Hebrews' fault. None of their animals died? How was it possible that our livestock would be singled out? And what would be the consequences of such a pointed and mystical distinction between Hebrews and Egyptians?

My stomach dropped like a stone.
Shira. I have to get to Shira.

My mother called my name, but I was already running. I pushed through the crowd, screamed at people in my way. My toe jammed against a wayward stone, but I didn't stop. No wonder Tekurah had sent me out on an errand alone. The memory
of her strange behavior this morning urged me to move faster. What was she planning?

The guard at the entry gate beckoned me, holding up a parcel that looked like the undelivered wig I had given Eben the day before. I ignored him and ran into the house, the heavy reed basket bumping along, bruising my hip. I cut across the kitchen courtyard, turned the corner, and ran down the hallway to the cellar stairs.

No guard.

I was too late. What had Tekurah done? Had Shira flogged?
Oh, please not that. She is
so fragile.
The door to the cellar stood open.

“Shira? Are you here?” I called into the blackness.

No answer.

“Shira?”

“Well, hello there. Come back to see me?” a voice said behind me.

Shocked, I nearly dropped the basket. The guard, key in hand, had returned to lock the door.

“I am looking for Shira. Where has she been taken?”

“She's gone.”

“Gone where?”

He shrugged. “The mistress came and told her to go. Even gave her a written release from service.”

My head spun. I blinked my eyes and leaned against the wall. “Tekurah?”

“She told her to go back to her home and never come back.”

“But why?” None of this made sense. If Tekurah blamed the Hebrews, and therefore Shira, for the plagues, why would she tell her to go instead of punishing her?

“I do not know.” He lowered his voice. “But between the two of us, she sounded afraid. No . . . terrified. She wouldn't even come close to the girl.”

M
agic terrified my mistress. Twice daily she prayed in the household sanctuary—not out of religious fervor or devotion, but as protection from curses. And, like many Egyptians, if her desires went unheeded, she threatened her gods with desecration of likenesses or withdrawal of sacrifices. A fickle lot, the gods at times ignored even the most fervent of pleas. When offerings did not suffice, occasionally threats were offered instead.

And never were more threats heard by Bastet than when Tekurah was covered in boils.

“Bring the statue of my goddess.” Blisters ravaged her throat, so the command was only a rough whisper.

Crossing the floor with tender lumps on the soles of my feet was like walking across fire. Each slow, deliberate step aggravated the boils in my armpits, my groin, even under my eyelids.

Thankfully, Tekurah kept a figure of Bastet on her cosmetics table only a few paces from my bedroll. Wincing with every step, I brought it to her, and then, loath to return to my mat, I sat on the floor next to her bed, trying to hold my body still, measuring torture with each chafing movement.

“Twenty years of allegiance, Bastet,” Tekurah rasped. “Daily homage. My house filled with your likeness. I treat your children, my cats, with respect. Don't you hear? Heal me!”

I studied the figure she addressed, the body of a woman with a desert-cat head. Was this goddess listening? Was she ignoring Tekurah? Were any of the gods listening? All the healing gods—Isis, Imhotep, Thoth—how could they allow everyone in this country to suffer these agonizing boils?

Everyone, from the lowest slave to the Pharaoh himself, Shefu said, was beleaguered with horrible boils, some more afflicted than others. The priests suffered the most, with painful, oozing sores enveloping them.

Tekurah commanded that I escort her daily to the temple to beg, plead, and bargain with the gods. We hobbled there, out of sheer necessity leaning on one another, relying on each other for warmth against the chill, and grateful the temple stood only two blocks away. Abscessing boils covered the worshippers lying prostrate in the outer courtyards. The incense-laden air lifted their moaned supplications into the heavens, where the gods resided among the stars. Or did their pleas simply vanish into nothing?

Herbal remedies helped little. The priests offered incantations day and night to Isis and all the healing gods. But for days, everyone suffered horrific agony.

Everyone but the Hebrews.

When they proved untouched by the boils, it confirmed the rumors. Mosheh the sorcerer was at the heart of these plagues.

Any Hebrews brave enough to venture out of their quarter were accosted in the streets. Some Egyptians threatened the gods in desperation, but most saved their more malicious warnings for the foreign slaves.

My first instinct was to beg the gods for mercy. Intimidation of the deities seemed futile. Then I remembered that during the
lice and fly infestations, those who relied upon the divinities, who wore amulets and burned incense in every corner of their homes, seemed most afflicted. I avoided the sanctuary, ignored the statuary, and the boils on my body were smaller and less numerous than most others in the household.

Tekurah noticed too.

“Did that Hebrew slave give you a spell? An incantation? Tell me what it is!” She pulled at my tunic, her grasp sending shattering pain radiating down my arm.

“No, mistress. I have not spoken to Shira for many months.”

“Liar! I had you watched. I know you were”—she ground her teeth—“friends with that slave.”

I looked her in the eye, something I never did.

“We were friends. But she is gone, and I have no contact with her. She gave me no incantation.”

Or did she? Was I less affected because of my friendship with her? Had some sort of bewitchment rubbed off on me? I doubted it. The one thing Shira had shared with me were the stories of her people. She had entertained me with stories of foreign slaves with a faceless god who forbade them to deal in magic, curses, or dealings with the spirit world, or even associate with those who did so.

Now all Egyptians lay on their beds, moaning and crying out to deaf gods. And the Hebrews had escaped unscathed.

Thunder shook the house and the ground beneath our feet. Pottery tipped off shelves and shattered as crashing booms layered one behind another.

Hail began to fall, pattering soft on the cedar roof between each enormous rumble of thunder. Soon the tap of ice on wood gave way to a steady
thunk, thunk, thunk
. I balanced on a stool to peek out one of the high windows in Tekurah's bathing
chamber. Dark clouds roiled. Chunks of frozen rain the size of my fist—jagged, spiked, and fierce—fell from the sky. One flew through the window and slammed into the wall next to me. I tumbled off the stool and fell hard onto the tile.

Tekurah watched me, wide-eyed, naked and shivering on her bathing slab.

Lightning coupled with the thunder. An explosion ripped through the heavens, brilliant and constant, illuminating the room like a thousand candles. Another flash split the sky, and before I could cover my eyes, the lightning struck nearby, the jolt vibrating the ground.

Shouts drew me into the hallway, which reeked of smoke. I grabbed the empty water jar by the door and ran toward the commotion.

Shefu stood, stricken, in the open doorway at the back of the villa, his fists at his temples. Furious flames licked the sky. The treasury was on fire.

The shed, which stood apart from this villa, housed the master's greatest valuables and was guarded by four of Shefu's most trusted men—men rewarded well enough to ensure they would not lust after the gold housed inside.

“Master, what can I do?” Would he even hear me in the uproar?

He looked over his shoulder, hollow-eyed. “Nothing can be done. The fire is too wild.” He turned back to watch the flames.

“Will it threaten the house?”

He shook his head.

“I will get more water.” I ran to fetch some from the garden pool.

When I opened the front door, my knees went weak. The storm had torn through the city with unparalleled speed and fury; astounding devastation lay in its wake.

Shefu's beautiful gardens were destroyed. Enormous chunks
of ice had crushed the flower beds, stripped the palm branches, and ripped the climbing vines from the walls of the house. Ice covered the ground ankle-high.

A scream of agony jolted me from my surprised paralysis, and I ran, undeterred by the misery of my still-tender feet, toward the sound.

Tekurah knelt on the ground near Shefu, hands in the air, moaning and sobbing. All her jewels, her many collars, her bracelets, her earrings—everything was gone. The fire burned so hot that her riches would be reduced to fine puddles of gold and silver.

Bites from flies, the burning itch of lice, and the misery of boils—all these my proud mistress could endure, but the loss of her finery broke her.

Shefu was shrewd. He doubtless retained other places in which he spread out his store of gold. But this storm-of-all-storms would strike a great blow.

Shefu returned from surveying his fields, his shoulders low and face drawn.

“The barley is gone. The flax is destroyed,” he told Tekurah.

“All of it?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and his thumb. “Our only hope is the wheat and spelt.”

“They weren't ruined by the storm?”

“No, they aren't quite ready for harvest, and their stalks are still flexible. They were bent by the storm, but not broken.”

Livestock decimated and crops destroyed—Egypt, the fertile Black Land that exported goods to every surrounding nation, would be forced to import food so her people would not starve.

Thunder, lightning, and hail remained our constant companions for days. The treasury fire was only one of many Shefu's men were forced to extinguish around the villa.

Mere hours of respite passed between new surges of seething clouds and angry clashes of thunder. Funnel clouds tore through the country. I saw three with my own eyes, tall spindles of swirling destruction reaching down from a fuming green-black sky to a stricken land.

As fast as the hail melted, ice covered the ground again, ensuring the hearty plants that survived the initial deluge of flying ice were sufficiently beaten down.

Few buildings remained untouched. Most people lived in mud-brick homes with rush roofs that stood little chance against the fire from the sky. My mother's house, on the edge of the city . . . was it destroyed as well?

The rich fared no better. Fine Lebanese cedar-plank roofs smoldered for days. Shefu's villa was no exception. The main hall now braved the open sky.

Miraculously, the fire had not spread to more of the house, only the treasury and the main hall were destroyed. Sefora and Liat's quarters had started to burn, but Shefu's men were quick to douse the flames. The children now slept in Tekurah's quarters. She attempted to be maternal, but her need for private space and jealousy over the attention of their father caused her to peck at them at every turn.

So, despite having their own nursemaids, Sefora and Liat both clung to me. I constantly reminded them I was not free to entertain them, and every time I watched them wander off, shoulders slumped, I wished more than anything I could simply be a playmate, or an older sister.

When the locust swarm blocked out the sun, it was not Tekurah that the children ran to for comfort, but their father. Once he left to survey the destruction after unyielding hours of millions upon millions of bugs covering every surface of Egypt, they turned to me to alleviate their fears.

The relentless locusts gave us no reprieve. They clung to
everything—walls, trees, our hair, our clothing. Every surface swarmed with them. Their constant humming grated my every nerve. The ground roiled like a living, breathing thing. When I retrieved water, I held my breath as I slipped through the doors. Latikah closed the door tight behind me and stuffed thick linens in the cracks.

More than ever, I missed my fine sandals. Locusts covered the ground, dead and alive. I attempted to pick my way through without stepping on any, but it became an exercise in futility. Eventually I just ran, wincing and bracing for the
crunch crunch
at my every step.

The few remaining birds that had braved the storms fled when the locusts came, so instead of the call of birds, the assault of millions of tiny jaws, feeding on any green left after the hailstorms, filled the air.

There was no trail to the canal left. All the vegetation near the water was broken down, burned, or consumed. The feathery white stalks of plume grass whispering in the sunlight were no more. Only dead and dying clumps of brown remained.

I picked my way through the remains of the flax fields. The little blue flowers that had danced here in the breezes off the canal were long gone. Dead stalks tore at my bare legs.

The canal appeared in front of me, no longer bordered by tall papyrus and elephant grasses dancing with the current. The water now caressed only dirt and rocks as it swept upstream. The starkness of its missing and broken vegetation struck me then. I sat in the dirt on the riverbank and cried.

Where were the gods? Hapi had not protected the Nile, Heket had not controlled the frogs, Geb had not staunched the flow of lice, Kehpri did nothing to keep the flies from the land, Ptah and Hathor ignored the pleas to protect our livestock, sacrifices to Isis seemed to only aggravate the boils, and Set seemed to have no control over the angry storms and failed to protect
our crops. We would starve—all the gold in the land could not prevent widespread death from the famine and disease that would now ensue.

Had the gods fled Egypt with the birds, or was this Hebrew god, this Yahweh, more powerful than all of them? Did he have such power over the world that even the storms and the beasts obeyed his command?

He was attacking each of our gods, one by one. This was no natural occurrence as the priests had assured us when the Nile had turned to blood. These were pointed, powerful attacks on the deities of our country. Each assault was more destructive than the last. How much more could we endure? If Pharaoh did not let the Hebrews go, I feared there would be nothing left of the Black Land at all. It was as if all of creation were being undone by Shira's god.