Chapter 4-1
821 Words
Chapter 4
Ancient Egypt
Micha didn’t know what to make of this blond giant. He spoke Egyptian with a heavy accent. When he overheard him talking to Yusuf, Eli spoke formally, almost too formally. No use of slang or shortcuts. He wanted to question Yusuf why he was assigned this surly man who kept his distance.
He must be a former slave of Yusuf’s. How else to explain the formality?
But Eli wasn’t Amorite or from any other Phoenician peoples even though he suspected Eli spoke Canaanite dialects.
Micha sighed. He had a hard task ahead of him: counting the granaries in this vast province Yusuf gave to him. He had to forget his distraction with Eli and focus on his assignment. Micha accepted this job out of duty and loyalty for the man that took him in even though Yusuf often puzzled him.
He had heard rumors of Eli since the vizier took him under his wing. Micha rarely spent time in court so he never met Eli until yesterday. Most of Micha’s days were spent reviewing numbers and providing tallies in papyrus. He knew Yusuf reviewed them because the messengers would deliver Yusuf’s questions, which he would answer. Sometimes Yusuf would request his appearance and during those brief discussions only other scribes were present.
He wondered where Eli was housed that he never ran into Eli.
He also didn’t understand these dreams that Yusuf kept alluding to—only that he attributed them to Elohim. Pharaoh, who did not know why Yusuf had these dreams, respected Yusuf, and gave him wide latitude. If famine worsened in Egypt, Pharaoh’s kingdom could fall. That was Pharaoh’s concern: holding on to power. Thebes would rise up again if famine spread so the risks were great. Even now, behind the palace walls, people whispered derogatorily about the king and his supporters.
Hyksos.
Foreign Invaders.
Micha was lucky. His family fled the desert and was accepted by the tribes who traveled south into Egypt, away from famine. His abba taught him the history of their peoples, how they were saved to be the Chosen and to maintain their covenant they had to follow the rituals and teachings. When he came to Avaris, at the age of thirteen, he had already lost his mother and father to disease. He wore rags. His gifts lay in the ability to calculate numbers, a skill he inherited from his father, and the ability to speak several languages. The latter garnered the attention of a palace servant who overheard him in the Avaris market bartering with Amorites and Minoans his services as a translator for food and clothing.
He remembered that first meeting. Incense burned, Yusuf sat next to Pharaoh’s empty chair. Everyone stood one step lower than the king’s chair. Soldiers stood behind Yusuf; women stood next to him waiting for a command to pour water. Lapis lazuli decorated Yusuf’s bronze neck, contrasting with the gold bracelet he wore on his arm. Micha stood there in awe as the palace servant informed Yusuf of Micha’s ability to speak several languages.
After the initial introduction, when Yusuf spoke perfect Hebrew, Micha bowed. He barely spoke in that first meeting but after that, he knew as long as long as Yusuf was the chief minister he would be safe.
He had never met anyone so powerful. Yusuf was Hebrew like him, but unlike Micha only spoke Egyptian besides Hebrew. Yusuf took him in as a young scribe because of his knowledge of languages from traveling and when Micha displayed his knowledge of arithmetic, he became the youngest scribe in Pharaoh’s court, responsible directly to Yusuf and no other palace minister.
Micha smiled briefly. He was no longer a boy and he had a small room in the palace with coin and fine clothing. But if his father were alive today, Micha would be disowned. He had adopted some of the clothing of the Egyptians, kept clean-shaven, and used the kohl to darken his lashes and highlight his amber eyes. He did not keep the rituals and practices of his own people. Although he did not worship Ra, Baal or other idols in Avaris, the diversity of the Hyksos capital allowed him to acknowledge that he harbored feelings that would cause his father much anguish.
This after all was the land of Nyankh-khnum and Khnum-hotep, male lovers, who married women, raised their own families separately, but were buried together. Local artists painted their likeness touching nose to nose on the wall of their joined tomb.
Men lying with men were not abhorrent to the Egyptians.
Micha knew if his parents were alive, he would have been married by now. To a woman. He wondered if Yusuf had the same expectations of him as his parents would have. He would not be surprised. Yusuf still practiced Sabbath rituals. He did not want to disappoint Yusuf but now Yusuf assigned Eli to be with him.
Did Yusuf seek to torture him?
Eli was undoubtedly the most beautiful man he had ever seen.
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