Miriam Read Free Page A

namesake city on the backs of his Hebrew slaves. After using their blood for mortar and crushing their bones with its bricks, he made the city his home.
    “Keep your head bowed as we go through the gates,” Eleazar said as they approached the palace complex. “The guards know I’m Prince Ram’s guard, but they’ll use any excuse to beat us both.”
    She bowed her head and remained silent.
    “How long since you’ve visited the palace complex?” He wasn’t certain when she’d last served the king’s harem as midwife.
    Head still bowed, Doda spoke in barely a whisper. “I haven’t left the slave village since Pharaoh Sety died, almost thirty years ago. When Ramesses became king, he wanted only Egyptian midwives attending his harem.”
    They passed through the gates unmolested, and Eleazar breathed easier. Doda tugged at the sleeve of her robe, and Eleazar tucked her under his arm. “No one will see your harem brand. They use a different symbol for Ramesses’s concubines anyway.”
    Her eyes glistened. “Do you really believe people would think I’m Ramesses’s concubine?” She shook her head with a derisive grin. “Women with a harem brand today could be concubines or simply slave girls, but when I bore this brand, it meant the master possessed a woman
completely.
” Doda looked up to impress her meaning. “The master who owned me was my brother Moses—posing as an Egyptian prince.”
    Of course, everyone knew the story of Eleazar’s uncle, Prince Mehy. Best friend and vizier to Ramesses’s father, Pharaoh Sety, Mehy had been a Hebrew infant rescued from the Nile by King Tut’s sister and raised as the Egyptian master of the Avaris estate. Tut’s sister, Amira Anippe, had hidden his Hebrew parentage but secretly allowed Miriam to call him
Moses.
When Eleazar was a boy of seven, Prince Mehy had come knocking on Saba’s long-house door in the night, begging help to flee. Pharaoh Sety had discovered his Hebrew heritage and ordered his execution. Prince Mehy stood at Saba’s door, trembling in a filthy rough-spun robe flung over his pristine linen
shenti
and Gold of Praise collar. Eleazar recognized Hebrew fear on his Egyptian-looking uncle before the man ran into the night.
Good riddance, Prince Mehy.
    “Are you listening?” Doda Miriam shook his arm. “My brother Moses owned this estate before anyone knew he was a Hebrew.”
    “I know, Doda.” Eleazar pointed toward the palace bathing room at the base of the entry ramp and steered her toward it, hoping to distract her from the rest of the oft-told story. It didn’t work.
    “Moses branded me so the estate guards would think I was his concubine. The mark made me untouchable. It protected me until I was past the age of the guards’ interest.”
    Eleazar nodded but kept silent. Why did his elders insist on telling the same stories again and again? He drew her close and kissed the top of her head as he led her into the public bath chamber.
    Ceremonial washing had become mandatory since the days when Doda visited the palace. Every slave, merchant, criminal, or king must now be cleansed before bowing to Egypt’s god on his throne. Eleazar grabbed a clean robe and guided his doda toward a stone sink. “Splash your hands, arms, face, and neck.” He kept his head bowed, but Doda gawked at the crowd of male and female bathers. Some disrobed completely in the open, while others stepped behind the curtained partitions lining the inner wall. Eleazar shook Doda gently from her trance. “Keep your eyes downcast and bathe quickly.”
    He waited as she took a stone wash basin behind one of the curtained partitions. Though he’d visited the bathing room a dozen times, even he found it hard not to stare. Nubians, wearing nothing but strings and feathers, splashed cool Nile water over their deep black skin. Merchants from the Far East carefully avoided getting water on their oiled and curled beards, and chained prisoners from Hatti winced as the water grazed