Miriam Read Free Page B

open wounds.
    Doda reappeared wearing the simple but luxurious white linen robe, her rough-spun robe draped over the brand on her forearm. After emptying her small basin into the gutter that funneled the dirty water back to the river, she nestled under his arm. “I’m ready.”
    Eleazar’s chest constricted. He’d never realized how much the brand bothered her. “Doda, you must leave your old robe in the dressing room. You can’t take it into the throne hall.”
    “The sleeves are too short.” Her eyes pleaded, but her jaw was set like stone.
    “Doda…” Eleazar glanced at the crowded bathing chamber and guided her to a secluded corner. “You’re eighty-six. Everyone knows Prince Mehy’s story—”
    “But not everyone knows I was his sister,” she said too loud, gaining the attention of several bathers. Doda took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “Those who do know I was Prince Mehy’s sister may think the worst. The only Hebrews who knew the truth, other than your grandparents, are dead.” Her eyes pooled with tears as she searched Eleazar’s face. “Gossip and this brand made marriage impossible. But my devotion to Shaddai made marriage unnecessary.”
    Stunned, Eleazar had never realized the brand caused Hebrews to believe Doda was defiled by her own brother. He burned with new hatred for his dohd Moses—a man he vaguely remembered. “I didn’t know you wanted to marry.”
    She wiped her eyes and waved off his answer. “Well, of course I didn’t want to marry. What man could ever fill my heart like El Shaddai?” She poked his chest with her bony finger. “But it would have been nice to be asked, I tell you. Come now, Pharaoh is waiting.”
    Eleazar shook his head. Some things weren’t worth the battle. As they began their march up the palace ramp, Eleazar contemplated the imminent confrontation. His seemingly undaunted doda would address Egypt’s most capricious Pharaoh with a rough-spun robe draped over her arm. For the first time in years, Eleazar wished he believed in a god that heard his prayers.

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Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-Paneah….So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
    — G ENESIS 41:45; 50:26
    W hen Miriam last visited the harem, it had been housed in what was then the larger of two palaces. Now there were three palaces in the royal complex, the grandest of which housed Pharaoh, his harem, and the throne hall in which she and Eleazar now stood. She’d seen Ramesses’s extravagance evidenced in the massive statues of himself erected at the double gates of the palace complex, their inscriptions reading, “Ramesses, the god.” His palace exceeded rumor, and the courtroom resembled a dream. Ivory and limestone washed the interior with the illusion of brightest hope, but the towering granite gods of Horus and Seth overshadowed the throne of Pharaoh’s dark power.
    Petitioners dressed in white nudged Miriam left then right, shoving forward to get a closer look at the king on his throne. Servants with ostrich-plume fans stirred tepid air over the golden chairs of Pharaoh’s sons and officials, while noblemen and their women lined up with the giant pillars flanking the crimson carpet leading to Ramesses’s throne.
    Miriam adjusted her rough-spun robe to hide the brand on her arm. She’d borne the shame of gossip and wrongful accusations without regrets, but today’s caution was about more than petty pride. What if Ramesses recognized the Avaris estate brand and realized her connection to the Hebrew who had betrayed his father, Sety? Did Ramesses still harbor the hatred for Moses that Pharaoh Sety had taken to his grave? Miriam couldn’t risk linking herself—or Eleazar—to the most despised Hebrew in Egyptian history.
    She straightened her spine, took a deep breath, and stepped toward the throne, but was unceremoniously hauled back to the line of petitioners by Eleazar’s giant hand.
    He