Moses Read Free Page A

he said, “No, no, please, my mother, no. I don’t want to. Please …” she could not know how vivid in his memory was the recollection of something that had happened only a few weeks before. It was in one of their playtimes, between teachers or priests or military instructors, and they wound through the palace with increasing relaxation and louder and louder bravado. In the mighty pillared corridor that connected the two enormous wings of the great structure, two of the princes challenged each other to climb the side hangings. These linen draperies, painted and decorated with bright colours, hung from rings slid on to poles laid from pillar to pillar, on top of each. The stone columns were forty feet high, and to Moses and the other children they were even higher than their massive reality. Moses was not the only one among them whose bravado gave way to fear as the children scrambled aloft. But they climbed like monkeys, with the agility of monkeys, each one clutching one end of the huge drapery, hand over hand, and each fighting to be the first. And he who was first, a skinny lad of eleven years, a Ramses of the true blood and divinity, had just reached the top, barely visible in the high, deep-shadowed ceilings, when the drapery at his end tore loose from the bronze ring, breaking his hold and casting him down to the floor. Over and over he turned in what seemed to Moses an endless length of time before he struck, screaming with fear; and then he struck on his head in a ghastly, bloody mess that made the children take up his screams as they looked at the horrible little heap that remained of divine immortality.
    This is what Moses thought of as he pleaded with his mother, bringing back her petulance and annoyance.
    â€œWell, I don’t know what to say! I don’t know what has come over you.”
    â€œPlease, my mother.”
    â€œFoolish boy!” she snapped at him. “Hurt me! Cut my heart out! That will satisfy you, won’t it?”
    â€œNo … no, my mother.”
    His dark eyes filled with tears, and she was somewhat mollified by that. It wasn’t many boys who, in these loose times, cared that much about their mothers. “And if I died and went to lie at the feet of Seti, would you weep for me? Don’t you understand? If the God Ramses commands me, and I say to him, ‘Oh, no, my brother, oh, not at all. You wish to see my son, Moses, but he doesn’t wish to see you? What then? Am I not dead? And whose hand struck me down?”
    â€œNot mine, my mother. Please don’t say that.” Now he wept in earnest, the tears rolling down his flat cheeks, and he looked so beautiful and tall and compassionate that, in spite of herself, her heart went out to him and she opened her arms and cradled his head against her bosom, tenderly wiping away his tears.
    â€œCome now,” she whispered, “no more of that. You will come with me tomorrow, and receive the god’s blessing. No one in the palace is as handsome as you are and I can hardly wait. Tomorrow morning I will send Rea, my own hairdresser, to dress your hair and powder your curls with gold dust. On both arms you will wear the sacred bracelets of Amon, my own from my mother—and now I give them to you, my only child. They will always be yours; they are not to go in my tomb. You will wear only a loincloth, for I want him to see your whole body in its nakedness, to see how fine and perfect you are; but on your feet, your silver sandals. I am having them polished for you. You will also wear my golden neckpiece, for we are now of a size. Then you will be a prince such as this palace has not seen before, and the god will recognize that. Let him be a god, he’s still my brother and he won’t forget that so soon—not while I live. There, my son. Will you be afraid on such a glorious moment? What on earth is there to be afraid of?”
    He drew away from her and stood up and said slowly but