straightened his posture and pulled his sword from its sheath.
“Hail to thee, Zaphenath-paneah,” he said, bringing the hilt
of his sword to his scarred face. “God speaks, he lives! Live
in peace, my son Paneah, for I cannot!”
With a defiant flourish, he swung the blade through the air,
then he knelt, his knees cracking against the tile floor. Posi-
tioning the sharpened point of the blade in a space between
his ribs, he saluted his king in a mocking whisper. “Farewell,
Pharaoh, my only god.”
Bracing the hilt of the sword against the floor, Potiphar
thrust himself forward.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
News of Potiphar’s suicide reached the court just ahead of
Sagira. When one of the guards told her the news, she pulled
her cloak about her shoulders and warily considered her
prospects. Long ago she had dropped any values or dedi-
cations beyond her own pleasure, and Potiphar’s death
barely penetrated the veil of drunken bitterness that en-
closed her.
Strolling into the throne room, she sensed that tide of
public opinion had altered. An hour ago most of the nobles
had considered her a foolish woman, hardly worthy of notice.
But today the crowd in Pharaoh’s great hall thirsted to right
the wrong done to Zaphenath-paneah.
Potiphar, who might have borne more than his share of
scorn and disgrace, had deserted her. She alone would face the
society that now embraced her former slave. The painted faces
that turned toward her seemed to whisper
outcast, she-devil.
But she would not take Potiphar’s cowardly way out. In the
years since Paneah’s rejection she had learned to distance
herself from humiliation and pain. Nothing could hurt a cousin
of Pharaoh. Royal blood would always flow in her veins.
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The revenge-hungry crowd silenced as she walked for-
ward, her mind thumbing through names and faces along the
wall. She knew all these people, had drunk at their parties,
danced for their entertainment. They had laughed with her,
teased her, praised her for her jewelry, her fine clothes, her
handsome servants.
She smiled with remembered pleasure. Paneah had liked
her, too, despite his resolve to keep her at arms’ length. He
had been flattered by her interest, pleased at her attentiveness,
honored by her desire to be with him. The memory of that
final night shuddered through her mind like an unwelcome
chill, but Sagira passed over it and let her mind run backward.
She remembered Paneah’s laugh, his awkward attempts to
retreat from her embraces, his embarrassed fumbling with
papers and pens whenever she happened to run her hand over
his honey-colored skin. She had done everything for him
because she loved him, and because of the prophecy about the
child she had never borne…
She stopped before the golden throne. Pharaoh sat in front
of her, looking very much like a teenager, and beside him sat
the stern-faced foreign queen. Sagira gave her kingly cousin
a brief smile and searched the royal family for Tuya. There!
She stood behind a pair of guards, one arm across her chest,
the other hanging limply, the pose of an insecure schoolgirl.
But her features were still lovely, as handsomely sculpted as
the statues of Isis around the temple.
A trumpet blared behind her and Sagira jumped, unused
to the sound.
“O Pharaoh, live forever,” someone called. Sagira hugged
herself and trembled. Though she had not heard it in years,
she knew that voice.
She turned. He stood there, dressed in the robe of a king,
with a crown on his head and the Gold of Praise about his
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neck. Exultation filled Sagira’s chest until she thought it
would burst. Paneah, her Paneah, was more beautiful than
ever, and today she would tell the world how badly he had
wanted her!
Paneah spoke to Pharaoh, and the king replied, but Sagira
hardly heard a word, so dazed was she by Paneah’s presence.
More magnificent than any mortal man, his very words made
the pillars sway and shiver.
Without warning, the vision turned to her and spoke. She
blinked and staggered on her feet. “What?” She gazed up at
him from beneath the heavy fringe of her wig. “Did you
speak, my beautiful one?”
The faces around her tumbled into laughter, but Sagira
ignored them. Let them laugh. At last, finally, Paneah stood
by her side.
He looked at her with a tinge of sadness in his eyes. “I will
repeat the question. Do you still say that I, your slave,
attacked you?”
Sagira flattened her smile. How long she had waited for
this moment! “Of course you attacked me.” She clenched her
hands and leaned toward him. “You were in love with me. You
wanted me to bear your son.”
The laughter in the room ceased. Sagira stood in the
silence, goading herself with bitterness. He had wanted her!
He had kissed her! He had sought her arms for comfort; she
had wiped his tears with her hands! She was not so foolish as
to throw her pride at a slave, a man who could bring her
nothing but heartache!
Paneah turned and said something to Pharaoh, who replied
while Sagira played her smile on the assembled crowd. When
the doors behind her opened with a sound like thunder, Sagira
whirled to face another ghost from the past. “Ramla!”
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The priestess walked forward, amused resentment evident
in the slight curl of her upper lip. Tall and formidable, she
saluted Pharaoh with a stiff bow.
“Tell us what you know about this situation,” the vizier
commanded, and then Ramla’s voice, high-pitched and reedy,
echoed in the hall. Her words poured over Sagira like water
over a rock, an endless stream that had no meaning. Sagira
heard the old prophecy, first spoken when the optimism of
youth had colored their lives:
You will be remembered through
all time… As long as men walk on the earth, they will speak
of you. Your memory will be immortal… You will leave an
imprint on the sands of time that cannot be erased.
With a sudden gasp, Sagira returned to the present and
heard Ramla’s final comment: “She thought she would have
a baby to replace the present line of pharaohs.”
Treason!
“She wanted to conceive a child with a slave in order to
punish her husband. And she was certain her child would rise
to replace Amenhotep’s son.”
I shall die for this!
Pharaoh’s face flushed. “I will hear no more,” he said, his
grip tightening around the crook and flail in his hands.
“Sagira, wife of Potiphar, I find you guilty of treason, con-
spiracy and giving false witness against an innocent man.”
The rage in him was a living thing; the assembly quaked
before it.
With a visible effort, Pharaoh reined in his temper and ad-
dressed his vizier. “I have rendered judgment in your place,”
he said, his anger lingering like a dagger that must soon find
its way into Sagira’s breast. “But you are the Dispenser of
Justice, Zaphenath-paneah. You shall decide this woman’s
fate.”
“Pharaoh gives me complete freedom?”
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“I do.” The king’s nose was pinched and white with re-
sentful rage, but Sagira kept her eyes fixed on him, not daring
to look at Paneah. Undoubtedly a deep-buried fire of anger
had kept him alive in prison, and now those flames would
consume her.
She closed her eyes, unwilling to bow her head. “I grant
Lady Sagira freedom to return to her house,” the vizier said,
his voice soft. “Furthermore, I shall appoint a manager to
oversee her affairs so Potiphar’s estate may return to its full
glory. From my own estate I grant her two handmaids who
will care for her health and see that she does not harm herself.”
Sagira stared at the king. Surely her mind had snapped. He
had ordered her death, and her brain had mistranslated the
sentence. Send her home? What a jest!
Yet Pharaoh seemed as surprised as she. “This is a most
unusual judgment, Zaphenath-paneah. Are you certain this is
what you wish?”
“For as long as the lady lives, she shall remain under my
guardianship,” the vizier answered. “I shall appoint honest and
fair men to see that Lady Sagira will not want for anything. I
believe she has suffered enough, my king.”
The line of Pharaoh’s mouth curved, then he nodded. “Thus
shall it be,” he said, his voice ringing through the judgment
hall. “Let it be known throughout the kingdom that Zaphen-
ath-paneah was unjustly accused and imprisoned, and the
lady Sagira has this day been found guilty and shown mercy.”
For the first time since hearing his ruling, Sagira looked at
Paneah. If he had ordered her thrown to the crocodiles, she
would have spat in his face, wrapped the rags of her dignity
about her and marched down to the Nile. But how could she
cope with kindness?
The double doors of the hall creaked and opened. After bow-
ing to Pharaoh, the vizier turned and left the hall, his business
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complete. Sagira stared after him, realizing that the assembly
waited for her response.
After a long moment, she lifted her chin and stepped
toward the doors, walking in the wake of the looks of awe and
respect directed at Zaphenath-paneah.
Chapter Thirty
As Yosef predicted, the kingdom prospered during the seven
years of plenty. Zaphenath-paneah’s overseers gathered the
earth’s bounty until the Egyptians had stored up grain as
abundant as the sand of the sea.
Before the first year of famine arrived, two sons were born
to Yosef and his wife, Asenath. Yosef named the first-born
Manasseh, “making to forget.” “For,” he told his wife, “God
has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s house-
hold.” He named the second Ephraim, “fruitfulness,” explain-
ing, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
During the years of plenty, Zaphenath-paneah redefined
all that a vizier should be. So wide and broad were his duties
that in years to come Egypt would find it necessary to have
two viziers, one for the northern kingdom and another for
the southern.
After taking private council with Pharaoh each morning,
the Zaphenath-paneah stepped in full public view and reported
to the king’s chief treasurer that all was well within the
kingdom. The vizier then unsealed the doors of the royal
estate so the day’s business could begin. Every person and
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item of property entering the palace doors was reported to the
vizier, and it was said that Pharaoh could not cough without
Zaphenath-paneah knowing about it.
The authorities in charge of each nome reported to the
vizier on the first day of each season: inundation, emergence
and drought. When the vizier was required to supervise dis-
putes in local governments, he traveled up and down the Nile
on Pharaoh’s official barge. He also detailed the king’s body-
guard, as well as the garrison of whatever city Pharaoh hap-
pened to visit. Army orders proceeded from the vizier, the
forts of the south fell under his control, and the officials of
Pharaoh’s navy reported directly to him. Though the vizier
was the official minister of war, whenever Pharaoh traveled
with the army, Zaphenath-paneah remained at Thebes and
conducted the administration of domestic affairs. No tree
could be cut without his permission, no building begun with-
out his approval.
Zaphenath-paneah’s watchful eye regulated all things, and
under Yosef’s rule God blessed Egypt just as he had blessed
Potiphar’s house. In time, the Hebrew who had entered the
land as a half-dead slave came to be regarded as the people’s
great protector.
When ambitious men sought positions in Zaphenath-
paneah’s service, they were carefully screened. After they
passed a series of tests, the vizier’s assistants were presented
to Pharaoh and charged in a formal ceremony.
Tuya often joined the royal court for these rituals. She
thought it important to honor her husband by understanding
the affairs of the kingdom, and she yearned for opportunities
to watch Yosef from a careful distance.
“Let not your heart be puffed up because of your knowl-
edge,” the vizier’s voice rang out in a commissioning service
one afternoon. “Be not confident because you are a learned
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man. Take counsel with the ignorant as well as with the wise.
The full limits of skill cannot be attained, and no skilled man
is equipped to his full advantage. Good speech is more hidden
than the emerald, but may be found with maidservants at the
most humble grindstone.”