Till Shiloh Comes (26 page)

“You cannot!”

“Would you like to see the proof?”

Asenath was rather frightened by his bold confidence, but she refused to be intimidated. “Yes, I would certainly like to see it!” she snapped.

Despite Asenath's attempts to provoke him, Joseph leaned closer toward her with a boldness that surprised even him. He wanted to touch her face, to hold her close, to confess his feelings for her that he had so long kept hidden. Her beauty in the moonlight was too much for him to resist any longer. She was to him like beautiful music that makes a man feel strong enough to conquer the world. The softness of her lips, the lovely turnings of her body, and the melody of her voice stirred him so much he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. He felt her shudder with the shock of this intimacy, but she did not resist. Rather she returned his kiss with eagerness, and to Joseph it was like falling into a wave of softness that washed over him with a power he had never experienced before.

Joseph's embrace took Asenath completely by surprise. She had given up all hope of love ever happening to her, yet in this wild, unexpected moment, she surrendered to her desire to give of herself fully to this man—even to be possessed by him. When she felt she could no longer breathe, she finally pulled back and took a quick intake of air. Joseph gazed into her eyes, and she stared at him, utterly unable to speak.

He took a deep breath and smiled at her. “That's why you can't marry that fool.”

Asenath was caught in a whirl of emotions, but suddenly it all seemed wrong to her. Her unexpected longing for him began to turn to anger—anger with herself for giving in to such a passionate kiss. She threw her shoulders back and stared up at him, then said the cruelest thing she could think of. “I suppose now you'll
command
me to marry you.”

Joseph felt as if he'd been slapped, and it took him a moment to respond. He quietly dropped his arms and stepped back, answering her snub very deliberately. “No, my dear Asenath, love can't be commanded or ordered. It must be freely given. But I know this—somewhere underneath all that pride of yours is a wonderful, beautiful woman. I just hope that someday you will allow yourself to love and be loved.”

Joseph did not wait for her to respond but turned and walked away abruptly. She wanted to call out to him, to take back her harsh words, but her pride would not let her. When he had disappeared, she turned and grasped the stone banister. Leaning against it for support, tears came unbidden to her eyes, and she began to weep. The greatest tragedy was that she did not understand why she wept.

For two days after the banquet, Joseph slept fitfully. He could think of nothing but the kiss he had shared with Asenath in the cool of the night. He grew so quiet during those days that Rashidi knew something was troubling him, and he strongly suspected it was Asenath.

When Joseph arose on the morning of the third day, it was to the sound of joyous cries. Rising from his bed quickly, he went to the window and called down to one of the watchmen. “What is the rejoicing about, watchman?”

“Sir, it is the Nile. It's begun the annual flood.”

Joseph dressed quickly and hurried to the river. He found the Nile ominously swollen. During the night it had crept up far over the stone pylons of the harbor, and soon it would force its way into the irrigation canals that had been dry since the last flood. The water would follow the canals until it flooded the fields.

He returned to the palace to find it humming with excitement, for the annual flooding of the Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt. Except for the narrow green band that followed the banks of the Nile, Egypt was a barren land. But the black alluvial soil brought down the river each year, some from the far inner regions of Africa, deposited itself on the low banks and made the soil there incredibly rich, producing as many as three harvests a year.

The pharaoh was excited, and he greeted Joseph with a punch on the arm and a smile of delight. “It is time for the great celebration. It must be the best year we've ever had, Joseph.”

“You are right, Your Majesty,” Joseph said. “It is a time to give thanks.”

The ceremony of the waters in which Joseph would play a prominent part was indeed one of the most joyous times of the year for the royal court and the populace alike. Joseph dressed himself in his finest, placed his gold chain around his neck, and then joined the entire household in a spontaneous procession toward the river. Pharaoh led the way in his best chariot, and Joseph followed immediately behind.

As they passed the temples, the priests—their heads shaven and shining with oil—followed along, chanting odes to their gods. It was a day for sacrifice, and Joseph knew that after all the celebrations he would be sequestered with his engineers and mathematicians to begin their observations and calculations.

Joseph soon found himself in the midst of a throng that was keeping him from moving. He got out of his chariot, commanding his servant to take it back to the palace. “I'll just walk,” he said.

The servant was shocked that the Great Provider would walk like a common mortal but obeyed without question. Joseph murmured, “All this ceremony for an annual rise in the river! What folly men will let themselves in for.” He made his way through the pressing crowds, unable to avoid the shows of homage the people made to him. He got weary of all the adulation and stopped a man with a gray cloak. “Your Provider needs your cloak.”

The man was delighted and handed it to him. “Take it, O Great One, with my blessing!”

“I do not mean to take it from you on this day of celebration. I will pay for it.” Joseph handed the man a gold coin ten times the value of the cloak. He ignored the man's screeches of delight, draped the cloak over his shoulders, covering his royal attire, and moved along. Thus disguised, at least partially, he made his way along toward the Nile.

As he approached the river, he noticed Asenath being carried in a chair with Lord Lostris walking beside her. Joseph drew near to better study the face of the young lord just as one of the slaves carrying the chair stumbled. The chair lurched, and Lostris managed to grab it and hold it upright. Another slave immediately took the place of the fallen man, and Lostris, his face pale with rage, snatched a whip from an overseer and began lashing the slave who had lost his hold. The poor slave curled in a fetal position and cried out as the whip struck his bare chest and legs, drawing blood. It was a brutal beating, and Joseph found the rage of Lord Lostris shocking.

Joseph did not move to stop him, however. The crowd around them was watching the beating, and finally Asenath got out of her chair and rushed over. “Stop, Lostris!”

Lostris turned to her, his lips tight. “They're animals!” he snapped. “You have to keep them in their place.”

At this instant Asenath glanced up and saw Joseph. He had his cloak drawn about him, but she saw his face. She flushed and could not help thinking of the first time she and Kesi had met Joseph the Hebrew slave and had him whipped just as this slave had been whipped. A wave of shame rose in her, and she turned and walked away quickly, telling the bearers, “Take the chair home. I will walk.” Lostris threw the whip down and ran after her.

Joseph was sickened by the incident, but he was not too surprised. He followed along with the crowd until they reached a temporary walkway that had been provided for the procession to pass over the flat, muddy banks of the Nile. The main channel of the river was still a quarter of a mile away, and it was there that the priests and the pharaoh would hold their special ceremony on a specially built platform. Others would have to stand on the walkway.

Joseph was moved by a sudden impulse. His lips twisted in a smile, and he murmured, “Well, Lord Lostris, you're pretty handy with that whip.” He quickened his pace until he was right behind the pair. The street was crowded, and Lostris was on the outside edge, leaving more room for Asenath on the inside. There were no handholds or barriers, and Joseph moved up alongside him. He caught Lostris in midstride and gave him a strong nudge with his shoulder.

Lostris gave a shrill cry of alarm, and his arms began to wheel. But he was too far gone. He flipped over the side of the bank, turned a complete somersault, and landed facedown in the thick, reeking mud!

Although Asenath had not seen what he had done, she turned, and her eyes met his. Over the sounds of singing and laughter, as well as the enraged screams of Lord Lostris, who was trying to climb back up the slippery riverbank, the two seemed to be alone on the walkway.

Joseph winked at her and smiled. Her mouth dropped open, and she realized with a shock that he had been responsible for the mishap. Joseph looked anything but guilty, and Asenath whirled to watch Lostris trying to pull himself up the muddy slope. He was covered with the black mud from head to toe, hawking and spitting and trying to wipe the awful mess from his eyes. Servants pulled him back up onto the roadway and attempted to wipe some of the mud from his face while he was screaming, “Someone bumped me! Which one of you caused me to fall in?”

The surrounding crowd fell silent, and Asenath turned quickly to look at Joseph. He winked at her again, then came to stand directly before the poor muddy figure who looked like anything but a lord. “I'm afraid I am the guilty one, my lord.”

A murmur went over the crowd, and Lostris stared at Joseph in silence. A servant handed him a cloth, and he partially cleaned his face. “You did it, Your Grace?”

“Yes. I am the guilty one.” Joseph let the silence grow deeper; then he inquired, “Will you chastise me with your whip as you did the man who slipped while carrying Asenath's chair?”

Many had witnessed the whipping, and they saw that Lostris was absolutely stunned. No one in Egypt could lay hands on the Great Provider of Egypt, for Pharaoh would have him stripped bare of flesh down to the bone! Making a small cry, Lostris turned and plunged his way back down the roadway, shoving people to one side. The crowd began to laugh at the mud-covered man as he ran, and the people shouted rude things. When Lostris was out of sight, Joseph walked over to stand beside Asenath.

“You did that on purpose,” Asenath whispered.

“Yes, I believe I did.”

“But … why?”

“I wanted to see what he would do.” Joseph laughed. “And we saw, didn't we?”

Asenath stared at him, unable to believe what he had done. “You did it to see what he would do?”

“That, and I wanted to see what you would do.”

“I can't believe you'd do such a thing! I despise you.”

“No you don't,” Joseph said calmly. He then smiled and reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, well aware that people were looking. “When a woman kisses a man as you kissed me, Asenath, she does not despise him.” He waited for her to answer, and when she stood absolutely silent, he said cheerfully, “Well, I must be going to perform my part in the ceremony. Be careful and don't fall in that mud.”

Asenath watched him make his way toward the river, wanting more than anything else to turn and flee home. But she did not. She lifted her chin and thought,
I will not let him have his way. I
will
go to the ceremony!
She made her way with the crowd toward the platform that had been built, and when Joseph stood to make his speech as the second man of all of Egypt, he looked directly at her and winked. She flushed and turned away, unable to meet his gaze and strongly aware of a strange stirring in her breast.

Lostris avoided Asenath for several weeks, and she assumed it was because he had been so humiliated by his fall into the mud of the Nile. Actually, his absence came as a relief to her. She had thought much about the events of that day and had seen a side of Joseph she had never been exposed to. She kept remembering how he had winked at her after deliberately shoving Lostris into the mud. It uncovered a sense of humor in him she had never dreamed existed.

Not only the sense of humor, but his last words to her kept coming to her mind.
“When a woman kisses a man as you kissed me, Asenath, she does not despise him.”
She thought of those words constantly and spent a great deal of time denying them on the one hand and feeling intrigued on the other.

In all truth Asenath was deeply discontented with her life. Despite all of the luxury she had known and the fortune of being born into the upper levels of Egyptian society, something was missing. For some time she had denied this lack of satisfaction in herself, but now that she was a fully developed and mature woman, the sight of one of her old girl friends cuddling a baby to her breast caused a strong sensation in her heart. None of her friends had remained unmarried, and she longed for the fulfillment that she assumed a fully developed relationship between a man and a woman would bring. She was also aware that she was stirred by Joseph in a way no other man had ever stirred her. This caused her some shame—yet at the same time a strange sense of pride that she had within her the desires that a man would demand from a wife.

During these days her father watched her carefully and more than once attempted to pressure her to accept Lostris as a husband. She put him off by saying, “He hasn't come back since he took that dive into the mud. I believe he's too embarrassed to let me see him again.”

But her prediction proved untrue, for early one morning Lostris came to her door, dressed in his finest and making no mention whatsoever of his inglorious dive into the mud. When she invited him in, he said in an excited tone, “You must come with me today, Asenath.”

“Come where?”

“The pharaoh and his court are going out on a wildfowl hunt. You must come.”

Asenath had been on several of these hunts—as a witness, not as a hunter—for wildfowling was one of the most ardent pursuits of Egyptian nobility. She was not interested in going on one today.