Wayward Son (21 page)

Cain’s pleasure in Jacuna’s companionship, however, caused him to remain in Thebes much longer than normal. Over the generations, he had become increasingly adept at concealing his longevity. New cosmetics had become available, and he experimented with them deftly. As Jacuna drew near to marriageable age, Cain eagerly anticipated the arrival of a grandchild. He was not disappointed. Nine months after the wedding, Jacuna’s bride gave birth to a son. They named him Hati.

With Jacuna now approaching twenty, Cain decided his son had sufficient maturity to superintend the business interests in Thebes. He therefore reverted to his usual pattern, informing his family that he had decided to go on an extended business trip. Once again, his destination was Memphis, where he would be far downriver. Bidding Jacuna an especially affectionate farewell, he imparted final instructions and assured his son he would remain in touch by letter. Well aware of how people tended to die young in Egypt, he knew he might never see Jacuna again, and as Cain left his family compound he choked back tears.

***

While he was based in Memphis, four hundred miles north of Thebes, Cain wrote regularly to Jacuna, checking on Hati’s well-being and monitoring the family’s commercial interests. Fortunately, Jacuna never traveled to Memphis, since he was focusing his time on contracts and deals with Nubia to the south. Cain reported that he had fathered another son by a young Memphite woman, a child named Seti, who was thus Jacuna’s half brother. In almost every letter, he promised to visit Thebes soon, but somehow business commitments always intervened.

Late in Ramesses’s reign, Cain did, in fact, return to Thebes, but not as Senejer. As he had done so often before, he impersonated his own son. “Seti” reported that their father had died in a sudden Mediterranean storm while on a trading mission. A grief-stricken Jacuna was comforted by his “half brother,” who bore a distinct resemblance to their common “parent.”

Cain settled into life in Thebes once again, partnering with Jacuna as a merchant. Now grown to adolescence, Hati also aspired to carry on the family business. Seeking companionship, Cain took another young wife, who bore him a son, Nefran.

Their trading enterprise grew to such prominence within Egypt’s economy that Cain was afforded a private audience with Ramesses, at which he presented Nefran as his firstborn to receive the pharaoh’s royal blessing.

Little did Cain know how fateful the eventual consequences of that encounter would be.

CHAPTER 25

Thebes, circa 1230 BC

IT WAS WHILE HE was living in Thebes as Seti that Cain first heard of
Moses
.

Khaimudi, still in office as Ramesses’s high priest after twenty-five years, was in close contact with Jacuna, whose business interests often coincided with those of the pharaoh. When Cain, as Seti, first arrived in Thebes, Jacuna promptly arranged a visit to the royal palace to make a proper introduction of his half brother.

“Welcome, Jacuna,” the chief priest smiled warmly. Cain thought that his friend, though obviously advanced in age, carried the dignity of his office well. “Ah, and what a pleasure at last to meet Senejer’s long absent son! My, Seti, I must say that you are the very image of your father.” Khaimudi then caught himself and continued, more solemnly, “The entire court of Pharaoh mourns with you. Your father served Egypt selflessly.”

“Thank you, your holiness. My father spoke of you often. And, of course, the great marvels you conceived at Abu Simbel. The sudden circumstances that took him did not permit my father a dying wish, but may I be so bold as to express one for him?”

“I would honor the noble Senejer in any manner you suggest,” the high priest replied earnestly.

“It would bless me, as well as my father’s memory, if the revered architect of the temple would himself accompany me on my first visit there.”

“It would be my great privilege to do so,” Khaimudi answered. “I regret, however, that arrangements may be difficult in the near term. Pharaoh has restricted many of us from travel while we address an unusual issue.”

Jacuna inquired, “Is there any way we may be of service?”

Khaimudi politely declined the offer, but went on to explain that a leader who called himself “prophet” had begun pressing the pharaoh to liberate the Hebrew slaves. This was a ludicrous demand, of course. But anxiety still swirled in the halls of power. Any slave rebellion would have to be ruthlessly suppressed, declared Khaimudi. Yet how to do so without compromising the slaves’ work?

Furthermore, the high priest stressed, Moses posed a threat to the heart of Egyptian culture: the nation’s religious beliefs. The Hebrew leader championed monotheism. And not only did Moses worship just one God, but it was said he actually
spoke
with him as well. Such a claim directly challenged the pharaoh’s sacred authority.

It was said that the prophet bore the name Moses because he had been raised as a royal prince. He was drawn as a baby from the waters of the Nile in a reed basket by the pharaoh’s daughter and adopted by the royal family. But as his birth mother had raised him in his early years, he considered himself a Hebrew. As a young man, Moses had frequently taken issue with the captivity of the slaves, and he notoriously killed an Egyptian overlord and then fled to Midian, where he dwelled in the safe company of his Hebrew brethren.

Cain puzzled why God would even speak to a murderer, much less appoint him as a prophet or a leader of the Hebrew people. God certainly no longer spoke to Cain, and he was no more guilty of taking another man’s life than Moses.

***

Months later Moses issued an ultimatum. Either Pharaoh would let the Hebrew people go, or
Yahweh
, their God, would punish all Egypt with a series of grave afflictions. As an especially potent first sign, declared Moses, Yahweh would turn the river Nile, Egypt’s nurturing, beneficent tide, into blood.

Just before the flood season, Cain, Jacuna, Hati, and young Nefran had set out from Thebes on an upriver expedition. The party pursued a leisurely course past Aswan all the way to Abu Simbel, for Cain wanted to revisit the scene of his labors for the pharaoh some decades before—though of course as Seti he had to pretend that he was viewing the spectacular monuments for the first time.

At Abu Simbel, benefiting from introductions furnished by Khaimudi, the party lodged comfortably with the main temple’s senior priesthood. Cain was pleased to see that the colossal statues of Ramesses had weathered well. While the toddler Nefran was cared for and coddled by the head priest’s wife and daughters, Jacuna and Hati admired the great relief depicting Ramesses’s victory over the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh on the Orontes River in Syria.

So near to such a powerful example of Egypt’s dynastic power, Cain could scarcely imagine anything threatening the empire, and certainly not the strange delusions of an upstart murderer.

***

By August, the Nile was in full flood. Cain and his party had decided to spend the next few months upriver, until the receding waters would make the journey back to Thebes less turbulent.

And then, as Cain strolled with Jacuna by the banks of the Nile early one morning, the two were greeted by a strange sight: the silvery blue ribbon was tinged distinctly scarlet. Jacuna breathlessly recalled Khaimudi’s account of Moses’s grim warnings. Cain listened carefully to his son, but remained privately unconvinced. From the centuries he had spent wandering, he knew that the Blue Nile, rising in the Ethiopian highlands, might be the source of powdery, carmine-colored soil, flushed downriver by unusually heavy rains. This effluent, or perhaps red algae, might afford a natural explanation of the phenomenon that seemed to exhibit an uncanny match with Moses’s “first plague.”

Cain’s certainty began to erode. That year would be long remembered in Egypt. In close succession, trial followed trial and curse followed curse. Fish died, frogs overran the land, and dust turned into noisome clouds of gnats and lice. Domestic animals ran amok as wild and then dropped dead in piles, the victims of plague. People and animals alike suffered from incurable boils. But Cain’s, of course, were healed immediately, so he covered himself in long robes during those few weeks.

The
plagues
grew ever more fearsome. Fiery hailstorms burned houses and set dry fields ablaze. Swarms of locusts, billions of them, consumed all the remaining crops in Egypt. And finally, sepulchral darkness engulfed the land for three days.

Throughout these trials Pharaoh refused to release the Hebrews. In his skepticism, Cain had attributed each successive plague to natural causes, but now even he grew intrigued. He wanted to meet this Moses, to see where the source of his power really lay. The darkness was as difficult to explain as Noah’s great flood.

Whatever the powers of Moses, or of Yahweh, to disrupt Egyptian life, Cain was, as always, on the watch for economic opportunity. The natural disasters that plagued the land for over half a year meant that Ramesses in his old age had to confront an economic and social crisis. Drought and famine had been known before in Egypt’s long history. But now, after the devastation of farmland and livestock on an unprece-dented scale, there was a real uncertainty about whether Ramesses could feed his people. If he could not, he would face civil unrest far worse than the mere disaffection of Hebrew slaves. Already tens of thousands of Egyptians were moving toward the capital, demanding that the Pharaoh provide food and put an end to the plagues.

Calculating that Ramesses would be amenable to any solution, even at an exorbitant cost in gold, Cain sent a message upriver, where most of his largest barges were moored. In March, he ordered the vessels loaded with grain and livestock he had secured long ago in Nubia. Located outside the borders of Egypt to the south, these granaries and stockyards were not only exempt from the usual tribute that Egyptian producers were accustomed to paying the pharaoh, but they had escaped the plagues as well. Ramesses could not object to paying for food he did not possess in his own right, Cain thought. In fact, he expected that Ramesses would accede to virtually any price. There was scant hope of any other food source. Cain’s hopes remained high that he would strike one of the most lucrative bargains of his long career and place the pharaoh in his debt.

One day, on the return journey downriver to Thebes, Cain awoke before sunrise. Just as he was finishing his breakfast of bread and dried dates, the eerie stillness shrouding the vessel was suddenly interrupted.

“Come quickly, sir!” the captain’s mate exhorted.

“What is it, Menotep?”

“I cannot awaken them, sir. Your brother, Jacuna, and his son. They do not move.”

Alarmed, Cain jumped up from the table. “And Nefran?”

“He is awake, sir. The stewards are bathing him now.”

Cain trembled as he rushed below decks to Jacuna’s cabin. His son’s deathly pallor was unmistakable, yet Cain rustled the cold body repeatedly, in vain hope. After an identical episode at Hati’s bedside, he collapsed in tears. Then, from cabins elsewhere on the barge, shrieks and wails merged with Cain’s cries into a dreadful chorus, as other crewmen discovered their loss.

Cain staggered back up to the ship’s deck and found little Nefran. Staring listlessly at the waning stars above, Cain struggled to understand how the firstborn sons of many crewmen on his barge had died at the same time. Heartbroken, he ordered a halt to the journey so he and his stricken crew could bury their dead near the banks of the Nile.

***

Upon arriving at the Egyptian capital, Cain’s fleet of barges was met at the docks by smaller pilot boats. Nearby, hundreds of the pharaoh’s soldiers were busy holding back a huge crowd of people thronging the wharf area. Everyone along the river could see Cain’s barges laden with sacks of grain and fat farm animals. In a time of famine, the Egyptian capital was in a state of panic. He knew he had to strike a deal quickly to prevent his barges from being looted. Cain had already drafted a contract for the official signature of the pharaoh’s scribes, stating prices four times higher than normal.

Fortunately, moments after the mooring lines were secured, the elderly priest Khaimudi appeared out of the crowd. Walking down the gangplank, Cain held Nefran in his arms to keep the small boy from getting trampled by the unruly mob.

“Welcome, Seti. You have arrived just in time. Pharaoh is awaiting you at the palace.” Pausing for a moment while he eyed little Nefran, Khaimudi motioned to his female servants.

“They will attend to Nefran as they did back at Abu Simbel,” Khaimudi promised. Cain nodded in gratitude. One of the servants lifted the boy from his arms, and the two men walked to the palace.

Cain stood in the audience hall while Khaimudi proceeded into Pharaoh’s chamber to present the contract. At length, Ramesses and Khaimudi entered the hall, as usual to a flourish of trumpets. Cain was always surprised by the pharaoh’s short stature. By now, his flaming red hair had grizzled into grayish-white. The monarch’s arthritic knees and ankles caused him to limp noticeably. Nevertheless, a powerful aura emanated from the man.

Ramesses began the discussion abruptly.

“You have come to help Egypt, Seti?”

“My duty is to the nation, Mighty One, and you are its embodiment.”

“We are told your glorious fleet of barges is docked at our piers, freighted with grain and livestock.”

Cain bowed low in assent.

“But now, there is one matter that takes precedence.”

Unsure whether to question the pharaoh, Cain remained silent.

“You are aware of the latest outrage that the traitor Moses has devised for Egypt. He and his God are murderers, Seti. And their victims are strewn across our land. I have lost my own firstborn son, and his firstborn male descendants with him.” At this, the ruler’s voice cracked slightly.

“All of Egypt grieves with you,” Cain responded hesitantly, surprised to learn of Moses’s connection to the slaughter.