Free Dreamers by Angela Hunt Page B

bought from Pharaoh’s court. His arm is now mended,
    Angela Hunt
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    and he has cured your cattle of a mange that would have
    spread through the herd. He is a capable overseer. Let me su-
    pervise the kitchens, but place everything else in Paneah’s
    hands. By Pharaoh’s life, I swear he will not fail you.”
    “By all the gods, I knew he was bright.” Potiphar grinned.
    “Bring him to me at once.”
    Tuya hurried away, her heart as light as her step. Yosef
    would turn the estate into the pride and treasure of Thebes.
    And soon he would be as important to Potiphar as he had
    become to her.
    Potiphar
    And it came to pass from the time that he had made
    him overseer in his house, and over all that he had,
    that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for
    Yosef ’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon
    all that he had in the house, and in the field.
    Genesis 39:5
    Chapter Eight
    A year passed. The waters of the Nile altered from the thick
    silk of the inundation to the green of verdigris shining on
    copper. Potiphar’s slaves tilled the soil of his lands during the
    proyet, the months of the land’s emergence, and harvested
    during shemu, the four months of drought. Far to the south,
    monsoon winds swept inland from the great ocean and
    dumped torrential rains on the highlands of the continent,
    feeding the tributary known as the Blue Nile. Through steep
    mountain gorges, tracts of marshland, and fetid jungles, the
    swollen river roiled northward and merged with the White
    Nile. Beyond the point of their convergence lay six cataracts;
    the northernmost cataract, a craggy gorge through which the
    floodwaters tumbled in an angry rush, marked the southern
    boundary of Egypt.
    Unaware of the natural forces at work, at the summer
    solstice the priests made their offerings to Egypt’s gods and
    waited for the annual arrival of the bounteous flood. Pharaoh
    prayed to the god Hapi, begging him to pour the holy waters
    into the river known since ancient times as Hep-ur, or “sweet
    water.” According to legend and Egyptian belief, Hapi sat on
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    Dreamers
    a mountain and poured the Nile on the land from two bottom-
    less pitchers. One pitcher brought forth the sweet bright green
    river of harvest time, from the other flowed the gray, silt-
    laden waters of the inundation, needed to flood and fertilize
    the thirsty Egyptian fields. Pharaoh and the priests did not
    doubt that the gray waters would come, but they begged the
    god to dispense his gift with mercy and wisdom. Too much
    water and villages would be swept away; too little and Egypt
    would starve.
    When Sirius, the dogstar, arrived in the vast and immea-
    surable canopy of the night sky, the priests announced that the
    waters were near. As they had predicted, the flood rushed north-
    ward a few days later. Over the centuries, natural levees had
    built up along the Nile, and on the Night of the Cutting of the
    Dam, the people of Thebes mounted these natural walls along
    the riverfront and waited for Pharaoh’s signal. Once the dam
    was “cut,” or broken, the precious waters flooded a series of
    man-made channels and carried their nourishment to the fields.
    Scowling at the noise of celebration, Potiphar climbed one
    of the towers built into the walls of his villa. To the west he
    could see the silver water and a shimmering skyline where
    earthen dams at the border of his property bristled with life
    as the sun dropped behind the horizon. Already glowing orbs
    of torchlight moved through the darkness.
    A twinge of nostalgia struck him. In every year until this
    one, he had been at Pharaoh’s side for this ceremony. He
    would have been on the royal barge this year, too, but a royal
    courtier called Narmer had convinced Pharaoh that Potiphar
    needed time to rest.
    The high squeal of the priests’ trumpets rent the air. Though
    he couldn’t see clearly in the darkness, Potiphar knew that
    long boats of bundled papyrus reeds were breaking through
    the banks