“People will not accept this,” Moses said. “You cannot take away their beliefs so easily.”
“No, they won’t like it,” Donnchadh agreed.
“So how—” Moses left the question unsaid.
“What you will do,” Donnchadh began, “is use the God of the Judeans to rally them and to frighten the Pharaoh.”
“ ‘The’ God? Just one?” Moses asked.
“Yes.”
“Is the God of the Judeans real?”
The question gave Donnchadh pause. “I don’t know.” She looked down at the body. “As real as they are, I suppose.”
An uneasy silence reigned in the chamber for several minutes, each of the three lost in their own thoughts.
“What else is down here?” Moses finally asked. “When I was growing up, some of the priests would whisper about secret places under the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”
“What else is down here does not concern you,” Donnchadh said.
Moses turned to her, and Gwalcmai stepped between them, his hand drifting to the pommel of his sword.
Moses did not back down. “I heard rumors of a Grail that gives immortality, which lies somewhere down here. It is what the priests would promise the true believers as their reward for a lifetime of service. Yet no one ever seemed to get this reward.”
“There is an Ark in one of the duats along these Roads,” Donnchadh allowed. “Perhaps it contains the Grail.”
“ ‘Perhaps’?” Moses waited, but Donnchadh said nothing more. Finally, he sighed. “You have proven that the Gods of my people are dead. What do I do next?”
“Gwalcmai will go with you,” Donnchadh said. She reached into the tube and pulled out the staff, handing it to Moses. “You will call him Aaron. He will advise you.”
“Where will I go?”
“To see your father, the Pharaoh, of course.” Donnchadh drew her dagger. “But first we must do something so you can make your point more clearly to your father and to the priests who whisper in his ear.”
The royal guards did not kill Moses immediately. Whether it was because they were not willing to kill royalty without direct orders from the Pharaoh, or because of the amazing staff he carried, the likes of which none had ever seen, or a combination of both, it wasn’t clear.
They did, however, securely bind the arms of both Gwalcmai and Moses before bringing them into the Pharaoh’s receiving room. They were shoved down onto their knees on the hard stone floor in front of the Pharaoh’s throne. Ramses II wore a heavy robe, sewn with golden thread, and his head was adorned with a crown covered with jewels. His face was so heavily rouged that it was hard for Gwalcmai to read theman’s expression. His arms were crossed, the symbols of his office — the crook and flail — in his hands. He was so still that for several moments Gwalcmai thought him to be a statue. A dozen guards flanked the Pharaoh on either side. Seated to the Pharaoh’s right was a younger version, dressed and made up the same, except lacking the crown, crook, and flail.
Ramses II stared at his son for several moments in silence, then raised the crook and made a gesture. Guards cut the bindings holding the two men and handed Moses the staff.
Moses raised both hands, the staff in his right, the left palm open in a sign of peace. “Father.”
“You dare call me that?” Ramses’ voice was low, but carried well in the room.
“Father, I have come to help you.”
Two kilometers from the Pharaoh’s palace, near the wall surrounding the sprawling Judean slave camp, Donnchadh removed a small block of gray, malleable material from the backpack she had been wearing. She pressed the material against the base of the stone wall, directly below one of the guard towers that were evenly spaced, one hundred meters apart, around the perimeter. She placed a flat chip, no larger than the nail on her pinkie, on top of the material and quickly moved away.
Taking a small metal ball out of her pack, she pressed one of the hexagonals on the surface and the material exploded, destroying the guard tower and punching a large hole in the wall. Both the Egyptians and Jews in the area were stunned by this inexplicable event. The awe was over quickly, though, as the closest Egyptian troops retaliated for the death of their comrades in the only way they knew how, against the only available enemy — they began massacring the closest slaves they could slay.
Starving because of the drought, worked to within inches of their lives, and having borne the burden of slavery for long years, many Jews fought back and a pitched battle was joined. Bugle calls echoed out as the surprised Egyptian troops called for assistance. The handful of soldiers in the area were quickly overwhelmed and the Jews appropriated their weapons and surged through the hole in the wall.
Just as a second bomb, which Donnchadh had set earlier, went off, destroying a barracks full of soldiers.
What kind of help can you give me?” the Pharaoh demanded.
Ramses III stood, glaring down at his half brother. “What kind of help do you think we need, Governor of Midian?”
A sound like distant thunder echoed through the palace, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The faint sound of bugles floated in through the open windows. Then another thunderclap. More bugles blared and there was the sound of large numbers of armed men moving quickly.
An officer appeared in one of the side portals to the audience room and hurried across to whisper into Ramses III’s ear. Ramses III dismissed the man, then turned to Moses. “What an extreme coincidence — you come here offering aid, and there is trouble with the Judeans at the same moment.”
“There has been trouble brewing with the Judeans for a long time,” Moses said. “There is the drought. They have been worked harder than they should have been. Even slaves must be fed and taken care of. There is trouble in the east and south. There are stirrings in Persia and I believe within ten years the Hittites will invade in this direction.”
“Do you bring me only bad news?” Ramses II asked.
“I bring you good news,” Moses said. He indicated Gwalcmai. “This is Aaron, a warrior from beyond our borders. He knows of the Hittites. He knows of the lands there.”
Gwalcmai half bowed at the waist toward Ramses II. “Lord, you can solve two problems with one action.”
Gwalcmai paused while several more officers scurried in and talked to Ramses III in low voices. As soon as they left, his father raised the crook, indicating he was to brief him.
“There have been two explosions like lightning striking but there is no storm. One along the wall holding the Judeans, the other at the barracks of the temple guards. Many soldiers — at least one hundred — have been killed. There have been subsequent riots in the Judean camp. It will be suppressed shortly.”
“For the time being,” Moses threw in.
“What is the one action that would solve my dual problems?” Ramses II demanded.
“Let us take the Judeans away from here,” Gwalcmai said. “To the north and east, along the shores of the Mediterranean. Let them establish a state there, close to where they originally came from. A state that will be loyal to you because of their gratitude for being freed. One that will be a buffer state for you against the Hittites.”
“One that you rule?” Ramses III demanded.
“My exile will be farther away, brother,” Moses replied. “That should suit you.” He looked at his father. “You will be rid of the Judean problem. It was fine to have so many slaves when things were going well and the Nile was high and crops were bountiful. Now they are just a drain. The bricks they make are of poor quality and lie in piles, unused. And you will have a state between you and the Hittites that they will have to conquer before they can attack Egypt.”