A Man Called Moses Part Two

I fell into a deep, travel-weary sleep once I discovered my room within Ramses’s palace. I discovered, upon the arrival of morning, that three visitors had arrived at the kingdom. They claimed to know me.

I could think of nothing I needed less than Moses’s old friends to identify me as a counterfeit.

I dressed quickly, exited the palace, and discovered the dreaded Calves had arrived as my “old friends.” The three bounty hunters stood at the bottom of the palace’s golden steps. Two of them grinned at me.

“Hello, Moses,” the first said. He clearly knew I wasn’t Moses, given the way he pronounced the name.

My eyes darted, frantic. Plenty of people stood nearby. Did any of them stand in earshot?

I marched down the steps. “Gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

“Drop the act,” said one.

“We know who you really are,” said the second.

The third displayed a silver ring.

My heart stopped. The ring belonged to Moses. I had thought to steal it, but the robbery felt beneath me, so I allowed the dead man to keep his treasure.

“Do you suppose,” the first hunter asked, “that the pharaoh would care to hear how we came upon this ring?”

My knees shook. “I should like to know, myself.”

The second hunter explained. “Someone witnessed your little funeral out in the dunes. We dug up the real Moses, took the ring from his finger as proof of his demise.”

“How do you suppose,” the first hunter asked, “Ramses shall react when he discovers your deception?”

“So poorly,” said I, “that my mangled remains might prove unrecognizable. You three would discover yourselves without an identifiable corpse with which to claim your bounty, should that happen.”

The second hunter laughed. His rotten teeth stunk. “We didn’t travel all this way to leave empty-handed.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

The third hunter spoke for the first time. His eyes sparkled with a cunning that turned my bowels to water. “Your head can fetch us sixty silver pieces.”

I nodded. “I can cover that.” I hoped.

“You’ll have to perform better than that,” said the second hunter.

The first hunter agreed. “We want sixty gold pieces. Each.”

I nodded as if that shouldn’t provide me with a problem. “I can collect your prize, but not right away. I only started this scam. To ask Ramses for so much gold so soon would arouse his suspicion.”

The first two hunters opened their mouths, but they fell silent the second the third spoke. “How long?”

“Ten days,” I said. It sounded a nice, round figure.

Scowls answered my request. “Too long,” said the third hunter.

“Then turn me in,” I said in a heated rush.

They hesitated.

“Agree to ten days,” I told them. “You can always backtrack later, if your impatience defeats you.”

That satisfied them. “Very well, Moses,” said the third hunter. He led the other two from the stairs. “We’ll wait . . . but not from afar.”

I watched them leave.

God, I recalled, would owe me all the gold in Egypt if I released the Jews from their bondage . . . a task for which I needed to return.

I entered my room, found my snake, Stiffy, still disguised as a staff. With Stiffy in hand, I headed towards Ramses’s audience chamber, where I discovered a long line of Egyptian citizenry who waited outside that chamber.

One of Ramses’s soldiers handed me a small, stone square. A glyph of a man walking with his arms held out to either side decorated the stone.

Another soldier, seated at the entrance to the audience chamber, said, “Now serving Owl.”

The other people in line examined their stone squares. “That’s me,” an old man said. He presented his stone square, a glyph of an owl carved upon it.

The seated soldier rose and led the old man into the audience chamber.

Several minutes passed.

The soldier returned. “Now serving Man with the Head of a Goat or Something.”

“Right here.” Another person in line turned in a stone square decorated by a carving of a man with the head of a goat or something.

This routine continued, until, at long last, one soldier announced, “Now serving Man with His Arms Held out.”

I turned in my stone square and allowed the soldier to escort me into Ramses’s audience chambers.

The king’s throne, carved from wood and festooned with sapphires, sat atop a small series of golden steps. Several soldiers stood guard near the bottom step.

I could cure all my problems if I walked away with only one of those steps.

The pharaoh seemed surprised to see me. “Moses? What brings you here?”

I licked my lips. “About that whole ‘Freeing the Jews’ business . . .”

Ramses rose from his throne. “I will not hear of this matter again.”

I summoned my courage. “I warn you, Ramses.” (I rubbed Stiffy just right, cued him to drop his disguise.) “Behold the power of the Hebrew God!” I tossed Stiffy upon the floor, where he immediately uncoiled.

A young boy cried with wonder. “He turned his staff into a snake!”

I crossed my arms, certain that I had accomplished Ramses's attention.

I hadn’t even fazed him. “A simple magician’s trick.” He snapped his fingers.

Two soldiers dropped their own “staffs” upon the ground. These snakes-disguised-as-staffs uncoiled.

Ramses straightened, stared down at me. “We’re done here.”

“Look!” cried the same boy as before.

My mouth dropped. The soldiers gasped. Stiffy ate the other two snakes.

Ramses sat, lost for words.

I seized the opportunity. “See the Hebrew God’s power? You mustn’t defy Him. Grant my people their freedom.”

Ramses’s fists tightened. “One snake eats two, and I, in rational reaction, should free thousands of slaves? Offer me something more persuasive.”

I possessed other tricks. “I shall, if you do not grant the Hebrews’ their freedom, turn a portion of your drinking water into blood.”

The crowd gasped.

Ramses’s dark eyes glared at me with naked fury. I swallowed, concerned that I had pushed the pharaoh too far.

“When the sun sets tonight, Moses, and your threat turns up empty, I expect silence to fall forever upon this debate.”

A conman either knows when he’s pushed his luck far enough, or he enjoys a slit throat. I bowed and retreated from the audience chamber.

I headed towards one of the kingdom’s many lakes. The pouch that hung from my belt possessed enough red powder (I hoped) to turn a portion of the lake red.

I knelt at the lake’s edge, stared down at my reflection. I looked tired, my black skin blistered by my travels. I discreetly removed the powder from my pouch, dropped it into the water, and stood.

I mimicked a religious rite while the powder converted as much water as it likely would.

“Behold!” I cried. “I have, with the power of God, turned your water to blood.”

Egyptian citizens, soldiers, and even slaves gathered around me. They stared at the petite, pink blemish that floated atop the lake. The crowd looked far from impressed.

“What did you do?” a soldier asked. “Cut open a mouse?”

The citizens and soldiers laughed.

“Look!” cried the boy from the audience chamber (I suspected that the brat just wandered about the kingdom unsupervised). “The blood spreads.”

Everyone gasped (they did this often). The pink spot had indeed spread. The entire lake appeared a pit of dark blood. The other lakes followed suit, as did the entire Nile River.

How? God had told me that He hadn’t the power to perform miracles. That He “overstated His abilities in certain autobiographies.” If He hadn’t caused this, who had?

One soldier noticed the gathered Jews. “What do you lowlifes think you’re doing here? Back to work, or I’ll—”

I don’t know what possessed me, but I stepped between the soldier and Jews. “Anyone who strikes a Hebrew shall face the fury of God.”

Everyone froze while they digested this.

“What if,” one soldiers asked, “the Jew in question starts to go on about how he devised a mathematical system for beating a blackjack table?”

“I guess you would have to strike him, then,” I admitted. “Everyone hates those twats with their stupid, card-counting schemes that never work.”

“Wait!” said a citizen. “If you just keep count of all face-up picture cards—”

I shot him a warning look. He shut his trap.

The crowd parted to reveal Ramses, who stood in decorative armor and a velvet cape. He stared at the water. “What have you done?” he whispered to me.

He knelt at the nearest lake, dipped his finger into the blood . . . examined it.

His eyes slid towards me. “I refused to speak to our father after he expelled you. I promised he would never hear my voice until he welcomed you back.”

Ramses stood, rubbed the blood he collected between his thumb and forefinger. “This is how you repay me?”

What could I have said?

Ramses marched past me. “For every morning that the blood remains, I shall order one of your fingers sliced from your hand.”

Bad news. I hadn’t the palest notion how to reverse my parlor trick.

To be continued . . .

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