The Pharaoh's Daughter by Mesu Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

on a kill at the side of the path. The four scraggly hunters scattered as the humans approached, and Mered held his breath. Would they find animal or human prey ahead? The Ramessids had been known to throw a dead slave to the night beasts for a snack.
    The craftsmen walked past an antelope’s remains, and Mered heard others sigh with the relief he felt. A familiar loneliness crept into his bones, making his weariness unbearable.
    Please, El-Shaddai, let my Puah be home.
With her, he could forget Egyptians and Hebrews and hyenas. He could simply leave his day behind and love her.
    Four craftsmen, including Mered, split from the group and climbed a low rise to the first mud-brick long house. A narrow alley separated the first two long structures, the front doors of the first long house facing the back wall of the second row of long houses. The structures were a honeycomb of rooms, doorways, and walls. When one family needed more space, they knocked out a wall and added a doorway to another room. When an elderly couple no longer needed a place for children, a growing family accessed more of the structure.
    Mered arrived at his door halfway down the long house and paused outside to remove his sandals. Dust coated his feet and ankles even after the short walk home. He could feel the grit between his teeth, in his hair and eyelashes. Harvest season would stir more dust, and just as it became absolutely agonizing, the life-giving inundation would flood the Nile, bringing muddy relief to their dusty world. But until the mud came, they lived, breathed, and ate dust.
    Mered wiped his feet and legs. He blew the dust from his sandals and left them outside the door, donning the cloth slippers Puah required inside their home. A grin curved his lips. If El-Shaddai blessed them with children, she’d have to set aside her obsession with cleanliness.
    Mered peeked around the rough-spun linen curtain hanging across theirdoorway. As his eyes adjusted to the lamplight in their single room, he saw Puah crouched over the cook fire, her back turned. Why was she still awake? Glancing left, he noted the curtain pulled across the doorway leading to their neighbors’ rooms. The family whose rooms opened into their space must be settled for the night.
    And then he heard Puah’s soft whimpers.
    Mered crossed the room without a sound, his mind grasping at ways to comfort his grieving wife. Had Puah helped deliver their neighbors’ third child while he’d been gone? He’d dreaded the day they’d have a newborn on the other side of that curtain—not because of inconvenience or annoyance, but because his wife’s empty womb would ache unbearably.
    He scuffed his feet on the reed mat as he approached, trying not to startle her.
    Puah wiped her cheeks before turning to greet him and donned a forced smile. “Mered. I didn’t think you’d be home tonight. Is the wedding dress finished for the amira?”
    He reached for her hand, helping her to her feet. Burying his fingers in her coarse brown hair, he stared intently into eyes that shunned his gaze. “I don’t care about the amira’s dress. I care about my wife, who thinks she must hide her tears when I come home.” She tried to pull away, but he captured her cheeks between gentle hands. “Puah, talk to me. Did Jochebed have her baby?”
    She shook her head. “No, but she’s had false labor all day. It won’t be long.”
    She closed her eyes and grew still. Tears seeped beneath her lashes, and her knees crumpled, sending them both to the floor. Mered held her as waves of grief escaped on silent sobs. What could he say that hadn’t already been said? He wanted children too, but talking about it only seemed to upset them both.
    â€œPuah, we’ve been married only two years. You’re still young—only seventeen. We must give the Lord time to work.”
    â€œBut He’s already worked in every other wife my