The Moses Legacy - Adam Palmer [99]
‘But the infection is still out there. Look at what happened to that curator in England. He had all the symptoms: the fever, the snake-like lesions…’
‘It doesn’t appear to have spread.’
‘And what about the Egyptians?’
‘They seem to have contained it too.’
‘So it’s not all that virulent.’
‘Not the Egyptian strain certainly. If Carmichael’s translation is right, then it mutated into a more virulent strain in the Jordan area.’
‘How can we be so sure of that? I mean it’s not like Carmichael was an epidemiologist.’
‘No, but it’s a case of reading between the lines. We got hold of a copy of Carmichael’s paper and gave it to our own epidemiologists for an assessment.’
‘And how badly should we be worrying?’
‘Well, as long as it’s in stasis, there should be no problem.’
She was about to say something more when Dov’s phone went. She watched as his face went from sombre to grave.
‘Has General Security been notified?… Okay, keep me posted.’
When he put the phone down, his face drained of blood and Sarit looked at him expectantly.
‘That Samaritan rabbi they spoke to, Aryeh Tsedaka… he’s been found dead in the synagogue in Holon. There were signs of a struggle and his neck was broken.’
Chapter 79
‘Shall I wait for them?’ Daniel asked Gabrielle when she returned.
She had been outside to find out what was going on. The priest who had stormed out was not merely angry; he was crying at what Daniel had just revealed from the text. The other was trying to comfort him. But Gabrielle did not want to reply until the high priest had spoken.
‘It is not our custom to let an outsider read from our scrolls unless at least two priests are present.’
‘I don’t think they’re going to be back anytime soon,’ said Gabrielle.
The high priest seemed to be wrestling with his conscience before replying. Daniel knew that this must be hard for him. Ephraim was not just one of the patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. He was the patriarch of one of the two tribes from which the Samaritans specifically claim their descent. And this ancient scroll cast him as a cunning schemer, an incestuous adulterer and a murderer.
‘Please continue,’ the priest said finally through his pain.
In his twelfth year, Pharaoh raised his wife Nefertiti to rule at his right side and she ruled with him, and when his heart was calm he ruled and when his heart was troubled she ruled. And at the end of summer of his seventeenth year, he died and Nefertiti ruled alone. But she feared her father and she feared Horemheb, the chief of the army, and she feared Tutankhaten for he was a troubled boy and both Horemheb and Neferayim tried to be as fathers to him. And he would not listen to her for he was not her son and she did not have a son. So she wrote to the king of the Hittites and offered to marry one of his sons.
Daniel had to break off when he heard Gabrielle’s sharp intake of breath. ‘Do you know about this?’
‘There is a record of such an incident. It’s called the Zananza Incident. In the early part of the twentieth century, archaeologists found a huge collection of some 10,000 clay tablets written in cuneiform, at the site of the ancient Hittite capital. And some of the tablets are letters referring to this incident.’
Daniel continued reading.
But the king of the Hittites was suspicious, for the daughters of Egypt did not marry foreign men. So he sent a messenger to Egypt to accuse Nefertiti of deception. So she wrote to the Hittite king again and his messenger brought her words to the king. She told the king of her fears and swore that she spoke true and would give his son the throne of Egypt. And so the Hittite king sent Zananza his son to be her husband, but Horemheb, the chief of the army, heard of this and he sent out his men and they met Zananza on the road and smote him.
Daniel looked up at Gabrielle,