Juan Ramon Sereno: The Wise Slave

Chapter 11: A Gruesome Event

Breakfast time passed without anything out of the ordinary for the past five hours. My fellow servants were still quiet on the duration of that time span, so I just kept my mouth shut for real because I was afraid that I might tell them something I shouldn’t. After a while, I took the spade and rake and started to clean the backyard since it got messier than yesterday.

For the whole day that I was cleaning, virtually nothing interesting happened in my location, and I also have no idea of what’s going on inside the house. I get really uneasy everytime this happens. My curiosity was fulfilled when I met up with Yuyagahor at the house’s entrance.

“I don’t know what happened between Lord Potiphar and his wife a while ago,” Yuyagahor narrated, “but I can hear their raised voices from inside their chamber. Sounds like they were having a row. I just couldn’t understand what they were saying.”

“And Joseph?” I asked him.

Yuyagahor refrained from answering me. He asked me another question instead. “What about him?”

I took a deep breath and rolled my eyes. “Won’t they release him?”

“I don’t think so,” Yuyagahor answered. “Just wait, before you answer me rudely, I shall explain. First, Lord Potiphar is a very proud person, so he wouldn’t release Joseph at the drop of a hat. Second, if I put myself in his shoes, I might prefer to stay in prison than go back here where Lord Potiphar’s wife is.”

I rolled my eyes again and said, “Yeah, me too. But wait, does anyone else know that that information came from us?”

“Regarding his wife’s trickery?” he asked. “If I’m not mistaken, I was the only one recognized by Lord Potiphar that time, since I was the one in charge this week, but I don’t think anyone else knows aside from us that it was you who discovered the truth.”

I was finally able to breathe properly with this. “Good. But we still need to stay alert. I don’t trust Anuk-Solamun a single bit. For all I know, she might be up to something again.”

I realized that I forgot to include her title, but I also didn’t expect that Yuyagahor would let this slide. He just smiled and accompanied me to the basement.

A few days have passed without anything interesting happening. If I’m not mistaken, Joseph still needs to stay in prison for another two years before the Pharaoh summons him and makes him the Governor of Egypt. In my case, I’m not too sure if I can handle being a mere servant with my activities becoming a routine for two years, but considering the events from the past few days, I think it’s better off this way instead of something bad happening.

One day, I was able to finish early in cleaning the backyard so Yuyagahor invited me again to the soldiers’ basement so he can teach me how to use a dagger. This would be his last day being in charge in the soldiers’ basement so he wanted to take the chance to ‘train me for combat.’ I am still in doubt whether fighting is really for me, but one can never tell when ne would need it, so I just agreed to it even if the basement was as hot as an oven and there’s a very high possibility that I could hurt myself or Yuyagahor.

Just like when Yuyagahor was teaching me how to use a bow and arrow, it was also really hard for me to learn how to use a dagger properly. Yuyagahor told me that I was actually able to learn faster than his previous trainees, but I think he’s lying. He then decided to teach me how to use a sword instead, but he soon encountered a problem.

“Odd. One of the swords here is missing,” he said. Nevertheless, he just brushed that aside and began teaching me how to wield a sword.

If I’m bad at using daggers, it was nothing compared to me using a sword. It was even very difficult for me to lift the smallest sword in the room and I couldn’t even use it properly.