Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (9 page)

“Because the Lord is with us,” said Abram, “and this is where he said that we should go.” He put his hand on her arm. “Sarai, I told you of the dangers so you’d know why I’m being cautious. But in all likelihood, we look strong enough that we won’t be molested, and yet not so strong as to make Pharaoh fear us. It will go as the Lord wills, but I try to be prudent all the same.”

They camped well back from the lake, so they would not be tortured by the biting flies that lived on the edges of the water, and so the stupider beasts would not drink from the salt marsh and die. The next day they moved south, skirting the marsh until at last they rejoined the road.

They were spotted almost at once by two men who took off running.

“We must be frightening after all,” said Sarai.

“No,” said Abram. “They’re just doing their job. They watch until there’s something to see, then they run back to report on us.”

“They’re naked,” said Sarai.

“Didn’t I mention that?” said Abram. “Egyptians aren’t much for clothing. They use it more for ornamentation than modesty.”

“But all the Egyptians I’ve known wore clothing.”

“And so will the wealthy Egyptians you meet here,” said Abram, “though slaves and poor farmers are as likely to be naked as not. And even the wealthy—well, you’ll see. White linen is the rule here, finely woven. Very cool and comfortable, keeping off the sun while letting in the air. Almost as easy to see through as water.”

“No.”

“Pretend that it doesn’t bother you,” said Abram. “If you look away, they’ll tease you. If you stare, they’ll get angry.”

“If they’re naked, how can they hope that no one will stare?”

“Because no one does,” said Abram. “If no one looks at you, then you aren’t really naked, are you?”

“A person with no clothes on is naked, whether anyone’s looking or not.”

“That’s because you’re not an Egyptian.” Abram laughed again. “Sarai, it’s not as bad as you think. This
is
a civilized country, as long as you adapt to their customs. They’ll even tolerate our strange foreign ways—all this extra clothing we wear—as long as we don’t seem to be criticizing them.”

Egypt was not sounding half so enticing to her now. Why hadn’t he mentioned this before? Perhaps he hadn’t realized it would bother her. Or perhaps he simply knew that they were going to Egypt no matter how she felt about it, and he simply refrained from warning her until the last possible moment, to spare her weeks of dread along the road.

Well, that just proved that he didn’t understand her yet. Because she always preferred to know. She could have been preparing herself for weeks. Instead, this matter of clothing came as a shock.

The sun was still a good three hands above the horizon when a group of soldiers came jogging along the road toward them.

“Good,” said Abram. “Enough force to show respect, but not so many as to imply they fear us.” He gave commands to his men to move the animals away from the road, into the grassier land nearer the water, while he talked with the soldiers.

The commander was a young nobleman named Kay—very young, but not all that noble, Sarai could see that at once. He was still unsure of his station, which made him a little belligerent as he spoke to them in a mixture of Egyptian and Amorite words. But he was not a fool. While Abram was busy reassuring and calming him, Sarai could see that Kay was taking inventory of Abram’s household, counting the men capable of fighting, and counting the women and children as well. Abram had made sure that they would be in plain sight. Now Sarai realized why. The Egyptians would be suspicious if there were not families enough for all the men of fighting age, for then this might be a party of raiders.

And something else. Sarai wasn’t sure, but she thought that Kay had recognized Abram’s name. That concerned her. What report had come back to Egypt, after the attempt by Suwertu to have Abram killed? Surely those events in Ur-of-the-North all those years ago could not be remembered now.

When Kay had already formed up his men to escort Abram’s household into Egypt, he asked, almost as an afterthought, “And this is the princess, yes? Your wife, yes?”

Abram hesitated for only a moment, and then answered with a laugh. “My wife, come on such a journey? You don’t know princesses! This is my sister, Milcah.”

Sarai had long since learned how not to let her face or body reveal surprise—or anything else. A king’s daughter must master
that
skill, at least, even if she
was
intended for the temple.

Kay turned to her. “The sister of Abram is very beautiful,” he said.

“Pharaoh’s voice at the border is sweet as honey,” she replied.

“Where is the lady’s husband? Is he not with this party?”

Abram laughed. “Husband? And where would I have found a husband for my sister? You see how my herds are depleted. I haven’t the bride-price for a great man, and I love my sister too much to give her to a peasant.”

“Some women are their own bride-price,” said Kay.

But he had gone too far, even for an official of a great king. “You speak like a suitor,” said Abram coldly, “and not like a soldier.”

Kay did not seem at all abashed, or even embarrassed. He simply bade them stay near the road and follow him and his men toward the first town.

Sarai was careful not to confer with Abram for some time, waiting until the soldiers were some distance ahead. By then Abram had already passed the word through one of his servants that Sarai was to be addressed by the name of Abram’s sister-in-law Milcah, who lived in Haran, in the house of Abram’s father Terah far to the north.

“How did I become your sister?” she asked him softly.

“When he asked me about you,” said Abram, “I knew by the power of God that if I told him the truth, I would be killed.”

“But you already told him your name,” said Sarai. “If they blame Abram the son of Terah for the death of Suwertu, what difference does it make who
I
am?”

“This isn’t about Suwertu,” said Abram. “He knew that Abram son of Terah had married Sarai the daughter of the king-in-exile of Ur, and I knew in that moment that if they thought I was bringing you into Egypt as my wife, you would soon be a widow.”

“Why?”

“So Pharaoh could marry you himself.”

“But . . . that’s absurd. Pharaohs marry their sisters, everyone knows that.”

“Yes. Which means that something is terribly wrong here.”

“One thing, certainly. You just presented me as a single woman, and here I am dressed like a married one.”

“And he said nothing about it, though if he knows anything about the way we dress, he could see the difference,” said Abram. “So he’s no doubt wondering if I lied, or if you’re married, or perhaps widowed.”

“Abram, if the daughter of an exiled king is desirable, why wouldn’t the sister of a desert priest-king be just as useful?”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” said Abram.

“So there’s no danger?”

“No danger?” He looked grim. “There’s very grave danger. The first Pharaohs originally came from our country, the grasslands of the east—that’s why the Egyptian language is so close to ours. Perhaps Pharaoh is trying to assert that ancient authority. Or perhaps he fears it. And . . . I
have
the very authority the original Pharaohs claimed to have. Pharaoh might regard me as a threat, or he might regard me as someone worth linking himself to. As my sister, you may be even more useful to him than you would have been as my widow.”

“Useful?” said Sarai. “How am I to be useful to Pharaoh without dishonoring myself and betraying you and disobeying God?”

“I tell you what Pharaoh might be thinking. What God is thinking, I don’t know.”

This was not the comfort Sarai had been hoping for. “What will I do?”

“Trust in God,” said Abram.

“That’s your whole plan?”

“It was God who told me to come here, and God who told me to tell him you were my sister,” said Abram. “Beyond that, what do I know?”

“What are you and God doing to me?” asked Sarai. “I’m not your sister, in case you’ve forgotten, and I’m not a single woman, eligible to be snagged by kings in order to prop up their dynasties.” Finally, though, she got a good look at Abram’s face, and saw that he was as upset about this as she was.

“For now, you must pretend to be single,” said Abram, “or I’m a dead man. I’ll plead with the Lord to keep you safe.”

Sarai heard this in silence, and walked in silence for half a mile before she found her voice to answer. All the while she was in turmoil, frightened and angry but not sure whom to be angry at, God or Abram. And when she did speak, she didn’t say at all what was in her heart. She didn’t plead with him to turn around and leave. She didn’t beg him to protect her himself. She didn’t demand that he go back to God and get an alternate plan. Instead, she answered with a voice that she had never heard herself use before. Qira’s voice, sarcastic and cutting. “And if there had been a battle, would you have handed a sword to me and pushed me ahead of you into the fray?”

Abram felt the accusation like a blow—she saw him stagger under it. “I did not choose this way,” he said.

Try as she might, she could not get that nasty tone out of her voice. “The thought came to you that calling me your sister would keep you safe. What I wonder is, was it really God that gave you the idea? Or fear?”

Before she could say more to wound him, she strode faster, moving ahead of him. Part of her wanted to turn back and cling to him, weeping, assuring him of her love for him. But it would not do to let the soldiers see her act so wifelike. And besides, a part of her was very, very angry and meant every nasty word that she had said. What exactly would Abram do if Pharaoh decided that he wanted a woman from an ancient priestly house as his wife? What would
she
do? Kings were not inclined to take no for an answer. If she did not bend to Pharaoh’s will, even in such a terrible sin, Abram might end up just as dead as if Pharaoh thought that she was his wife.

The thought of Abram murdered was unbearable. At once her anger at God was swept away in fear for her husband. Do whatever you must to me, she prayed silently, but let no harm come to Abram!

And another thought: Maybe God means to take me away from him, so he can marry a woman who will bear him sons.

Chapter 6

From the first, the palace officials did their best to separate Sarai from Abram. As they first came to the green and settled lands near the river, Kay suggested that Milcah and the other women and children might want to rest in the shade while Abram went ahead to meet with Sehtepibre, Pharaoh’s most trusted steward.

“My sister is as wise as any man,” said Abram, “and I will not be without her counsel.”

Kay did not press the point. But when they reached the river, where a servant from the palace awaited them with ten ships, again there was an attempt to separate them. Abram made it clear he would leave only the herders’ own families with them. “Milcah” would stay with her brother. “Does a man leave a precious jewel among cows and sheep?”

“But floating on the river makes women ill,” said Khnumhotpe, the servant from the palace. “At least let your sister’s boat travel more slowly, so she and her maidservants do not suffer, while the oarsmen make
your
boat leap ahead to take you to lord Pharaoh.”

“Those who have ridden on dromedaries will not be sickened by a bit of wobbling in a boat,” said Abram. “And I wish to see the greatness of the river with my sister, whose eyes are my own, as mine are hers.”

Abram’s statement might have been true, but Sarai had never actually ridden on a dromedary—only those who crossed the great stretches of pure sand far to the south of their rangeland ever needed those towering beasts. But to these city people, utterly without experience of the desert life, anything was possible.

On the lead boat, oarsmen poled them up the edges of the river while boats and rafts floated down the middle current. Abram and Sarai sat together, watching the farms of Egypt endlessly pass by them. “It could be the Euphrates,” she said. “But here, there isn’t a cubit of land that is not farmed or dwelt on. Where will your herds graze?”

“There must be grassland beyond the farms,” said Abram.

“No, lord Abram,” said Khnumhotpe. “The farms run to the desert edge. That’s what the drought has done to us. All the grasslands are buried in sand or burned away by the sun. Where the river’s flood puts mud, we farm; where it doesn’t, there is no life at all.”

“But I’ve seen many desert people living here,” said Abram. “From their clothing, at least, they seemed like those who once lived in Canaan or on the range. Where do
their
herds live?”

“Those who wish to keep their animals buy fodder. Others rent some scrap of surviving rangeland from great lords or from Pharaoh himself. Most, though, came to Egypt because their herds were gone.”

“How do they live, then?” asked Sarai.