Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (13 page)

Just like that. As a grand gesture. And a sneaky one. For he had easily sidestepped the whole question of hospitality and guest-right, and by making Hagar a member of Sarai’s household, he had made it unnecessary to admit anyone from Abram’s household.

They were indoors now, and Pharaoh seated himself, not on the throne in the main hall, but rather on a bench beside a pool of water. He patted the seat beside him, but Sarai had no intention of playing that game. She knelt beside the pool, not even touching the bench where he sat. “Your kindness and generosity are legendary,” said Sarai.

“I have no doubt,” said Pharaoh dryly. He understood what she meant by not sitting beside him.

“I am glad that my brother has found favor in your sight.”

“More than favor,” said Pharaoh, and now his expression warmed. “Your brother is precisely what I had wished for. All my life I have sought the learning of the East. Here in Egypt we claim to be the most ancient kingdom, but I have studied the oldest books, and I know that the first Pharaohs of upper and lower Egypt were conquerors from the East. Rulers of the ancient lineage of Utnapishtim, whom your brother calls Noah. It is the might of the East that first established the kingdom of Egypt, and Pharaohs who forget the source of their ancient authority grow weak through their ignorance.”

Sarai tried to see if anyone in Pharaoh’s retinue seemed to chafe at this idea, but of course they would long since have learned to hear Pharaoh’s attitudes without visible response. Any resentment she could see, Pharaoh could also see. Still, she knew at once that if Pharaoh often talked like this, it would surely provoke many of the nobles of Egypt, who, despite the eastern origins of the original Pharaohs, thought of themselves as pure Egyptian and despised the Hsy who came now to Egypt as refugees from the drought. To them, the idea that Egypt had anything to gain from these impoverished wanderers must seem either laughable or offensive.

And it also meant that the more Pharaoh liked Abram and Sarai, the more the nobles of Egypt would detest them. As long as Pharaoh was powerful, he was the greatest danger to them; but if he slipped from power, then those who took it from him would almost certainly be filled with resentment toward any of the Hsy whom Pharaoh had preferred. Danger from every quarter. Hagar remained her only friend here—and there was always the possibility that Hagar had been assigned to her as a spy.

She hated that—the fact that she could not trust anyone completely.

“My brother has always spoken of Egypt as the repository of great and ancient knowledge,” said Sarai.

Pharaoh laughed. “I know exactly what your brother says. My father knew of his ideas before I redeemed him from death. Pharaohs as usurpers of a priesthood that only he and his family—your family—possess. We have agreed to politely disagree on this point, and to learn from each other on every other subject. I’m afraid I’m getting the best of the bargain, however. Abram is opening my eyes to many things in heaven and earth.”

“My brother is known for his wisdom and learning. But I am sure that if he were here with us, he would insist that he was learning more from Pharaoh than Pharaoh could ever learn from him.”

“Oh, I doubt your brother has ever spoken to you of the things he has been teaching me. For instance, did you know that the sun is a star?”

Sarai was taken aback. What an absurd thing to say. “I would be sorry if I could not tell the difference between sunlight and starlight, since it is the very difference between day and night.”

“Ah, there, you see? He has not taught you. But just as a candle grows dimmer the farther away you are, so also are the stars dimmed to our sight by great distance. They seem to us to be smaller than the sun because the sun is so very close, and the stars very far away. But Abram assures me that our sun is not even the greatest of the stars. As the sun governs the Earth, so are there greater stars that govern the sun, until you come to the one star that governs them all, and there, he says, is the place where God dwells.”

“He speaks to you of God?” asked Sarai.

“The one he worships, yes,” said Pharaoh. “He does not mention to me that he thinks his god is the only one that exists, and I pretend to him that I do not know that he thinks so, and so we do not argue. It is enough for me to try to imagine the heavens as he sees them. Instead of the great dome of the sky, pierced to let starlight shine through when the sun is not present to blind us to their faint light, he shows me a heaven in which the Earth is a ball whirling around the sun, and the sun but a star among many stars that are governed by a far greater one. The River of the Sky, he says, is really millions upon millions of stars, so many that their light flows together. Ah, but he sees a wondrous vision of the heavens! The priests think him mad, of course, but I see that many of them—the younger ones especially—grow thoughtful when he speaks, and I suspect many of them go home and write down the things he said. They will remember. He is our teacher. And the god that teaches him to see such things, that god is a mighty one indeed, even if he is jealous of any rivals.”

Sarai heard these ideas with some interest, yes, but mostly she felt a sharp pang of jealousy, for Abram had never spoken to her of the stars. She thought he spoke to her of everything, that he shared his life with her as if they were equals, but now she realized that he excluded her from his loftiest ideas. It was fine for her to learn about the household and help with the governance of his flocks and herds, his servants and his possessions. But when he wanted to talk about how God had ordered the universe, he could not speak of this to a mere woman. To this weak-chinned narrow-faced man, top-heavy with the double crown, he could confide these great mysteries. But to his wife, not a word.

She tried to quell her resentment, but she could not will away her hurt feelings. Abram thinks me foolish after all. He still has great secrets that I will never know.

“He told me,” said Pharaoh, “that he tells his wife everything, so I’m surprised that his sister did not know of them. He says God sees men and women as having equal value. But perhaps you were busy with the distaff when he would have taught you these things.”

Was he goading her? Did he suspect that Abram’s wife and this woman kneeling at Pharaoh’s feet were the same person, so that these words were meant to taunt her, or to show her that he did not hold her in high esteem?

“In truth,” said Pharaoh, “I speak of such things to none of my women, because they would not understand me or, if they did, they would not care. Indeed, few men care—certainly not Sehtepibre, whose eyes glaze over whenever I try to discuss heavenly things with him. His eyes are only on provisioning the troops, collecting the taxes—all the concerns that are for servants, not kings.”

This comment did what the earlier comments did not—it caused several people in Pharaoh’s retinue to shift their position, to breathe differently, showing their discomfort. Was Sehtepibre here himself to hear Pharaoh’s criticism of him? No, Sarai would have recognized him if he had been among these men. But she had no doubt that Pharaoh’s words would be relayed to him. It was a foolish thing, for Pharaoh to denigrate his chief steward before his household. Unless this was an assertion of Pharaoh’s supremacy after winning a power struggle between them. She would have to find out something of the history of this household. She hated being ignorant of the context in which such things were said.

“The king’s house does not run itself,” said Sarai. “I know that Eshut labors mightily in the king’s service, and I have no doubt that outside these walls, Sehtepibre does the same.”

There. If the king wanted to cause bad blood between himself and his most powerful servants, that was his affair. She would not be part of his goading. Not that they would be grateful that she spoke up for them. All she hoped was that they would not become hungry for her or Abram’s death. Let us be the enemies of no man or woman in this dangerous place.

“Oh yes, they work very hard,” said Pharaoh. “But their labors all have to be done over again the next day. It is the work of the mortal world, which is never completed and undone every moment. But the work of Pharaoh is to learn truth and cause it to be written, for learning is work that, once done, remains done as long as scrolls can be read and copied and read again. Sehtipibre feeds soldiers, who are never grateful and are hungry again in the morning. But I feed the mind, which keeps everything that is fed to it and builds upon it, even in sleep, for the gods teach us in dreams as surely as men teach us in the light.”

“Pharaoh’s works are mighty indeed,” said Sarai.

She thought of Abram, and the hours he spent in his tent, reading the books that most certainly held some of these very ideas he was teaching Pharaoh. He would agree with Pharaoh that truth was important, and that as long as you had someone to receive what you wrote, your learning would never be lost. Still, Abram emerged from his tent and saw to the feeding of his household, for even though he relied on Sarai and others to do that work, he made sure he knew of every lamb and kid in his flocks, and every child of every servant in his household, and nothing happened that was not according to his will.

Pharaoh, you love wisdom, but how wise are you to leave the daily power of your kingdom in the hands of others, and to let them know that you disdain them even as they make your life possible?

“By the way,” said Pharaoh, and his voice sank to a whisper, though she was quite sure that everyone in the room could still hear every word he said, “I have given your brother permission to call me by my personal name. I am Neb-Towi-Re, but you, like him, may call me Neb when we are alone.”

“A generous gift, such confidence,” said Sarai. “But I cannot imagine when it would be proper for us to be alone, and so Pharaoh’s personal name is a treasure I shall guard in secret, and never utter aloud.”

Pharaoh glowered. “I see that you are a stubborn woman,” he said.

“My brother has often said so,” said Sarai, “and so I’m sure it must be true. However, what you see as stubbornness, I see as obedience to God and respect for the dignity of your crown. Even the lowliest shepherd would never expose to scandal a girl that he claims to love.”

Pharaoh rose abruptly. “When your brother told me that it was his sister’s decision what man she would marry, I can see that he knew her well indeed. What seemed to be generous permission was actually a warning from a friend. I can see why Milcah has no husband, for if she can turn away Pharaoh, what other man can possibly be worthy of her hand?”

Frightened at the suddenness of his anger, Sarai bowed her head. “Forgive me, mighty Pharaoh. I do not know how I gave offense, or what was being asked of me. Is it the custom in Egypt that a woman is given no choice, nor time to think? Or that she is condemned for having refused an offer that was never made?”

Pharaoh stood there for a moment, his fingers drumming on his thigh. “Perhaps I have blamed you for a fault caused only by your ignorance and humility,” he said. “There is no hurry. But I must tell you—I would be cheating Egypt if I gave my kingdom an heir who did not have the true priest-right. Knowing now the great knowledge and power that come from that priesthood, I will have it for my people and my house.”

“But I have no such power,” said Sarai.

“You have it in your power to give it to my sons,” said Pharaoh. “I know the value of that, even if you do not. A man who does not hope for his sons to surpass him in excellence is not a good father.”

“Does Pharaoh not have sons already?” asked Sarai.

“Seven women in my house carry my children in them,” said Pharaoh, “and of that number, surely some will be sons when they are born. But it matters not to me, for they will be born without the ancient priesthood of Abram your brother, and so they will not be sons that can come to me when I am dead and raise me into heaven. What Egypt needs, that will I do.”

“Everyone knows the devotion and magnanimity of Pharaoh,” said Sarai.

“And I know now of the willfulness and stinginess of the woman I love,” said Pharaoh.

The woman you love! The very words made Sarai burn with outrage. He had said nothing to her of love, and dared to call her stingy for not having given in to his suit before he even bothered to make it.

“I know not what woman you refer to,” said Sarai. “For myself, I know that it is impossible for a man to love a woman or a woman to love a man if they do not know each other well. One cannot love a stranger.”

Pharaoh almost lashed back with a quick retort. Then his face softened, and that cheerful smile returned. “If I am to regain the ancient knowledge of the land of Retenu, where the first Pharaohs came from, then I must also learn to respect the customs of that land. What Lady Milcah asks for is not a burden, for any man, even a god-in-making like Pharaoh, is only blessed when he takes the time to know a lady like Milcah, and to let her know him.”

“Pharaoh’s condescension is remarkable,” said Sarai, “and I pray that he will find me worthy of it.”

“I have plenty of time,” said Pharaoh, “but not an infinite supply.” He turned to his retinue. “Tell the Lady Eshut that I will see the pregnant ones first.” Then Pharaoh walked to his throne and sat down. “Lady Milcah may remain, so she can see the gentle way that Pharaoh deals with the women who bear him children.”