Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (19 page)

This, too, would be taken as a sign of the gods’ rejection of Pharaoh.

And, more to the point, it was the one sign that Pharaoh himself could not ignore or explain away. If there was one thing he prided himself on, it was the fact that when he planted, there was a harvest. He might not be willing to see how this endangered his crown, but it certainly endangered his pride.

Which was why, a year to the day after Sarai had been separated from Abram at the dock, Pharaoh’s barge arrived at the House of Women bearing not only him, but also that outrageous desert prophet who had been causing so much controversy among the priests.

It was all Sarai could do to keep from rushing to Abram and throwing her arms around him in a very unsisterly way. But she restrained herself, and tried to keep even from gazing at him, for she knew her expression would surely give away their secret.

Abram came to her and with geniality, not love, he put his arms around her in a hearty embrace. But in her ear he whispered, “This has been the worst year of my life. I’ve missed you desperately.”

No words could have made her gladder. She did not have to pretend to smile when he broke off the embrace. “Let me look at you,” he said. “Neb keeps telling me how beautiful you are, and I refused to believe him, but I suppose it’s almost true.”

She laughed—she hoped the way a sister would laugh at a teasing brother—and turned to Pharaoh. “At last you were able to persuade my brother to leave his studies and come see his poor sister.”

“I had to threaten him,” said Pharaoh. “I told him I’d burn the book he’s been writing if he didn’t come.”

“You’ve been writing a book?” asked Sarai.

Abram shrugged. “Pharaoh asked me to write an account of my life, and of God’s dealings with me.”

“And of the place where God lives and which stars rule over other stars and all that,” added Pharaoh. “It should be in writing, so it won’t be lost.”

“Truth is never lost,” said Abram mildly. “Merely forgotten.”

Pharaoh led them inside, showing off the place to Abram, and it became clear that Pharaoh’s affection for Abram was genuine. He really did think of Abram as his brother and treat him almost as an equal. How it must gall the priests to see this friendship.

But after Abram had seen the sights and met Pharaoh’s wives and had Eshut presented to him, there came a time when Pharaoh once again went out into the garden, this time with both Abram and Sarai. No one had to ask him to make his guards stand off a little way, and Hagar with them.

“My Lady Milcah, you’ll be happy to know that Sehtepibre has begun his revolt. He has declared that I have been rejected by the gods and they have chosen him to be Pharaoh Amenemhet.”

“I am not happy to hear this,” said Sarai. “Is the revolt widespread?”

“Most of the noble houses are waiting to see which way the wind blows. They don’t rally to him. They send messages to me about how they pray to all the gods for my success. No doubt he has his share of messages, too. A few houses, though, Nehry, the monarch of the fifteenth township of Upper Egypt has declared for Sehtepibre, along with his two sons, Kay and Thutnakht. I think you warned me about Kay, but I did not expect the father to revolt. I raised him to his position—he was a commoner, a tradesman.”

“There is little gratitude,” said Abram.

“He has no idea what he should be grateful for,” said Sarai. “I imagine that by now he believes that he was born to his high position.”

Pharaoh chuckled, but he seemed concerned.

“This revolt doesn’t trouble me,” said Neb-Towi-Re. “My armies will subdue these men. And I’ve sent Khnumhotpe south with a flotilla of boats to supply my army there.”

“You trust Khnumhotpe?”

“He and Sehtepibre have never gotten along.”

“It was Khnumhotpe to whom Kay delivered us when we arrived,” said Sarai.

“Your sister still believes that this conspiracy reaches everywhere,” said Neb-Towi-Re to Abram. “It was
my
command that you be brought to me.”

“Was it your command that we be separated?” asked Sarai.

Pharaoh shrugged. “That’s not an interesting subject,” he said. “What I need to talk to you about is this. Here in my house, some evil influence is at work. My wives and women have conceived no children for a year. The very same year when I try to learn about the God whose priesthood you hold, Abram—and this is what happens to me! I have married as the Fenekhu marry, many women, none of them a sister of mine, and I must know—is it your God that I have offended?”

“I don’t know,” said Abram. “Have you?”

“If I have, I don’t know it. How can I lead my troops in confidence, when I myself wonder if the gods have forsaken me?”

“So you must think,” said Abram, “and see if you have sinned against God.”

Pharaoh shook his head. “Do you think I haven’t already pondered this? I beg you to pray to your God and find out. Or you, Milcah, you will speak boldly to me, tell me what my sin is! Or tell me if some enemy has poisoned my women so they can’t conceive!”

They sat in silence, all of them thinking. But Sarai doubted Pharaoh could guess the thoughts going through her head, or Abram’s either, if she was any judge. Not that her thoughts were all that clear. To be near Abram and yet unable to speak to him, unable to touch him—a year of being imprisoned without him, and now he was still out of reach. How could she think of anything?

So it was Abram who spoke first. “Mighty Pharaoh, have you dealt justly with God’s servants?”

“What do you mean? Who serves God in Egypt, except you and your sister?”

Abram said nothing.

“Do you have some complaint?” said Pharaoh. “Is there any favor I haven’t granted you? No, the only person with a complaint is
me,
a complaint against
you!
Haven’t I given you great herds of cattle that I received from Fenekhu who came to buy grain? Flocks and herds, riches beyond measure I have offered you, all for the hand of your sister, and yet you tell me that she must decide, she must tell me her will—knowing that she is a woman who will never say yes to a man!”

“But that is not so, Pharaoh,” said Abram. “She is a woman who would say yes to a man and wait ten years for him without ever hearing a word from him, trusting him to come and marry her. She is a woman who, for love, would give up every aspect of the life she knew, of the future she was raised for, in order to follow her husband wherever he takes her, and into any danger.”

“These things are easy to say, but when the king of all Egypt woos her, she—no, I will not waste more time discussing this. You have both been wickedly ungrateful to me. You will not marry me, the most powerful man in the most ancient kingdom in the world, and
you
will not give me your priesthood. Do you not know the peril you are in? Do you now see how I have restrained myself in not avenging these insults you have given me?”

The rage that flashed in his eyes, that stiffened the muscles of his body—yes, Sarai was afraid of him. He had never let her see this before, not even when they argued.

Abram, however, only smiled sadly. “Neb-Towi-Re,” he said, “did you not declare yourself my friend?”

“Many times, much good it did me.”

“And each time, did I not tell you that your friend would like very much to see his sister?”

“And each time I told you that on the day that either you or she agreed to the marriage, you would see her!”

So Abram
had
been trying to get to her this whole miserable year.

“I asked you to let me pass a message to her, and you refused,” said Abram.

“I said I would pass a message if it was your command for her to marry me. It’s not
my
fault if you refused.”

“And did I not tell you that I would never give her such a message.”

“You did! And I wanted to strike you down for it, but I was patient! I was kind and loving! I did not kill you!”

“For a year, you have kept me and my sister apart, despite our many requests. We have both tried to help you in every way we could. Milcah warned you of conspiracy, and I have taught you everything I know about the heavens and God who dwells there. You have kept us prisoner, because you were so determined to have her as your wife that you could not treat either of us as your guests.”

Neb-Towi-Re seemed dumfounded. “But I’m Pharaoh. There is nothing more important than my having an heir to succeed to the throne. An Osiris to come and raise me from the dead. No, no, don’t correct me, I know that you don’t believe the son raises the father, but I’m Pharaoh! How could I invigorate that throne without a worthy queen from the East?”

“But Milcah is only the sister of a desert priest,” said Abram. “Why didn’t you treat with one of the kings of the East and marry a princess?”

“The kings of the old cities of Mesopotamia are usurpers. The true and ancient kings are gone, and all that’s left are desert upstarts or the kings of new cities that have nothing to offer me. The only princess I wanted was the one Suwertu wrote to me about—before your God struck him dead. The girl who had been promised to Asherah but chose to marry instead. Who but she was fit to be the queen of Egypt? Only she was taken by another man.” He pointed his finger at Abram as if this were a terrible accusation. “Why didn’t you bring her with you! Why did you travel with your sister when you came to Egypt!”

“I thought you wanted to marry my sister,” said Abram.

“I did. I do.”

Abram shook his head sadly. “You can lie to me and you can lie to her. You can lie to your kingdom. But you can’t lie to God. You know why your women are barren, Neb-Towi-Re. And I can promise you that they will remain barren until you tell the truth and repent of your sin before God.”

Abram’s words were strong, but Neb-Towi-Re’s reaction was out of all proportion. At first his face turned red, and he seemed about to burst with rage. Then he burst into tears and flung himself to the ground at Abram’s feet, weeping and howling. “Oh, the God of Abram is mighty! You have known all along, you have known the truth!”

“I hoped,” said Abram mildly, “that you would repent on your own.”

“What sin?” asked Sarai quietly. “What lie?”

“I will not say it,” said Abram. “Only Pharaoh can say it, because only his own tongue will accuse him.”

Pharaoh got some control of himself and sat crosslegged, miserably bowed, his face in his hands. “I would marry you, Milcah, and then demand that Abram bring his wife to the wedding.”

“That doesn’t seem so terrible,” said Sarai.

Abram put his fingers to his lips to still her.

“Once she was here, I would have taken her in marriage as well, and raised her to the throne of Egypt. No one would have murmured against me then—a queen of the ancient lineage of Ur! It would have been a perfect uniting of Egypt and Sumeria. Our children would have been a new dynasty.”

“But you couldn’t have married Abram’s wife.”

Pharaoh took his hands from his face and rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Do I have to
say
what is so obvious?”

“From your own lips,” said Abram.

“I would have married Abram’s widow. It would have been a quick and painless death, no bloodshed, merely a poison that they say has no flavor and causes only a deep sleep. I’m not a cruel man!”

“This is why he never called us his guests,” said Abram to Sarai. “Because if he did, then to kill me would have been a terrible offense against every god he ever heard of.”

“Is this why God has stricken me so? What did I do that was so wrong? To kill one man—Pharaohs kill ten thousand men when the need arises!”

“In war, defending Egypt, there would be no sin in that.”

“I
was
defending Egypt, against decay, collapse, chaos!”

“Murder is murder,” said Abram. “Coldly planned, to get from me what God had given me, the one I love above all others, the most precious part of my life, you would have killed me to take her for yourself, and you say there is no sin in it?”

“She was meant to marry a king!”

“She was meant to serve God, like every other man and woman born upon the earth. Even you. God is giving you a chance to repent. A chance to restore your house.”

“What chance! I have already waited too long.”

“Repent and see.”

“How can I repent? What hope is there for me?”

“A good beginning,” said Abram, “is to welcome me as your guest, with your soldiers as witnesses.”

“My soldiers? What do they know of guest-right?”

“They’re Amorites and Canaanites, Hittites and Nubians and Jebuzites. To them guest-right is sacred. They would never violate it or follow any man who did. There could be no better witnesses than that.”

“And this will lift the curse of God that rests upon my house?”

“I don’t know,” said Abram. “There may be more tests to follow. But it’s a beginning.”