Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (22 page)

The girls! Lot had taken the girls with him! Oh, that was intolerable. What lie was he telling them about why she wasn’t with them? Or was he telling the truth? “That’s what happens when a wife doesn’t obey her husband! She gets left alone in an empty house, without food or drink or protection of any kind. Remember that when you think you might ever disobey a single one of your husband’s brutal commandments!” Inculcating them with the doctrine that women exist only to please men!

That’s why she had to go to the desert and join Lot, despite his heartless treatment of her—because if she did not, he would raise her girls to be absolute slaves to whatever husband he chose to sell them to. I will tell my girls I made this sacrifice only for them. I’ll tell them how I could hardly sleep for worrying about them all night. Let them see how their father made me suffer. He’ll be sorry he mistreated me this way when he sees how his daughters hate him. And it won’t even be a lie, because I really
did
lie awake all night, and I’m sure now it was because I was missing them so deeply. It’s not
my
fault that I had to have my bedroom at the opposite end of the house—they were forever waking up for the morning just when I was getting to bed after a party, and I couldn’t sleep with all the noise of the servants feeding them and Lot playing with them—he could never seem to understand that a truly civilized man of Sodom did
not
get down on the floor and play with his children, especially not his
daughters.
The only reason I didn’t notice they had been taken from me was because Lot’s noisy disregard for propriety forced me to sleep away from my precious girls. Just one more example of how my life has been distorted and my daughters have suffered because of my husband’s perversity and selfishness. Was there no respite for women in this world?

It was nearly dark when she got back to the house. There was Eliezer, of course—Abram apparently valued relentlessness in his slaves. He had the gall to offer her wine straight from his own flagon, and if she had not been so bitterly thirsty after a whole night and day in the dust and heat, she would have flung it in his face for the insult of expecting her to touch with her lips the very vessel that a slave’s lips had touched. As it was, she held it above her lips and dribbled the wine into her mouth until she realized that any splashing drop might stain her dress. She forced herself then to put the goathide bottle to her mouth, and she only gagged twice. She did have the courage to refuse the bread and cheese he offered her with his bare and not terribly clean hands.

He expected her to go with him to the stable where the horses were kept! When she expressed her intention to remain at the house until he brought the animals to her, the poor fool actually said, “But will you be safe here alone?”

“I have been out all day in this city, and spent all night alone last night,” she said disdainfully. “A lady has nothing to fear in Sodom.”

He got this odd smile on his face and said, “My lady is probably right.”

Of course she was right. He left her and came back after an unconscionably long time—no doubt he stopped for dinner!—with two horses. It was obvious from the saddlery that she was expected to ride the beast astride. She had expected the two horses to bear her in a chair, but
he,
no doubt as part of Abram’s plan to humiliate her completely, considered himself equally entitled to ride! When he offered to help her mount, she at first refused—she was not about to let a slave have an excuse to handle her body!—and it was only after she fell twice that she impatiently ordered him to get her into the saddle. He was very strong and liked showing off, practically tossing her like a doll.

Qira had expected the ride to be only a few minutes—Lot was bound to be waiting for her just outside the city, ready to gloat over his victory. But no. When they passed through the city gate, there was no one to meet them. And they almost immediately left the road and headed east into open grassland without a path or track. It was so dark that she could not tell how he was able to discern where they were going.

He laughed at her! “My lady,” he said, “the moon is full. The night is not dark, it’s very bright. And I don’t need to find a path. I know which star they were using as their guide.”

Of course he did. Lot was always talking about how knowledgeable Abram was about the stars. But then, Lot thought Abram was the sun in the morning. You should have married
him
and left me to find a husband who actually knew how a princess should be treated!

She could smell the camp before they reached it—indeed, it was the stench, not a star, that led them. And the snorting and snuffling of animals and the barking of dogs gave her all the proof she needed that she had truly left civilization behind her. Not that dogs didn’t bark in the city. But here there was no one to kick them to shut them up.

“I’ll stay in my sister’s tent,” said Qira as the little village of tents became visible down in the hollow between two hills.

Eliezer seemed not to hear her. Instead, he led her horse to the pen where other horses were nickering to greet them—which was considerably more courtesy than any humans were showing tonight. When he lifted her from her mount, her legs were so sore she almost fell over, but then decided not to, since it would only get her dress dirtier than it already was.

Wordlessly a boy appeared and started brushing the horse, as if good grooming were more important to animals than sleep or food or drink.

“Where is my sister’s tent?” she asked Eliezer.

“My lady is to have her own tent, where her servants await her,” said Eliezer.

“No, I will sleep in my sister’s tent,” said Qira. Was the man obtuse? Or merely disobedient? Either way, a beating would help him to hear instructions when they were first given. Naturally, Abram trained his servants to be insolent.

“My lady,” said Eliezer softly, “you have not been invited to share the Lady Sarai’s tent. Nor have you been invited to enter any tent but the one where your servants await you.”

“Is this what passes for hospitality here in this beast-ridden place?” she said with contempt.

“Food and drink await you there,” said Eliezer.

“So I was expected? And yet no one greets me?”

“They could not know the hour you would decide to begin the journey, and so they could not know when you would arrive. But whether you arrive or not, the same work will need to be done tomorrow, and so they will sleep undisturbed.”

“And if I choose to raise my voice and waken them?” asked Qira.

Eliezer loomed over her then, lowering his face so he stared directly into her eyes. “My lady may do what she wishes.” But there was something in his face that frightened her. He was very large, and she was small. She hated him then, more than she had hated anyone in her life, more than she hated the Amorite usurpers who had deprived her father of his throne, more than she hated Abram.

Qira did not like being frightened. It made her want to frighten him back. “What if I scream and say you were taking liberties with me?” she said, making sure she knew from her intonation that this was a serious threat.

“I am known here,” said Eliezer, “and my lady would not be believed by anyone. But my lady may do as she wishes.”

A servant with so much pride would never last a moment in any noble house on Sodom. But she was tired and hungry, and it wasn’t worth the bother of proving that her sister, at least, would believe her. “I am
not
your lady,” she said coldly.

“Would my lady please follow me to her tent?” he said.

Filled with rage, she followed him to a tent that was, she was sure, a seedy old thing that would stink of animals and where her servants would bump into each other dressing her in the morning. To her surprise, when he pulled aside a flap and she stepped into the tent, several lamps were burning, and one of her servants immediately gave a soft cry. “The Lady Qira is with us!”

The other servants awoke immediately and fussed over her, helping her take off her filthy clothing and giving her wine and fruit and bread and finally covering her upon a bed of soft hides and blankets that was surprisingly soft. It was good to be surrounded by servants who knew how to treat a lady. Tomorrow Lot would pay for how he had aggrieved her, but tonight she would sleep the deepest sleep of her life.

In the morning, though, Lot was nowhere to be found. Sarai was there, greeting her and fussing over her as if she had no idea how Qira had been forced into coming out to the desert. And when Qira asked where Lot was, Sarai seemed unaware of the deep injury that Lot had caused her. “Oh, he didn’t want to wake you before he went with Abram to divide the goats. Yesterday they got back well before dark, and the goats aren’t as far as the sheep were.”

“Divide the goats?”

“Didn’t you know? When we left Egypt, Pharaoh gave us a very large herd as a parting gift.”

“Pharaoh?” asked Qira. “Pharaoh
himself?
”

“Well, he didn’t actually drive the cattle, but he gave the order for the herds to be brought to us.”

“You
met
Pharaoh?”

“A few times,” said Sarai. “It was an awkward business.”

“Since my husband has seen fit to force me out of my home and into the desert where he has abandoned me without a word,” said Qira, “I suppose I have nothing better to do than hear your tales about Egypt.” She yawned.

“Oh, I’ll try to tell you what I remember,” said Sarai.

It had taken all afternoon to get what Qira suspected was only a small fraction of the story, for Sarai was constantly being interrupted to solve stupid problems that Qira neither understood nor cared about. It quite offended her that Sarai had not cleared her schedule to make time for her own sister whom she had not seen in years. But she bore the insult with great patience, only mentioning it a few times during the afternoon.

When Lot came home that night, he greeted her with a hug, which she did
not
return. Indeed, she said not a word to him, but he seemed not to notice. Well, when he came to her tent that night, he’d find out exactly how welcome he was.

Only he did not come.

And so it had gone for all these weeks. Lot spoke to her cheerfully during the day and never mentioned or even seemed to notice that she did not answer him or utter a single word in his presence. And at night, he made no effort to come to her. Nor did Sarai ever say a word about the coldness between Qira and Lot, and when Qira tried to talk about how badly Lot had treated her, Sarai would immediately think of something that required her immediate attention. It was the same when Qira spoke of men in general, not mentioning names. Poor Sarai was so intimidated by her husband that she couldn’t even allow herself to hear even the vaguest criticism of the man. Qira hoped she would
never
be so frightened of a man that she would refuse to listen to the truth.

What disgusted her most, though, was the way Sarai fawned over Abram. Instead of having a life of her own and friends of her own, Sarai’s whole life was entirely centered on her husband. All she wanted to talk about was his work—either what he had done apart from her, or the portion of his work she had done for him while he was gone. She seemed to hang on every word he said, and of course he listened to her quite avidly, since she talked about nothing but him and his work! Sarai had obviously lost herself here, forgetting she was a daughter of a king. She was nothing but a glorified servant. A concubine. It broke Qira’s heart to see it. Especially because Sarai put such a brave face on it, laughing with a false merriment to mask the pain she must surely be feeling inside. Unless her soul had been so deadened by Abram’s long domination that she didn’t even realize the pain she was in.

Well, Qira was not about to try to save her from this abasement. She might have tried, if Sarai had not been such a busybody about Qira’s girls. It was the second day in camp that Qira happened to see the younger girls running like little hoydens, shouting their heads off and screaming with laughter when they caught some filthy little slave girl and all of them fell in a heap in the grass at the top of a hill.

“Girls!” cried Qira. “Come down here right now!” Of course they were making so much noise that they didn’t hear her—she had to send a servant to fetch them.

“Oh, let them play,” said Sarai. “I used to play like that when I was little. It did me no harm.”

“No harm?” said Qira. It was such an absurd thing to say that Qira forgot courtesy for a moment. “You live like
this
and you don’t call it harm? I want my daughters to grow up with grace and culture, so they can marry a man who will provide them with a
home.
”

Sarai got her stony face then—she had always had that look when she was angry but didn’t want to say anything. Qira laughed when she saw it. “Sarai, you used to make that same face when you were a baby. Nothing changes about you!”

“It does a child no harm to play,” said Sarai. “Shouldn’t they have any memories of happiness from their childhood?”

Oh, that was intolerable. “Before you give advice about child-rearing,” said Qira pointedly, “perhaps you should have a child or two so you have some idea of what you’re talking about.”