Sarai (Jill Eileen Smith) (20 page)

“I will tell you, Hagar, that I do not know the God of my husband as well as he does, but I do know that He is the Creator Elohim, maker of heaven and earth. Abram would call Him all-powerful. As for me, I do not know, but I would like the chance to see if what Abram says is true.” She clasped her hands in front of her.

“Your husband, my lady? The pharaoh’s god is Ra, and the pharaoh embodies the deity. You will soon get to know him when he comes to you.” She searched Sarai’s gaze, but Sarai did not flinch or hide the truth in her expression. “You do speak of Pharaoh . . . do you not?”

Silence stood between them, a thick wall of uncertainty.

“I’m sorry, my lady. I did not mean to suggest . . . I did not mean to offend.” She bowed low, and Sarai wondered if the girl feared that Abram’s God was Sarai’s to command, that she might have Him send the plague on her for questioning her mistress.

“No need to fear me, Hagar. I will not hurt you.” She stood and walked to the window. “As to your question, I would prefer not to answer it, and yet if I do not tell someone, I fear I will go mad in this place.” Even Melah’s company was preferable to naked servants and this strange new world of solitude. She wanted to go home.

“Tell someone what, my lady?” Hagar picked up the goblet from the table and offered it again to Sarai, as though she needed something to do or she too would go mad. Had the plague brought with it a spirit of fear as well? The very air seemed oppressive now.

Sarai accepted the goblet and stared into the contents. “I do not speak of Pharaoh, Hagar. There is another husband of which I speak. Abram, the man who stood with me before Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, is indeed my brother, but he is only my half brother.” She paused only a moment, though it could mean her death. “He is also my husband.”

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Hagar tiptoed over the inlaid mosaic tiles of Pharaoh’s court, their familiar patterns of Egypt’s gods imprisoned in artistic stone. Her head throbbed to the rhythm of the priests’ anguished prayers, while a soothsayer raised a carved rod above his black wig, waving incantations about the room. Another blew his aged breath over tall cones of incense, waking the smoke to rise to the gods.

Hagar spied Osahar with the rest of the king’s overseers in a huddled group near the king’s gilded throne. She weaved her way through the crowd of servants until she reached his side. She touched his arm, standing on tiptoe to reach his ear. “I must speak with you.”

He nodded, moving away from the group, and directed her to stand beneath a carved column along the wall. “You should not be here. If the king were to recognize you in servants’ dress—”

“The king never notices me.” She motioned him to lean closer. “I know the reason for the plague.” She drew in a breath as though it could give her courage. “It is his new wife, Sarai. She is not . . . that is . . . she already has a husband. The man who is her brother is also her husband.”

Osahar straightened, his broad shoulders glistening in the afternoon heat, his gaze clearly troubled. “You are sure of this?”

Hagar nodded. “Her god must be angry that my father—that Pharaoh took her as his wife when she already belongs to another man. This man, Abram, must be a prophet for a god to hold him or his wife in such high regard.”

Fear filled Osahar’s dark eyes. His gaze darted from her to the king to the priests and back again.

“You must tell him, Osahar. My father will not rest until he has an answer.” The priests would start cutting themselves or someone would end up blamed and executed if one of them did not speak, and soon. “If you go, I will stand behind you, confirming your words. The king will listen better if there are two who agree.”

He looked at her then and shook his head. “You should not go, Mistress Hagar. This is a servant’s duty, not a princess’s.”

Before she could respond, he turned and strode to the table where the king’s scribe sat, scratching words on papyrus with a long, thin reed. Hagar crept close to listen but stayed hidden behind a pillar.

“I have news for the king.” Osahar bent low toward the table where the scribe sat.

The man looked at Osahar as though the whole affair bored him. “The king is occupied with important matters.” He waved a hand toward the soothsayers and priests. “Surely you do not think he will interrupt their incantations and prayers.” He looked Osahar over. “Even for you.”

“This concerns those matters. I know the cause of the plague.” His whispered words brought the scribe up short.

He rose halfway in his seat, leaning close to Osahar. “How do you know these things?”

“It doesn’t matter how.”

“Yes, it does. If you want an audience with Pharaoh, you will tell me at once.”

Osahar straightened, his square chin jutting forward. “I will explain it to the king.” He looked down his nose at the scribe. “Do you want to be rewarded for stopping this madness or not?”

Hagar watched doubt flicker beneath the scribe’s outright disdain. She stepped forward. She couldn’t let Osahar endanger himself. “The new wife is already married.”

“What?” The scribe’s voice rose to a thin squeal. Hagar jumped and glanced over her shoulder. The king’s eyes rested on her.

“Come forward.” Two loud hand claps stopped the clamor of soothsayers and priests as the large audience hall fell into silence. The king’s tone held no kindness, and Hagar could not pull away from his stern gaze. “Step forward.”

Osahar hurried forward and fell to his face before she could act, but her father’s gaze did not leave her face.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said to Osahar. “I was speaking to the girl.”

Hagar forced her feet to move, her breath growing thin. She stopped at the steps she used to play upon as a child and knelt with her face to the tiles.

“Why do you disturb my court? Are you blind to what is happening here? Speak quickly before I have you thrown to the crocodiles.”

“Forgive me, my lord. If I may speak?” She waited, her heart thumping hard.

“Rise and speak.”

She lifted her head but did not rise from her knees. “Forgive me, my lord, but I know the reason for the plague.” The crook and flail did not move from her father’s hands, and his regal look could have withered the sun. Did he recognize her?

“Tell me what you think you know.” His eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth stretched taut.

“The new wife, Sarai, is the only wife of Pharaoh who remains unaffected by the strange fever and sickness.”

“Not affected at all?” He turned the flail over in his hands.

Hagar shook her head. “No, my lord. I assumed her god must be keeping her from whatever is afflicting the rest of Pharaoh’s household. When I asked her about her god, she confided to me that she does not know her husband’s god as he does. I immediately thought she spoke of you, my king, but her words were too vague, and their meaning quickly became clear. She already has a husband, my lord.”

“Impossible! Who would lie to Pharaoh, Lord of the Two Lands?” He leaned forward, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the crook and flail, the cobra in his crown seeming to breathe venom with his words.

Hagar swallowed, fear stealing her breath. If he recognized her now, he would know she had lied to him as well. “The man Abram is not her brother only, but also her husband.”

“You do not speak as a slave girl. Where did you learn such cultured speech?”

Hagar’s stomach twisted. What would happen if she told her father the truth?

“She has been in Pharaoh’s house many moons, my lord. She has learned well from those she serves.” Osahar’s words made Hagar’s heart beat faster. He should not have spoken. She could not bear to lose him!

She glanced at her father, whose silence unnerved her. At last he lifted the flail and waved it high. “Bring the foreigner Abram to me.” The command jolted ten servants into action, and whispers broke out along the walls of the chamber. Pharaoh looked from Hagar to Osahar. “You will stand aside and wait. If I find you have spoken truth, you will live. If you have lied to your king, you will sleep with the crocodiles this night.”

Hagar fell to the floor once more to pay her father homage, then rose swiftly and moved with Osahar to stand beneath the columns adorning Pharaoh’s audience hall. Her fate would be decided soon enough. If the new wife had lied to her, she had just risked her life for nothing.

“After the camels are loaded with the rest of Pharaoh’s gifts and settled on the barges, we can head back to camp.” Eliezer came up beside Abram. “Or we can find a place in the city until you decide what to do.”

Abram drew in a ragged breath. “I cannot leave her. How can you even suggest it?” He waved a hand toward the burgeoning mass of Pharaoh’s gifts of animals and servants, carved leather saddles and finely woven blankets. “What good are such gifts without Sarai?” He fisted both hands, feeling the heat of the afternoon sun beneath his dark turban and wanting to sink under its strength.

The sound of marching feet jolted his painful thoughts. He turned at the sight of twenty Egyptian soldiers coming up the stone walk, clad in helmets and bearing shields and swords.

“Abram of Ur, you are to come with us immediately. Pharaoh Mentuhotep would have a word with you.”

Abram stepped forward. “Do you have news of Sarai? Is she well? Tell me if you know.”

The guard lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Pharaoh will tell you, if he has a mind to do so. You must come. Now.” He placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.

“And I will come once you answer my question.” Abram’s fear rose, his thoughts spinning. If Sarai was stricken . . .

“You dare question Pharaoh’s soldiers?” He withdrew the sword in one swift motion. Abram felt the tip of the blade beneath his chin. “You will come.”

Eliezer stepped forward. “Forgive my father.” He placed a hand on Abram’s shoulder. “He spoke without thinking.”

The guard gave Abram a stern look, then slowly lowered the blade. “You are to come at once. Defy me again and you will feel more than the tip of my blade.”

Eliezer exchanged a look with Abram. Why would the king send soldiers when a single servant would have sufficed? Did he think Abram dangerous or fear he might flee? Abram stifled a derisive snort. As if he had a choice.

Abram bowed his head toward the soldier. “Lead the way,” he said, and found himself quickly surrounded as he made the short, ominous trek back to Pharaoh’s palace.

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