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Father hated the veil she wore, and for the first few weeks it was a struggle between them. But when he forbade her to wear it, she refused to leave her tent. When he commanded her to leave the tent without the veil she covered her face with her hands. When he commanded her to take her hands from her face, she sank to the ground and wept into the hem of her skirt, with Deborah bending over her, doubling the noise of her weeping with her own.

Finally he gave in, but not without a sermon about how it was an affront to God to reject the beauty he had seen fit to bestow on her.

Laban, though he ridiculed her veil, soon became her ally in the struggle with Father. It was Laban who finally persuaded Father that it was not worth the struggle, that in fact the veil would create an air of mystery.

"It will make people think we have something to hide," said Father. "Some disfiguring disease. Leprosy. Scars. Pockmarks. A steady drool."

In reply Laban wrote, "It will show she is modest and will not flaunt her beauty."

"It will show she is disobedient and self-willed."

"Only if you continue to forbid the veil. And how beautiful will she be, perpetually in tears?"

"Tears dry up," said Bethuel. "Even my tears for your mother."

"But sullenness and frowning only become hardened into the face," wrote Laban. "Like Pillel."

Perhaps it was the thought of Rebekah coming to look like Pillel that finally tipped the scale. In any event, Father laughed and told Laban to tell Rebekah that she could wear her veil, though perhaps she could substitute one of looser weave so she could see well enough to sew a straight stitch.

It wasn't long before some of the servant women began to dress their daughters with veils. Laban wanted to ask Father to forbid it. "They're mocking you, Rebekah."

"Perhaps they've learned that it's good not to tempt men to wicked thoughts," said Rebekah .

"Or else their mothers simply want people to think their girls are as beautiful as you."

Rebekah wanted to ask, Are they? Am I the most beautiful? But she recognized this as pure vanity and left the words unspoken. "I don't mind if people think they're more beautiful," she said, praying silently for God to help her make this statement true.

"More likely people will think the whole camp was scarred by the pox," Laban muttered. But when Father spoke to him about all this veil-wearing, Laban wrote what Rebekah had said. "Let it be known that our young women are modest, not vain like the city girls. Let it be seen as humility before God." And, once again, Father gave in.

"Armies may tremble before a man's mighty sword, but no man can stand before a household of women," said Bethuel. Often.

So passed the months and years, as Laban learned how to manage great herds and how to lead men in battle, and Rebekah learned how to manage a household, with all the weaving and cooking and planting and harvesting and preserving that filled each day from dawn to dusk. She learned to judge the ripeness of beans and the strength of thread, how to help a woman give birth and how to turn milk into cheese or ferment it into yogurt, how to make bread rise and how to season and cook a lamb so it would have the robust flavor of wild deer.

By the age of fifteen she knew the names of all the women and men of the household, and all the children, too, as surely as Father and Laban knew every bearing ewe and every new kid and calf. "The women and children are my flock," she once told Laban, when he seemed surprised that she bothered to learn the names of useless children. "Where do you think tomorrow's shepherds will come from? They're the children I teach to water and weed the garden. If they come to you knowing how to work hard and take responsibility even when no one is watching, it's because someone like me has done her job well."

Laban repeated her words to Father, to his friends, to everyone who would listen. "What woman has ever been as wise a mistress of a household as Rebekah? Her veil conceals a beautiful face, but her face conceals wisdom and virtue. So the veil, by hiding the distraction of her beauty, becomes the window to her soul."

When Rebekah learned that Laban was saying such things about her not just in the camp, but in town when he went there to sell woollen cloth, cheese, and leather she forbade him to praise her so immodestly. "All women do these things, foolish boy," she said though of course he was three hands taller than her, with a surprisingly thick beard for a man of only seventeen years. "The only reason it surprises you is because you never saw our mother doing it."

"Well, there you are," he said, as if this proved his point. "You never saw her either, and yet you learned it."

"I saw what needed doing and did it," she said. "You'd think I had saved a kingdom or healed a leper or found a spring in the desert."

"All right, I'll tell people you're lazy and all your cooking tastes like dung, so nobody will marry you and we can keep you running things here forever."

"Yes, your wife would love to have me around all her life."

"I don't have a wife, and as long as you're here, I can't think of any reason why I should get one."

At which Rebekah rolled her eyes, since she knew and Laban knew that he had already fallen in love three times with completely unsuitable girls, of course and wherever he went, well-favored daughters were trotted out and their needlework shown to him and their cooking fed to him.

For that matter, whenever a visitor came to Bethuel's tent, he was fed Rebekah's cooking and shown Rebekah's workmanship not just weaving and sewing, but fields of beans and vegetables, and stores of cheeses, smoked meats, and oils and wines that had been acquired in trade for the wovenwork of the women who toiled under her guidance. But Father knew better than to try to show her. Instead, the visitors merely glimpsed her, veiled, as she went about her business. And because she did not have to hear what was said about her, she was able to pretend that she did not know it was said, or that many a visitor's main business in Father's tent was to offer fine gifts for him to pass along to her. Father always declined the gifts, of course, but he turned their visits into profitable trade when he could. He did not trouble her with tales that would only make her upset.

But now that she was of a marriageable age, it was inevitable that one of the supplicants would so please Father that he would begin to think that perhaps this man or that one might be a good son-in-law.

Through it all, however, Rebekah grew less and less interested in the prospect of marriage. Didn't she already have all the work of a wife? Except the actual bearing of children, and she'd helped with enough births to know just how pleasant that could be. She loved children and was good with them, but there was no shortage of children among the servants in her father's household, and if she wasn't the mother of any of them, she was, in a sense, the mother of all, since she ruled over the household women and all the children still at breast or knee. So what would marriage bring her, except the pain of childbirth and the loneliness of being taken away from all she knew and all she loved?

In her husband's house she would be a stranger. She had no experience with that. She had seen how it was for new servants brought into the house, men who had to prove themselves by the strength of their arm and their way with beasts, women who had to earn their place by more subtle contests, and who even then could never rise within the hierarchy of the household the way new men could. Naturally, as wife she would be at the head of the household women for even if her face had been ugly as a toad's back, Father would have seen to it her dowry was enough to place her as first wife. But Rebekah knew perfectly well that being nominal head and actually being the leader of the women were two different things. Here, she had grown up among the women, pampered because she was the youngest, the daughter of the house, and motherless as well. Finally, after Father became deaf, she asserted herself as mistress of the house of Bethuel and the women understood that she needed to take that role. They did not resist her. But she had always known these women and they knew her, too. She was never, not for a moment of her life, a stranger.

"I don't want to leave home," she told Deborah.

Deborah nodded wisely. "It's hard to leave home, even to go to your uncle's house."

"But you did it," said Rebekah.

"There was a baby who needed me."

"There's none who need me."

"There will be, silly," said Deborah. "That's why you get married, so you can have babies you can keep."

"What kind of man will marry me, Deborah? A man from a great herding household? Then I'll always be pitching a tent and packing it up again, or if they settle down near a town, they'll have a house there, and what do I know about tending a place with hard walls and a roof, and neighbors living just steps from the door?"

"Maybe you'll marry somebody like your father, who stays in one place but lives in a tent."

"There's hardly anyone like Father."

"I've never been to a town," said Deborah.

"You haven't missed a thing," said Rebekah.

The few times she had gone into a city, she had not liked it. The hearty stink of animal dung, the nauseating smells of human waste and rotting food, the acrid odors of tanning and dyeing. And the crowds the jostling, the noise, people shouting and cursing or even cheerfully greeting each other without seeming to care that dozens of strangers could hear them bellow. Yet perhaps the hardest thing for her in town was the lack of a horizon. Walls everywhere, blocking your view to Rebekah it was like perpetually being trapped in a canyon. She had been trained all her life to keep in mind where she could run, if danger threatened bandits, a lion, a bear. True, lions and bears generally stayed out of villages, and the large towns kept a wall, but when the wall failed, when a town fell, what had been built as their protection became their trap, leaving the townspeople at the mercy of marauders with no hope of escaping into the open. Cowering in their houses, that's what all the town people were doing, however bold a face they might wear in the street.

"If you love your husband," said Deborah, "then you won't care if it's a tent or a house. That's what they all say."

"If I love him."

"Why wouldn't you, if he gives you babies?" asked Deborah.

"Not every husband is good," said Rebekah. "It's not just about babies. You've heard the stories the women tell."

Tales of the kind of master who beat everyone, not just the servants, but his own children, his own wife. Who could stop such a man? Or the man who was insatiable, constantly bringing new women into the household and casting his seed about in strange beds and strange places, so that his wife could never be sure that there would not be dozens of would-be heirs ready to contest the right of her own children to inherit. And when a husband had a new favorite among his women, there were tales of wives persecuted, mocked, even driven from their homes as the husband who had sworn to care for her looked on indifferently.

"Your husband would never treat you badly," said Deborah. "Uncle Bethuel would never let him."

"Father won't have any say about it, once I marry a man."

Deborah laughed. "If Uncle Bethuel hears that your husband treats you wrong, how long do you think he'll wait to come get you back?"

"How would he hear?" asked Rebekah.

Deborah thought about that. "I forgot. He's deaf." Then: "You could write to him?"

"And who would carry the letter?"

"I would."

"And how would you do it if my evil husband forbade you?"

"I'd go anyway."

"And what if he caught you and beat you?"

"Then as soon as he was through beating me, I'd go again."

Rebekah believed her. "No, don't say that," she said. "I'd never let you suffer like that for me."

"I'd never let you suffer from a bad husband. I'd tell Uncle Bethuel no matter what."

Only then did it occur to Rebekah that Deborah assumed she would go with her when she married. And of course she was right. What else would Deborah do? It was the only job she was trained for, to care for Rebekah. And Rebekah would never have the heart to refuse to take her along. Yet in a new household, would the other servants be kind to her? Understand her slowness of speech and thought, her intermittent memory? No, Deborah would be taunted and teased, and Rebekah, being new, wouldn't have the power to stop them. If she tried, they'd only tease Deborah more mercilessly behind her back.

One more reason, as if she needed one, for Rebekah not to marry anybody. Not unless God chose him.

In all her anticipation of troubles to come, she did not think of the hardest problem until it actually faced her.

His name was Ezbaal. He was a youngish man, no more than thirty, who had inherited his wealth when his father was killed by thieves in the streets of a town where he had gone to trade. Ezbaal had been only eighteen at the time, but he already had the respect of his father's men, so they followed him in seeking vengeance on the city that had failed to keep the old man safe. Ezbaal took the town by stealth and forbore to slaughter all the inhabitants only when they produced a huge treasure as blood-price, along with the heads and hands of the thieves who had slain his father.

Yet, though his manhood had begun in bloody justice, along with that tale it was said that he ruled his household with wisdom and mercy and patience beyond what anyone could expect from a man so young. It was with admiration that Ezbaal's name was spoken in all the desert camps, and even though, for obvious reasons, Ezbaal shunned settled life, he had good relations with most of the great desert families and shared water rights in so many wells that it was said he could travel from Elam to Egypt, from Sheba to Hurria, without having to fight for water or go thirsty for a day.

Ezbaal had called upon Father before, when Rebekah was seven or eight years old, and she remembered seeing him from a distance, this man of legend who seemed so young compared to Father, but who strode with purpose and greeted all without fear or boasting, as if he counted himself the equal of any man, yet took all men to be his equal in return.

Now he came again, but not with his great household to share water for a season in the nearby hills. No, this time he came with only a small entourage, enough men to make robbers think twice before attacking them on the road, and, surprisingly enough, three women. The camels they had with them were not enough to be a serious trading caravan; the cattle were not enough to be a herd. They could only be gifts for Bethuel.

He might have come like this if he needed Bethuel's help in war, but there was no rumor of war, and he would not have brought women. Ezbaal had come with marriage in mind.

The whispers flew through camp like swarms of summer flies, buzzing everywhere so there was no escape. "Bethuel can't say no to him." "Rebekah has to fall in love with him at once!" "They say he married years ago but she died in bearing her first child, who died as well, and the poor man has been grieving ever since." "He's so rich he doesn't need to marry for a dowry, he can marry for beauty, he can marry for love."

Gossip also centered around the women who came with Ezbaal. One of them, it was agreed, was almost certainly his mother, and as the afternoon wore on, the other two were rumored to include the mother of Ezbaal's dead first wife, Ezbaal's sisters, his aunts, his great grandmother, or the high priestess of Asherah from any of several famous cities, who was coming along to test Rebekah's purity and bless any marriage that might ensue. Of course the three women actually with Ezbaal could not be all these things; Rebekah could not think of why he would have brought them along at all.

Rebekah was not one to wait for rumors, however. Soon after Ezbaal's party had been seen and a messenger sent, who ran back with word that Ezbaal begged hospitality and that his company included fourteen men and three women, Rebekah took Laban aside and asked him who the women were and why they had come.

"They're here," Laban said dryly, "to look behind the veil, you dolt."

Ah. Of course. Father would not display her to Ezbaal like a cow, but a man like Ezbaal would not marry a mere rumor or mystery. Rebekah's face would have to be seen by someone that he trusted. And if it was a woman or three women willing to view her face in privacy, she could have no possible reason for objecting.

She felt a thrill of fear at that. After all, just because a servant boy and her own father and brother had declared her to be pretty did not mean that she would be beautiful in the eyes of a man who had wandered half the world and seen all there was to see. She could imagine his mother or aunts or whatever-they-weres coming back to him and saying, "You might as well marry the veil, because you'll be wanting to leave it on her through the whole marriage," or, "She's pretty enough, for a girl of the desert, but in a world where true beauty can be found, why should you settle for this?" And he would leave without asking for her hand in marriage, and then she could take off the veil, for no one would think her truly beautiful again. "She might have been beautiful as a girl, but womanhood did her no favors," that's what they'd say of her.

And after all these years of vanity for what was this business with the veil, she realized now, except the sheer vanity of thinking no man could look upon her face without being driven mad with love? it was exactly what she deserved, to have mystery replaced with pity. And Father would be teased when he visited the towns, about how he always did better business when he kept his goods in a sack than when he put them on display. Perhaps they would have to strike the tents and move far away, to a land where the shame of Rebekah's exposure would not have made them figures of ridicule.

"You do still have a face under that thing, don't you?" Laban asked, though of course he had seen her face many times. She did not wear the veil inside her Father's tent, because she knew it offended him and, at least with Father and Laban and the oldest, most trusted servants, there was no fear of her beauty her reputed beauty causing disturbance.

"All but the nose," she said. "It kept snagging on things and I finally cut it off."

"You'll be all the prettier, I'm sure," said Laban. "I understand they're growing their women without noses in the cities of the coast. They don't cook as well because they can't smell the food, but it's better for kissing. You don't have to turn your head."

He was rewarded by being hit on the shoulder with a spoon, at which he retreated, laughing.

Despite her fears, Rebekah couldn't help getting caught up in the excitement in the camp. Though she thought of marriage only with dread, she also knew that it would come, sooner rather than later, and to have Ezbaal ask for her hand would be about as high an honor as she could aspire to. If he came with the offer of a bridegift instead of a demand for a dowry, that would be a sign of true favor from God, for such a thing happened only to great women, like Sarai, who was a king's daughter when Abram darkened the whole plain around Ur-of-the-North with the vast herds he brought to her father when he married her.

It was foolish to compare herself to the incomparable Sarah, for she was a woman of legend. Yet could she not also hope, in some secret place in her heart, that she, too, might be part of a legend, even if it was only a small one?

To be the wife of Ezbaal.... All would envy her. All would honor her. And he was a just man, fair in all his dealings, so she would have nothing to fear at his hand, and her children would be well-treated. Her sons would be raised to excel in herding, husbandry, and war; her daughters she could raise with grace and skillful hands and willing hearts, and see them placed in good homes with good men, because they would be well-dowered. All her future looked dazzling, if he asked for her hand, if Father said yes.

So what was it that made her feel a sick dread inside at the thought of going away with him? Was it nothing more than the excitement and nervousness any girl should feel at the coming of a husband and lord her suitor and lover? The fear of rejection when the women saw her face?

No. She had those feelings also, and knew them for what they were.

Not until she wrote his name in the dirt with a stick did she understand what made her sick with dread to have him come. It was the last two syllables of his name. Ba'al. The word only meant "lord," and there were many who still said that it was just another name for the God of Abraham. But Rebekah knew that Ba'al had long since ceased to be another name for God. Instead he wore the face of a hundred graven images in cities and villages throughout the land, and it was to these images that the people prayed. And the priests were not priests of God, but rather priests for hire, telling people, not how to live clean from sin, but rather that doing whatever they wanted was no sin at all, as long as they made their sacrifices to Ba'al.

Was Ezbaal's name the one given him by his parents, or did he choose it himself? If he chose it, then it meant he was a pious man in the worship of the false god; and if his parents chose it, it suggested they had been pious, and would he not also show respect to them by worshiping the god they named him for?

How could she marry a man who did not serve the God of Abraham?

She could not go to Father, for from the moment Ezbaal arrived, Father was with his noble visitor. And because Laban was at Father's side almost constantly, writing for him so the conversation with Ezbaal could go smoothly forward, she could not talk to her brother, either. It would do no good to discuss this with Deborah what would she know? What could she do?

So Rebekah went to Pillel.

It was not a thing lightly done. Pillel was unfailingly courteous with her, but she always sensed in him a coldness, something held back, as if he had not decided yet whether to like her or not. And since she had taken to wearing the veil, he had virtually stopped talking to her at all, except where the business of the camp required that he speak to the chief of the women. But now, at the very least, she had to get a message discreetly delivered to Father, and who else could do that?

Pillel was, as always, in the midst of work, supervising the slaughter of two calves and four lambs for the feast that night. Already drained, cleaned, and skinned, the carcasses were disjointed and quartered before being spitted, since there wasn't time to roast them whole. Rebekah, too, had been busy, preparing four disused firepits that were only brought back into service when a large company visited or in time of drought, when unusual numbers of animals had to be slaughtered and their meat preserved. But she left her women tending the fires and came to stand beside Pillel with her head downcast, saying nothing but by her presence demanding attention.

He turned at once from the man he was speaking to. Indeed, he turned so abruptly he left his own sentence unfinished. Rebekah knew this was as strong a rebuke as Pillel could give her by treating her visit with exaggerated importance, he was demanding that her business be important enough to be worth so much bother.

Well, annoyed you may be, Pillel, but this message must be delivered.

"I need to speak with you privately," said Rebekah.

He made as if to leave with her at once. She would not have that.

"As soon as you have finished disposing of the business at hand," she said, then stepped aside and bowed her head again, to wait for him. It left him no choice but to finish giving instructions to the servant he had been talking to, and to watch as dripping haunches, shoulders, loins, and heads of the beasts were spitted.

Rebekah saw that he was not instructing the men to take the meat to the firepits, and became annoyed. "The firepits are ready for the spits," she said. "The fires are banked and tended, and the women know their work."

At once Pillel waved a hand and the men holding the spits took off at a run.

Why was Pillel so annoyed with her? It was not unheard of for her to need to talk to him in the midst of his work.

He turned and gazed at her with a face devoid of expression.

"Pillel, there are rumors that the visit of Ezbaal may have something to do with me."

He said nothing.

"I need to know," she went on. "Is his name a just one? Does he worship Ba'al?"

"I know nothing of his gods," said Pillel.

"Nor I. Nor, I think, does Father," said Rebekah. "So Father might need to be reminded that his daughter will never serve Ba'al or any other god of stone."

Almost at once Pillel's face changed, from one unreadable expression to another. Rebekah could not begin to guess what went on in her father's steward's mind.

"If you could find a discreet moment," she said, "to remind him of this, before he agrees to anything that would be impossible for me to fulfil ..."

She left the words dangling.

Pillel nodded, then raised one hand a little. It was a familiar gesture the one he used whenever he thought Father was making a decision without having thought everything through. It was at once obsequious in its slightness and firm in its negativity.

"I have never heard my master speak against Ba'al," said Pillel.

"Why would he?" asked Rebekah. "But he takes part in no worship of Ba'al or Asherah, and gives no tithes to their priests or temples. Everyone knows he worships the God of Abraham."

"Forgive me for saying it, but as far as I'm aware, no one outside this camp knows that."

"Well, of course he doesn't announce it, but Abraham is his uncle, and our family is the family of the birthright."

"Which will pass to one of Abraham's sons," said Pillel. "What has that to do with Bethuel? If he wanted it known that he served Abraham's god, would he not have said so to all he meets, as Abraham does?"

For a moment Rebekah wanted to blurt out, Have you met Abraham? Face to face? What kind of man is he? Has he really seen the face of angels?

But there was a more important matter here than her curiosity. Pillel was resisting her and she did not yet know why.

"Pillel, regardless of what Father has or has not said, he cannot give me in marriage to a man who would expect me to join him in worshiping Ba'al or Asherah. I will serve the one true God and only him as long as I live, and the man I marry must do so also."

Now Pillel looked truly shocked. "Your father will not be happy to hear such a defiant tone."

"I'm not being defiant in saying that," said Rebekah, becoming annoyed. "I'm being obedient. Pillel, you have served my father all my life, and you don't know that we are true to the one true God?"

Pillel actually looked confused. "I knew that you stayed aloof from the priests of the cities and paid no tithes to them, and I knew that your gods were small images so that they could be carried around with you "

Those wretched little god-images! Rebekah wanted to scream in frustration: Father always ignored her when she suggested that they shouldn't use them, and Laban laughed at her for being so particular, but the images did confuse people. "Pillel, those images are only to help the servants understand that our God is not the same god they worship in the cities, and to help them think of the true God when they pray."

"I am one of the servants," said Pillel. "And all gods are God."

"All gods are not God," said Rebekah. "Only God is God, and we do not worship an image."

"I see my master Bethuel bow down before stone images to pray," said Pillel, "and I bow behind him, and his son and daughter bow beside him also."

"But the stone is not God." She could not contain her frustration any longer. "I told Father that nothing good would come of his using those images. Just because great-grandfather Terah made them does not make it right or good. It only confuses people the way it's confused you."

Pillel looked at her coldly. "I am not the one who is confused."

"Go to Father and tell him what I said," Rebekah replied. "You'll see who is confused. I will not bow down to the image of a false god. I wish I had never bowed down to an image at all, because the true God needs no images."

"How can I go to my master and tell him that his daughter refuses to worship with her husband as I have seen her worship with her father all her life?"

"Now that I have told you," said Rebekah firmly, "how can you not tell him?"

As if explaining things to a little child, Pillel said, "A woman worships the gods of her father and then she worships the gods of her husband."

"After all these years in my father's house," said Rebekah, in a tone just as condescending, "you still remain a stranger who does not understand what he sees."

She should not have said it. It could only hurt him and make him angry, at a time when she did not need anyone working against her.

"Pillel," she said at once, "I'm sorry, I spoke falsely and in anger."

He did not reply at all.

"You are not a stranger here."

"Of course I'm a stranger," he said. "The line between family and servant is always clear in my mind and I have never been confused."

"But not a stranger. I only meant to say that if you think we actually worship the stone images Father keeps, and if you think he would have me marry a man who would require me to worship false gods ..."

"I know what you meant," said Pillel. "But I don't know how to say what should be obvious to you without giving offense."

"Say it and I swear I will not be offended."

"Mistress," said Pillel, "I have worked beside your father longer than you have been alive, and I swear to you that it is you, not I, who does not understand what your father worships, and what he will expect of you."

His words stopped her cold. Was it possible that he was right? Didn't Father reject the gods of the cities and towns? Did he think that the images he prayed to were actually somehow God himself and his Servant or Son, rather than being mere depictions, puppets they used when they acted out the story of creation?

It was too great a mystery to be sorted out. How could Rebekah have come to understand what she understood, if Father believed something so different? Who would have taught her? Of course the way she understood things to be was the way things really were. It was Pillel who was wrong.

But he meant no harm by resisting her indeed, by his lights, he was trying to save her from embarrassment.

"Say this, then," she told him. "Say that he must talk to me before promising anything, because I must be able to worship God all my life, in the way that God must be worshiped."

"I will say what my mistress requires of me."

"All I need is for him to talk to me before he gives his word."

"And if he gives his word without talking to you?" asked Pillel. "And Ezbaal turns out to be a fervent worshiper of Ba'al and Asherah who requires his entire household to bow down to them and dance and celebrate before the images?"

"Then Father will either break his word or he will have to live on, knowing that he sent his daughter to live with a husband who will hate her, because I will never bow down or dance or sing or tithe or do any kind of worship before an image of Ba'al or Asherah. Before I did such a thing, I would die."

A smile came to the corners of Pillel's mouth. "It is easy for a child to speak of dying before obeying. But when the father of your children demands that you "

"I will bear no children to a man who does not serve God," said Rebekah.

Pillel's face darkened. "You may be sure," he said, "that I will report this conversation to your father."

"That is all I ever asked of you," said Rebekah.

Pillel made no move to leave.

"Well?" asked Rebekah.

"Well what?" asked Pillel.

"Aren't you going to go tell Father what I said?"

"There is no urgency," said Pillel. "They can't begin discussing you until after they've feasted, and almost certainly not until the next morning. I'll take an opportunity to speak to him privately, before the matter can come up."

That was all she had ever asked him to do, but now it sounded like a threat. Pillel clearly thought less of her for this.

Was he right? Had she somehow misunderstood what Father believed?

With no one else to turn to, she finally resorted to talking with Deborah. After the meat was roasting, Rebekah left the women to do their work and returned to her tent for Deborah to dress her hair and help her into her finest clothing. No matter how things turned out, if she was to be seen she had to look her best so as not to shame Father.

"Deborah," said Rebekah, "what do you know about God?"

"He made everything," said Deborah. "He is king of the whole world. Even the lions and bears."

"You know they have gods of stone in the cities. We never bow down to those."

"No, never," Deborah agreed.

"Do you know why?"

"No," said Deborah, wonderingly, as if she sensed she were about to be let in on a great secret.

"No, I mean really, do you know why?"

Deborah looked puzzled and thought long and hard. "Because we have better gods here?"

Better gods. The stone images Terah made. But then what else would a simple-minded woman like Deborah think? She could not possibly understand the complicated reasoning that allowed Bethuel's house to bow down before stone images of God while refusing to bow down before stone images of Ba'al, who was, supposedly, the very same God, merely with different priests.

For that matter, you didn't have to be simpleminded for the distinction to seem meaningless. Once you knelt before an image of stone, the stone began to be your god, and not the God the stone supposedly represented. It was that simple and always had been. That was why Abraham did not claim Terah's images along with the birthright. He knew the images were false by their very nature, and could never be anything else. The keeper of the birthright knew that every stone of the earth showed the power of God, but none could contain his image.

Father has been wrong, just as his father was wrong, and Terah before him.

How do I know these things? How can I be so sure? If my father is wrong, then who taught me the true religion that I feel here in my heart? Not my mother, surely none of her words, no sound of her voice remains in my memory. Not my nurse Deborah understands nothing. How did I learn these things with such certainty that I know I'm right even if both Father and Pillel stand against me?

From Abraham.

From a man she had never met. All she had of him were stories, what he did, a few things he said. The way he faced death at the hands of a priest of Pharaoh in Ur-of-the-North, and God sent an earthquake to knock down the idols of the temple and save his life. The way he refused any reward when he saved the kings of the cities of the plain, lest anyone think that these kings had made him rich, for the only wealth he had was what had been given him by God. The way he trusted in the promise of God that he would have children as numberless as the sands of the sea, as the stars of heaven, even though his wife as a barren as a dried-out stick. The way he refused to take the gods his father had carved to represent the God of heaven and his Servant, by whose word all his creations were made.

She had learned her religion from the stories of Abraham and Sarah, and then assumed that her Father understood things the same way. And he did! He had to! He was not a fool, he had to have learned the same things from these stories that Rebekah had. Pillel was wrong. Father would agree at once when he was reminded that no marriage could be entered into without protecting her right to worship the God of Abraham, and him alone.

"You don't look happy," said Deborah.

"I'm worried a little, that's all."

"If he doesn't make you happy, I don't want you to marry him, no matter how rich he is," said Deborah.

"And I won't, either," said Rebekah. "If he doesn't make me happy."

"Oh, silly," said Deborah. "You're not like me. You're a good girl. You'll do what your father says."

Rebekah left her words unchallenged. Time would tell whether she was a good girl or a bad one.

She was not yet fully dressed when Laban came to her tent. Hurriedly, she and Deborah pulled the finest gown over her head and then admitted him.

"Who's writing for Father, if you're here?" asked Rebekah.

"Pillel," said Laban. "Not a patient writer. He keeps leaving out words and letters."

Pillel would have the opportunity now to tell Father what Rebekah had said. Whether he chose to do it or not would be another story.

"It must be an important errand," said Rebekah, "that brings you here and leaves Father to decipher Pillel's writing."

"You are not going to serve the dinner in Father's tent," he said.

This would be a sign of great disfavor, ordinarily, but Laban was smiling a little, which told her that it must not be bad.

"You're going to be too busy dining with Ezbaal's grandmother, his mother, and his sister."

"Not serving them? Dining with them?"

"You're to instruct our women to serve the same meal in both tents. And not the worst cuts of meat, either. Your meal is to be almost as fine as the one laid before Ezbaal."

"Let me guess," said Rebekah. "I'm not to wear the veil."

"Not inside your own tent," said Laban. "Not when the only people who will see you will be other women."

"Too late to try for a case of the pox, isn't it?"

"Don't worry," said Laban. "You're ugly enough to frighten a goat into giving sour milk."

"That's a relief," said Rebekah.

"Frankly," said Laban, "I think the women will hate you."

That would solve everything, wouldn't it? But she still couldn't bring herself to hope for it. "Why will they hate me?"

"Because next to you, they look like she-camels."

"On a long journey, a man would rather have a good camel than a pretty woman."

"Listen, my little lamb, there is no journey that long." With a laugh, Laban ducked back out of her tent.

"May I stay to see the fine ladies?" asked Deborah.

"Of course," said Rebekah. It still bothered her, sometimes, that the woman who used to scold her when she was naughty and still did, sometimes had to ask Rebekah's permission to stay for company. But of course she had to ask, because sometimes the answer was no, and Deborah truly did not have the judgment to make such decisions on her own.

The food was prepared, if not perfectly, then as best it could be on short notice early in the spring, when they were still living from last year's harvest. Rebekah took her place on a rug in her tent, with Deborah tending to the flap. A quick instruction to a serving girl, a longer wait during which Rebekah tried to decide whether she wanted to make a good impression or a bad one, and then her guests were there, clapping their hands outside the tent.

Deborah opened the flap and admitted them; Rebekah rose to her feet to greet them with kisses. The grandmother introduced herself as Ethah and promptly seated herself in Rebekah's own place but of course the old can do what they like. Ezbaal's mother did not let go of her shoulders after their kisses, instead holding her at arm's length to look closely at her face. "You put a veil over that?" she said.

Rebekah only smiled in a way she hoped was enigmatic, and said, "What name should I call you?"

"You must call me Mother, of course," said the woman.

Whereupon Rebekah resolved to call her by no name at all. She would not be tricked into intimacy so easily as that.

She turned to greet Ezbaal's sister and found the woman to be different from the other two taller, as tall as Rebekah, but with her hair so arranged that it served almost as effectively as Rebekah's veil to hide her face. The woman's hands trembled, and she could scarcely bring herself close enough to kiss Rebekah's cheeks. What someone here who was even more nervous than Rebekah? Why? She was not being examined by women who were deciding on her worthiness as a bride.

Or was she?

For the first time it occurred to her that there might be more to this visit from Ezbaal than merely to see if Rebekah might be an appropriate bride. After all, there were two marriageable men in Bethuel's household, too. Laban, of course, was too young to be married to a mature woman like this. But was it possible that Ezbaal had brought his sister with an eye to trying to entice Bethuel to marry again?

It was rather odd that Father never married again after Mother died, thought Rebekah. Rich men often took several wives, yet Father had married only the one woman. Why hadn't anyone brought a sister or daughter to visit him before?

"And what is your name?" asked Rebekah. "Or am I to call you sister?"

"Never that," said the woman in a voice that sounded husky, as if she had been weeping. "Call me Akyas."

The word meant "rejected" and it could not possibly be her name. But whatever game these women were playing, Rebekah would take it all in stride. She had a game of her own, and now that she had met them, she decided to play it. She did not want to marry into a household dominated by these women. The falseness of the mother, the rude presumption of the grandmother, and the strangeness of the sister what place would there be for her in their household?

They conversed about nothing for a little while the journey, the good winter rains this year and then the food began to arrive. The women said nothing, of course, either to praise or criticize the food; indeed, they ate in virtual silence and took only small portions, except for Akyas, who ate nothing at all.

Finally, though, the grandmother, Ethah, began quizzing her. The test was under way.

"Who really cooked this food?"

"Why, the servants, of course," said Rebekah brightly. "Don't you have servants do the cooking in your household?"

"I meant which of the servants chooses what will be served, and how?"

"No servant, Ethah, but the daughter of the house."

"No child your age can do that sort of job," said Ethah scornfully. "The servants would mock your youth as soon as you turned your back, and do what they wanted."

"Perhaps your grandson can ask my father how he chooses and trains his servants," said Rebekah. "In all my life I have never seen servants behave as you describe. Does the bean paste displease you? I see you have barely touched it."

"Too spicy," said Ethah coldly. "Which is to be expected, when you let servants do it they don't have to pay for the spices, so what do they care?"

Rebekah immediately sent the serving girl for simple bean paste. "I fear that I'm the careless, wasteful one," said Rebekah. "Perhaps in my desire to make a good impression, I used too much spice and marred the dish."

"No, no, dear," said "Mother." "I find it nearly perfect."

"Then you must tell me how I can improve it, so that someday I might earn your judgment of perfection."

"But I haven't the faintest idea of how to make it better," said "Mother." "You use a kind of bean we never grow or cook with."

"The meat's too good," said Ethah, complaining again. "What kind of woman serves this quality to the women? It should have been reserved for the men, if you knew your manners."

"But this is the second-best meat," said Rebekah. "If you prefer, though, we can trade this dish with the servants I would not be ashamed to have you see what we serve to them. My father and my brother understand cattle, so I can hardly do ill when cooking meat they raised and slaughtered."

Did Akyas laugh softly, or merely stifle a belch? She continued to say nothing, which was beginning to irritate Rebekah.

Still, it was obvious that the grandmother's grumpiness was being exaggerated, perhaps as a test of Rebekah's patience and grace. And "Mother" was being just as unnaturally nice, to try to win her over. So far, Rebekah might very well have made an excellent impression. It was time to put a stop to that.

"I hope you don't mind that we did not offer any portion to the gods," said Rebekah. "But I don't believe that Ba'al or Asherah are anything more than stone images, powerless to answer prayers, and the true God asks for larger sacrifices than to spill a bit of this and that at every meal. Besides, it spoils the rugs."

"We do it over an altar dish," said Ethah testily. "You might have provided one for us to use."

"But in my tent there is only one God," said Rebekah brightly. "I will have no mockery of the true God by permitting others to be worshiped here."

Ethah smiled triumphantly at the others, as if she had just won an argument. "Mother" faltered a bit, but bravely tried to smooth it over. "All gods are the same God, in the end, don't you think?"

"The living God is the only God," said Rebekah. "All the imitations are simply a way for priests to maintain control over the poor and ignorant."

"Now we see she's filled with rage!" cried the grandmother.

"Why should I rage?" said Rebekah. "I speak only the simple truth. I have no cause to be angry with those who do not know the truth. I pity their ignorance, and seek to help them understand that the God of Abraham is the only true God."

"God of Abraham!" cried Ethah. "Yes, the one who told him to take his favorite son up the mountain and sacrifice him!"

"That is not true," said Rebekah. "Abraham has spent his entire life fighting against the monstrous practice of sacrificing human beings to these false gods."

"But to the 'true' god he'll sacrifice his own son, is that it?" asked Ethah. "Don't you tell me it's not true my grandson is a good friend of Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael, the one who was cheated out of his inheritance when that runaway priestess Sarah had the wretched little baby Isaac, no doubt by some kind of sorcery, which is probably why Abraham wanted to kill it. Ishmael heard the story from his own father. It happens that at the last minute Abraham turned coward and sacrificed a ram in his son's place, but he had Isaac all tied up and ready for the blade!"

So the story originated with Ishmael. Of course it was not to be believed. Ordinarily, Rebekah would keep the peace by seeming to agree with her guests and keeping her own opinion to herself but today that would not serve her purpose. "There you are," said Rebekah. "Just one more example of the lies Ishmael tells in order to make it seem that Abraham was wrong to choose Isaac over him."

"Have you ever met the old man?" asked Ethah.

"No," said Rebekah.

"Well, I have, and I tell you that he's a bloody-handed old hypocrite, who pretends to hear from his god, but he's just using that lie to get people to do what he wants."

"You have met Abraham," said Rebekah with a smile, "and I have met you."

The words hung there, as each of them understood the unspoken completion of the thought that having met Ethah, Rebekah chose to believe in Abraham.

"So this is the woman who wants to be the bride of my grandson! A girl who insults her betters to their faces!"

"But I do not want to be the bride of your grandson," said Rebekah. "Nor has anyone asked me to be his bride."

"Don't pretend to be such a fool as not to know why we are here!" cried the old woman.

That was when Akyas finally spoke. Or, rather, laughed a low throaty chuckle that silenced everyone until she reached over and patted Rebekah on the knee. The touch chilled her. So did the laugh.

"Let us share in the jest," said "Mother."

"Of course Rebekah knows," said Akyas. "She is acting this way because she wants us to hate her. If we take an ill report to Ezbaal, and he withdraws his offer, then she never has to have an argument with her father over the question of marriage."

"Do you mean this girl has already made up her mind not to marry my grandson, without even having met him?"

"Ezbaal is twice her age," said Akyas. "Even though we understand his worth as a husband, who could expect a child of this age to know what a husband looks like? She dreams of dashing young boys. Probably she already has her eye on some completely unsuitable shepherd. Girls this age always do."

Rebekah almost spoke out angrily to deny this, but realized in time that, just as she had been playing a game with them, Akyas was playing a game with her. So she said nothing and did her best to keep her face a blank.

"See?" said Akyas. "She has control of herself she wants to answer, but says nothing."

"I think you're putting too good a face on her," said the grandmother. "You're so eager for this match that you can't possibly see anything but virtue in the girl."

"But I'm not eager for the match," said Akyas. "If it happens, so be it, I'll join in the rejoicing. But I know something of unhappy marriages. Why should I wish such a thing on either my brother Ezbaal or this girl?"

What could this sudden show of sympathy mean? Rebekah continued to hold her tongue, unsure what the others might read into anything she said.

"What is the real issue here, girl?" asked Akyas. "Is it that you simply don't want to marry at all? Ah, yes this has to be it you want us to reject you, but from then on, any man whom your father brings, you'll compare him to Ezbaal and say, 'This one is not as good as the first one you brought.' Until you finally find one that you favor. It gives you an excuse to control your own marriage. Is that it?"

"You give me credit for too much cleverness, and too little wisdom," said Rebekah. "I trust my father to find a good husband for me. If it be Ezbaal, then I will rejoice. As long as I can continue to worship the Lord God of Abraham, and no other god, I will be content."

"You will be content," said the grandmother, "if your husband only beats you once a week. What do you think marriage is?"

"If that is your sad experience," said Rebekah mildly, "then I hope my marriage will be better than yours."

Ephah glared at her for a moment, then turned to the other women and smiled pleasantly. "I think," she said, "that we'll report that Rebekah is charming and beautiful, but too young for the match. So we'll betrothe them and take her with us, train her to be a loving wife, and hold the marriage when we find that she is ready."

"And when will that be?" asked Rebekah.

The old woman smiled beatifically at her. "When you bow your head and speak submissively to your betters."

"Ah, that's a relief," said Rebekah, adopting the same tone of exaggerated cheerfulness. "I feared it would be when I was as hard and withered and bitter as you."

Ephah clenched her teeth a little, but she maintained her smile. "It will be a pleasure teaching you modesty."

Rebekah turned to "Mother." "Did she train you in the way she promises to train me? Is that why you are so fearful, so eager to keep the peace? Did she beat you? Or merely humiliate you into submission?"

"Enough," said the grandmother. "Whether it's a careful plot on her part or she's really as rude and ignorant as she seems, it hardly matters. I won't have my grandson's life plagued with a girl like this."

"The choice is his," Akyas reminded her. "He has never been ruled by you, or by his mother either."

His mother, she said. Not simply "Mother." So she and Ezbaal might be siblings, but not by the same mother. And Akyas spoke of knowing the bitterness of a bad marriage. There was a story here, and Rebekah could not help but wish she knew it.

"Girl," said Akyas, "you put on a brave face. Perhaps it is true that all you care about is whether you can worship your god. So ... what if we told you that Ezbaal is not concerned about whom you pray to? That you can marry him and he will not interfere with your private worship?"

Rebekah tried to find the trick or trap in what she was saying. "How can you speak for him?"

"I don't speak for anyone," said Akyas. "I only ask you, what if those were the terms?"

"Those who truly worship the Lord God of heaven do not worship any other god, or even allow others to think they worship an idol."

"So you will not join in the festivals of Ba'al," said Akyas. "If Ezbaal consents to that, you have no further objection? We would then see your sweet obedience, and not this defiance?"

"I owe you only the courtesy of a hostess, not obedience, madam," said Rebekah. And then realized that by speaking this way, she was showing a sweet and, yes, obedient attitude.

"That is what I hoped," said Akyas. She turned to the others. "We have indeed unveiled her here," she said. "Veil after veil, if I see aright."

"If you think I'll forget what she said here today...," said the grandmother.

"I think," said Akyas, "you'll remember only that if she comes home as Ezbaal's bride, she will be mistress of the camp, and you will show her proper respect, and she will show the same to you. Is that not so, Rebekah?"

"The grandmother of my husband, and his mother also, and his sister, will all have nothing but respect and love and true service from me," said Rebekah.

The grandmother laughed bitterly. "Fifteen years of loneliness have made a peacemaker of you, Akyas."

"A powerful woman makes the best partner to a powerful man," said Akyas. "It is only weak women and weak men who don't understand this."

Rebekah saw the other women bristle at this, but they said nothing to contradict her. This seemed remarkable to her, to say the least. Why would they endure having Ezbaal's sister speak to them this way, implying they were weak? There is more between these women than meets the eye, she thought.

Was Akyas her ally? Or merely her cleverest enemy? There was something in the solution she had offered that seemed like a poisoned sweet. She would be free to worship God as she chose, and would never be called upon to take part in the worship of Ba'al what more could she ask than that? And yet she knew there was something wrong with this. Akyas was about to triumph over her, and she did not know how.

"You are so gracious, lady," said Rebekah to Akyas. "Yet you speak of unhappy marriage. Surely you could not have been unsuccessful in marriage, having such grace as yours?"

"You see this girl?" said Akyas, as if proud of her. "Now she examines us!"

"Tries our patience, you mean," muttered the grandmother.

"At our ages," said Akyas, "we should have stored up quite a lot of that." She rose to her feet, and the other women followed her lead. Again a sign that she, the youngest of the three, was really the leader of this group. Why?

Rebekah rose. "I fear my poor food has displeased you. You've hardly eaten."

"On the contrary, your meat and drink are delicious," said "Mother." "Whoever taught you to cook did well indeed."

"I could have wished the sauce to be a bit less spicy," said the grandmother, making it clear by her tone that she was not speaking of the sauce at all.

"It was the sauce I liked best," said Akyas. "I wish I could have had it every day." Then, suddenly in a hurry, she turned her face away and seemed almost to flee the tent, she moved so quickly. The others followed.

As soon as they were gone and Deborah had secured the tent flap behind them, Rebekah sank to the rugs, trembling. "Oh, it was awful, awful."

"I don't understand," said Deborah. "Did they like the food or not?" She knelt beside Rebekah and put her arms around her. "I thought it was so delicious."

Rebekah buried her face in her nurse's shoulder. "Oh, Deborah, it wasn't the meal, it was me. I failed completely."

"Failed? Oh, you mean ... Ezbaal won't marry you?"

"The opposite! I thought I was winning by making the grandmother hate me. How was I to know it was the sister who was the leader? And she liked me. I can't think why, I was as horrible as I could possibly be without actually spitting on anybody."

"Spitting! Better not, I taught you not to spit when you were little."

"Then I'm glad I didn't forget your lesson," said Rebekah. In truth, though, she wanted very much to spit on something. The marriage plan would go forward, and even though it seemed Ezbaal was giving in on everything she cared about, she knew the marriage would be wrong, that she had overlooked something important.

"My little girl," said Deborah proudly. "You have grown up just as I hoped you'd be. Pretty and clever ... and you don't spit."

Rebekah pulled away from her, looked at her face to see if she could possibly have meant those words sarcastically. But no, there was nothing but beatific happiness in Deborah's face. She was incapable of irony. It was Rebekah's own guilty conscience that put barbs into Deborah's words.

You have grown up just as I hoped you'd be, Deborah was saying. And that was it. A child growing up as she was taught. That was the loophole, the twist, the trick in the deal Akyas offered her. Ezbaal might let Rebekah worship no other god but God but nothing had been said about the children they'd have together. He would raise them up to pray in the high places and dance in the groves, enemies of God. What would it matter to her then, that she could pray to God, that she was pure of the defilement of idolatry, if her children were polluted from the cradle up?

I hoped that by making them hate me, I would spare myself an argument with Father. But since that plan has failed, I will have that argument, and I will win it, because I will never marry a man who would teach my children to love any god but God.

And once Father realizes what a marriage to Ezbaal would mean, he would never dream of requiring such a thing of me.

But after what Pillel said, Rebekah was not sure of this at all.

Please, God of Abraham and Sarah, she said silently. Please fight for me. I haven't the strength to stand alone, if all are against me.

Copyright © 2001 Orson Scott Card

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/rebekah02.shtml