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It was after dark when at last Rebekah was summoned to Father's tent a servant's whisper at her tent door, so as not to waken anyone else in the camp, and by the time she hurried outside, no one to be seen.

We will do this in stealth, in darkness, in silence, thought Rebekah. The marriage plan will unravel, but there will never be a quarrel that Ezbaal might hear.

Father, Laban, and Pillel were all waiting in his tent, their faces barely visible in the light of a single lamp that flickered with every movement of an arm or leg that might start the wick bobbing in the oil. Laban greeted her with a raised eyebrow, though what he meant by it Rebekah could not guess. Pillel was made of stone. But Father ... could it be tears shimmering in his eyes?

The lamp had been set on the exposed dirt where people wrote things to Father. Pillel handed her a stick polished smooth by the grip of many hands. But Rebekah wrote nothing, for she knew that Pillel and Laban would have already discussed the issues with Father, and she dared not speak until she knew where Father stood.

"Ezbaal will let you serve God. A generous man, I think," said Father. "His women gave him a good report of you. He asks to marry you, and I have said "

"No!" cried Rebekah. Could he possibly have given consent already, without speaking to her first?

He could not hear her, but he could see her face and knew what she said. "I have said that I will find out what is in your heart. You will find no nobler, braver, richer, stronger man in the world than this one. But now that I am faced with losing you, I find that it's a bitter thing indeed to watch you go. No man has had a better daughter, and I will feel impoverished and lonely without you in my camp."

"Then you'll be happy," she wrote, "for I won't marry him."

"What?" asked Laban. "Have you lost your mind?"

Pillel said nothing, but she could feel his contempt for her just the same. Pillel believed that everyone should fulfil his role and keep to his place certainly he did and he had no use for those who refused, as she was refusing.

"Rebekah, you have to marry sometime," said Father. "You have children of your own to bear, your own household to govern now. I've kept you here too long."

Her previous words were still there in the dirt, and now she added, "Because he will never let me raise my children to serve God."

Father's expression darkened. "Ah, God, now in my old age thou sendest my own words back to me."

Rebekah did not know what he was talking about. "What?" she wrote.

Grimly Father shook his head, and then spoke carefully, choosing his words. "When I was a younger man, I thought I would be another Abraham. I learned to read the holy writings, I felt the birthright like an angel leaning over my shoulder. I could not tolerate the slightest impurity wasn't it vital that I prepare my household to be the dwelling place of the Lord?" He interrupted his own story and looked at Rebekah. "The way you are now. So sure that you know what the will of God must be."

Rebekah wrote in the dirt: "I know what you taught me."

To her surprise, Father snatched the stick out of her hands and scratched out her words so vigorously that a cloud of dust rose within the tent. "The kingdom of God is not a walled city," he said, "with guards to keep strangers out and citizens in. The kingdom of God is an open tent, with room in the shade for all who seek shelter."

Rebekah reached again for the stick. "And when the wind blows?" she wrote.

"It was just a parable!" Father said impatiently. "It doesn't have to be correct at every point! I'm teaching you, or have you forgotten who is the father here?"

These words left Rebekah trembling. She would never be disrespectful to her father, and yet her father was trying to tell her that she should marry Ezbaal, and she knew she knew that she could not obey.

How did she know? she wondered. How could she be so certain? All day she had thought of reason after reason why the marriage must not happen, and then as the reasons were stripped away, a new reason came into her mind, but always with the same foregone conclusion: She must not marry Ezbaal.

Was this nothing but a young girl's fear? No, she knew it was not. She had never been timid about doing what must be done, and even though she dreaded marriage for many reasons, she also knew that it was her duty, and she knew there could never be a better match than this one. It was an honor to her family that Ezbaal had come to them, and it would bless her father's house to be tied to such a man as he. And she knew she had nothing to fear from him, compared to many other possible husbands. Life in Ezbaal's house would be good even with his crotchety grandmother constantly criticizing her. She would win the old woman's heart in due time. This marriage was a good one; there could not be a better one. She was not afraid.

And yet she could not say yes. Why not? What was holding her back?

She closed her eyes and spoke silently to God. Is my father right? Can I teach my children to love thee even though their father will worship other gods?

Immediately she felt herself filled with a sense of emptiness, as if the spark of joy within her had fled.

O God, she thought again, it will embarrass my father to refuse this great man's offer and cost him many good things. It might make an enemy of Ezbaal. How can I refuse something so important to my family? It is my duty to my father to marry Ezbaal.

This time the very strength of her body fled, leaving her feeling faint, her eyes momentarily darkened.

"O God, don't let thy spirit flee from me!" she cried aloud.

Father, watching her, saw that she spoke without writing, and demanded of Laban and Pillel, "What? What did she say?"

But Rebekah made no move to reassure him, for she now understood that she was in a dialogue with God. And then, having realized this, she realized that she had been in this conversation all day. Each time her last reason for refusing Ezbaal was taken away, a new one came with even more certainty, and yet she had never once thought, till now, that this very certainty was part of the answer. When God speaks in a woman's heart, she realized, he fills her with courage to do his will. That is why I have been in such torment today. God is trying to lead me in a path that neither my family nor Ezbaal's family can see.

Lord God of Abraham, she said silently, tell my father what you are telling me! Let me not be alone in this!

She looked into her father's eyes, seeing his expression of concern for her, and saw that there was something else as well. He was as torn as she.

God had already spoken to him and showed him what was right.

She knew it with utter certainty, and so she boldly wrote, "You already know what God wants me to do. Why do you try to persuade me to choose between God's will and yours?"

Pillel reached out a hand and took the writing stick from her. She looked at his face as passionless as ever but knew that he was angry, or he would not have, in effect, forbidden her to speak more to her father.

Laban was not so restrained. He laughed. "What, you think you're a prophet now? Able to see into the mind of God, and Father's mind as well?"

But Rebekah turned away from them and faced her father, staring into his eyes and daring him to deny what she knew he knew.

At first he was defiant, meeting her gaze angrily but he said nothing, even though he opened his mouth as if to speak. And after a long silence he looked down at the ground where she had written her challenge.

"Yes," Father said. "I know that you can't marry Ezbaal. Even though I will never find you a better marriage than this one, I have known from the moment he arrived that you could not be happy in his house."

Pillel and Laban both recoiled from his words. "What's going on with you two?" said Laban in a whisper.

Pillel also whispered, but he meant her to hear. "I see now that you do control him."

Control him? What could Pillel possibly mean by that? Had there been some rumor that somehow she ruled over her father? But of all people Pillel had to know such an idea was absurd. She didn't have time to deal with him now, though.

She knelt up, reached out, and took her father's hands in hers, bowed over them, and kissed them. Then, taking the writing stick, she answered him. "God will provide a husband for me, if I am to marry."

Pillel reached for the stick and wrote in large letters, "Ezbaal will make a dangerous enemy."

Father frowned. "Just because a man is disappointed in love ..."

Pillel wrote quickly. "He goes home. Rumors fly. He's embarrassed. He gets angry. He needs to restore his pride. He looks for chances to hurt you. The wound festers."

Father shook his head, but Rebekah knew that Pillel was right.

"Soon the slightest offense becomes a pretext for war," the steward wrote.

"He came for a marriage," Rebekah said to Pillel. "So let him go home having made one."

Pillel looked at her as if she were crazy. "Who else would be worthy to marry Ezbaal?"

Father slapped lightly at Pillel's hand. "Write, don't talk. I want to hear this."

Rebekah took the stick from Pillel. "Ezbaal brought his sister, the one who calls herself Akyas," she wrote. "She was married once, but no longer, and you are also unmarried."

Father laughed. "Me?"

"Tell him your daughter is too young to marry, you're not ready to let me go. I never had a mother's training. But you want the families to be united."

"I know nothing about this Akyas," said Father. "Her name even means that nobody wants her!"

"She's the sister of Ezbaal," said Pillel, and Rebekah wrote his words.

Then she added her own. "She's something of a beauty, if she doesn't hide behind her hair. And very smart. And strong."

"Then let her marry Laban!"

Laban loudly said, "No!"

"She's a grown woman," wrote Rebekah. "It would be like Laban marrying his mother."

Father laughed, but she could see he was considering it. He looked at Pillel.

Pillel took the stick. "If Ezbaal says no, then you are matched, refusal for refusal. No shame."

"But what if he says yes?"

"So what?" wrote Pillel. "You already have your son and heir. If you hate her, let her have her own tent and pay no attention to her."

"You have a bleak view of marriage," said Father.

Pillel said nothing.

"Let me think," said Father. "All this talking all this waiting for you to write it makes me tired."

Rebekah got up at once and kissed her father, then embraced him tightly. He could not hear her voice, but she knew he would understand how she was thanking him. He was not going to make her marry Ezbaal. He would even considering taking a wife he didn't want, just to spare her the unhappiness of having children with a man who did not serve God.

Rebekah was the first one out of Father's tent, and suddenly she found herself being shoved forward and not gently, either. She turned around, furious, to find that Laban was just as angry. "How dare you! You selfish halfwit!"

"How dare I what?" she said. "I didn't hear you volunteering to marry Ezbaal's sister!"

"Do you know what it would mean to me, to have Ezbaal's sons as my nephews? We could have raised our sons together to be friends, and who would stand against our families through all the grasslands?"

"Who cares?" said Rebekah. "If they don't serve God, they're no different from any other desert herdsmen."

"They'll serve God, under one name or another."

"I can't believe you would say something that ignorant."

Pillel stepped between them. "Your voices can be heard."

They both knew that it was disastrous in a negotiation to let your opponent know what you really wanted. They fell silent at once, but Laban gave her one last look of distaste before he stalked off toward his tent.

Rebekah looked at Pillel, but he, too, was already walking away. Whatever he thought of her, at least he had agreed that her idea of Father marrying Akyas was a good one. No matter what stupid plans Laban might have had easy for him to plan, he didn't have to do the marrying right now she had found a way to obey God without causing the family to have an enemy.

Back in Rebekah's tent, Deborah had been dozing, but she woke up when Rebekah came inside. "What, what? Tell me!" she demanded.

Rebekah put her finger to her lips. "We have to speak very quietly. Voices carry at night, and Father has a lot of negotiation to do tomorrow." She sat down beside Deborah and leaned in close. "I won't have to marry Ezbaal."

She expected Deborah to be delighted, but that would have been too simple. "You mean we don't get to go off together and have babies?"

"Someday we will," said Rebekah. "When God wills."

"Oh all right," said Deborah. "But don't make me wait forever. I want to hold your babies and take care of them."

"You'll have plenty of chance to do that."

"How?" said Deborah. "Everybody said there was no better husband in the world than Ezbaal, so who will you marry now?"

"Hush now, everybody might say that but it doesn't make it true. A man who doesn't serve the Lord can't possibly be the best husband for me."

"You could teach him," said Deborah.

"Hush, now, hush, I need to sleep. And aren't you just a little bit glad we don't have to leave home right now?"

Deborah shrugged fretfully and turned over to go back to sleep.

Rebekah lay down on her bed and stared upward into the darkness above her. Everything had worked out after all. She had figured out a way to serve God and still keep the family safe and Father happy. The curse of being pretty and having a rich father wasn't so bad if you were also smart enough to figure things out.

She was just dozing off with these thoughts spinning in her mind when all at once she realized what she was actually saying. At once she leapt from her bed and knelt in the tent, looking upward toward heaven. "O Lord," she said, softly and miserably, "is there anyone more foolish and ungrateful than I am? All this was thy doing, and not my own at all. Thou gavest me the courage to say no to the marriage, and thou didst soften the hearts of my father and Pillel so they could hear me. Surely the plan that came into my mind was also thy gift, and here I was being proud that I was so clever. Forgive my unworthiness, Lord, forgive me and please, please keep making things work out right. Please make it so Ezbaal doesn't get angry, and please don't make Father marry Akyas if she would be awful to him or something. Because if somebody has to be unhappy, let it be me, and not Father."

She wasn't sure if her prayer made up for her vanity a moment before, but she couldn't think of anything else to say, so she lay back down and, after a while, slept.

Copyright © 2001 Orson Scott Card