Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) by Orson Scott Card Page B

brother.”
     
    “Tell no one,” said Sarai. “God told him he must pretend I am his sister.”
     
    “I will keep your secret,” said Hagar. “But if you are Abram’s wife, then you are Sarai, the priestess of Asherah who renounced her vow.”
     
    “I was never her priestess, I never made a vow.”
     
    “But you are the one they say this of.”
     
    Sarai nodded.
     
    “Your god is right. For marriage to Milcah, the desert maiden, Pharaoh would pay your brother a handsome brideprice. But Pharaoh would kill ten thousand husbands to have as his wife the daughter of the ancient kings of Ur-of-the-South.”
     
    “My husband’s future is in your hands.”
     
    “As my future is in yours,” said Hagar.
     
    So it would be a bargain. “How can I hold your future?”
     
    “When you leave here and go home to the east, take me with you.”
     
    “But you belong to Pharaoh.”
     
    “I do not ask you to steal me,” said Hagar. “He’ll ask you what gift you want to take with you. I beg you, ask for me.”
     
    “But I live in the desert, where life is hard and we lack for water, for almost everything.”
     
    “What do I care? I own nothing, not even my body. I have spent my childhood wishing I could die. But if I lived as your servant, my captivity would be bearable.”
     
    Sarai tried to figure out why Hagar might feel this way. And then gave up, for there was never a way to know why others felt as they felt or did what they did. “As long as you want, you will always have a place at my side.”
     
    “But you must ask for me, as a gift.”
     
    “I will ask,” said Sarai. “When the time is right. I won’t leave without asking, as long as you don’t—”
     
    “Don’t what? This is not a bargain, not a trade. I will never tell your secrets.”
     
    Sarai blushed at having been caught in such a false judgment. “It’s the same with me,” she said. “Even if someone else guesses my secret as you did, I’ll ask for you as my handmaiden. But on the day when the desert life is so hard that you wish you were still a slave in Egypt, remember that this was your own choice.”
     
    They clasped hands. Sarai wondered as she gazed into the eyes of this bold Arab girl: Might this child be a part of God’s plan?
     
    Or was Sarai merely part of Hagar’s plan?
     

Chapter 9
     
    For a woman who was used to being deeply involved in all the concerns of a large household, the sheer inactivity of Pharaoh’s house was mind-numbing. No one came to her to make decisions. She could not even see any real work being done close by. Hagar helped her bathe that first day, teaching her the use of bathing tools that she had never seen before, and then it took two hours to do up her hair to Hagar’s satisfaction. There were more hours spent searching for Egyptian clothes that Sarai was willing to wear, until at last she insisted that her own clothing be brought from the camp. Hagar looked at even her lightest frock in distaste, but when Sarai wore it she didn’t feel naked as she did in the Egyptian linens. She ate supper, she went to bed, she tried to sleep, and for hours she drifted back and forth between fretting about Abram and dreaming about him.
     
    Then, the next morning, Hagar was ready to start it all over again.
     
    “Bathe again? ”
     
    “Every day,” said Hagar.
     
    “But I’ve gone nowhere, done nothing since I bathed yesterday. I’ve done no work. ”
     
    Hagar looked faintly ill. “You expect to move through Pharaoh’s house unwashed? What if he sees you?”
     
    “I won’t do it. It would take hours to do my hair again.”
     
    “Not so long a time as yesterday, Mistress. I’ve done your hair once, and now I understand it better.”
     
    “There’s nothing to understand. I’ll bathe again when there’s some reason to. Water is precious!”
     
    “Begging your pardon, Mistress, but here it’s not.”
     
    “That’s still no reason to waste it!”
     
    “You might as well