She ran down the other side of the hill. The man behind her laughed. And why shouldn’t he? For now, from behind an outcropping of rock, a young man who could have been his son stepped out into the road to block her way. “I’m the one he wants to protect you from,” said the young man with a leer.
Bilhah realized that they must have counted on her turning back in order to trap her between the two of them. Unless there were others of their band even farther along the road.
“What do you think?” called out the man behind her. “Will she be quick to learn and like her work, like a good little lamb, or must we tame a lioness?”
The young man in front of her laughed. “Look how she stands still in the road! I think we’ve got ourselves a ewe-hare, too frightened to move!”
Then, suddenly, he got a startled look on his face. A stone thudded to the ground behind him, between his legs. He fell over forward onto the ground.
The back of his head was bloody. He had been hit from behind by a well-aimed stone.
And now, emerging from the shadow of a cliff a ways farther up the road, came Jacob himself, lazily spinning a shepherd’s sling that was obviously loaded with a good-sized stone. He did not look at Bilhah, but kept his eyes on the man behind her as he spoke to her. “Drop to the ground, Bilhah,” he said, “or he’ll hurt you.”
She obeyed instantly, feeling the man’s hands on her as she slumped. He tried to hold onto her dress but she slipped out of his grasp. And then the sharp snap of the sling being released and the stone striking flesh and the older man was also lying motionless on the ground.
“Are they dead?” she said softly.
“Whether they live or die is in God’s hands,” said Jacob. “We won’t be here to see if they wake up or not. The only question that matters is, am I taking you down to Byblos, or back to Padan-aram?”
Bilhah, who had been so certain only a few moments ago, did not know now what she wanted. “There are men like this in the city, too, aren’t there?”
“There’s no shortage of such men in the world. A woman alone is their natural prey. You’ve been under a man’s protection till now. Your father, and then the friend who led you to Padan-aram, and until this morning, my uncle Laban.”
“I can’t stay there,” she said. “Leah sent me away.”
“Leah sent you away from her,” said Jacob. “She doesn’t have the authority to send you away from your father’s camp. And you’re not stupid. You knew that. So you were using that as an excuse to try to go home.”
She nodded miserably.
“Byblos was your father’s home, not yours. Without his arm, his name, his house to protect you, it won’t be the city you grew up in. Before long you’d be wishing for the sheep and goats and cows of Laban’s camp.”
“I think I already do.”
“Leah looked for you this morning. She wanted you to learn to read the writing of the Holy Books, so you could read them to her.”
“Is it the writing of Byblos?”
“Easier,” said Jacob. “Only a couple of dozen signs to learn, instead of hundreds.”
“I ran away. They won’t trust me now.”
“You’re not a bondservant,” said Jacob. “You’re a free girl. Laban told me to ask you to return to help his daughter learn the word of God from the books I brought with me. For this he will pay you by adding a ewe lamb to your dowry year by year. By the time you come of age, there will surely be three or four lambs to give your husband, so he’ll respect you as a bringer of wealth, and not just a servant and mate.”
“But I agreed to serve him for my keep.”
“He realized, when you left, that your service was more valuable than this. And when you learn to read, you’ll be skilled in a trade. A ewe lamb each year, plus bed and board, are low pay for a scribe, but he hopes you’ll accept the offer anyway.”
“These men frightened me,” said Bilhah. “I would go back to Laban just for his protection.”
“At the moment,” said Jacob, “the afternoon grows later, and if these men happen not to be dead, they’re bound to wake up eventually. Though I think that you’re entitled to whatever money they have on them, for the trouble they caused you.”
“They caused me no trouble, thanks to you,” said Bilhah, “and I don’t want their money. Besides, I doubt they have anything of value with them, except perhaps a knife or two.”
“Then I’ll take those,” said Jacob.
A few moments later, they were walking briskly back up the road toward Padan-aram. Jacob was balancing the two knives in his hand. “Most robbers use cudgels or javelins, and they strike from hiding. My guess is that these lads aren’t robbers in the ordinary sense. I think they’re slavers, and when they accost travelers, it’s not to steal their goods, but themselves.”
“He said terrible things to me.”
“I think not,” said Jacob. “I think he gave you a very clear and helpful warning about the dangers of traveling as a lone woman on this road.”
“Just as you gave him a warning about the dangers of trying to capture lone women.”
“Your lesson might have been less painful,” said Jacob, “but I hope it is no less effective.”
“Will Laban really take me back?”
“Your departure caused such an alarm in the camp, and half the men were ready to go in search of you, until I insisted that I could do it better on my own, being a fast runner and good with a sling. Leah wept in sorrow for having driven you away, though I think she didn’t. I think it was an excuse for doing what was already in your heart to do.”
“I miss the city.”
“Maybe someday you’ll live in a city again. Now that the years of drought are over, people are coming back into the land and building up many of the old places. There’ll be a husband for you, and it doesn’t have to be a wandering herdsman. But this world is an ugly place for the weak and defenseless, and against a strong and determined man, what defense would you have? Wait for your marriage to leave Laban’s house. And I think you’ll find a repentant Leah when you return. She wants to hear the word of God spoken to her. I think it will be a good thing that she hear Wisdom speak to her in your voice.”
So Bilhah retraced the day’s steps, but now in company with this man of the birthright, who knew her name, and had chosen himself to come and save her from the dangers of the road.
It was only when they got back to Laban’s camp that Bilhah realized just how disruptive her attempted return to Byblos had been. It was well after dark when they got there, and Bilhah had expected to slip quietly to her tent—though she hoped for food.
What she found, however, were servants wide awake and sitting or walking around in the camp. When they saw her and Jacob, however, they immediately leaped into action, so a great busyness sprang up as they walked among the tents and pens. What most surprised Bilhah was the way the servants cheerfully waved to Jacob, but glared at her before resuming their business.
“Why are they all looking at me so hatefully?” she said to Jacob. “Why should they care whether I come or go?
“I think it’s because of the feast.”
“Feast?” said Bilhah. And then, after one long stupid moment, she remembered. “Why did you come to fetch me when you knew you couldn’t be back in time to have Leah and Rachel presented to you? Lord Laban could have sent someone else.”
“He intended to. In fact, he was irritated, I think, when I insisted on going. But, you see, I didn’t expect that you would have got so far—you’re a fast walker, and the brigands on the road are surprisingly inefficient, not to have taken you far sooner. So I thought I’d be back well before dark.”
“I knew the roads were unsafe. That’s why I hurried.’
“Whom would Laban have sent?” asked Jacob. “Someone he could spare? That would be someone much slower than I am. Or suppose he did send some of his strongest and fastest shepherds. There was still a good chance that you would already have been carried off. Which of Laban’
s servants could have been trusted to go looking for you? How many of them would have kept going right to Byblos, losing you and wasting the whole journey?”
“Would you have gone searching for me?”
“If I hadn’t kept finding your track on the road, I would have gone searching for you long before. And think of this. What if the shepherds had arrived just when I did? Wouldn’t they have tried to confront the men and talk to them, persuade them or threaten them into letting you go?”
“Probably.”
“But that doesn’t work with brigands like them. For one thing, they probably had a couple of other men lurking somewhere. As soon as there was a discussion, they would have come out into the open to try to scare your would-be rescuers. That’s why the way I handled it is the only way. Let your first salute be a stone in the back of the head, and you have one less enemy to deal with. It also scared their lurking friends that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to emerge from hiding.”
“What if they hadn’t been brigands, though—what if I’d just been asking directions?”
“When you’re asking direction, decent men don’t get on both sides of you, blocking your escape in either direction, and laugh loudly at you.”
“I see your point. I just don’t know that they did anything bad enough to deserve killing.”
“I wasn’t punishing him, I was preventing him. You don’t have to wait for a bad man to succeed in his wickedness before you’re allowed to stop him. I’m not much of a fighter, so the only way I could deal with two men was to knock one down before the conversation started. If he had wanted not to die, he wouldn’t have threatened a helpless young stupid girl that way.”
The word stupid really stung.
“Don’t take offense,” said Jacob. “You have to admit that walking along that road was stupid.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Bilhah. “I didn’t know men like that would be on the road.”
“I see,” said Jacob. “You weren’t stupid, you were ignorant.”
“No,” said Bilhah, with mock sadness. “It was stupid to try to go to Byblos at all. But you have to admit that taking the road was smarter than trying to go over strange mountains.”
“True. I never would have found you. So we’re agreed: Stupid and ignorant.”
Then, having reached the point where the route to his tent diverged from the route to hers, he walked briskly away from her without a word in parting.
“Jacob!” she cried, by reflex, really, only thinking afterward that she should probably have said Lord Jacob or at least Master Jacob.
He turned to face her.
“Thank you for saving me. Even if no one else is glad you did it, I am.”
“And I’m glad you’ve decided to value your life more highly than you did this morning.” He bowed and then headed on toward his tent.
When Bilhah entered Leah’s tent, there were still more glares from the women helping Leah with last-minute primping for her presentation to Jacob.
“We heard Lord Jacob was back,” said one of the women to the other, pointedly not speaking to Bilhah directly, but making sure she was hearing all that was said. “Imagine, making Lord Laban and his daughters wait just because some foolish ewe had gone astray.”
“Anybody can fetch back a lost sheep.”
Bilhah wanted to retort, Only a clever man would know what he had to do, and only a bold one would do it, and only a noble one would insist on doing it himself. But she said nothing, because she knew they were not criticizing Jacob, they were finding fault with her. And since she deserved the rebuke, there was no point in disputing the point.
Instead she stood before Leah and bowed her head. “Mistress, I’m sorry I caused such disruption on this important day.”
“On your knees, girl,” said the woman who was doing Leah’s hair.
“She’s not a bondservant,” said Leah promptly. “She’s a free girl, and she does not owe me her knee. She is free to come and go as she wishes.”
This silenced the women completely, since they were both bondwomen. In fact, Bilhah knew perfectly well that they were women who helped with washing and dyeing cloth and other rough work; they were not particularly skilled with hair and clothing, and it struck her that it was a kind of insult to Leah that they had been assigned to prepare Leah. There was no doubt that the women with real skill and experience were occupied with preparing Rachel, who needed less help to be beautiful.
“How do I look?” asked Leah.
“You’re beautiful,” said Bilhah. And despite the inexperience of the women, it wasn’t far from the truth. If Rachel had been standing beside her, of course, no one would give Leah a glance—and that was precisely what would happen when the two of them were presented to Jacob. But by herself, without her younger sister to distract from her, Leah was lovely, her face sweet, and her trembling shyness quite endearing.
“The truth,” said Leah.
“That is the truth,” said Bilhah. “Why would I lie? I’m still angry with you, and yet I have to say it.”
The women were outraged. “How dare you be angry at your patient mistress!”
“If I were Laban I’d have you lashed for that!”
Again, Leah silenced them with a gesture. And Bilhah realized for the first time that there was something queenly about Leah, who did not have to shout or even turn to look at them; just a motion of her hand, and her intention was clear. The women knew to hold their peace, and yet knew also they were not being rebuked for having defended their master’s daughter. Such poise and command—and yet she has never used this manner with me. She really has made a distinction between bond and free all along. And she really might be able to be mistress of a great man’s house, even without far-seeing eyes.
“Good women,” said Leah, “I must be alone with my sister now.”
For a moment, Bilhah looked around to see whether Rachel had entered the tent. But she had not. The shock on the women’s faces made it plain that Leah had been referring to Bilhah as her sister. Tears sprang unbidden to Bilhah’s eyes at the generosity and forgiveness in Leah’s treatment of her.
Alone with Leah in the tent, Bilhah did sink to her knees now, and would have pressed her weeping face into Leah’s lap, except Leah stopped her. “Don’t get tearstains on my gown, or father will think I’ve been clumsy and spilled something.”
Bilhah looked up and saw her smiling. “Thank you for wanting me back.”
“I always want you to speak the truth to me,” said Leah. “I was wrong to take offense at what you said. But even if I had been right to send you away from me, I never meant you to be sent away from camp. You’re Father’s ward, not mine.”
“I sent myself away, Mistress Leah,” said Bilhah. “I thought that if I could no longer serve you, then I had no useful purpose in your father’s camp, since I’m no good at anything else.”
“Now you will be useful, and not just to me,” said Leah. “Did Jacob tell you? You’re to be taught to read the languages of the holy books, or at least some of them, so you can read them aloud to me. But once you have that skill, to read, I mean, then you’ll have a trade that others might hire.”
“Not if no one has anything in that kind of writing for me to read,” said Bilhah. “If only Jacob has such writings, where else would I use my skill?”
“Father told me that when they used the holy writing to communicate with his deaf father, back when Rebekah still lived here at Padan-aram, many of the servants learned it, and the use of it spread. It’s a more convenient way of writing than the cuneiform writing of Akkad, quicker to write and easier to learn. So there are many people in the cities of the coast who use that writing now. They’ve changed some of the shapes, but you’ll be able to read them with only a little more learning.”
“Who will teach me?” asked Bilhah.
“Father will,” said Leah. “He said that Jacob is too good a man at the business of shepherding to waste his time teaching one foolish ridiculous girl how to rea
d.”
“So Lord Laban will do it himself?”
“He’s a patient teacher,” said Leah.
Bilhah doubted that he would treat her the way he treated his own daughter, but she said nothing; after all, it might be true, and the last thing she needed to do right now was contradict Leah. After the glares of the people in the camp, it was such a relief that Leah was treating her so generously. I was wrong to run away, thought Bilhah. I should have been more patient and understanding myself.
“I marvel to be so rewarded for my foolishness,” said Bilhah.
“There are many foolish people in this camp,” said Leah. “Including me. But you’re not being rewarded for being one of us. I went to Jacob this morning, very early—while you were busy sneaking out of camp, I imagine.”
“I’m glad you did,” said Bilhah.
“Not for the reason you suggested. I’m perfectly content for him to marry my sister when she comes of age. No doubt Father will have found a husband for me well before he lets her go to another man’s house. No, I went because I want to know the words of God. I want to know if there’s something written in the holy books that will serve me the way Rachel’s dreams have served her—to tell her what her life is for. Only I can’t read them, and Jacob is too busy to read them to me. I had already forgotten our foolish quarrel, and so when he suggested teaching you to read so you could tell me all the words of God, I was so happy, I went in search of you at once to tell you the good news. That’s when we found out you were gone.”
“If you hadn’t noticed until later in the day, it would have been too late for me.”
“Really?” said Leah. “Did something bad happen on the road?”
Bilhah was about to tell the story, but at that moment the steward came to the tent door. “If the lady Leah is ready, your father wishes me to bring you and your sister to the banquet tent to be presented to his guest and brother, the lord Jacob.”
“Tell me after,” whispered Leah.
“And you tell me all that happens tonight!” whispered Bilhah back again.
Leah grimaced. “I won’t know all that happens. Only what people say.”
Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) Page 11