“How could this have happened?” Abram asked. He would surely awaken from this nightmare. It couldn’t possibly be real.
A cacophony of voices filled the courtyard, men and women forming two lines like sheep heading to slaughter. Abram blinked, barely able to focus. What was he doing here?
Eliezer leaned close to Abram’s ear. “We will get her back.”
Abram shook his head, suddenly feeling aged, dead, yet somehow still breathing. “You above all men should know how impossible that is.”
A guard summoned Abram forward to choose twenty menservants and twenty maidservants to join his company. Abram looked at the Egyptian overseer, disgust turning to bile in his gut. He whirled about, glanced at Eliezer. “You decide.” He stormed off, his thoughts churning, consumed with his loss. He couldn’t live without Sarai. Why had God allowed this?
He should never have come here. And now he had ruined everything.
God help him!
13
Hagar sat at the end of her mother’s sparkling pool and dangled her feet in the water. A flutist played a cheerful tune in the sitting room nearby, and the voices of her sisters chattering and bickering intruded on her attempt at solitude. The music was meant to soothe, but nothing could release the tensions that flowed in her mother’s rooms, especially when her father added a new wife to his bulging harem.
She moved the water with her toe and lifted it high, watching the water droplets dance on the surface as they dripped from her brown leg. Her mother’s cat sauntered near and shoved its head against her arm. She laughed, petting the animal until it evoked a loud purr.
“Hagar, there you are.”
Irritation stirred within Hagar at her mother’s tone. She braced herself.
“Why are you sitting around lazing by the pool? Your father has taken a new wife. Now go!”
Hagar looked into her mother’s scowling face. The woman seemed to notice her only when she wanted something. “I thought I’d give the new wife a chance to settle first.” She was tired of playing the servant to appease her mother’s whims. Though as a servant, at least she felt loved. Nitianu, her maidservant since her birth, was more a mother to her than the woman who glared down at her now, and Osahar, chief eunuch of her father’s harem, was the father she would never have as Pharaoh’s daughter.
“You are a lazy excuse for a daughter, and I have half a mind to sell you to the slave dealers.” Her mother bent toward her and grabbed her arm. “Get up!” She yanked Hagar’s forearm, her long nails digging into her flesh.
Hagar stifled a cry, scrambling to her feet. “All right then! Stop fussing at me. You can’t sell me. I’m Pharaoh’s daughter! Once in a while it would be nice if you realized that.”
The sting of her mother’s hand bit into her cheek. She staggered backward, hating the sudden emotion. She would not cry.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that again, Hagar. You may be Pharaoh’s daughter, but you have nothing to offer him.” Her kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits, and her normally beautiful mouth curled in disgust. “If you had your sisters’ charm and beauty or even talent, you would make a sure alliance with foreign lands. As it is, the only good you are to me is the information you bring me and the lies you tell the new wife. Once Pharaoh has had his fill of her, she will soon be forgotten. I need not remind you how important that is to our cause.”
Hagar nodded, the heat of her mother’s slap matching the fire in her glare. But the physical pain could not compare to the emotional wounds she was inflicting with every word. Her mother’s cause? She did not care if her mother ever regained her favor as a wife instead of a concubine or won her father’s heart. Her mother could go to Osiris, god of the underworld, for all she cared!
“Why are you still standing there? Go!” Her mother’s voice rose to a shriek. The flutist hit a faulty note, and her sisters’ arguments ceased.
“Yes, Mother.” The word tasted sour as she whirled about and fled the courtyard. She would go to the new wife and learn what she could. But she would not lie to this one. She would do all she could to help the woman find favor in her father’s eyes.
Sarai entered a room painted in brilliant colors, the smooth tiles of the floor gleaming white in contrast. Columns stood along one wall opening to a courtyard garden, where lotus blossoms floated on the blue water of a pool.
“This will be your room for the first month.” A servant walked to the chest and lifted the lid. “Once you are ready for your audience with the king, you will move to another room across the courtyard.” She waved a hand toward the columns housing the pool. “If he is pleased with you, you will be his wife. If not”—she shrugged—“you’ll be his concubine. His choice will determine where you will live.”
The girl lifted a white linen shift and sheer robe from the chest and spread them out on the bed. “These are your nightclothes. The other garments are in the chest. We will review them tomorrow. For now you are free to enjoy your rooms and rest. Food will be served to you here until you are ready to join the other women.”
Sarai’s head spun as she took in her surroundings. She eyed the young Egyptian servant. A developing youth, she wore little more than a skimpy white linen skirt that fell to her knees, tied with two straps over her shoulders. Sarai’s breath hitched. The wide straps merely skimmed the edges of her small brown breasts. Did these people care nothing for modesty? She raised a hand to her throat and blinked hard, certain she had not seen the servant clearly, but when she looked again, the girl’s appearance had not changed.
Heat warmed Sarai’s cheeks, and she lifted her gaze upward, studying the girl’s face. A black braided wig came to just below her chin, similar to that of every other servant Sarai had seen, enhancing a common Egyptian face. Dark kohl rimmed the girl’s eyes like everyone else’s, holding no distinction. What purpose was there in dressing everyone to look the same? And why did they think it normal to expose so much skin?
“If there is nothing else, my lady, I will leave you now.”
“No . . . I mean . . . please, don’t go.” Suddenly the thought of being left alone terrified her. If she would plan a way of escape from this place, she must begin by making acquaintances of the servants. Servants often knew more than their masters.
The girl lifted a sculpted black brow as though pondering the thought. At last she nodded. “I will summon some fish with bread and honey, and then you can rest.” She went to the door and spoke to a guard. She returned to Sarai, motioning to a low stool. When Sarai sat down, the servant took a shell comb and ran it through her mistress’s hair.
Silence stretched on as she detangled Sarai’s thick tresses. Sarai breathed in the heady scents of lotus and incense, fighting the calm they were meant to evoke.
“What is your name?” Sarai asked, her limbs growing sluggish, her mind struggling to focus.
“I am called Hagar.”
Sarai turned in her seat and studied the girl, uncertain what such a name could mean. “How old are you, Hagar?”
Hagar’s mouth twitched, but Sarai could not tell if she debated whether to answer or thought the question amusing. Before Sarai could ponder the action further, Hagar gave a slight bow. “My years are sixteen summers, my lady.” She set the comb on the table and turned to light the lamps in the room. A servant arrived with fish, bread, and beer, and Hagar beckoned Sarai into the sitting room to serve her.
Music swirled around her, and she looked at the food, unable to summon her appetite. The scents and sounds of the place were meant to soothe and woo her, and she wanted none of it.
“You must eat, my lady.” Hagar handed Sarai a golden goblet of beer.
Abram should be sharing this with her. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing his stricken face in her mind’s eye.
“Though most new wives choose only drink when they first arrive.” Hagar’s look held sympathy. “In time you will adjust.” She coaxed the cup to Sarai’s lips. “Drink.”
Sarai stared at the liquid and recoile
d. She shoved the stool back and stood, pacing from one end of the room to the other. She glanced at the servant, whose whole demeanor seemed too amused, not nearly subservient. Nevertheless, she was here and she knew this place.
“I will never adjust.” She halted her pacing to face Hagar. “I want you to tell me all you know of the pharaoh. Help me find a way to convince him to release me.”
Hagar lifted a brow but lost the haughty tilt of her chin. Something akin to fear flickered in her dark eyes for only a moment. She nodded. “It is impossible to leave, my lady.” She lowered her gaze and dipped her head. “But I will tell you all I know of Pharaoh. Perhaps in the telling, you will find a way to help yourself.”
Hagar awoke, missing her soft bed, and prayed to Bastet for an escape from this place. The new foreign wife Sarai had barely allowed her a moment’s peace, pestering her with constant questions of what her father liked and didn’t like, just as her mother would want her to do, only Hagar had chosen to speak truth to Sarai, disdaining her mother’s wishes. Still, she had wearied of her servant’s clothes and the restrictions the role placed on her. She missed the pool in her mother’s apartments and Nitianu’s kind smile.
Ra had yet to brighten the eastern sky as Hagar rose quietly and slipped from the servants’ quarters. She listened for any sound of movement, paused briefly at Sarai’s door, and was met only with the blessed sound of her heavy breathing. Holding her own breath, she moved to the door and stepped into the hall. She would send another servant to attend Sarai today, while she allowed herself one full day to take her rightful place as daughter to the king.
Once out of earshot, she hummed a soft tune, trying to mimic the melody the flute player had used a week ago as she’d dangled her feet in her mother’s pool. Someday, when she had her own set of rooms, she would hire a whole cast of musicians to entertain as she ate and played. She smiled at the thought, but her joy quickly waned at the realization that at sixteen summers, she should have already wed a prince. Surely her mother and the pharaoh would recognize her maturity soon.
She turned at a bend in the hall. Distant groaning—or was it murmuring?—met her ear, and she paused, trying to discern from where the sound came. Somewhere in the apartment of one of the more favored concubines. Was someone hurt? But the sound faded, and Hagar continued through the Hall of Queens, past gardens and pools and twenty-seven apartments before she at last stopped before the carved image of Bastet, the cat goddess of protection, guarding her mother’s rooms. Nabirye, her mother, remained the only one of Pharaoh’s many concubines who had borne him five daughters, including two sets of twins. That feat, amazing though it was, had resulted in a loss of status in Pharaoh’s eyes, since she had not produced sons.
Hagar stared at the glassy eyes of the bronze sculptured cat, wondering not for the first time how an inanimate object could protect them from anything. The goddess had done nothing to protect her from suffering the fate of least favored one, caught between two sets of twin sisters. If only she too had been a twin. If only she had been beautiful like Jamila or outspoken like Kamilah. She could not even measure up to soft-spoken Kakra or mimic Jendayi’s enthusiasm for living. Her only good seemed to come from the information she could gather from her father’s newest harem conquests to satisfy her mother’s jealousies.
Hagar touched the latch and pushed open the ornate door. Cool air greeted her in the entryway, where running water poured through the mouth of an obsidian frog into a small pool. The rich, intoxicating scent of lotus and chamomile blossoms filled her nostrils, but silence met her ear. The normal strains of the single flute that came from the other side of a painted screen weren’t there. Strange. Mother never went a moment without music unless she was ill . . .
She whisked off her confining wig, relieved of the servant’s headdress, as sudden fear taunted her. She hurried into the spacious sitting rooms. No sign of her mother or sisters. She raced down the hall to her own private chambers and stopped short at the sight of Jamila curled on her bed, moaning.
“What are you doing in my room?” Anger surged through her at the invasion of privacy. She had so little to call her own. But as she moved closer, her heart skipped a beat. “What’s wrong?” She touched Jamila’s forehead, then her cheek. “You’re feverish.” Fear turned a knot in her middle. “Why aren’t you in your chamber? Where are the servants? Where’s Mother?”
Jamila shivered and looked at Hagar with glassy eyes. “I’m cold.”
Hagar stared at her, uncertain what to do. She snatched a thin covering from the end of her bed and placed it around Jamila’s shoulders. “I’ll be right back.” She darted back the way she had come, her long legs nearly tripping over themselves in her haste.
There was no sign of life by the pool or in the courtyard beyond. Incense cones still burned before the shrine to Bastet, the one her mother kept near the gardens, but as Hagar moved through the cooking and feasting rooms, she found them eerily quiet.
Alarmed now, she ran down the halls to the sleeping chambers of her sisters. She opened the door without knocking and found Kakra and Kamilah both curled on their sides, moaning. She whirled on her heel and ran to the other side of the apartment to her mother’s receiving chambers. The door stood ajar, and muffled chanted prayers came from the other side of the room. Hagar’s feet were like clay, unwilling to obey her commands.
“Mother?” The word echoed too loud in the quiet room, but no one seemed to notice. A cloying, sour smell turned her stomach while the light from several oil lamps produced a gray smoke in the room. Desperate for fresh air, Hagar forced her feet to move and walked to the shuttered window, throwing it open. Light and cool air filtered in, and Hagar drew in a breath before turning to her mother’s bed.
“Mother?” she said again as she approached a huddled form on the bed. No, not one form but two. Her mother lay with Hagar’s youngest sister, Jendayi, tucked in her arms while trusted servant Nitianu placed a cool cloth on Jendayi’s forehead.
“What’s wrong? Why is everyone sick?” Had someone poisoned her family?
“Hagar? Is that you?” Her mother lifted her head for the slightest moment, then let it fall back among the cushions.
Hagar knelt at the side of the bed and touched Jendayi’s arm. “Yes, Mama, it’s me. What can I do? What has happened?”
“Tell your father—” Nabirye’s face paled, and she jerked up suddenly and retched into a basin on the opposite side of the bed before falling back among the cushions.
Hagar held a hand to her nose, fearing she too would be ill if she stayed. Nitianu turned to clean the basin, but Hagar pointed to another servant to handle the task and motioned for Nitianu to follow.
Outside in the hall once more, Hagar turned to face the motherly servant. “Tell me what happened.” She ran a hand through her short hair and forced her feet to stay still.
“It’s as if someone has poisoned them all at once. They have had no relief since yesterday at midday.”
“The servants are not affected?”
Nitianu shook her head.
“What of the other wives? What of my half sisters?”
Nitianu nodded. “There is talk among the servants that another god greater than our Bastet has placed a curse on the wives and daughters of Pharaoh.”
A chill raced up Hagar’s spine. “I must tell my father.” Though the thought terrified her. She had never approached his presence without a summons. Perhaps she should send a servant . . .
“Are you not stricken as well, my lady?” Nitianu’s arms fell to her sides, and her look held uncertainty. Or was it disapproval?
Hagar’s mind whirled as she tried to comprehend how best to answer the question. Her stomach lurched, but not with illness. Why should she be singled out? Would they think she had poisoned the wives and daughters of Pharaoh?
“I have been dressed as a servant, caring for the needs of my father’s newest wife for the past week. Perhaps the gods were fooled.”
Nitianu bobbed her hea
d, and Hagar breathed a relieved sigh as the servant suddenly embraced her. “Of course, of course. The servants—they have been untouched.” She held Hagar at arm’s length. “But do not let the gods know the truth. Do not go back to your rooms or dress as pharaoh’s daughter lest the curse fall on you as well.” She urged Hagar to the entryway. “You must go back to the new wife, my lady. Pretend until the curse is passed.”
Hagar bristled at the thought. She had come home to rest by the pool, to be free of the confines of false servanthood. But her fear drove her forward. If someone had put a curse on her father’s wives and daughters . . .
At the door of her mother’s apartments, Hagar looked at the image of Bastet, then at Nitianu. “Whatever god did this, he is greater than Bastet, for Bastet did not protect my family as she is supposed to do.” She touched the servant’s arm and thanked the unknown god for sparing Nitianu. “Send someone to help Jamila and put an offering out to appease this god, whoever he is. Then send word to Osahar to meet me in the rooms of the new foreign wife. I will give him instructions on what to tell my father.”
“It will be as you say, Mistress Hagar.” Nitianu clung to her hand for the briefest moment. “Take care of yourself.”
Hagar blinked back the sudden sting of tears, then turned and ran back through the Hall of Queens.
14
Sarai walked beneath the columns of an elaborate garden portico, her feet skirting the edges of a circular blue pool. White and blue lotus blossoms floated on the surface, and tall sconces filled the air with perfumed smoke. Palm trees lined one wall, a barrier to hide a brick wall beyond, keeping her from wandering too far from this Hall of Queens. Tears pricked her eyes as she rounded a corner, finding guards posted outside her doors and the halls strangely quiet. Even Hagar had deserted her this day, leaving her with no one to talk to, no one to comfort her.
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