“You stand against him, Father! I don’t care if he sacrifices me.”

  “He couldn’t sacrifice you,” said Father. “You belong to Asherah.”

  Only then did she realize—if Father openly opposed Suwertu, it might be Qira on that altar, just like those three daughters of Onitah.

  So because they fear it happening to their own families, everyone will let this murderer have his way.

  And he does it all in the name of a god.

  It made Sarai ponder long and hard about the life she had been pledged to live, as a priestess of Asherah. If the worship of Ba’al or Osiris or Elkenah or Shagreel could be used as a mask for the murder of a foreign king’s enemy, then which gods were genuine? Only Abram seemed to be acting out of faith instead of private advantage, and his God had no statues. His priests were herdsmen like Terah and Abram and Lot, who worked with their own hands instead of leading the washed and perfumed life of a temple priest.

  Will I have to become a liar and hypocrite like Suwertu in order to serve Asherah? Or are the priestesses somehow holier than the priests?

  Abram said that Asherah was just another name for a real woman, Mother Eve, who was not a god at all. Why then would she need priestesses?

  These questions rankled her and bothered her, getting all mixed up with her confusion about Abram’s promise to marry her and her own feeling of rage and revulsion at what was being done to that good man.

  Finally a day came when she could stand no more of it. She set aside her distaff and ran up to the roof. Three servants were there spreading out clean clothing to dry, but she sent them away so she could be alone there. She knelt and raised her arms to heaven and prayed, not to Asherah or Ba’al, but to the God whose name she didn’t even know.

  “O God, spare the life of Abram! If thou dost this miracle, O God, then I will know thou art the only true God, mightier than kings and false priests, and I will worship only thee forever. I will repudiate my promise to Asherah. I ask only the life of Abram. He doesn’t even have to keep his promise to come marry me—I know that a man can sometimes be prevented from keeping his word, however honestly given. I ask nothing for myself. Only save his life, and I will be thy servant in all things forever.”

  Over and over she said the prayer.

  That night, as she slept, Sarai was suddenly awakened by a great shaking of the ground. Her bed bounced on the floor. She heard the roofbeam creaking above her, and ran from her room into the courtyard, so nothing could fall and crush her. The servants ran there, too, and Father, and Qira. Some of them had bloody knees because they had fallen when the ground shook so hard. And some had bloody heads or shoulders, because of tiles or bricks that had fallen on them.

  When the earthquake ended, no one would go back inside. It was common knowledge that God rarely shook the earth just once. So even though the night was not warm, they slept outdoors, servants lying down right among the royal family. Sarai stayed awake after most of them slept, but not because she was afraid. At first she wanted to see whether the servants slept in some vulgar manner that would explain why they were not allowed to sleep in the same rooms as the royal family. And when she satisfied herself that servants were no cruder in their sleep than the royal family, she used the time to pray.

  At last she did sleep, though only fitfully. No one slept deeply or long. She lay on her mat on the stones of the courtyard as the adults woke, speaking softly, repeating news of the city. The earthquake had broken down this house or that one; this person had been killed, or that one. The reports of disaster made Sarai imagine what it might be like to have someone in her own family killed by the shaking of the earth. Surely there could be no clearer sign that a god wanted you dead than to have him shake the earth to accomplish it.

  She listened with her eyes closed, so no one would realize she was awake and cease speaking plainly in front of her. So she heard the glorious news at the same time Father did.

  “Suwertu was on the hill where he does his sacrifice when the earthquake struck,” said the breathless visitor. “The earthquake knocked down all the statues he had gathered there, shattering them all. And Suwertu was directly under the statue of Osiris, which fell on him and crushed him to death.”

  Father gave one bark of laughter, and then composed himself. “I am sure the king of this city will have a day of mourning for this noble servant of Egypt. There will be weeping and wailing throughout the land!”

  “No doubt,” said his visitor.

  “What about the sacrifice of my son-in-law’s uncle?” asked Father. “They can’t be going on with it, can they?”

  The visitor chuckled grimly. “Since his own chief god crushed him to death while he was preparing to conduct that very sacrifice, I think it’s safe to say that no one else is at all interested in going ahead and daring the gods again. No, there’ll be no sacrifices today. I hear that Abram has already fled the city and gone into the desert.”

  “Yes, now he goes,” said Father. “I tried to get him to do that days ago, but would he listen?”

  “If he had left when you told him to, Suwertu would not have been at the altar when the earthquake struck, and so he would not be dead, and so the human sacrifices would have continued.”

  “You think they’ll stop?”

  “He’s the one who got people back into that kind of worship when he was nothing but a priest of Elkenah. He showed everyone the danger of giving any man the power to kill his enemies in the name of God. No, I think that when the next priest of Pharaoh is chosen, it will be carefully explained to him what he may or may not do without the consent of the king of Ur-of-the-North.”

  “So,” said Father. “It looks like my daughter’s marriage will go ahead after all.”

  “If you still want to marry your daughter to the grandson of such a weak man.”

  Sarai perked up her ears.

  “It was not weakness for Terah to refuse to repudiate his own claim, even if it cost the life of his son,” said Father. “It was great courage and faith. More than I have. For I would never allow my own child to be sacrificed, as Terah was doing, just for the sake of preserving my own estate.”

  For the first time it occurred to Sarai: Isn’t that exactly what you did, Father, when you pledged me to Asherah the day I was born?

  Then, condemning herself for even having such a thought, Sarai bounded to her feet and ran once again to the roof. Behind her she could hear Father saying, with an irked tone, “Was she listening the whole time?”

  On the roof Sarai fell to her knees to pray again. “O God of Abram, I know thou art faithful to thy true servant, Abram. So I will keep my vow. I will not give myself to the service of Asherah. How could I, when I know now that thou art the only true and living God. Thou, O Shaker of Earth, art my God forever. For thou hast heard my prayer. Thou hast spared the life of Abram.”

  Chapter 3

  In the spring, Lot finally came in person and married Qira under the gaze of their fathers—two kings without kingdoms. It was a joyful time, and Sarai was especially happy for her sister, for she was going to have everything she wanted: Lot seemed to be a kind man, he was even more handsome than Abram had been, and he promised to live in Ur for the near future, leaving his steward and servants with Abram out in the empty grasslands.

  For Abram did not return to Ur, even for the wedding of his beloved nephew. There were those in Ur—especially priests of other gods who had joined their cause with Suwertu’s—who would never forgive Abram for having humiliated them. Never mind that what humiliated them was proof that there was indeed a God who did not want Abram murdered. There was too great a chance that someone would try to finish the job—Abram would never enter Ur again.

  And I will never leave, thought Sarai. He will forget me. But I will never forget him.

  It took two years, but she finally persuaded her father that it wasn’t a whim—she was determined not to enter the service of Asherah. It was a delicate task, persuading him to release her from the vow, for by releasing her he was as much as confessing that he was not, in fact, king of anything, and so his daughter had no responsibilities to the gods. Father never quite admitted that openly. He found some pretext about Sarai’s unreadiness or unworthiness—Sarai did not care, as long as she did not end up bound into the service of a god in whom she no longer believed.

  The years passed. Sarai watched as her father tried to arrange this or that marriage, but always it was the bored son of a rich man trying to add some luster to a family that had no standing. Father tried to persuade her that each one was really a good husband, but in truth he was never even able to convince himself.

  By the time Sarai was eighteen, she had no idea what was going to happen to her. By her age, most women were already married. Almost every day Sarai was reminded of how well her older sister had married—with Lot’s wealth to back her up, she was head of a worthy household in Ur. But to Sarai, the prizes in Qira’s household were the two little girls who, truth be told, saw more of their aunt than of their mother. Is this my destiny, Sarai wondered, to be a spinster living in my sister’s house, tending her children and someday her grandchildren, always subservient, never to have a child of my own in my arms?

  The one thing she could not let herself think of was the man who had come from the desert so long before. Lot sent messages back and forth to Abram at least every week, and servants made the journey often. Sarai heard of every movement Abram made, each new encampment. He would be in the ruins of this or that city in Canaan, empty because all the years of drought and windborne dust had forced the people to flee to other lands. Or he would be selling cheeses in Akkad or wool in Babylon or leather in Ur-of-Sumeria, and the next month, south of the Dead Sea in Sodom or Zoar, he would be selling jewelry or clothing from Akkad, Babylon, and Ur. She heard of him trading along the Phoenician coast in cities like Tyre or Byblos, or north among the Assyrians or the Hittites or the Hurrians. Not once did Lot ever tell Sarai that Abram had so much as asked about her. Not once did she receive a letter or a message or a gift or even a glance from a servant that would tell her that perhaps her name had been mentioned in Abram’s tent.

  And yet . . . she knew he was a man of honor. He had said he would come for her. She had promised nothing to him. Yet even if his words were merely a jest with a child, it did not change this single fact: If he did come, she was determined that he would find her waiting, ready to be a good wife, ready to be the mother of his children. And she would never be like Qira, making him live in a city so she could wear fine gowns. No, she would live in his tent, travel when he traveled. If he came for her, she would go with him, and stay with him forever.

  If the ten years passed, and then an eleventh, and he did not come, she would never send word to him, either, nor give a hint to anyone, not even Qira, that she had waited for him. She would simply decide, then, what to do with the rest of her life. By then it would probably be too late for her to marry any other man. But having once known Abram, she could not be content with a lesser man, and apart from Lot, she knew of none that came close to being Abram’s equal.

  Did it hurt her? Yes, there were times when she felt a pain so sharp that it was all she could do to keep her weeping silent and secret in her room.

  But then, in the midst of such suffering, she would remember: Abram told me the truth about God, and saved me from a life wasted in the service of false gods. I would rather have had that hour of truth with Abram than any other possible life in which I did not have the truth and never met that man. She would pray at such moments, and soon her heart would be lighter, and even though she had no sign from God that her future was being watched over, still she was content. She could wait to see what life would bring.

  It was a hot day in summer, the kind of day where there is no shade except indoors, and indoors there was no air that one could bear to breathe. No breath of wind—the dust from travelers or animals moving on the roads would rise in a cloud and hang there, unmoving, settling so slowly that it seemed to be a brown-grey fog. Sarai could not remain inside, and in the courtyard there was so much yammering from the servant women that she couldn’t think. The dust of the streets made the air unbreathable; she could not walk to Qira’s house. So she took her distaff to the roof, and with a white linen hood over her head to give her shade, she spun, while thinking her thoughts and glancing out over the desert, over the city, over the nearly-dry riverbed. Would the drought, which had already consumed so many years that she had never known a season when the river ran full, finally do to Ur-of-the-North what it had done to the cities of Canaan? Was it going to kill the grasslands and turn them into desert like the rumored empty lands of the far south, where only sand covered the earth as far as the eye could see?

  And who is that coming from the driest part of the desert, raising dust so thick that he must have an army with him? Does no one else see this marauding army? Why are there no trumpets of alarm, warning of a raiding party of so many Amorites that they will swarm over Ur like locusts?

  Then they came near enough that she could see that it was not an army at all, but a huge herd of cattle and a vast flock of sheep. What Amorite would be mad enough to assemble such a large herd in one place? Where would they find grazing? If all these animals were sold at once in the markets of Ur, they would force the price down so low that the animals would have almost no value. Even Sarai knew that much about trade.

  On they came, and on, and on, and finally riders went forth from the city, and then the riders came back from the herd, and after a very short while there was talking and shouting in the streets and riders came to the door of Father’s house and Sarai heard her own name being shouted down below in the courtyard, in the rooms of the house, but she did not need to be told anything—she already knew. Abram had come for her, and with a bride-gift so large that no woman in all of Ur would be able to claim that so much had been given for her.

  Father himself came to the roof and handed her a sealed wax-stick. “For you only,” he said, and his eyes danced with happiness, for he had been worried about his younger daughter.

  Sarai tremblingly opened the stick and exposed the two waxen surfaces. Very little was written there. But it was enough.

  I am almost two years early, Sarai, but I can delay no longer. I wait for you outside the walls of the city, with a gift for your father but none for you except my love and my faith and my future, which I ask you to share with me forever.

  Abram

  Sarai looked up from the stick. “Father,” she said, “I think my husband has brought an inconvenient number of cattle and sheep for you to dispose of.”

  “His message to me,” said Father, “spoke of plans to divide this herd and take the animals to a dozen other cities, where they will be sold and the proceeds brought to me. My only fear for you, Sarai, is that your husband will be poor, having given so much to me. And yet the gift does not begin to make up for the great loss to me when you leave and the light goes out of my life.”

  Sarai burst into tears and embraced her father. “He remembered,” she said. “He remembered me.”

  “No one, having known you, could ever forget you,” said Father.

  “Many men have forgotten me,” said Sarai, “and far more have never noticed me.”

  “Abram noticed you,” said Father. “And God has noticed Abram.”

  “And God has noticed me,” said Sarai. “Or I would not be so blessed, to go from the house of such a father to the house of such a husband.”

  Two days later, under a canopy that shaded the bright calm sun of morning, she and Abram were married, with Father, Terah, Lot, and Qira looking on. She did not know what the future would bring, but because she was married to Abram, she knew that her life would matter, that the world would change and she would be a part of it.

  Part II

  In a Dry Season

  Chapter 4

  In the desert, wealth was not measured in cattle after all. Calves were born, and kids, and lambs, but they didn’t live long without pasturage for their mothers, and there was no grass where it did not rain. And rain was rare.

  There were storms—plenty of storms, as many as ever. But there was no moisture in them. Instead, when clouds appeared on the horizon, people shuttered their windows and brought their animals inside so they would not be suffocated by the dust. The lands to the north were so dry that every storm scooped up their soil and carried it out across the land between the rivers, down through Canaan, choking cattle, burying fences and fields, blinding travelers, and turning the feeble drought-stricken rivers into beds of mud. Grasses struggled to rise above the dust, sheep to graze through it. The beards of goats were caked with mud, as if they had been trying to eat the very soil. In a dry season, storms brought no relief, they only forced the drought inside houses, tents, mouths, noses, ears, and eyes.

  Abram had not impoverished himself with his extravagant bride-price. Indeed, Sarai soon realized that his gesture had been wise. There wasn’t water enough or grass for the vast herds that Abram once had owned. If he had sold them all at once, the price would have been so low that everyone would have known he sold from desperation. The cruel laws of the marketplace would have guaranteed that he would be charged higher prices for everything, and paid less for what he sold. But by using the cattle as a bride-price, Abram rid himself of herds he could not feed while enhancing his reputation for wealth. His credit and reputation everywhere were enhanced.

  Early in their marriage, Sarai had moments when she wondered if that was the only reason he had returned for her. But he was such a loving husband that she could not believe such a thing for long. In all his labors, in all his traveling from well to well and herd to herd, in all his sending of servants and taking account of those who returned, he always had time for her. Nor did he keep her from knowing of his business. He would meet with his men or with his visitors at the door of his tent, so that she could sit in the door of hers, just across from them, and spin or sew as she heard all that passed. She kept her silence; they did not notice or soon forgot that she was there. But afterward, Abram would come to her tent and talk with her until she understood what she had heard, and it was not too long before she knew the work of a nomadic chief as well as she had understood the protocols of a king’s house, or the mysteries of Asherah.