Rebekah: Women of Genesis by Orson Scott Card Page A

deaf.” Then: “You could write to him?”
     
    “And who would carry the letter?”
     
    “I would.”
     
    “And how would you do it if my evil husband forbade you?”
     
    “I’d go anyway.”
     
    “And what if he caught you and beat you?”
     
    “Then as soon as he was through beating me, I’d go again.”
     
    Rebekah believed her. “No, don’t say that,” she said. “I’d never let you suffer like that for me.”
     
    “I’d never let you suffer from a bad husband. I’d tell Uncle Bethuel no matter what.”
     
    Only then did it occur to Rebekah that Deborah assumed she would go with her when she married. And of course she was right. What else would Deborah do? It was the only job she was trained for, to care for Rebekah. And Rebekah would never have the heart to refuse to take her along. Yet in a new household, would the other servants be kind to her? Understand her slowness of speech and thought, her intermittent memory? No, Deborah would be taunted and teased, and Rebekah, being new, wouldn’t have the power to stop them. If she tried, they’d only tease Deborah more mercilessly behind her back.
     
    One more reason, as if she needed one, for Rebekah not to marry anybody. Not unless God chose him.
     
    In all her anticipation of troubles to come, she did not think of the hardest problem until it actually faced her.
     
    His name was Ezbaal. He was a youngish man, no more than thirty, who had inherited his wealth when his father was killed by thieves in the streets of a town where he had gone to trade. Ezbaal had been only eighteen at the time, but he already had the respect of his father’s men, so they followed him in seeking vengeance on the city that had failed to keep the old man safe. Ezbaal took the town by stealth and forbore to slaughter all the inhabitants only when they produced a huge treasure as blood-price, along with the heads and hands of the thieves who had slain his father.
     
    Yet, though his manhood had begun in bloody justice, along with that tale it was said that he ruled his household with wisdom and mercy and patience beyond what anyone could expect from a man so young. It was with admiration that Ezbaal’s name was spoken in all the desert camps, and even though, for obvious reasons, Ezbaal shunned settled life, he had good relations with most of the great desert families and shared water rights in so many wells that it was said he could travel from Elam to Egypt, from Sheba to Hurria, without having to fight for water or go thirsty for a day.
     
    Ezbaal had called upon Father before, when Rebekah was seven or eight years old, and she remembered seeing him from a distance, this man of legend who seemed so young compared to Father, but who strode with purpose and greeted all without fear or boasting, as if he counted himself the equal of any man, yet took all men to be his equal in return.
     
    Now he came again, but not with his great household to share water for a season in the nearby hills. No, this time he came with only a small entourage, enough men to make robbers think twice before attacking them on the road, and, surprisingly enough, three women. The camels they had with them were not enough to be a serious trading caravan; the cattle were not enough to be a herd. They could only be gifts for Bethuel.
     
    He might have come like this if he needed Bethuel’s help in war, but there was no rumor of war, and he would not have brought women. Ezbaal had come with marriage in mind.
     
    The whispers flew through camp like swarms of summer flies, buzzing everywhere so there was no escape. “Bethuel can’t say no to him. ” “Rebekah has to fall in love with him at once!” “They say he married years ago but she died in bearing her first child, who died as well, and the poor man has been grieving ever since.” “He’s so rich he doesn’t need to marry for a dowry, he can marry for beauty, he can marry for love.”
     
    Gossip also centered around the women