“Oh, silly,” said Deborah. “You’re not like me. You’re a good girl. You’ll do what your father says.”

Rebekah left her words unchallenged. Time would tell whether she was a good girl or a bad one.

She was not yet fully dressed when Laban came to her tent. Hurriedly, she and Deborah pulled the finest gown over her head and then admitted him.

“Who’s writing for Father, if you’re here?” asked Rebekah.

“Pillel,” said Laban. “Not a patient writer. He keeps leaving out words and letters.”

Pillel would have the opportunity now to tell Father what Rebekah had said. Whether he chose to do it or not would be another story.

“It must be an important errand,” said Rebekah, “that brings you here and leaves Father to decipher Pillel’s writing.”

“You are not going to serve the dinner in Father’s tent,” he said.

This would be a sign of great disfavor, ordinarily, but Laban was smiling a little, which told her that it must not be bad.

“You’re going to be too busy dining with Ezbaal’s grandmother, his mother, and his sister.”

“Not serving them? Dining with them?”

“You’re to instruct our women to serve the same meal in both tents. And not the worst cuts of meat, either. Your meal is to be almost as fine as the one laid before Ezbaal.”

“Let me guess,” said Rebekah. “I’m not to wear the veil.”

“Not inside your own tent,” said Laban. “Not when the only people who will see you will be other women.”

“Too late to try for a case of the pox, isn’t it?”

“Don’t worry,” said Laban. “You’re ugly enough to frighten a goat into giving sour milk.”

“That’s a relief,” said Rebekah.

“Frankly,” said Laban, “I think the women will hate you.”

That would solve everything, wouldn’t it? But she still couldn’t bring herself to hope for it. “Why will they hate me?”

“Because next to you, they look like she-camels.”

“On a long journey, a man would rather have a good camel than a pretty woman.”

“Listen, my little lamb, there is no journey that long.” With a laugh, Laban ducked back out of her tent.

“May I stay to see the fine ladies?” asked Deborah.

“Of course,” said Rebekah. It still bothered her, sometimes, that the woman who used to scold her when she was naughty—and still did, sometimes—had to ask Rebekah’s permission to stay for company. But of course she had to ask, because sometimes the answer was no, and Deborah truly did not have the judgment to make such decisions on her own.