None of this had prepared Rebekah for a wedding of the ruler of the household. Everyone came into camp except those needed to protect the distant-grazing flocks and herds, and there were guests from the nearby towns and villages, too. There were enough animals roasting to deplete the herds of many a lesser lord, and Father offered a sacrifice to God in a most solemn ceremony at dawn, so that the smell of cooking and burning meat filled the air like heavy incense, though there was plenty of that, as well.

Through all of this, Ezbaal was prominent, his laugh heard everywhere, his smile given to everyone. He hardly left Father’s side, which of course meant that Laban had to stay with them, to write down Ezbaal’s words. Father enjoyed every minute of it, and when Laban and Rebekah talked about it during one of Laban’s rare moments of freedom, he said, “Father said a couple of times that Ezbaal reminds him of his own youth. But I think it’s that Ezbaal is the kind of man Father wishes he had been.”

“Or the kind he wishes you were,” Rebekah suggested helpfully.

“But I already am,” said Laban with a grin. “Far and wide my enemies quail at the mention of my name.”

“Fortunately, you have no enemies,” said Rebekah, “so we’ll never know.”

At last, when the sun was halfway to noon, the actual ceremony began. Father made a great show of giving a bridegift of a substantial number of animals to Ezbaal, following which Ezbaal gave a dowry for Akyas of equal value. In fact, though numbers were not mentioned, Rebekah was quite sure that the dowry was not just equal in value, but consisted of precisely the same animals that Father had just given to Ezbaal. The difference was that now the animals belonged to Akyas, though of course they would be mingled with Father’s herds, and the ownership would matter only if, for some reason, the marriage ended and Akyas went away.

Not until these matters were taken care of did the women start singing an old song that served as the signal for Akyas and her two female companions to emerge from their tent. Akyas was veiled exactly as Rebekah was, and there was murmuring at that, though by now everyone had known she was going to do it.

The women came to stand beside Ezbaal, who then made a grand show of stepping over to Father and bringing him to stand in the place where he had been. Laban came with Father, and now Akyas beckoned to Rebekah to come and stand beside her, writing stick in hand so she could write whatever Akyas said, just as Laban had been writing Ezbaal’s words. Rebekah suspected that the speeches might have been much longer and more eloquent had it not taken so much time for each word to be written down.