“What?” Her hands stilled, and her voice sounded flat and incredulous to her own ears.
Dinah did not interrupt her chopping. “You will be in your fourteenth year in but a month. It is time for you to be a wife.”
“But I am a sl–”
“Surely you have caught on in the past years. Mistress did not want to procure a girl to serve here forever. She wanted a companion, a daughter that she could raise.” She finally stilled her hands and looked at Abigail. “She wants the best for you.”
Abigail had no response. Certainly she knew that most young women her age were betrothed or married. But the very thought of leaving yet another home, one where she loved and was loved in return . . . it did not bear thinking about. “I need to check on the mistress.”
It was the one excuse that Dinah would not argue with.
Abigail found her mistress exactly where she left her. She put a small hand on Ester’s shoulder. The woman sighed at the touch but did not alter her unseeing gaze.
“It will be all right, will it not, Abigail? When my son returns, I will see that life has shaped him into a good man?”
“Of course,” Abigail replied dutifully. “Come now, Mistress, let us get you changed. You are meeting Mistress Julia for the midday meal, remember?”
Ester sprang up. “I had forgotten! What would I do without you, Abigail?” She headed for her closet. “You go change yourself first. I will get everything ready in here.”
Abigail knew Ester wanted a few moments to gather her wits again, so she obliged. She went to her little room and lit the lamp, more than happy to slip out of the course tunic she wore to the markets–it was her own rule, not Ester’s, that she be seen as a slave by the populace–and into the fine, pale linen she wore at home. She knew that Ester would have a belt for her, as always.
Thinking of such things was far preferable to the topic that Dinah had planted in her mind.
*
Abigail followed Julia’s handmaiden up onto the roof of the general’s house. The two ladies were in the courtyard sipping their wine and had dismissed the girls to their own meals. Over the past years Abigail had become good friends with Elizabeth, a Hebrew girl a bit her junior whom Julia had purchased soon after her own arrival.
“Did you see Julia’s necklace?” Elizabeth settled down with her bowl. “It is absolutely divine. I do not even recognize some of the jewels.”
Abigail nodded and took a bite of food, not bothering to reflect on the lack of respect her friend showed her mistress when out of her company. She would never refer to Ester by her given name to another. She deserved every morsel of respect Abigail could give her. As for Elizabeth–she could govern or not her own thoughts as she chose.
When Abigail made no other response, Elizabeth sighed and grew abnormally silent. Her food remained untouched. Then she said, “The general gave me as wife to Cleon a few days ago.”
Abigail was glad she did not have any food in her mouth. “Cleon? The kitchen–”
“The only Cleon in the house.” Elizabeth pushed her bowl away. “The old and loyal servant who deserved a nice young wife since his died on the passage from Rome.”
Abigail was not sure what to say. “He is . . . a kind man.”
Elizabeth nodded reluctantly. “He is very kind, very gentle, and very dull. But I had hoped that when it came time for me to go to a man, it would be to someone more exciting.”
Questions filtered into Abigail’s mind, but modesty censored most of them. “Such as whom?”
“The general.”
Again, Abigail was glad she had nothing to choke on. “What? Elizabeth, he is your mistress’s husband!”
“I keep forgetting how innocent you are. Surely you, the one who has been taught the Law, know that all female servants are legally the wives of their masters if he so chooses. Why are you so surprised that I would hope for that?”
She fumbled for an argument. “Well, for one thing, the general is even older than Cleon–”
“But a general, not a kitchen slave.”
“He would never give you his whole heart.”
Elizabeth met her gaze, brown eyes meeting brown eyes as always, but with some new spark that Abigail did not like. When the younger spoke, it was more softly than usual. “Do not be naive, Abigail. Someone like us cannot hope for the heart of any man whose heart is his to give. A free man will never give it, and a slave’s belongs to his master. We are lucky if we can find favor in our master’s eyes. I have already been sold twice. I do not wish to repeat that again.”
“I am sorry–”
“Do not be sorry!” Elizabeth stood, slashing a hand through the air. “I am sick of your pity. We both know that my mother was a harlot and yours an upstanding widow. Do not feel sorrow that my first master sold me because his son turned rebel and fled to the hills before I came of age. It will only make you feel better about yourself to pity me, and you do not need that. You have it good enough as it is!”