Free Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) by Orson Scott Card

in many years, and the blowing dust had hidden or transformed many a landmark. Still, where there was a well to be found, he found it. But more and more of them were dry.
     
    After a week of losing a dozen animals a day, they topped a rise and saw, in the distance, the shimmering of water. Not a mirage above burning sand this time. There was marsh grass growing in patches, then reeds, tall and topped with seeds. The beasts could not be held back—they ran, those that could, or shambled, the neediest arriving last, but there was water enough for all. Not from the marsh itself—that water was brackish, too salty to drink. Near it, though, the men hurried to dig shallow depressions into which water quickly seeped. There the animals drank greedily, the men watching to make sure all got a chance at the water, and to keep them from fouling it.
     
    Abram did not need to watch them drink. He stood looking westward, across the water, toward Egypt. “They call this marsh the Sea of Reeds,” said Abram. “We have to go around it, and the water we get this way isn’t very good. But it’s fresh enough for the animals, and reliable even when springs and wells fail.”
     
    “This is the boundary of Egypt?”
     
    “Oh, I suppose we’ve been in Egypt for days. But off the main road.”
     
    “Why? Are we hiding?”
     
    “Egypt is in the midst of its own troubles,” said Abram. “Too many people coming because of the food and water here. They might try to keep us out.”
     
    “Compared to the herds we once had, these are only a bedraggled few,” said Sarai.
     
    “As you yourself once pointed out, it’s hard to know how they’ll see us,” said Abram. “We might look like an invading host. We might look like a horde of locusts. Or we might look like a weak band of travelers, easy to rob.”
     
    “Rob? I thought Pharaoh kept the peace.” What she had most hoped for in Egypt was to be in a land where kings ruled and streets flowed with commerce and conversation. The city life that Qira could not live without, Sarai also sometimes missed. But cities were only worth visiting when the king maintained good order.
     
    “Pharaoh keeps whatever Pharaoh wants,” said Abram. “Or rather, Pharaoh’s servants take what they want in his name. That’s the tale, anyway.”
     
    “So is Pharaoh stronger in Ur-of-the-North than he is in Egypt?”
     
    “In Ur-of-the-North, Pharaoh has influence because people wish his servants to make a good report of the city. On the borders of Egypt, Pharaoh’s servants do as they wish because they are the very ones he relies on to report on their own doings.”
     
    Sarai tried to reconcile this with her own understanding of how kings must trust their servants. “They would lie to their king?”
     
    Abram looked at her oddly. “The first skill a good king has to acquire is to learn how to find the truth behind the lies he’s told.”
     
    “But your men don’t lie to you. ”
     
    “Because there are only a few of them, and the lives of their own families depend on my making wise decisions based on true knowledge. Egypt is vast, and the great system of granaries runs itself, year after year. Pharaoh’s ignorance costs them nothing, individually. But a king who has no idea what is happening reels back and forth like a drunken man, and finally he will fall.”
     
    “My father fell because of invaders from the desert.”
     
    “Your father ruled wisely, and the invaders won only because they were too many for his defenses. If it’s true that Pharaoh rules ignorantly, then he might be brought down by a much smaller force.”
     
    “If this place teeters on the brink of chaos, then why are we here?” asked Sarai. “Why didn’t we go north, to the Hurrian lands? Or east into Elam?”
     
    “Because the Lord is with us,” said Abram, “and this is where he said that we should go.” He put his hand on her arm. “Sarai, I told you of the dangers so you’d know why I’m being