I sprawled on the ground among the other girls and women, scraping my elbow. Someone stepped on my hand, and I cried out. But I heard Lady Doronit ask her steward, “What did the girl say? Was she not speaking Hebrew, like an Israelite?”
As I struggled to get back in sight of the litter, I heard the dealer’s oily voice go on and on. He tried to convince the steward that I was crazy, or a liar, or both. I was from Samaria, he claimed, and had nothing to do with the battle of Ramoth-Gilead. Furthermore, I was a sickly, unskilled wench who had given him no end of trouble.
“In that case,” said the lady, forgetting to speak to the slave dealer through her steward, “you will be glad to have me take the girl off your hands.”
“Let her step forward again,” said the steward to the dealer. “Her ladyship’s wish is as the wish of General Naaman, mighty commander of the King’s army.”
As the slaves moved aside to let me through, I saw the sour expression on the dealer’s face. The lady, looking very pleased with herself, motioned me forward. “What is your name, little lamb?”
If anyone had called me “little lamb” last week, I would have found it hard to be polite. But this was the first kind word anyone had said to me since I left my father’s house. I must please the lady, so that she would take me away with her.
“I am Adara, Lady.” This time I spoke in Aramean. “Oh, please, please take me!” I leaned over the fence rail, trembling. If I had had a wooly lamb’s tail, I would have wagged it.
The lady laughed. “What a sweet face! No doubt Raiza will scold me …”
Who was Raiza? I cast my eyes down, afraid to seem too bold. I waited.
“We will take the girl, as is General Naaman’s right,” said the steward’s voice. I knew, though my gaze was still on the ground, that her ladyship had nodded.
With a light step I followed Aharon, the steward, away from the slave market. Once Lady Doronit knew who my father was and how I had come to be captured, a messenger could be sent to Ramoth-Gilead. Father would send my ransom, or perhaps bring it himself and take me home again.
After a long walk through the streets, we entered the outer courtyard of a villa grander than the governor’s mansion in Ramoth-Gilead. I expected a chance to speak with the lady now and explain how I had been captured by mistake. But Aharon left me with the housekeeper. “Here, Raiza — a prize of the General’s victory at Ramoth-Gilead,” he explained, and he hurried after the lady’s curtained litter. I was disappointed, but maybe Lady Doronit would send for me later.
Raiza was a woman of middle age, handsome except for the frown that creased her forehead. (I would learn that the frown was permanent, maybe because she was the one who had to keep the other slaves in line.) “What is your name?” asked the housekeeper as she untied my hands. She had brisk, raspy way of talking.
“I am Adara of Ramoth-Gilead, daughter of … ,” I began.
“I know where you are from,” the housekeeper’s frown deepened as she cut me off. “I asked only what you are called. Sima,” she beckoned to a girl crossing the courtyard, “take this new girl, Adara, with you on your rounds. She will watch and learn.”
I opened my mouth to explain to the housekeeper who I really was, and that Lady Doronit would want me to be treated courteously. But then I shut my mouth. Maybe it was best to wait to straighten out the misunderstanding.
Sima, a girl with an angular face, gave me a sizing-up glance. I thought she was a little older than I was, but maybe it was only her knowing expression. Handing me the jar she was carrying, she beckoned me to follow. A passageway opened on a second courtyard. This was not a service courtyard, but a garden of cool air and pink and white blossoms — oleander bushes. “Oh!” I exclaimed. A sparkling stream flowed right through the courtyard.
“Have you never seen running water?” Sima looked at me with amusement. “This stream flows through the kitchen courtyard, too.”
The jar I was carrying contained oil, from which Sima filled the lamps in niches along the walls of the courtyard. She also dipped water from the stream and watered the shrubs and vines, talking as she worked. I let her go on, but I gazed around admiring the pictures on the tiled walls.
“Are you listening to me?” demanded Sima. “If Raiza happens to be watching you work in this courtyard and you do not bow to the household gods each time you pass the shrine, she will beat you. She is very pious. She is afraid of signs and portents, and she is always consulting the fortune-teller.”
“I will not need to worry about Raiza,” I said cheerfully. “I will not be here long. As soon as Lady Doronit knows who my father is, I will be going home. I am not a slave.”
Straightening up with the dipper, Sima stared at me and gave a short laugh. “Oh, indeed! Did not her ladyship find you at the slave dealer’s?”
“Listen to me,” Sima interrupted. “If you know what is good for you, you will not speak this way again, especially in Raiza’s hearing. If she gets the idea that a girl is not of sound mind, she will advise Aharon to remove her from the household. You do not believe me? That is exactly what happened to poor Yoni, who walked in her sleep. Sold to a brothel.”
A chill ran down my neck. I had felt almost safe in this household, as if the wife of the governor of Ramoth-Gilead had taken me in. But the fact was that until I could persuade Lady Doronit to send for my father, I was in the power of the housekeeper. And Raiza did not seem anything like our kindly B’rinna.
Finished with the courtyard, Sima took me back to the slave quarters and showed me the tiny room where she and three other girls slept. “Since you are the newest, you will sleep at the entrance, in case Raiza wants someone during the night. She suffers from rheumatism.”
I hoped I would be able to speak to Lady Doronit before that, but I said nothing. It was almost evening now, and Sima led me to the kitchen courtyard, where the slaves ate. Just as Sima had said, a stream flowed along the edge of the courtyard. It filled a drinking basin, then a trough for horses and camels, then a pool for washing. So no one in this household had to drink stale water from a cistern or haul water from a well. When I drank, the water was cold and sweet.
After supper, Raiza beckoned to me, and I expected that now she would send me to Lady Doronit. Instead, she asked, “What can you do? Can you spin fine thread? Are you skilled at brewing herbal drinks? Tell me the truth, and I will not beat you for it.”
“I can spin only coarse thread,” I admitted. “And wait on guests at dinner. But — ” In spite of Sima’s warning, I burst out, “please let me speak to Lady Doronit! I must tell her who I am, and that my father will want to ransom me.”
“Silence.” The housekeeper slapped my mouth — not angrily, but just the way Father might slap a donkey on the muzzle, to remind it who was in charge. “You are not to annoy her ladyship with your silly stories. Get that through your head.”
The other slaves were preparing to lie down for the night. I went to bed on the shabbiest pallet in the girls’ sleeping chamber, my face stinging from the slap.