So Shim and Aphas were no contest for a man like Musa. He watched their conversation from his mat — the old man urgent, pressured, volatile; the blond one shamming his indifference to money, numbers, water, rent. If they had any sense, Musa thought, they’d recognize their trading weaknesses and not attempt to better him. How could they better him? They were townspeople, by the looks of it, and far from home. They wouldn’t know the customs of the scrub. Their reasoning would be that every stretch ofland inside a town was owned by someone. Al land was good for goats or corn or rent. Why not the country too? Why not the wilderness? And so they’d end up paying for the water and the caves. They’d not make any fuss, or ask for any proof, not with a hundred cousins in the hills. They might plead poverty at first, and ask that Musa earn a place in their devotions by showing them some charity. But he’d refuse. Charity and loans were the commerce of a fool. No, no, they’d either have to pay, or start their quarantine again, elsewhere, he’d say. No other choice. Perhaps they’d like to gather up their things and go? He’d teH Miri to prepare the donkey for burial in their water cistern. That’s when they’d start to empty out their purses like prodigals and wedding guests.

Musa put his fingers in his lap and tried to calculate what his profit on the day might be. What was the going rate for muddy water and for caves? What could he charge? As much as he could get. The badu with the hennaed hair could hardly contribute, of course. He couldn’t pay in cash. That much was obvious. He couldn’t even talk. ‘He doesn’t have a tongue,’ the sickly Jew had said. But what about the sickly Jew himself? A purse-proud little working man, too dignified to beg for anything, too dull to ever shirk a debt. Such a man would never travel far from home without some silver pieces for the journey. He’d have a money-belt beneath his cloak like every artisan, containing coins and, perhaps, some salt crystals for good luck, plus a twist of sweet resin to catch his fleas. Musa even smiled to himself, though Musa’s smile was thinner than his lips. No fleas on me, he thought. They can’t afford the rent.

This Aphas, though, according to Musa’s reasoning, would do his best to pay the rent. He looked exhausted by the journey, and withered by his sickness, too. He wouldn’t want to move elsewhere. He couldn’t move elsewhere. For this — the water and the cave, the right to rest and stay, the licence to breathe desert air — he’d pay out eight pieces, Musa judged. He’d pay out ten, if pressed. But not, perhaps, a coin more. The blond one would pay eight as well. He’d say it made no difference to him whether he was rich or poor. He would not wish to argue over rent. He’d claim he didn’t need the shelter or the water, that he would settle for the stars and dew, that a thousand cousins did not bother him. And then he’d get his money out and pay.

The woman? Musa peered at her again, and ran his tongue along his teeth. She could afford as much, or more, as the two men. Look at her clothes. Look at her unmarked hands. But let her pay the eight as well. Musa looked up from his calculations. Three eights were twenty-four. That was enough. He’d drop to twenty if he must. He coughed, and motioned to the two men with his chins. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. He didn’t have al day.

He let them have their say. They were intemperate. They offered twenty-five between the four of them, fifteen at once and ten in forty days. Musa was more easily persuaded by their case than they had expected. Twenty-five was not enough, he said. He was insulted by their twenty-five. But it was wrong, perhaps, to deny them water for the sake ofprinciple. That much he would concede. There are traditions even in the wilderness. A traveller can wet his lips and face for free. So, yes, he would accept just the twenty-five pieces ofsilver, but they would have to pay it all at once. He could not have them in his debt. And he accepted, too, their inconvenient request to leave the donkey’s grave unfilled. And in return for his forbearance? The three men could come down to his tent and help to drag the donkey to the precipice.

‘Be friends with me,’ he said. ‘Stay here for forty days. Drink all the water that you want. Pray till you have a camel’s knees.’ He would be neighbourly and could supply them with their daily needs. He had some dates and olives he could seil. Fig cakes. Dried fruit. Goat’s milk. Goat’s meat, if they could match his price. And there was grain which she — his chin was lifted at his wife — will grind and bake for bread. There were rugs and rush bed-mats which they could hire. Lamps, with oil. Camel dung, for fuel. Everything to make their stay more comfortable. Best of all, they could be sure that they were well protected. With Musa as their landlord, no one would dare to come and trouble them, or take advantage of their devotions. His name was known and respected by everybody in the hills and far beyond. Everybody was his cousin, even the scorpions.

Musa spat on to his hand and called the three male quarantiners forward to close their deal. ‘Just one more thing,’ he said, ‘and then it’s done’: when the forty days were up, then they could show their thanks by helping him to carry his possessions and the tent down to the track which led to Jericho. They could be his donkeys for a day. In return, he wouldn’t make them pay him any passage tax for travelling through his territory. That much was free.

‘What do you say? Is this not better than you hoped?’

Musa felt — as ever — pleased to be himself. He had found the morning unexpectedly amusing, and satisfying, too, despite the absence of the Galilean man. Already his retinue and his clientele had grown. His wealth increased. His dreams came true. The caravan and his deceitful uncles could be buried beneath the pleasures of the day. Everyone he met, it seemed, except the badu (and he would have to pay some other price) was opening a purse and inviting him to put his fingers in. And why? To pay for earth and air and water that was the property of god. If every market-place was full of fools like these three fools, he’d only have to dig a pit and watch while people threw their money in. Al this — and all within a day of riding fever to the open gates of death. He was invincible.

He made Shim lend him his staff for the walk back to the tent. It was downhill but hardly easier than coming up. His feet, unseen beyond his waist, descended into empty space. Musa had to place the staff ahead of him, feel for solid ground, and send his weight along its spiralled length, before he dared to shuffle forward. His fever had weakened him. He was immensely slow. But languor was the right of merchant kings when they were weighed down with the prizes of the market-place.

Luckily, his five companions were in no hurry for themselves. They had forty days to fill. This interlude with Musa was, at least, less wearying than unbroken prayer. Aphas, anyway, was glad to be as slow as Musa, but his steps were weightless. He did his best to listen to Shim’s teachings and expostulations, to nod with recognition at the places that he named, but he could only concentrate on his increasing pain. His ankles felt as fragile as an unfired pot. His cankered liver nagged and lobbied without cease. The heat was punishing. He’d been a stonemason aH his working life, perhaps, but none ofthese stones in his path offered any solace. They were only nuisances. A little distance to the side, and behind the men, Marta walked with Miri, their bodies brushing, their hems in unison. The badu ran ahead and cleared the path. He was a volunteer. He seemed to find the rocks and stones amusing, laughing at them as he turned them on their sides. The badu’s cries were strange — unformed and blustering. A vulture looking down on them and smelling death and fat and pregnancy, as they left their thousand footprints in the clay and emerged from the little valley on to the plateau of the tent, would be hard pressed to guess which one would be its carrion.