The next morning they went northward on mule-back.
They did not carry any weapons, only a sack with bread, olives, and fruit.
Uri took special note of two figures clothed in white. He at first thought them to be priests, but they did not behave like priests. Their mantles were short, hardly reaching their knobby knees, and they did not give a priestly benediction; indeed, they did not engage in conversation with anyone. Each had a trowel dangling from his belt.
Riding his mule at the back of the procession, Uri saw that his companions, with the exception of the officer, were seated clumsily on their mules. Not experienced travelers, then.
Uri’s thighs ached, but he was familiar with the feeling, and by tomorrow they would no longer be aching. His companions would not become acquainted with the feeling until that night, the skin of their behinds broken-skinned and bleeding, but that would also clear up with time. Uri sat rigidly upright; if he were ever to get a crick in his back, as had happened once on an ass in Sicily, his life would be sheer misery for days on end. His back was the one thing he needed to watch out for, nothing else.
They carried on northward, first crossing the road to Damascus, then advancing across fields. It was a journey that Uri was now familiar with, having done it twice before — once to Beth Zechariah and once back, only those times it had been on foot. Even carried by mules they did not make faster headway.
None of the other seven gave any sign of knowing one another, but for all Uri was concerned that did not exclude the possibility that there might be old alliances among them. They exchanged no words, maybe fearing that there might be squealers among them. My companions might just as easily be disagreeable figures who don’t know what to do with people, just like me, Uri thought, then chided himself: he knew nothing about his companions, so it was wrong to presume anything about them.
When they rested and ate, Uri reclined on his side and did not touch the smarting calluses that had formed on his thighs; in two days’ time they would no longer hurt. The others despondently felt at and squeezed the calluses and blisters on their backsides; as they were close to him, Uri could see them all too well. I rise above them all in traveling, he thought blithely, notwithstanding the fact that he was the second puniest of the lot. He had noticed earlier a young man even punier than himself, with colorless hair and watery eyes, his entire frame in poor condition. The lad took the bruising surprisingly well, however; he may have had an opportunity to ride a mule or ass before. True, his feet did not touch the ground, so there was no need for him to make an effort to keep them lifted. He also had long arms and thin fingers, so what might he be? A pickpocket? He did not look fit for anything else.
Uri scrambled to his feet and went behind the bushes to relieve himself. He heard a noise of something rustling about and looked up. One of the white-garbed men was squatting, while the other was carefully scooping earth over his own turd with a trowel. The other then finished, stood and, started to dig, strewing the earth he dug in a nice little mound over the feces. Both took care, making sure that the shovel did not touch the excrement. Uri could only wonder.
The big heat wave was prevailing, with a dry easterly wind bowing. I brought this on, Uri contemplated. He was waiting for one of his companions to make some comment and curse the east wind, which was associated with drought, but no one said anything. Maybe they were all town dwellers. Uri felt an urge to vilify the east wind if they wouldn’t, but he resisted the temptation. I’m schooling myself not to disclose what I know, he thought, but then he mused that his knowledge of easterly winds was not truly thorough. Some people had told him that this brought drought and he had believed them, but maybe it was not so; he had no personal knowledge of it, so it was better to keep his mouth shut.
The officer stood, mounted his mule, and set off. The others followed without a word being said.
As evening drew in, they reached the edge of a village. Uri narrowed his eyes to try and make out whether this was a village he had seen before, but nearly all the villages looked alike. The scattering of houses, the settlement with no wall — that is what made it less than a town. With the officer leading they slowly jogged among the houses, before which old crones and children were seated, staring at them. The officer asked which was the master’s house, and they pointed it out.
The master was a short man with a wrinkled face. The officer dismounted from the mule and drew the master to one side. He explained something, slipped a hand under his tunic, and gave a handful of coins to the master, who bowed, accepted the money, and hid it under his tunic in a pouch of some kind.
“Are we going to get something to eat, or maybe even quarters for the night?” asked the scrawny youth.
Uri shook his head but didn’t say anything.
We haven’t been pestered for two days by robbers, the thought occurred to him, but he hadn’t said anything. The day after tomorrow another master will have to be sought out and he too will have to be paid off. It will not be possible to pay him any less than the first, because by then he will know for sure how much his colleague got — if no other way, via message by fire.
Uri’s suspicion proved correct; they simply had a drink of water before moving on, and they only stopped when even Uri felt weary. He tethered his mule to a tree, recited the long Judaean version of the Sh’ma, pulled out his loaf of bread, spread his blanket, and lay down on it. He set about his meal with relish, his body pleasantly tired by the travel. The officer watched him, then he too said his prayers, followed by the others.
“Is this where we’re going to spend the night?” came a tremulous, horrified voice.
“Yes,” said the officer.
“But we might get robbed!”
“No one is going to rob us,” said Uri. “Quite the opposite, the robbers will be keeping watch over us as we sleep!”
Whether that was true or not, the next morning all their belongings were still there.
They prayed, had breakfast, and resumed the trekking on muleback.
Uri screwed his eyes up, now beginning to sense that the countryside was familiar, that they were somewhere in the neighborhood of Beth Zachariah.
My village, Uri thought, and he laughed at himself for feeling so emotional about it. He wiped the tears from his eyes with a snicker. What a dolt I am!
He felt a strong temptation to lead the party to Master Jehuda; his companions would be amazed to see that he was on home ground here, and it would do wonders for his prestige. All the same, he decided against doing so: he was not on intimate terms with them, and he was not going to betray to them those whom he regarded as his kinsmen. The thought also ran through his head that Master Jehuda and the others, even the young girl, were part of a long-gone past; it now belonged to somewhere else, locked in the realm of memories. It would not be right to disturb the passage of time; one had to move on.
The officer moved to one side to wait for Uri at the back of the line; the rest kept on trotting northward.
“Have you been around here before?” he asked.
“I have,” Uri replied. “But no farther north.”
They swayed along beside each other on their mules.
“I’m Aaron,” the officer said. “I already introduced myself to the others before you arrived at the house.”
The mules trod slowly but surely; there was no need to spur them on.
“These mules are experienced travelers,” commented Uri. “Same as me…”
Aaron gave a snort of laughter.
After hesitating a little, Uri asked, “Where are we headed anyway?”