Chapter 4

Late afternoon, after a sultry, monotonous ride along the blinding white seashore, she entered the town of Engedi, eastern terminus of the old salt trail from the Port of Gaza. It was an incredibly ugly place, its small, box-shaped houses built of sun-baked brick, suffocating a narrow, dusty street. At the principal inn, a little further on, the stableyard of which was crowded with camels, donkeys, and their grimy attendants, Fara asked courteously for food and a bed for the night. Instantly she realized that she had made a mistake when the surly proprietor showed her a filthy pallet in a room containing half a dozen similar cots. Backing disgustedly out of the room, she opened her accumulated treasures of Arabian profanity and made it known to the master of the inn that she wasn’t in the habit of sleeping in rabbit-hutches, dog-kennels, or pigsties. Thus advised, the innkeeper deferentially led the way to a private room where the bed, if not comfortable, was less dirty than the one she had rejected.

Fara gave this incident much earnest thought. It was obviously a mistake to ask for anything politely. The public considered politeness a sign of weakness. It had a very low opinion of gentle speech. To wait patiently and take your turn or to accept unprotestingly whatever was offered you meant only that you were accustomed to being pushed aside; that you knew you could not defend your rights. It was a thoroughly abominable world, decided Fara; but if it was that kind of world she would try to meet it on its own terms. Contracting her brows into a sullen frown and puffing her lips arrogantly, she marched heavily up and down the bare, creaking floor. In this belligerent mood she returned, with long steps, to the common room and flung herself into a dilapidated chair. Crossing her legs she sat impatiently flicking her high-laced boot with a finely crafted riding whip—a gift of Voldi’s.

Well-dressed, good-looking men of affairs came and went, occasionally nodding to one another. Almost everybody knew everybody else. Fara honestly wished she were a man. They all seemed so effortlessly sure of themselves. She admired their self-sufficiency; tried to make herself think she was one of them. For the most part her presence in the big, dingy room went unnoticed. Sometimes a young man, passing by, would toss an impersonal glance in her direction and move on without giving her a second look. This was good, and Fara breathed more comfortably.

Immediately to the left of her, in the row of battered chairs backed against the wall, sat two men engaged in earnest conversation. They spoke in Greek, though it was evident that they were Romans. Fara had never seen any Romans, but she had been told how they looked.

The man in the nearest chair was probably forty. It was plain that he was a person of some consequence. Like his friend, who was many years his senior, he was smooth-faced and his greying hair was close-cropped. His face was deeply tanned, except for a narrow strip of white on his upper forehead which a bandeau had protected from the sun. His sand-coloured tunic, trimmed in red, was of fine texture; his belt, dagger-sheath, and tooled-leather sandals, strapped almost to the knee, showed expensive workmanship. Fara surmised that they both were directors of caravans, probably belonging to the same company. Another survey of them revealed that the younger man had a small V-shaped notch in the top of his ear. So—he was a slave. But apparently his servitude didn’t bother him much.