Chapter 9

With that, the battle was over. The big fellow’s knees buckled and he slumped to the ground, where he lay noisily sick. Voldi opened one of his saddle-bags, tore up a towel, and bound it tightly above the spurting wound in the Idumean’s arm.

‘I have no interest in saving your life, horse-thief,’ he said, as he tied the bandage, ‘but I don’t want you to die until you have told me where this filly was when you stole her.’

Weakly the Idumean confessed. It was a strange story, so strange that it could hardly have been invented. But why would Fara be a member of a great crowd—in a pasture-field beside the Jordan—assembled to hear an itinerant prophet? It didn’t sound like anything that Fara would be likely to do!

No, mumbled the nauseated Idumean, he hadn’t seen the man who owned the mare. He had followed the crowd; and at nightfall had found the filly tethered quite a little way apart from the other animals. No, he had seen nothing of a silver-mounted bridle or saddle. He had waited until the camp was asleep and had led the mare away, after a struggle with her that threatened discovery.

‘Very well,’ said Voldi quietly. ‘When you think you are through vomiting, we will be on our way to the spot where you found the filly.’

‘I can’t do it,’ muttered the Idumean, ‘I am too weak.’

‘You should have thought of that before you tried to stab me in the back, horse-thief! Come on! Get up—or I’ll slit your bandage and you can lie here and bleed to death!’

It was a tedious journey back to Hebron, and the riders drew many inquisitive stares from the people they passed on the highway. At the first public watering-trough, the Idumean was helped down to do a partial job of washing off the clotted blood. Fortunately for both of them, they encountered no patrols. East of Hebron they turned off the highway toward the north. It was late in the afternoon before they reached the pasture on the bank of the Jordan. The dead grass still showed the hard trampling of a huge multitude.

‘There!’ pointed the ailing horse-thief. ‘That’s where the mare had been staked out.’

Dismounting, Voldi walked about, surveying the landscape. What, he wondered, would Fara be likely to do when she discovered that Saidi was gone? Did she have enough gold with her to buy another horse? Doubtless; for she was on a long journey and would not have started without funds. It was beyond belief that she would proceed on foot. Her contemplated trip would be hazardous enough without that added risk. No, he decided, Fara would have acquired a mount—of some sort.

And now—what should he do with Saidi? She was not his property. He could not sell her into better hands; nor could he conveniently take her along with him. His journey involved enough danger. It would be difficult to explain a led horse this far away from home territory. After some debate with himself, he mounted and drew up facing the slumped Idumean. He patted Fara’s filly on her velvet muzzle.

‘Good-bye, Saidi,’ he said, completely ignoring her rascally rider. ‘I am sorry to leave you—but it can’t be helped.’

Without a word to the bewildered Idumean, he galloped away, wondering where, when—and whether—he would overtake Fara.

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