‘To talk. To understand what is going on. I need to know more about your people, and about Bannus, if we are to bring his ambition to provoke an uprising to an end, and save lives. Many lives, Roman and Judaean alike.’

‘You want to understand my people?’ Miriam replied bitterly.’Then you’d be one of the few Romans who ever did try to understand us.’

‘I know that. I cannot apologise for what has been done in the name of Rome. I am only a junior officer. I cannot change imperial policy. But I can try to make a difference. That’s all.’

‘Very honest of you, Centurion.’

‘We could start improving relations if you would call me Cato.’

She stared at him for a moment and then smiled.’Very well, then, Cato.We’ll talk.’ She bent down to pick up the casket and tucked it securely under her arm before she rose up and nodded to him. ‘Come with me. You too, Yusef.’

She led Cato through the quiet streets and a short distance out of the village to a small reservoir that collected the rain that ran off the slopes of the wadi during the winter and spring. Now it was nearly dry and a few goats chewed at the tufts of grass growing in the cracked earth at the water’s edge. Miriam and Cato sat in the shade of a handful of palm trees while Yusef ambled off to find some pebbles for his sling and began to practise against a distant rock.

‘He’s got a good eye for that,’ Cato commented. ‘He’d make a fine auxiliary when he grows up.’

‘Yusef will not be a soldier,’ Miriam replied firmly. ‘He’s one of us.’

Cato glanced at her. ‘One of what, exactly? I am told that you, and these people, are Essenes.Yet you don’t seem to wholly embrace their way of life.’

‘Essenes!’ Mirian laughed. ‘No, we are not like them. The pleasures of life are to be enjoyed, not denied. Some of my people were once Essenes, but they didn’t want to spend the rest of their days dead to the joys of the world.’

‘Pardon me, but Heshaba is hardly my idea of paradise.’