Several of the animals had cuts and abrasions from the storm, but from only one of the spare horses did the blood spurt bright scarlet. The incision was high on its thigh. This animal Decimus left aside. From the others the blood ran dull, red and slow. For these the horse master used some of the caravan’s precious water to bathe the wounds. Using forceps, he removed every trace of dirt and grit, then, with delicate precision, shaved the hair around the injury. When the blood barely oozed, he applied a plug of clean wool, held in place by a linen bandage.

‘The spare horse?’ Valens asked.

‘An artery is severed.’ Decimus brought his face close to that of the injured animal. He talked gently to it, stroked its nose, let it inhale his breath. Then without preamble he drove a blade deep into the horse’s neck. It tried to rear up, but he held it down by its soft and tender nostrils. When he withdrew the knife, a stream of blood thick as a man’s arm pumped forth. The horse did not fight, but stood trembling. The blood pooled in the dirt. Everyone was silent, as if attending the rites of some deep religious mystery.

When the horse collapsed, Decimus cleaned his arm and blade. Valens saw tears in the eyes of the horse master.

‘We must get on,’ Valens said.

Leaving Decimus to cut strips of meat from the dead animal’s haunches, they went to bury Quintus.

The stiffness of death had gone from the navigator. His corpse slumped, and his hands and feet dragged along the ground as they carried him down into the wadi. They enlarged an overhang in its bank, placed a coin between his teeth, and shovelled dirt and stones into the opening.

May the earth lie lightly upon him.

It was the second makeshift grave in which they had left one of their number. Valens thought water must run at some time of the year in what was now a dry watercourse. A flash flood would drag Quintus from his resting place. Still, they had done what was right. When the waters came, the shade of Quintus would have departed. The coin would have paid Charon, and the ferryman would have taken Quintus over the Styx. The soul of the navigator would have joined the countless dead thronging the dark meadows of Hades. Except, since the death of his parents, Valens no longer had any belief in such things.

*

On the third day after the storm they reached a watercourse that did not lie across their path, but ran ahead towards the east. There was a small stream in its bed, scrubby vegetation on its banks. They led the animals to the water gratefully, drank themselves, and replenished their flasks. Ordering that two men stand guard at all times, Valens gave the rest permission to strip and wash and take their ease.