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towards the window and bounded across the remaining space to escape. Behind him he heard the man yelp as the flames licked at the dry, flammable parchment.
    â€˜Fire!’ screamed the old man. Abram ran, but felt relief that the word had not been ‘thief’. He heaved himself out of the window head-first, one arm extending to cushion the blow with the ground, the other gripping tightly to the box pressed against his belly.
    Abram rolled on the ground and quickly scrambled to his feet. He allowed himself a moment to cast his eyes back to the house and saw the bright glow of flame through the window cavity and the scrambling efforts of the man to douse the flames and save the scrolls. Then Abram heard the sounds of the house waking up in panic and the High Priest bellowing, demanding answers from the Almighty for what had just happened.
    He’d never intended to start a fire but as he ran down the hill and into the enfolding darkness, he knew that the good fortune would buy him time to escape. The servants would be intent on dousing the flames and not chasing him.
    Abram ran faster than he had ever run in his life. In Peki’in, life was never spent running, not since he was a child. People walked slowly past Roman columns, people walked cautiously. Now he was running, not because he was a thief, and not because he was an arsonist, but because Rabbi Shimon had entrusted him with a sacred mission, and even though he might have to break some of the Almighty’s commandments, he’d put the seal back in the tunnel in Jerusalem, whatever the cost.
    As he ran further and further from the High Priest’s house, Abram’s mind began to clear. Reason took over from panic. He stopped when the house and the flames were no longer visible,and sat on the ground, breathing heavily. Rabbi Shimon had told him that the High Priest was the only man he could trust; yet he’d taken the seal and had told him to return home. Rabbi Shimon had told him that this seal, which had come from the hands of a man who knew King Solomon, was of great value to his people, and must be returned for the sake of all.
    But if he couldn’t trust the High Priest, who could he trust? He was all alone in the land of the Romans, far from his mother and father, far from Rabbi Shimon. He had nobody to ask. So all he could do was to rely on himself. And that frightened the youngster more than anything.

Kibbutz Beit Yitzhak, Northern Palestine
    1941
    N obody on the kibbutz paid any attention when the truck coughed and spluttered its way up the hill and finally, like an old asthmatic straining for air, crawled its way through the kibbutz gates. It was so ancient, some joked that it had been used by Moses to deliver the Children of Israel over to the other side of the Red Sea to escape the Pharaoh.
    And the kibbutzniks could always hear, and sometimes smell, its arrival minutes before it came into view. It was on its last legs, but beloved by all.
    Young Shalman straightened his back when he saw the lorry arrive. Working in the henhouse was smelly, especially in the heat of summer, but all of the kids on the kibbutz helped their parents in the day-to-day work and he enjoyed ensuring there were enough eggs for breakfast. He watched as the driver jumped out. These were only short breaks, but they refreshed his mind and eased his body from the hard work he and the other kids of the kibbutz, his brothers and sisters, had to do to stay alive.
    Dov, the driver, dropped out of the cabin onto the dusty ground. He was a short and wiry man, but there was an invisiblestrength in his body, and nobody messed with him. Dov, like Shalman in the henhouse, straightened his back after the long drive, and looked over at the group of men and women in the fields. They were preparing the land for next season’s crop. Some of the women, wearing the traditional grey trousers, flannel shirts and scarves, were using long-handled hoes to weed ahead as the men, in