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frightened of how it all might end. Yesh is walking into danger and your gang will go down with him if they’re not careful. We need to find out what it is they’re up to, and then we stop it. You and me.”
    â€œOne small problem. I was just chucked out of the gang, and they never listened to me when I was in it. No way I can stop anything.”
    â€œBut you want to get back in?”
    â€œOf course I want to get back in. They’re my gang.”
    Jude narrowed his eyes. “Maybe we can use the situation. Maybe you could save them.”
    â€œBut I can’t save them unless I’m part of them, can I?”
    â€œTrue. But there is a way.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhatever else I say about Yesh, he is a good man. The best. Let him talk to you. He can’t bear it when people reject him. He can’t understand why, and it gets to him like an itch he’s got to scratch. You can use that.”
    â€œWhat? Join his movement?”
    â€œNothing like that. Just be yourself, but give him a chance.”
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œYesh will like you. If your gang sees that he’s on your side, chances are they’ll take you back.”
    Flea nodded. “Just so long as I only have to pretend to like him.”
    â€œJust think of it as your mission. Now from what I can gather, Yesh is down by the Healing Pool today, so that’s where we’re going now. All right?”
    Flea was on the point of agreeing when something struck him. “You told me that when the crowd saw Yeshua riding on a donkey it was a signal,” he said. “What signal?”
    Jude’s face took on an odd twist. “Perhaps ‘signal’ isn’t quite the right word. It’s a prophecy.” And Jude began to chant. “Be full of joy, O people of Zion. Call out in a loud voice, O people of Jerusalem. Look: the king is coming. He is just and he is good and he has power, but he is not proud, for he is sitting on a donkey.”
    â€œYeshua’s a king?” Flea could not keep the amazement out of his voice.
    â€œHe must be … He came to the city on a donkey.”

 
    16
    The Healing Pool was a few hundred paces to the south of the Temple, not far from the gang’s shelter. An underground spring fed a square pool that was surrounded by a deep, roofed portico to give shade in the summer. In the hot season it was dank and humid, in the cold it was damp and clammy, but it was always crowded. In the days before the feast, tourists joined the sick to create a solid heaving mass of humanity, jostling to get through the narrow gateway into the pool’s enclosure.
    Even so, Flea had never seen the courtyard in front of it so crowded, and Jude lifted him up onto his shoulders for a better view.
    Ahead of them a small red-faced woman was jumping up and down to try to get a view. Flea leaned down and tapped her on the shoulder.
    â€œExcuse me,” he said. “Can you tell me why so many people are here?”
    The woman looked up. “Because the healer’s come! The Chosen One! The new king! Haven’t you heard? Just one touch and the heavens open and you see angels and live forever. A miracle, child, a miracle. He’s in there now. They’re letting people through, but only one at a time. I’m staying here for as long as it takes.”
    â€œThe king?”
    â€œThat’s what they’re saying.”
    â€œAnd he really heals?” Flea thought quickly, then bent down to her and said in a low voice, “At last! Between you and me, my friend here’s got this massive problem. Yesterday his father started coughing and was dead that same day. Then his brother started to cough and died in the night. Now he’s not feeling too great and neither am I. We—” Flea interrupted himself with a racking cough and between fits managed to spit out, “You don’t think it’s plague, do you?”
    The woman