Benzamir dared put out his hand to stop her. ‘Wait. You’re safe with me, safe from me. Please, Princess: just one last question.’
She knocked his hand aside and reached for a knife hidden in her belt. ‘Why do I feel compelled to tell you everything? It’s like I’ve suddenly gone mad.’ She was breathing hard, her pale face flushed. ‘I’ll answer your question if you answer mine. You’re not a real prince, are you? All the ones I’ve ever met – and I’ve met an awful lot – were either effete snobs or boorish pigs, and to a man they were filled with a loathsome self-importance that made me want to vomit. Then there’s you. You’re different.’
Benzamir got up slowly so as not to frighten her any further. ‘I am not a prince, and my father was not a king. But there are People over the Sea, and our interest in the emperor’s library has nothing to do with learning, and everything to do with whoever it is who wants those books desperately enough to kill forty men in cold blood.’ He held up his hand, palm facing her, fingers splayed. ‘I swear this is true, by the promises which bind me to my tribe and my vocation.’
Elenya lowered her knife, and her sleeve fell over the blade. She bit her lip, then said: ‘Ask your question.’
‘What is it that is so important about these books that brings you across half a world?’
‘Va believes that God will destroy the world if people learn the knowledge of the Users. Their knowledge is in the books. So if we don’t get the books back, everybody will die. I never believed it. I was just content to follow him, be near to him at long last. It is agony and ecstasy in the same moment, and I thought it was enough. But as I watched Akisi’s devices reduce an army to tatters in a matter of minutes, I found myself thinking, What if Va’s right? God cursed the Users. He’ll curse us as well.’ She wiped away an angry tear. ‘Again, I never meant to say so much.’
Benzamir took a step closer to her. ‘No one will destroy you.’
‘And who’s going to stop God? You?’
‘Yes.’
Elenya laughed suddenly, and she ended up crying. Benzamir didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing, which was a decision of sorts. She crouched down and rocked, holding her head in her hands, sobbing and choking. Lights came on at windows, and haloes of condensation were made by curious faces.
A door opened, and one of the emperor’s servants stepped into the garden. ‘My lord, my lady, is there anything the matter?’
Benzamir raised his finger to his lips and used a gesture to show that although there was a great deal the matter, there was nothing that either of them could do. The man nodded and left the door ajar.
Eventually the sobs subsided and the great racking shudders that shook her ceased. She got up, whispered, ‘Forgive me,’ and turned away.
‘My lady?’
She stopped but didn’t look round.
‘The trial is tomorrow. I know that you’re going to be there, to help plead for the books to be taken back to Mother Russia. Your words will be wasted, and the more you beg, the greater the danger to your life. I can’t explain any more. Please be anywhere but there.’
She kept on walking. The path led to the door, and she left without another word.
Benzamir let his head fall to his chest and pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Master?’
‘I thought I told you to go to bed.’
‘And I’d already explained that a servant doesn’t sleep until his master does. It’s the way things are done.’
‘I’m coming up,’ he said, and used the same door that Princess Elenya Christyakova had. She had gone, though he felt he should have been able to detect some trace of her passing.
Wahir made some coffee over a spirit burner, and they took it out onto the balcony to drink.
‘What did the woman say, master?’
‘Something that changes everything. If we’re going to talk about this, we’re going to have to mutter and speak quickly. I don’t want to be overheard.’
‘Then we won’t talk about whatever it was. Talk about something else, like how beautiful she was.’
Benzamir burned his lip on the scalding coffee. ‘I rather thought boys your age weren’t supposed to notice things like that. It’s supposed to be, yuck, girls.’
‘You told her you weren’t a prince. If anyone was overhearing that, the guards would be beating down our doors.’ Wahir blew the steam off his own coffee and wrapped his hands around the cup for warmth. ‘Men do and say stupid things around women; things to impress and make themselves seem more important. But not you: you say things that make you less in her eyes and I don’t understand that.’
‘I’m not sure that I do either.’
‘So why did you tell her you weren’t a prince?’
‘It’s not news. She saw through me quicker than the emperor did. I’m just not stamped from a royal mould, I suppose. And I did it to get some information.’ Even as he said it, it sounded cheap and tawdry. ‘And I made her cry like I’d torn her heart out.’
‘Master,’ asked Wahir, ‘do you find her beautiful? I suppose that most men would. Sometimes I’d see slaves brought to the sheikh’s palace. They’re slaves, you don’t pay them that much attention. But there was one woman, and you could see the men act differently towards her. Even though they owned her, there was something that made them be nice to her.’ He leaned heavily on the balustrade, eyes staring into the distance. ‘There was something. I don’t know what it was. Am I still too young to know?’
‘Beauty comes from the inside. It seeps out of every pore and is in every line and curve. I’ll tell you the story of Ali Five-camels,’ said Benzamir. ‘In a time that was and was not, there lived a young man called Ali. His family had a good name, and they were fairly well off. Not as rich as the sheikh, but they had lots of camels, and places to graze them. Soon enough, Ali came of age, and his father told him that it was about time he got married. There were lots of pretty girls in the village, and their fathers were all eager that Ali should choose their daughter. Truth be told, the girls were fighting over Ali too. He was a good-looking boy, with a gentle nature, but both fathers and daughters were after the mahr and other gifts he would give at the wedding.
‘Ali had different ideas. All his life he had dreamed about a woman who would love him for who he was, not for what he owned. So he set off on a journey to find such a woman. He was at an oasis one day when a poor nomad family arrived with their few goats. Ali found them good company: they shared their food with him, though they had little, and their daughter fetched them water from the well, always making sure that Ali’s cup was full.
‘That night the nomad and Ali were talking, and the subject of his daughter came up. The nomad said that his daughter would go to the grave unwed because of her deformity, and how unfair it was. Ali was surprised, because he hadn’t noticed until then that her lip was creased, and a scar ran up her face. He agreed that it was unfair – and told the nomad that if he was willing, he would marry their daughter.
‘When they returned to the village, word soon got out that there were wedding preparations going on. All the village girls were desperate to see who had beaten them, but when they saw the nomad’s daughter, they couldn’t believe that someone they thought ugly could have won Ali’s heart. They said he was marrying her out of pity, and it wouldn’t be long before he divorced her. They said all this to her face at the village well, and then asked her how much mahr Ali was giving her. It wasn’t a few coins, or a goat. It wasn’t even a camel. Or two camels. Or three camels. It was five camels.’
‘Master? Five camels for an ugly woman? This Ali is mad!’