The City of a Thousand Faces

by Walker Dryden

Genres: Ancient; Political Thrillers; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

'A complex, gorgeous and compelling tapestry of love, death, trust and betrayal' - Daily Mail

A sweeping historical fantasy saga based on the hit podcast Tumanbay

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'Immersive, rich, compelling and populated with characters who come alive on the page, it will transport you to a different world. I loved it and didn't want it to end.' - Sarah Lotz, author of The Three

'Written with the finesse of a master-assassin's dagger... I could not put it down!' Christian Cameron

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Tumanbay: the most magnificent city on earth. The beating heart of a vast empire. A city of dreams - where those who arrived as slaves now reside in the seat of power.

But the wheel of fate is never still: from the gilded rooftops to the dark catacombs, there are secrets waiting to be uncovered.

For Gregor, Master of the Palace Guard, the work of rooting out spies and traitors is never done. His brother, the great General Qulan, must quell a distant rebellion. Whilst Shajah, chief wife to the Sultan, is suspicious that her new maid Sarah is not who she claims to be.

And a mysterious stranger arrives with a gift for the Sultan himself.

A gift that will change Tumanbay forever...

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'The writing and imagery are flawless, taking you right into the heart of the story and characters. While I was reading, this was MY world, and you can't ask for more than that from a fantasy novel.' Reader review (five stars)

Release date: May 28, 2020

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 560

Sample

Prologue

The journey to Tumanbay had been long and arduous. The envoy, riding a mule and accompanied by a small party of believers, moved mostly at night to avoid the heat of the desert. But such was the urgency of his mission, on the final day, they had continued in the sun. Even though they were still a day’s long march away, the city appeared to rise out of the sand, shimmering like water in the heat.

If anyone had seen this small caravan moving towards Tumanbay, nothing about it would have caused suspicion or alarm. There were so many traders travelling to and from the city and many checkpoints along the way. Their papers were in order.

By sunset he could clearly see the towers and minarets, the palaces like glittering islands in an ocean of green and blue roofs, and the great walls reputed to be impossible for any army to breach.

And yet, with help from believers within the city, the envoy had entered in darkness, unnoticed by the gatekeepers, and was now, on this auspicious morning, making his way on foot to the Sultan’s palace. Even though he was weary from the journey and the sack he had slung over his shoulder was beginning to feel heavy, he didn’t stop for rest or refreshments at any of the cafes or stalls that lined the street. He kept his eyes fixed on the imposing gates of the palace ahead. If he had looked about, he would have seen a bustling scene – donkeys and carts, camels, traders, soldiers, slaves, thieves, shoppers, layabouts and lovers – the citizens of Tumanbay going about their daily business as they had for centuries, unaware that their world was soon to change.

They hardly noticed him. There were so many from so many different parts of the Empire and beyond, each with their own dress and style – a short, bearded pilgrim in red and black robes was nothing unusual.

There was a disturbance ahead, like dust or smoke blowing around in circles beside the entrance to a small lane. People were crossing the road to avoid it. As he approached, the envoy paused and watched. Despite the crowds, the street was deserted here, except for this swirling, humming mass, which he could now see were wasps. Perhaps their nest had been disturbed or destroyed and they were disorientated and anxious, unsure of where to go, a danger to all.

He stared, transfixed. This was a sign, surely, that he must carry out his task without fear. Like the wasps, these people would soon be scattered about the world; their wondrous city, in which they had put their trust and belief, would be shown to be as empty and meaningless as a dead nest.

He clutched the sack and crossed the road.

1

Basim

The child’s eyelids were flickering, but everything else remained still. Unnaturally still. Even his breathing seemed to have stopped. Basim shook him gently.

‘Wake up, my little Frog. Wake up.’

The boy’s eyes snapped open, terrified and confused at first. Then he saw his father smiling down at him and he relaxed.

‘It was just a dream,’ Basim said, gently stroking his son’s damp forehead.

It was still dark, Basim’s favourite time of day, when the air was cool and the only sounds were the cicadas and the preachers calling across the city.

‘Don’t go today, Papa,’ the boy said, sitting up. ‘Something bad will happen.’

Basim smiled, continuing his preparations. ‘Is that so, my little Frog?’

‘And they will chop off your head and you will never see us again.’

Basim considered this for a moment.

‘I will miss having my head,’ he said, checking himself in the mirror and adjusting his uniform. ‘I think it’s rather a handsome one, don’t you?’

These dark dreams had been coming regularly for several moons now and had changed the character of the child. He had become less inclined to play with other children and, whereas he used to delight in going to school, where he excelled as a gifted child, now he was angry with and resentful of his mother, Heba, for making him go. Heba had sought help from the wife of another officer, a woman known in the compound for her healing powers, and had been told not to worry, that he was just a boy with a vivid imagination.

Basim often came home from the palace to find the Frog sitting alone in the passageway outside the apartment, lost in thought. The other day when Basim asked him what was wrong, the Frog had said, ‘I was thinking about how they see down there.’

‘How who sees, where?’

‘The underworld. The people who live there.’

‘There’s no underworld,’ Basim had said. ‘It’s just a story.’

The previous evening, their neighbour Khalida had reported her cat missing. The Frog had insisted on going over to her apartment to tell her that he had knowledge the creature was now ‘buried in darkness amid the grains of sand’. This caused her to cry uncontrollably and, as several of the neighbours gathered round to comfort her, the Frog just stood there in the passageway staring, as if he was oblivious to the pain he had caused her.

But now, seeing the Frog through the mirror lying on the couch, Basim’s heart went out to him. He may have been a strange child but he was their child, a precious gift from God, who had been a long time coming to this world after Heba had delivered three whose fates were not to be of this world. They wanted, above all else, for their surviving child to be happy.

Basim felt a hand on the back of his neck. He turned to see Heba.

‘You hear that?’ Basim asked.

‘What’s that?’ she asked brightly.

‘The Frog’s had another one of his dreams.’

‘Something bad,’ the Frog added.

‘Oh really? Well, you can tell me all about it after you’ve had your breakfast,’ she said and busied herself preparing food. They had agreed to try not to look concerned in front of the child.

Basim attached his sword – an elegant curved sabre carried only by the officers of the palace guard – and kissed the Frog on the forehead.

‘Be good. Obey your mother.’

Heba followed him to the door.

‘See you when we see you,’ she said, looking deep into his eyes. ‘And try not to worry. He’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘I took him back to see Mistress Talum. She gave me some medicines and said expect the dreams to get worse at first and then they will disappear completely. Perhaps by the time you return.’

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead.

‘You both mean so much to me,’ he said.

‘Foolish man. Don’t you think I know that?’ she replied. ‘Now go, or something bad really will happen.’

Basim made his way through the narrow, but ordered, passageways that formed the compound where the families of the Palace Guard were housed. As he passed Selim the shoemaker’s shop on the corner, he heard the plaintive wailing of a cat. He stopped and went back to investigate. Next to the shop, and at the end of every alley, was a small storage unit where grain was delivered for the inhabitants of each section. Basim pulled the latch and peered inside. As he did so, a cat shot out like an angry djinn from the infernal world and disappeared along the passageway towards its home.

Basim continued out of the compound. As he crossed the vast Square of the Martyrs, the Gates of al-Suliman Midan were opening, and men were rushing out from their morning prayers. Basim quickened his pace. He was late. He had usually crossed the square by the time the faithful dispersed.

When he got to the palace, it was light. He had been away for two days. He would be on duty for another ten before he saw Heba and the Frog again.

Or so he thought.

2

The Girl

The sea was empty. Just blue water, sun in the girl’s eyes, the endless creaking of the ship, the boom of the huge lateen sail bellying out under another gust of wind, the white wake reeling out behind them as every moment took her closer to Tumanbay.

It was all so unfair!

She leaned against the bulwark beside the brass cannon on its swivel mount. Maybe they’d be attacked by pirates and she could escape to a life of adventure; anything would be better than being the wife of a merchant in a city she didn’t know, in a country she didn’t want to be in. Yes, a pirate queen with her own crew of blood-soaked rogues, terrifying the Middle Sea; but it wouldn’t happen because things like that never happened outside the stories, and certainly not to the daughters of merchants. Besides, there were no pirates any more. Tumanbay made sure everyone obeyed its laws and her father had assured her that its navy kept the oceans peaceable. And who wanted peace? Merchants and, she supposed, merchants’ wives. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair.

Behind her, the captain bellowed and sailors began climbing the rigging to reset the sail. Canvas cracked in the wind as the sail shivered, the helmsman leaned on the big wheel and the whole ship began to come about, the bowsprit tracking across the blue horizon until it met a smudge of land.

She couldn’t even run away to sea and become a sailor – girls weren’t allowed, oh no, they had to stay at home and do what they were told and . . . get married to . . . who? What if he was hideous or old or both? Her father had written and said he was a ‘fine young man’, and she knew all too well the kind of boys he thought were ‘fine’. She looked down at the sea racing by. Maybe she should jump. Here and now. That would show them all!

She stepped up onto . . . she didn’t know what it was called but some kind of iron thing they tied ropes to, and leaned further over the side – the sun was making patterns in the waves, making her dizzy – she eased herself further up, further out . . .

‘What are you doing without a cloak? The sun and wind will . . .’

Too late! She stepped back onto the deck.

‘And don’t lean over like that, you might fall into the sea and then where would you be?’

‘I would be in the sea, Mother.’ Fat chance.

Her mother sighed with exasperation. ‘Put this on.’

‘I’m hot, I don’t need it.’

‘You need it.’

Her mother didn’t need to give a reason. It was obvious she thoroughly disapproved of the crew and captain ogling her daughter. She also knew the precise value of every commodity and didn’t want her daughter’s pale skin darkened and roughened by the weather before the deal was done. She draped the cloak about the girl’s shoulders and, taking her arm, walked with her to the stern where they stood looking at the white wake and the seabirds swooping and taking scraps from it as someone emptied a bucket of kitchen waste from a port below. They stood together in a silence that the girl was determined not to be the first to break.

Eventually, her mother said: ‘Are you going to talk to me?’

‘I am talking to you, Mother.’

‘You know what I mean. You’ve been sullen this whole trip. Don’t you want to see Tumanbay? It’s the greatest city in the world.’

The girl silently mouthed the words along with her mother, she’d heard them so often by now and, yes, in a way, she did want to see this city . . .

‘But not this way,’ she burst out.

She knew her mother thought that once she was married she would settle down, but she didn’t want to settle down. There were so many things she’d read about in her father’s library – castles built on mountain peaks, spice cities, the great inland sea, the riders of the plains in their thousands – and now she would never see them. She would be shut away behind . . .

‘What about your father? Don’t you want to see him?’

‘Of course I do, just not like this.’

‘Not like what?’

‘You know, Mother.’

They’d had this conversation a hundred times and it never went anywhere except round and round and round.

‘He’s a fine young man, your father says. Don’t you trust your father?’

She wanted to shout: No, of course I don’t, not where boys are concerned, but she said, ‘Of course, I trust him, I just don’t want to—’

‘There you are, then,’ her mother said, as she’d said before and would no doubt say again and again until the day the contracts were signed.

The girl was about to make the same answer she usually made when she heard the creak and shriek of one of the deck hatches, the furthest away, being thrown open. There was a terrible smell for a moment before the wind snatched it away. The girl hurried forward to the rail by the ship’s wheel where she could see down on to the deck.

‘Wait . . .’ her mother called, then came after her as someone was pulled from the darkness below decks by a couple of burly sailors: a big man, dark-skinned, wearing breeches and no more. His wrists were manacled in front of him. He blinked in the sunlight, momentarily blinded after his time below decks, and stumbled. His captors pulled him brutally upright and rushed him to the foot of the big central mast, where they secured his wrist chains to a line and pulled them up, above his head, so he was virtually hanging from the iron cuffs.

‘You should go back to your cabin, ladies,’ the captain growled.

‘Why, what’s happening?’

‘Nothing that need bother you. If you’ll just . . .’

‘Indeed it will not,’ her mother snorted. ‘I have seen slaves punished before, Captain. It’s the nature of the business.’

‘Perhaps your daughter . . .?’ the captain offered.

‘Nonsense. It’s time she learned a few facts of the life we lead. She will watch too.’

If anything was going to send her back to the gloomy cabin it would have been her mother telling her to stay where she was, but something about the slave caught her attention. He didn’t seem to be frightened for a start, but neither was he struggling. He hung there, his powerful fists gripping the wrist chains, the muscles on his arms expanding as he pulled himself up a fraction to ease the cutting pressure.

‘What do you think he did?’ she whispered.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ her mother said. ‘It is necessary sometimes.’

‘Is that what Father does to his slaves?’

‘Of course, it’s the only way.’

The slave’s body jerked as a whip was brought down with fearful force. Blood and – the girl’s hand went to her mouth in horror – lumps of flesh were torn from the slave’s back. And yet, as the whip rose and fell, he made no sound – his face was rigid, displaying neither anger nor fear, as if he was somewhere else and this wasn’t happening to him at all.

‘Why isn’t he crying out? It’s like he doesn’t care. How can he not care?’

‘They come from beyond civilisation. They don’t feel pain like us, they’re barbarians.’

‘Then what’s the point, Mama?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If he doesn’t feel it, why whip him at all?’

The sailor with the whip paused and shouted up to the captain: ‘Enough, Sir?’ The girl just knew he was going to say: ‘More.’

She burst out, ‘Enough, enough . . .’ feeling tears brim her eyelids. The captain looked at her and paused.

Then he nodded.

‘Enough, take him down.’

The ropes were loosened, the line slackened off. The slave lowered his arms and stood, legs apart, solid on the deck as if nothing had happened, as if the blood and flesh scattered around him and being washed away with buckets of seawater, as if the horrible white glint of bone through the gore on his back, were nothing to do with him at all. Ignoring everyone, he turned and walked back to the open hatch and went below.

How could he do that, the girl wondered – just hang there while they flogged him and then look at them as if they were the ones who had been punished?

If only she could find that kind of courage to stand up to her mother, her father . . . to stand up to all of them and say no! But she couldn’t even throw herself over the side of the ship when she had the chance. She was just a coward.

Her mother coughed – she had been coughing a lot lately.

‘I’m tired,’ she said irritably. ‘Come and read to me while I rest.’

3

Ibn Bai

Ibn Bai had always thought of himself as a reasonable man but, faced with more delays, he was beginning to lose patience as his builder announced: ‘Effendi, who could have foreseen that the wall would develop a crack and set things back to such a degree. It’s in God’s hands, we have to do the best we can.’

Ibn Bai felt like telling the builder that he should have foreseen the problem when he put too much weight on a wall that was obviously never meant to bear that sort of load, and that accordingly he should lower his price and work extra time to make good the damage he had done to Ibn Bai’s beautiful new house. But, of course he would say nothing, nod, agree and ask when the work might be completed because even finding a half-good builder in Tumanbay was something of a miracle and, once you had him, you kept in his good graces.

‘So, Arem Effendi, tell me, how long will it take to fix the wall and put in the extra bracing for the balcony supports?’

Arem, a thin fellow, though surprisingly strong even so, flexed his hands and grinned.

‘Only a day or two, effendi. Of course, there will be the supports to pay for but I know where I can get some at a very good price?’

He stopped, his head cocked on one side, waiting for Ibn Bai to say: ‘Yes, of course, go ahead.’

‘Then we should be out of your way by the sickle moon.’

‘Three weeks?’

Arem shrugged. ‘That’s if all goes well.’

‘Why should it not?’ Ibn Bai asked, feeling increasingly irritated.

‘Well . . . the fountain of al-Dar ran red the other day.’

‘So?’

‘Auguries of blood, they say!’

‘They say anything that comes into their empty heads. They say there are giraffes in the palace! I am more concerned with practicalities. My wife and daughter will be here any day now. I had hoped to have the house ready for them – painted and furnished.’

Arem sucked his teeth. ‘It is in the hands of God.’

Ibn Bai recognised the moment they had both been circling for a while – the moment when the deal is finally made.

‘There would, of course,’ Ibn Bai said, ‘as is the practice where I come from, be a finishing bonus payable upon early completion of the job. A recognition of the craftsman’s skill and efforts on behalf of the customer.’

This time Ibn Bai sucked his teeth and waited. The builder mentioned a figure, Ibn Bai agreed, smiles and handshakes were exchanged, the builder went back to his crew and Ibn Bai could hear him cursing their laziness and shoddy work and driving them on to a completion in a mere seven days. He had set the bonus money aside at the beginning of the contract and had, in fact, paid a third less than he’d expected so, all in all, his mood was a little improved. He thought he might take the cart along to the port, enquire whether there was news of his ship and perhaps see if there were any goods worth picking up.

Before setting off for Tumanbay six moons ago to establish home and business, Ibn Bai had read much about the city, and by far the majority of the accounts had extolled the great walls that protected the landward side, stretching beyond sight in either direction, and the four massive gates, made of the thickest oak, banded with iron, studded with brass spikes, opened each dawn, closed each dusk. The walls and gates were, without a doubt, an impressive sight, one of the wonders of the world, but Ibn Bai somehow preferred the other side of Tumanbay, the harbour that looked out through the Gulf of Winds towards the Middle Sea.

This was how many newcomers first saw Tumanbay, how he had seen it himself from the deck of a dhow, heeling in the breeze, passing the long arms of the harbour walls, jutting three leagues or more out into the gulf, closing to an entrance no more than five ships wide, a fort on either point with mighty chains draped down, under the water, that could, if necessary, be winched into position across the entrance, effectively sealing the port.

Entering the harbour, Ibn Bai reflected that never in all the harbours he’d visited – and he had done business in a good few – had he seen as great a volume of shipping in one place at one time. The expression ‘a forest of masts’ had come to him from some tale he’d read and he realised that it was no exaggeration: there were thousands of them rising from the decks of ships uncountable. Dhows, triremes, tubby merchantmen, stately galleons, fishing boats of every size from the smallest to those able to chase and catch the great monsters of the Middle Sea. And darting between them, like insects skittering across a pond, tenders and skiffs transporting the host of men and women who pursued their trades here and whose skill and labour made the whole vast machine function. It was exhilarating. Ibn Bai had felt a dozen years younger; there was nothing in the world that could not be found and bought and traded in this vast arena, and he longed to be a part of it.

And so it had turned out. In the six moons he had been in the city he had found and bought an old house which he was having virtually rebuilt, he had established a network of contacts, sorted out a decent marriage deal – though his wife Illa was oddly silent in her letters on his daughter’s enthusiasm for the project. Surely any young girl couldn’t wait to get married? He had good business premises and was making a place for himself in the slave markets. He was already in profit, trading with his old associates across the Middle Sea. Once this marriage business had been settled and he was in partnership with a Tumanbay merchant, he would be on a firm footing and well on the way to success.

As always, the harbour master’s office was crowded and Ibn Bai had to wait a sandglass or more before he saw the assistant clerk (and that had cost him a bribe, but then everything in Tumanbay was oiled by a little something for your trouble) and was able to ask if there was any news of his ship, the Gullswing, from the forts and observation points along the coast.

‘From Cyrene, you say?’

‘Exactly so, effendi. With fortunate winds, she might dock within seven days or less.’

The clerk flicked through the reports that were constantly arriving via the couriers who rode along the coast from fort to fort with news of incoming vessels.

‘Gullswing? Nothing here. Once she passes the Mad Sultan we’ll probably get word. Come back next week.’

‘I have a cargo on board.’

The clerk gave him a smug look. ‘Of course you do, everyone who comes here enquiring has a cargo on board. And do you know what they all want?’

Ibn Bai didn’t like the fellow’s manner but neither did he want to antagonise him.

‘No, what do they want?’

‘What you all want, without exception, is to get your papers stamped in advance so the cargo can be processed with less trouble and greater speed when it does arrive. Correct?’

‘Correct. But you see, my wife and daughter are on the ship and I hope—’

‘And so do I.’ The clerk sighed. ‘I truly do hope your wife and daughter make the happiest of landings but until they do, you will have to wait like everyone else. And when your ship comes in, I or another clerk will count the cargo, tally the list, you will make your mark, and the papers will be stamped. Is there anything else I can aid you with?’

‘No thank you, effendi. Good day to you.’

Ibn Bai’s good mood evaporated as he pushed his way out of the office. He was annoyed with himself, not for making a fruitless attempt to short-cut the landing process but because he didn’t know how to short-cut the landing process. He knew very well, as did the smug clerk, that there were avenues but so far, as a newcomer, he hadn’t found them and he hadn’t found anyone, yet, who would show him the correct pathway. What he needed was a patron. That was how business was done: you found a person of power for whom you could be useful and they, in return, dispensed favours and influence. Well, it would come with time and he was, as he’d told himself only this morning, a patient man. He decided to take a walk through the harbour market and see what was available. Tumanbay had half a hundred markets but the harbour was the first he’d got to know and traded in and he still had a fondness for it.

As always, the market announced itself to his nose first: the stink of bodies, excrement, decaying food and the incense burned unsuccessfully to cover the stench. He nodded to a couple of dealers standing by cages of silent, bewildered, truculent or even enthusiastic slaves trying to draw attention to their virtues. The better quality goods were generally to be found in the city at the bigger markets but it was possible, still, to find the odd bargain at the harbour.

‘What are you after?’ asked one of the dealers.

Ibn Bai realised he had been standing looking into one of the cages for too long to escape attention.

‘Domestic? Labour?’ the dealer approached.

‘Nothing,’ Ibn Bai replied. ‘Just browsing.’

‘Of course. Please . . . take your time,’ said the dealer, stepping back.

He was a typical salesman, Ibn Bai thought: chewing paan, spitting, and his hair an unnatural red. It was a current fashion among the merchant classes of Tumanbay for older men to apply henna to their hair in an attempt to appear more youthful and virile. Ibn Bai was repulsed by it.

‘Anything you want to know, just ask me,’ the dealer added, and positioned himself close by ready to assist at a moment’s notice.

Ibn Bai peered into the cage. A girl was looking back at him, her eyes widening slightly in fear . . . or was it appraisal? He dismissed the thought; slaves didn’t appraise, dealers did that. She held a baby protectively to her chest. She wore a coarse shift but she wore it as if it had been something infinitely finer. Ibn Bai could see the marks left by rings on her fingers and her ears had been pierced. Behind her, a young man looked at him levelly. No fear in the blue eyes, no hope either.

‘My name is Mitra, by the way,’ said the dealer. ‘I have the best stock in the market. Ask anyone.’

Ibn Bai dismissed him with a tut and continued along the row of cages. Mitra followed.

‘I have four slaves from the Asir Mountains,’ he said, pointing into one of the cages. ‘Quite rare. Easy-going, good with children. Quick to learn.’ Ibn Bai’s eye drifted across to the adjacent cage, where three boys stood staring out at him, their bodies hard and fit, their gazes defiant. ‘They’re marked for the army already, came in through Villeppi.’

They were no more than children. How had they come to this, Ibn Bai wondered.

‘Volunteers,’ Mitra said, as if reading Ibn Bai’s mind.

‘Volunteers?’

‘Life is so hard in the mountains there, many abandon their children to the elements. It’s a custom in those parts. The strong survive and the weak . . . Well, the weak are no good to anyone, so it’s better that they . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, they are not for you, my friend. But these four here . . .’

‘I’m really not looking to buy anything today.’

‘Of course, of course,’ enthused Mitra. ‘But just have a look . . .’ He clicked his fingers at an assistant, who came running with a ring full of keys and started unlocking a cage. ‘You will be amazed,’ Mitra promised.

‘No, I told you already, I’m not interested,’ Ibn Bai said firmly.

The assistant stopped, looking to his master for instruction. Mitra shrugged and was about turn his attention to another potential customer when Ibn Bai pointed back to the first cage.

‘But these two . . . The blue eyes. Where are they from?’

Ibn Bai approached the cage again. The girl was still looking at him.

‘She has a baby?’

‘She can come with or without the baby. No problem.’

‘Do they . . . understand? Do they speak our language?’

‘That you will have to take a chance on. I haven’t been able to get anything out of them.’

There was something about these slaves. Ibn Bai sensed it.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said, waving Mitra away.

‘Of course. Take all the time you need. Just don’t get too close to the cage, eh?’

And he scurried off to join his assistant, who was unlocking a cage for another potential customer.

Ibn Bai beckoned to the girl. ‘You, come closer.’ She didn’t move but the flicker of her eyes told him she understood his words. ‘It’s all right, you want to keep your baby. Fine, I have a child too. I understand. Come, closer . . .’

She moved a few hesitant steps.

‘You’re something special, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You used to wear a ring on your left middle finger. You’re educated. It’s all right – I’m not going to tell anyone. I just notice these things.’

She remained still, expressionless, just staring back with her striking blue eyes.

‘What about you?’ said Ibn Bai, turning his attention to the male, who waited in the darkness behind. Ibn Bai pressed his head against the cage-wire to get a better view. ‘Are you related? Are you the father of the child?’ The slave approached slowly.

‘That’s right,’ Ibn Bai said encouragingly. ‘Come. You can talk to me. Tell me who you—’

He wasn’t able to finish because, within the blink of an eye, the slave leaped forward, roaring and clawing at the cage-wire and gnashing his teeth. Ibn Bai was so shocked he tripped backwards and fell to the ground. He lay there for a moment as Mitra and his assistant rushed over and started beating the slave back with sticks.

‘Are you all right?’ Mitra asked when things had calmed down. He help