At the outset of this 'hegira of the heart', as the Sultan called it, a dozen or more like minded nobles and their people had joined him. And it became clear as the motley crowd filed into the ribat yard, that along with the young Sevillan nobles' families, retainers, friends and dependants, they had been joined by many more followers from the villages and farms that had sprung up in the countryside between Sevilla and Malaga. Sufi dervishes, Armenian traders, Turks, Jews, Zott, Berbers, all were represented; it was like a trade caravan, or some dream haj in which all the wrong people were on their way to Mecca, all the people who would never become hajjis Here there were a pair of dwarves on ponies, behind them a group of one handed and handless ex criminals, then some musicians, then two men dressed as women; this caravan had them all.

The Sultan spread a broad hand. 'They are calling us the Caravan of Fools, like the Ship of Fools. We will sail over the mountains to a land of grace, and be fools for God. God will guide us.'

From among them appeared his sultana, riding a horse. She dismounted from it without regard for the big servant there to help her down, and joined the Sultan as he was greeted by the Zeya and the other members of the ribat. 'My wife, the Sultana Katima, originally from al Majriti.'

The Castilian woman was bare headed, short and slender armed, her riding skirts fringed with gold that swung through the dust, ber long black hair swept back in a glossy curve from her forehead, held by a string of pearls. Her face was slender and her eyes a pale blue, making her gaze odd. She smiled at Bistami when they were introduced, and later smiled at the farm, and the water wheels, and the orange groves. Small things amused her that no one else saw. The men there began to do what they could to accommodate the Sultan and stay by his side, so that they could remain in her presence. Bistami did it himself. She looked at him and said something inconsequential, her voice like a Turkish oboe, nasal and low, and hearing it he remembered what the vision of Akbar had said to him during his immersion in the light: the one you seek is elsewhere.

Ibn Ezra bowed low when he was introduced. 'I am a sufi pilgrim, Sultana, and a humble student of the world. I intend to make the haj, but I like the idea of your hegira very much; I would like to see Firanja for myself. I study the ancient ruins.'

'Of the Christians?' the Sultana asked, fixing him with her look.

'Yes, but also of the Romans, who came before them, in the time before the Prophet. Perhaps I can make my haj the wrong way around.'

'All are welcome who have the spirit to join us,' she said.

Bistami cleared his throat, and Ibn Ezra smoothly brought him forward. 'This is my young friend Bistami, a sufi scholar from Sind, who has been on the haj and is now continuing his studies in the west.'

Sultana Katima looked at him closely for the first time, and stopped short, visibly startled. Her thick black eyebrows knitted together in concentration over her pale eyes, and suddenly Bistami saw that it was the birdwing mark that had crossed the forehead of his tiger, the mark that had always made the tigress look faintly surprised or perplexed, as it did with this woman.

' I am happy to meet you, Bistami. We always look forward to learning from scholars of the Quran.'

Later that same day she sent a slave asking him to join her for a private audience, in the garden designated hers for the duration of her stay. Bistami went, plucking helplessly at his robe, grubby beyond all aid.

It was sunset. Clouds shone in the western sky between the black silhouettes of cypresses. Lemon blossoms lent the air their fragrance, and seeing her standing alone by a gurgling fountain, Bistami felt as if he had entered a place he had been before; but everything here was turned around. Different in particulars, but more than anything, strangely, terribly familiar, like the feeling that had come over him briefly in Alexandria. She was not like Akbar, nor even the tigress, not really. But this had happened before. He became aware of his breathing.

She saw him standing under the arabesqued arches of the entryway, and beckoned him to her. She smiled at him. People said she had suffered a serious illness some years before, and that when she had recovered, she had seemed different.

'I hope you do not mind me not wearing the veil. I will never do so. The Quran says nothing about the veil, except for an injunction to veil the bosom, which is obvious. As for the face, Mohammed's wife Khadijeh never wore the veil, nor did the other wives of the Prophet after Khadijeh died. While she lived he was faithful to her alone, you know. If she had not died he never would have married any other woman, he says so himself. So if she didn't wear the veil, I feel no need to. The veil began when the caliphs in Baghdad wore them, to separate themselves from the masses, and from any khajirites who might be among them. It was a sign of power in danger, a sign of fear. Certainly women are dangerous to men, but not so much so that they need hide their faces. Indeed when you see faces you understand better that we are all the same before God. No veils between us and God, this is what each Muslim has gained by his submission, don't you agree?'

'I do,' Bistami said, still shocked by the sense of alreadyness that had overcome him. Even the shapes of the clouds in the west were familiar at this moment.

'And I don't believe there is any sanction given in the Quran for the husband to beat his wife, do you? The only possible suggestion of such a thing is Sura 4:34, "As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill conduct, admonish them, next refuse to share their beds", how horrible that would be, "last beat them lightly". Daraba, not darraba, which is really the word "to beat" after all. Daraba is nudge, or even stroke with a feather, as in the poem, or even to provoke while lovemaking, you know, daraba, daraba. Mohammed made it very clear.'

Shocked, Bistami managed to nod. He could feel that there was an astonished look on his face.

She saw it and smiled. 'This is what the Quran tells me,' she said. 'Sura 2:223 says that "your wives are as your farm to you, so treat her as you would your farm". The ulema have quoted this as if it meant you could treat women like the dirt under your feet, but these clerics, who stand as unneeded intercessors between us and God, are never farmers, and farmers read the Quran right, and see their wives are their food, their drink, their work, the bed they lie on at night, the very ground under their feet! Yes, of course you treat your wife as the ground under your feet! Give thanks to God for giving us the sacred Quran and all its wisdom.'

'Thanks to God,' Bistami said.

She looked at him and laughed out loud. 'You think I am forward.'

'Not at all.'

'Oh but I am forward, believe me. I am very forward. But don't you agree with my reading of the holy Quran? Have I not cleaved to its every phrase, as a good wife cleaves to her husband's every move?'

'So it seems to me, Sultana. I think the Quran… insists everywhere that all are equal before God. And thus, men and women. There are hierarchies in all things, but each member of the hierarchy has equal status before God, and this is the only status that really matters. So the high and the low in station here on Earth must have consideration for each other, as fellow members of the faith. Brothers and sisters in belief, no matter caliph or slave. And thus all the Quranic rules concerning treatment of others. Constraints, even of an emperor over his lowest slave, or the enemy he has captured.'

'The Christians' holy book had very few rules,' she said obliquely, following her own train of thought.

'I didn't know that. You have read it?'