"Which this?" Raf demanded. "Us this or this this?" The sweep of his hand took in the coughing and restless shuffle of feet beyond the screen.

"Both," said Zara.

In a different world Raf might have answered that there was nothing he'd do differently where Zara was concerned, not even his jilting her which put Zara across the front of Iskandryia Today and nearly cost him his life. He loved her and had no certainty that any other course of action would have led him to where he stood; but Murad turned and caught Raf's eye and the words went unsaid.

Checking his watch, Raf listened to something in his earbead and nodded.

Three, two, one . . .

On cue, an unaccompanied voice rose in the salon outside. Maaloof al andalusi, the music Ifriqiya made famous. Frail and strong, haunted and ancient. The words a lament for those who had gone before and a greeting for those who were to come after.

Near the far end of the suddenly silenced room, Khartoum raised his head and hung a note on the air so unearthly that Hani shivered. The poem that echoed off the salon's high roof came from Rumi, the great Sufi sage but the intonation was Khartoum's own.

Slowly, one note at a time an 'aoued filled the spaces around the words. Then an instrument that Raf thought might be a nai, only deeper than any flute he'd ever heard.

"Time to move," Hani whispered.

"Yep. Everybody's waiting." This was, Zara knew, a stupid thing for her to say. Unfortunately it was also true: five hundred carefully chosen people were waiting on the far side of that screen to see the proclamation of the new Emir. A ritual intentionally designed to mix Western with North African traditions.

For religious reasons the proclamation needed to happen in the salon de comeras, the hall of ambassadors, rather than the Zitouna mosque, because women and men could not be allowed to mix in the mosque and, anyway, letting nasrani into the prayer hall would outrage the mullahs.

Officially the beards were no longer a problem, Kashif's arrest and subsequent suicide had seen to that. Major Gide's interim report suggested reality was different. The fundamentalist tendency would remain quiet only for as long as their embarrassment lasted at having backed a man given to treachery and wicked living.

"Come on . . ." Zara was shaking Raf's arm.

And as Khartoum's voice rose to a note as ethereal as waves against rock, then ended abruptly, leaving only silence, Murad said, "We can't do this."

"What?"

"We just can't." There was a sadness in Murad's voice, a maturity at odds with the anxious smile on his thin face. This was a boy who'd sat holding his father's hand while the old man died. A boy who'd insisted on attending not just the funeral of his father, as was expected but also of his brother, after Kashif shot himself through the head. Three times. The funeral of Lady Maryam, who succumbed to the same flu that killed the Emir, he refused outright to attend. And that took a different kind of strength.

"Look at us," Murad said.

Age was more than a simple sum of years. Into the load went experience and modes of survival. Strength could be learnt and adopted or developed through necessity and nothing tempered it faster than learning to stay alive.

Murad nodded towards the hidden crowd. Then swept his gaze across Hani, Zara and Raf, finally ending with a glance at a mirror which showed a twelve-year-old boy in a tight uniform, stars of gold and enamel across his narrow chest.

"Look at what I'm wearing . . ."

Murad's new uniform, identical to one worn by Raf, was based around an Egyptian version of the old British cavalry tunic, borrowed by an earlier Emir and introduced as court dress. No North African or Ottoman regiment had ever gone into battle wearing such clothes. Its use was strictly ceremonial. The only difference was Murad's lack of shades.

"I don't support this," said Murad. "I didn't think you did." He looked sadly at Hani reflected in the mirror. "And I don't want to be part of it. I refuse to become Emir." Lifting a felt tarboosh from his head, the boy nodded to a guard. The hat Murad held was inlaid with gold thread and seeded around its base with tiny freshwater pearls. Pinned to the front was a priceless diamond spray of feathers. The chelengk a recent sign of favour from the Sultan in Stambul.

The guard who reached out to take it retreated at a scowl from Raf.

"You have it then," Murad said and Raf shook his head.

"Wrong size," said Raf. "And anyway, it belongs to you."

"Why?" Murad asked, and everyone looked at Raf.

That was the real question. All of Raf's life had been leading up to this, it seemed to him. Standing in an alcove off a crowded salon de comeras, off-loading his responsibilities onto a child. Which was one way to look at it. The other was that Raf was trying desperately to do the right thing in a situation where there was no right thing to do.

"This is difficult," he said.

"Really," said Hani. And when Raf nodded she sighed. "That was irony," she said.

Beyond the screen, Khartoum's voice edged into the silence and soared away, stilling the crowd again. "Ya bay." Raf caught the word in a refrain and lost the meaning as he looked down and saw Murad still waiting for his answer.

"You think it should be me," Raf said, not bothering to make it a question. They'd been through this. None of them believed there should be an Emir to start with, but that wasn't really the point. A coup had been averted.

A new era had arrived.

The last of the UN sanctions had been lifted that morning.

Five hundred people were waiting within the salon for sight of Ifriqiya's child ruler. A hundred thousand filled the streets. Camera crews wandered the Medina recording anything and everything for worldwide syndication. There were two members of the German Imperial Family, a first cousin to the Sublime Porte, the president of the United States, both presidents of Russia and the Prince Imperial of France, despite his recent disgrace. All gathered to welcome Ifriqiya back into the family of nations.

As squabbling, incestuous and venal a group as ever existed.

In thirty years the country hadn't seen half that number of VIPs. Hell, even one VIP would have been more than Ifriqiya had seen in thirty years. The ice age was over and the state's political and diplomatic purdah had been quietly brought to an end.

At a high cost, a fact not doubted by any of those who stood in the alcove; although they differed in their understanding as to how high. What they now discussed was, if one were honest, who should be the first to pay.

"The problem," said Raf, crouching until his face was level with Murad's own, "is that your father was not my father."

That got their attention.

"Yes he was," Murad insisted.

"No." Raf shook his head. "I've known this for days. One of us had Emir Moncef as a father. The other didn't." From his pocket, Raf pulled a sheet of paper folded into three and Hani, being Hani, recognized it for what it was. A sanguinity report.

"This is your father's DNA," Raf said to Murad as he pointed to a column down one side of the slip. "And this is your own," he pointed to the next. "And this third one is mine. You can see there is no relationship between the first two and the third. My mother was not your mother and my father was not your father; we are not even cousins."

"I don't understand," said Murad, face crumpling. "Who are you then?"

"My mother once told me my father was a Swedish hiker. That's probably as true as anything else she ever told me."

The boy nodded, a movement so small as to be almost imperceptible. And then, meeting Raf's eyes, he nodded again, his second nod firmer, more confident.