Javeed said, ‘Why did you sneak into the palace?’

Zal sighed. ‘Imagine a woman as slender as a cypress tree, with a face more lovely than the full moon.’

‘But couldn’t you just ask her father to let you marry her?’

‘I will! I must!’ Zal replied fervently. ‘But first I need to write to my own father, to persuade him that this match is auspicious. And then my father must find some way to win over the Persian King Manuchehr, to convince him that this alliance will not lead to tragedy. Mehrab is the grandson of Zahhak, the monster who brought death and sorrow to Persia for a thousand years! I cannot condemn Mehrab for his ancestor’s crimes – or in the same breath I would have to renounce my beloved – but nor should I misjudge the struggle I’ll face to gain my father’s approval and Manuchehr’s blessing.’

That Javeed had supposedly derailed Zahhak’s infamous career in an earlier encounter didn’t seem to faze him; if he’d been able to change the whole history of the Shahnameh there’d be no framework for the stories left standing.

‘Then how can we help you?’ Javeed asked.

Zal stood in silence, pondering the question. Then he squatted down to bring his face close to Javeed’s.

‘Tell me, are you a boy who can come and go from a place unseen?’

‘Yes,’ Javeed replied confidently.

‘Are you a boy who can be trusted with the most prized of my possessions?’

‘Yes.’

Zal hesitated, rocking back on his heels nervously. He wiped his nose on his filthy sleeve; his commoner’s disguise was very authentic, to the point where Martin had trouble picturing Rudabeh letting him into her room at all.

Zal made his decision. ‘In my tent outside the city,’ he whispered to Javeed, ‘there is a small bag made of plain brown cloth, with nothing to distinguish it or draw attention to its value. But if you can bring it to me without anyone knowing what you’ve done, I will throw open my treasury to you. You will have emeralds, diadems, five golden thrones, a hundred Arab horses adorned with the finest brocade, fifty elephants-’

‘Elephants!’ Martin saw Javeed’s happy face, captured in Omar’s shop before their first session, rendered at full strength for the first time in months.

‘Listen carefully,’ Zal said. ‘We are camped on the southern bank of the river, a short march east of here. There will be two sentries standing guard, but we are not at war, so they will not be too serious in their task, and they will not be watching the river. Sneak in through the rushes, then make your way through the camp. My tent lies furthest to the south. The brown bag is beside my sleeping mat. Bring that here, and all my hardship will be lifted. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you do this for me?’

‘Yes.’

Zal reached through the bars and grasped his hand. ‘Fortune has favoured me with an ally such as this. God protect you, Little Brother.’

Javeed was silent as they walked back towards the courtyard. Zal had been his hero even before Mahnoosh’s death; Martin was beginning to worry that the whole encounter might have been too intense.

‘What are you thinking, pesaram?’ he asked gently.

‘Can we get an island?’ Javeed replied. ‘To keep the elephants?’

‘Ah. We’ll see.’

The warder let them out through the gate; Martin handed him a coin in the hope that it might make him more amenable upon their return. On the street, Martin found his bearings by the sun; he was assuming it was morning, and when they caught sight of the Kabul River it was on their left, so they were definitely heading in the right direction.

‘See the mountains?’ Martin said.

Javeed looked up across the river at the craggy brown peaks. ‘Yes.’

‘When I came here in real life it was winter, so they were covered in snow. It was beautiful, but the weather was freezing.’

‘That’s when you were a reporter?’

‘Yeah. Twenty years ago.’

‘And there was a war here?’

‘Right. There was war here for more than thirty years.’

Javeed absorbed that in silence, but Martin knew he’d keep turning the revelation over in his head. He remembered more of what Martin told him than Martin remembered himself.

The closely packed houses and shops soon gave way to small fields. The river, usually narrow, was swollen with the summer’s melted snow; as it turned towards the dusty track they were following, Martin spotted a cluster of lavishly decorated tents a few hundred metres ahead. Three horses were visible, tethered to stakes, but there was nobody in sight. Maybe the sentries were having a siesta, but however vulnerable the apparently unguarded camp looked, Martin didn’t want to risk marching straight in rather than following Zal’s advice.

‘That’s the expedition,’ he said.

‘Where are the elephants?’ Javeed asked anxiously.

‘Back in Zavolestan, I expect. Don’t worry, I’m sure Zal will keep his word.’

They turned off the track and headed for the riverbank. As they approached, Martin regarded the thick, reedy vegetation with dismay. That the rushes couldn’t actually scratch their skin raw – or even register as tangible to any part of their body save their hands – offered a certain consolation, but it wouldn’t stop the plants impeding their movement almost as effectively as the real thing.

Martin went first, pushing the springy plants aside with his hands, clearing the way for Javeed to follow close behind him. The plants weren’t quite as tall as he was, so he walked with a crouch to keep himself hidden, grateful that at least his knees were spared the effects of doing that in an ordinary ghal’e. After a while he felt he’d settled into a successful rhythm, and he tried to crank up the speed – but Zendegi was having none of it: the same, only faster didn’t compute. At first he could make no sense of this; he couldn’t believe that the reeds were so heavy or stiff that a faster pace would require superhuman effort. Then he peered down at the mud and saw it adhering to his sandals as he lifted his feet. He couldn’t feel the burning in his calves that might have come from pulling himself free of such sticky ground over and over again, but the bottom line was that Zendegi wouldn’t let him operate his body as if these forces were of no consequence to him.

Perhaps they should have come closer to the camp before taking this arduous detour, but Martin had been paranoid about being spotted, and it probably wouldn’t help if they modified their plans now.

After five minutes Javeed lost patience. ‘You’re too big and noisy!’ he complained. ‘Zal didn’t say for you to come. Let me go by myself!’

Martin did not like the sound of that, but when he looked across the dispiriting expanse of marshland that still lay ahead of them, he finally noticed the fine network of gaps that a smaller body could slip through. Every third step he took was accompanied by the sound of reeds springing back into place, but with a little bending and swaying of his own Javeed could simply pass between them, almost in silence. Being lighter, he sank less deeply into the mud. And once he reached the camp his size was sure to offer similar advantages.

‘All right,’ Martin declared reluctantly. ‘Just remember-’

‘If I’m scared, thumbs-down,’ Javeed replied. ‘Don’t worry, Baba, I’ll be okay.’

Martin turned aside and let him dart ahead. Within half a minute he’d vanished from sight.

Standing alone in the mud, Martin struggled to keep his thoughts from turning self-consciously to the Proxy. It was as if the invisible apprentice who’d been peering over his shoulder all this time, silently observing everything he did, now deserved some form of acknowledgement – and a concise lecture on some fine points of parenting to supplement all this long-winded teaching by example. But that wasn’t how it worked. And since all the Proxy could do was mimic Martin’s thoughts – not receive them, like telepathic messages – the very last thing it needed was reflections on its own creation that might risk transforming its mind into a hall of mirrors.