‘And what of me?’ asked macShiel. ‘Do I go with you?’

‘You still have your boat. Go back to your wife while you still have a chance. Every moment you stand here takes you further away.’

‘They’re setting me free?’ He was already half over the gunwale.

‘In the name of God, get on with it, before they change their mind.’ She reached forward to push him away, and he caught her arm.

‘I should say something.’

‘Goodbye, Rory.’ She pulled away, and his fingers slid from hers.

They watched him cast off, and soon he became a dark spot on a darker ocean.

Va folded his arms in satisfaction. ‘God blesses us even in our darkest moment.’

‘Oh, shut up. Where do you think I learned Turkic?’

Va shrugged.

‘Novy Rostov was under siege for two years. My father thought it politic that I learned: better to survive as some Turkman’s wife than as a common slave-whore. Everything I ever do is a compromise, an expedience against something worse. One day I’ll do something just for me, and surprise everybody. Now,’ Elenya told him, ‘act like you’re in the pay of the Kenyans, or they’ll guess the truth. If they do, I might get to see you die sooner than you’d like.’

CHAPTER 27

BENZAMIR HAD NEVER thought of himself as a thief before, but since only thieves skulked around in shadows made in the dead of night, he had to accept that that was what he was.

He craned his neck out around the corner. At one end of the street was Said, revealed by the slightest glimmer from a shaded lantern. At the other was Wahir, perched like a gargoyle in the join between an ornate ceremonial arch and the roof of a bathhouse. A white strip of cloth waved.

‘All clear,’ whispered Benzamir, and he and Alessandra slid with their backs against the wall down to the doorway. The gaps around the frame were dark, and the occupants long asleep.

A tight-fitting wooden trapdoor was set into the side of the building, right down at the level of the dusty street. Benzamir crouched down and pushed it. It rattled, but didn’t move. Alessandra squatted beside him and tugged her black headscarf away from her mouth and nose.

‘Locked?’

‘Not for long.’ Benzamir reached into his leather satchel and came out with a thick metal tube. He pressed the open end of the tube to the corner of the trapdoor and drew slowly around three sides of it. Part way along the third side, the door swung open under its own weight.

Alessandra darted out her hand to stop it from making a noise. Benzamir pushed her arm away, and the door slapped against the cellar stonework.

‘Hot,’ he said. ‘Molten hot. Give it a moment to cool.’

He checked Said and Wahir again, then slid through the opening. When he was sure of his footing, he helped Alessandra inside.

The ice store was cool and damp, the sound of dripping water playing softly. It was completely dark.

‘I’m scared to move,’ said Alessandra.

Benzamir could see: the dark-blue blocks of ice wrapped in sheets of hessian, the pink ceiling above him, the turquoise of the shelving and the dull red rectangle of the entrance, spotted with white where he’d cut through the retaining bolts with his laser. Alessandra was a mix of oranges and reds, except for her mouth and nose, which flared brightly as she breathed.

‘Don’t worry. The floor’s perfectly level.’

He spotted an ice hook, which he used to wedge the trapdoor closed again, then looked in his bag for a couple of light-bees. They fluttered out, causing Alessandra to gasp, and after circling the room, they stationed themselves a little way behind and above Benzamir’s head.

She shielded her eyes as the glow from the bees grew from a pinprick of light to a radiance that amazed her.

When Benzamir turned to look at something new, the bees moved.

‘You have two faeries following you.’

Since they were always behind him, his instinctive glance just made the lights flit this way, then that.

‘I suppose it must look like that.’ He grinned, checked his bearings and walked the short distance to a damp, crumbling wall. ‘This one?’

She nodded. ‘Al Ahiz’s house. Do you want me to start moving the ice out of the way?’

‘No point. It’s not going to be there in a minute. Now, are you sure?’

‘Al Ahiz has a cellar just like this one. He won’t use it to keep books in, because it’ll be as damp as this one.’

‘I really hope you’re right, otherwise we’re about to consign two moons’ worth of sneaking around and spying to oblivion.’ Benzamir fetched out a smooth metal sphere the size of his fist, black and yellow pictograms painted on the surface: a grinning skull, a double circle lying on its side, repeated in a line all the way round. ‘When I say stand back, I do mean it.’

He put the ball on one of the shelves at waist height, shifting one of the ice blocks slightly so that it didn’t roll out. When he was satisfied, he tapped it once and strode away, counting his paces.

‘Three, four, five,’ he said as he moved past Alessandra. He took her by the shoulders and moved her back another two steps. ‘Six, seven. I get nervous using those things. One slip and, well – the results aren’t pretty.’

The ball seemed to expand. Suddenly, violently, without a sound, it became a great bubble of cold fire that turned red, green, blue, like a diamond in the sunlight. Then it vanished with a distinct pop.

Cloth-covered ice slid to the floor with soft concussions. Shelves, suddenly robbed of support at one end, creaked and groaned. The wall itself, cut through with a perfectly circular tunnel, sagged, and loose masonry grated against rotten mortar. Even the floor had been scooped out and smoothed to glass.

‘Ready?’ asked Benzamir.

‘What did you do?’

‘The wall was in the way, so I moved it.’

‘Where?’

‘About three astronomical units away. Things move fast in o-space.’

‘You talk such nonsense.’

‘So everybody keeps on telling me.’ He took a cautious step forward, followed by the light-bees. ‘Careful. It’s slippery.’

They slithered across the glassy floor into the cellar belonging to the house next door. There were shelves similar to the ones recently vanished on the other side of the wall. They were empty except for cobwebs. It looked like Al Ahiz hadn’t been down the crumbling stone steps for years.

Benzamir leaned his head against Alessandra’s. ‘He didn’t hide it down here then.’

‘Is this the time to ask if you have a spell for finding secret rooms?’

‘Spell, no. Knack, hopefully. The Ethiopian commander can’t see infra-red.’ He started up the stairs and felt the trapdoor with his fingertips. ‘It’ll open.’

The light-bees winked out, and Benzamir pushed slowly against the wood. A rug had been thrown over it, and he had to negotiate his way from underneath it. After telling his bees to shine softly, he called Alessandra up.

‘You saw it. Are any of these it?’

The only gaps in the shelves were for a barred window and a thick door. The rest was floor-to-ceiling books.

‘You’re joking,’ she breathed. Her palms became moist at the thought of so much wealth.

‘Actually I am,’ said Benzamir, ignorant of her avaricious lust. ‘The Ethiopians would have gone through this room with a fine-toothed comb. How big is this User book?’

Alessandra took a moment to shame herself into answering. She held out her hands to the width of her body. ‘It’s heavy too. It doesn’t just look like it’s made of metal; it really is.’

‘He’ll have it close to him. There’s no point in paying a fortune for something and not looking at it, surely?’

She ran her fingers along the uneven spines of the books. ‘You don’t know book collectors. Just knowing that no one else in the world has one is enough. You don’t read books; you possess them.’