They were expected. As Azhar dismounted, Julia was surprised to see a servant wearing the palace colours emerge from the shade to take the reins. She followed suit, managing with relative grace, and the servant took her reins too.
‘This is another of our diamond-mining villages,’ Azhar said, pushing back his headdress to reveal his face.
‘Where is everyone?’ Julia asked, puzzled. ‘Surely you don’t send women and children down the mines?’
Azhar laughed, holding out his arm. ‘This way,’ he said.
She followed him through an archway that she’d taken for a doorway, then stopped short with a gasp of surprise. The village was formed in the shape of a circle. In the centre were the palm trees and the small turquoise pool of the well. A huge silk canopy had been stretched across the space under the palm trees and anchored to the roofs of some of the houses, forming a vast open-sided tent, under which tables laden with food and drink were heaped. The villagers themselves were formed into two rows, men and women and children, in the classic pose of obeisance.
Azhar stepped forward, making the traditional greeting and asking them all to rise. Still standing under the archway, Julia watched as the villagers did as he bid them with some alacrity, rushing forward to surround him in a babble of excited exclamations. She understood almost nothing of what was being said, but it was clear from the odd combination of deference and excitement that Azhar was no stranger to this village—or he had not been in the past. He was smiling, relaxed and at ease, showing none of the discomfort that had been apparent when faced with the huge show of adulation the first day they had arrived in Al-Qaryma, and again, on the first occasion they had visited Johara. Though now she thought about it, on the second visit to that oasis, Azhar had been as he was here, quickly discouraging the formal greetings and encouraging his people to approach him.
His people. They clearly were his people, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and he was every inch the ruler of those people too, whether or not he wanted to admit that either. Such obvious affection and respect did not stem from what was due but what had been earned.
Unsure of her reception, unwilling to detract attention from Azhar, and embarrassed once more by her limited Arabic, Julia would have happily remained in the background, but he seemed to have other ideas, indicating that she join him. Though her veil was firmly in place, her bright plait of hair and pale skin betrayed her foreign origins. She kept her eyes down, feeling absurdly shy, raising them only when a little ripple of applause broke out in response to Azhar’s introduction.
‘I told them that you are a famous English botanist, come to study our plants and to tell the world of the beauty of our desert,’ Azhar told her. ‘This is Fatima, a friend of Johara and also a noted herbalist,’ he added, introducing the older woman. ‘She says she has some plants which may interest you. Do you wish me to come with you, to translate?’
‘No, no,’ Julia replied hastily, ‘I would not deprive all these people who are clearly eager for your company after so long.’
‘This was a favourite place of mine, back in the—when I was—before. One of our best swordsman is a native of this village. He is the Chief of the Guards at the palace, and taught me how to fight with a dagger as well as a scimitar. Fatima is his sister. Go with her, I can see she is eager to impart her knowledge,’ Azhar said, translating his words into his own language for the sake of the other woman, and receiving a beaming nod in return.
* * *
She was gone a full hour, and could have spent another three in Fatima’s company. Compared to the other oases Julia had visited, this village was arid, so the small selection of hardy species which clung to life here was quite different from anything she had so far collected and documented. She took no samples, for the numbers of plants were sparse and she had no wish to disturb this fragile habitat, but her pencils flew over the paper as she took likeness after likeness, managing at the same time to extract sufficient information as to life cycles and usage with a combination of simple words and gestures.
Returning to the canopied tent in the centre of the village, she wholly expected Azhar to be waiting impatiently for her to leave, but instead found him seated on a large cushion surrounded by a cluster of men and women, all of whom seemed to be talking at once. Mindful of her allotted role as objective observer, though she could not imagine what it was she would be expected to observe, Julia helped herself to a small plate of food and sat down on the periphery. The mood of the villagers seemed to be indignant. There was much shaking of heads and vehement denials of something. Whatever Azhar was saying, the villagers didn’t like it, to the extent where their indignation threatened to overcome their innate respect for their Prince. One man actually jumped to his feet, gesticulating wildly. Another said something that sounded inflammatory. The response was a shocked and suspenseful silence as they waited for Azhar to respond. As the silence stretched so long as to make the tension palpable, the man shuffled his feet, colour darkening his face, but when Azhar finally spoke his tone was mild, bidding the man to sit back down, and to explain the source of his anger, as far as Julia could understand.
A small hand tugging at her cloak distracted her. She looked up to find not one but three children staring at her, and smiled. They needed no further encouragement, dropping on to the carpets which had been spread over the dusty ground, staring up with wide-eyed fascination at this unfamiliar and exotic stranger. On impulse, Julia opened her notebook at a fresh page and began to sketch. The simple line drawing of a camel was a resounding success. She tore out the page to be passed around and then drew a horse, which was met with the same reception. Morwenna, her father’s fat cat smiling malevolently at a mouse drew gales of laughter, encouraging Julia to abandon reality for the creatures who inhabited the Cornish tales she had loved as a child: a fantastical sea creature rearing out of the waves; a mermaid on a rock combing her fingers through her seaweed hair; and a wispy, wraith-like siren rising from the marshes. The smallest children fought to sit on her lap as she drew, watching entranced as her pencil flew over the paper. Fascinated fingers tugged at her long plait of red hair. Each drawing was greeted with bursts of laughter, awed exclamations, and cries for more and yet more. Only when a pair of much larger hands relieved her of her latest sketch did Julia become conscious of the time that had passed.
Azhar crouched down to examine the drawing of an absurdly beautiful fairy with gossamer wings, while the most curious of the children, a fairy-like creature herself named Amira, peered over his shoulder. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘A Bucca,’ Julia replied. ‘They live in the tin mines and in the caves in Cornwall. If you see one, then you can be sure a storm is coming.’
Azhar handed the drawing to the little girl and helped Julia to her feet. ‘I fear that a storm of a different nature may well be coming here,’ he said grimly.
‘Some of the villagers certainly seemed agitated.’
‘I thought at first that they resented my enquiries,’ Azhar said. ‘Like you, I saw the anger, but I assumed it was directed against me—my absence. It seems, however, that I insulted them when I asked why the yields from the mine had decreased so radically. They thought I was accusing them of idleness when they insist they work as hard and as productively as ever.’
‘So this mine too is not performing as well as you expected,’ Julia asked.
‘According to the accounts, and to the Chief Overseer of the diamond mines, who sits on the Council. He is a man of considerable experience, he inherited the position from his father before him. But his accounts do not tally with the word of these miners.’
‘What about the other mine that you visited?’
Azhar shook his head. ‘I