al-Salil asked. Sir Guy suggested delicately that five lakhs of gold rupees might be appropriate, which should be followed by an annual payment of another lakh.
The Caliph began to understand how his brother had amassed such vast wealth. It would take two ox carts to carry that amount of gold. The treasury in Muscat no longer held a tenth of that amount, but he did not inform Sir Guy of this. Instead he brought the subject to a close. These are matters we can discuss again, for I hope to enjoy many more days of your company. But now, if we are to rise again before the sun tomorrow, we should repair to our sleeping mats. May pleasant dreams attend your slumbers.'
Verity took her father's arm as he escorted her to her tent with torchbearers leading them through the encampment. In turmoil, Mansur watched her go: he had no indication that she would honour their assignation.
Later, dressed in a dark cloak, he waited in the temple of Aphrodite. Through a hole in the dilapidated roof the moonlight played full on the
statue of the goddess. The pearly marble glowed as though with internal life. Both her arms were missing, for the ages had taken their toll, but the figure was graceful and the battered head smiled in eternal ecstasy.
Mansur had stationed Istaph, his trusted coxswain from the Sprite, on the roof to keep guard. Now Istaph whistled softly. Mansur caught his breath and his pulse beat faster. He stood up from his seat on one of the tumbled stone blocks and moved to the centre of the temple so that she would see him at once and not be startled by his sudden appearance from out of the shadows. He saw the dim light of the lamp she carried as she came down the narrow alley, stepping over the rubble and debris of three thousand years.
At the entrance she paused and looked across at him, then set her lamp in a niche in the doorway and threw back her hood. She had braided her hair in a single rope that hung down over one shoulder, and in the moonlight her face was as pale as that of the goddess. He let his own cloak fall open to hang from his shoulders, and went to meet her. He saw that her expression was serious and remote.
When he was within arm's length she put out a hand to stop him coming closer. 'If you touch me I shall have to leave at once,' she said. 'You heard my father's rebuke. I was never again to be alone with you.'
'Yes, I heard. I understand your predicament,' he assured her. 'I am grateful you have come.'
'What happened today was wrong.'
'I am to blame,' he said.
'There is no blame on either of us. We had been close to death. Our expressions of relief and gratitude towards each other were only natural in the circumstances. However, I said foolish things. You must forget my words. This is the last time we shall meet like this.'
'I shall fall in with your wishes.'
'Thank you, Your Highness,'
Mansur switched to English. 'Will you not at least treat me as a friend and call me Mansur, and not by the title that sits so uncomfortably on your lips?'
She smiled, and answered in the same language. 'If that is indeed your true name. It seems to me that you are a great deal more than you seem, Mansur.'
'I have promised to explain it to you, Verity.'
'Yes, indeed you have. That is why I have come.' Then she added, as though she was trying to convince herself, 'And for no other reason.'
She turned away and took a seat on a fallen stone block just large enough to accommodate her alone, and she gestured to another at a discreet distance. 'Will you not be seated and make yourself at ease? It
seems to me that your tale will take some telling.' He sat, facing her. She leaned forward with one elbow on her knee and her chin in the palm of her hand. 'You have all of my attention.'
He laughed and shook his head. 'Where to begin? How will I ever make you believe me?' He paused to gather his thoughts. 'Let me start with the most preposterous. If I can convince you of those parts of it, then the rest of the medicine will not be so difficult for you to swallow.'
She inclined her head in invitation, and he drew breath. 'Like yours my English surname is Courtney. I am your cousin.'
She burst out laughing. 'In all fairness, you did warn me. None the less 'tis bitter medicine that you are trying to dole out to me.' She made as if to rise. 'I see that this is but a prank, and you take me for the fool.'
'Wait!' he entreated. 'Give me a fair hearing.' She sank back on the stone. 'Have you heard the names Thomas and Dorian Courtney?' The smile vanished from her lips and she nodded wordlessly. 'What have you heard?'
She thought for a moment, her expression troubled. Tom Courtney was a terrible rogue. He was my father's twin brother. He murdered his other brother, William, and had to fly from England. He died somewhere in the African wilderness. His grave is unmarked and his passing unmourned.' 'Is that all you know of him?
'No, there is more,' Verity admitted. 'He is guilty of something even more heinous.'
'What is worse than the murder of your own brother?'
Verity shook her head. 'I know none of the details, only that it was so foul a deed that his name and his memory are blackened for ever. I do not know the full extent of his wickedness, but since we were children we have been forbidden to mention his name.'
'When you say we, Verity, who is the other person?'
'My older brother, Christopher.'
'It pains me to be the one to tell you, but what you have been told about Tom Courtney is but a sad travesty of the truth,' Mansur said, but before we discuss it further, please tell me what you know of Dorian Courtney.'
Verity shrugged. 'Very little, for there is little to know. He was my father's youngest brother. No, that is not correct, he was my father's half-brother. In a tragic turn of events he fell into the hands of Arab pirates when he was but a child of ten or twelve years. Tom Courtney, that craven rogue, was to blame for his abduction and did nothing to Prevent it, or to save him. Dorian died of fever, neglect and a broken heart while he was a captive in the lair of the pirates.'
'How do you know all this?'
'My father told us about it, and with my own eyes I have seen Dorian's grave in the old cemetery on Lamu island. I placed flowers upon it and said a prayer for his poor little soul. I take comfort in the words of Christ, 'Suffer little children to come to me'. I know he rests in the bosom of Jesus.'
In the moonlight Mansur saw a tear tremble on her bottom eyelid. 'Please don't weep for little Dorian,' he said quietly. 'Today you rode out hawking in his company and you dined this very evening at his board.'
She recoiled so violently that the tear fell from her eyelid and slid down her cheek. She stared at him. 'I do not understand.'
'Dorian is the Caliph.'
'If this be true, which it cannot be, we are cousins.'
'Bravo, coz! You have arrived at where we started our conversation.'
She shook her head. 'It cannot be... yet there is something about you--' She broke off, then began again: 'At our very first meeting I felt something, an affinity, a bond that I could not explain to myself.' She looked distraught. 'If all this is a jest, then it is a cruel one.'
'No jest, I swear it to you.'
'I need more than that to convince me.'
'There is more, a great deal more. You shall have as much of it as you can possibly desire. Shall I tell you first how Dorian was sold by the pirates to the Caliph al-Malik, and how the Caliph came to love him so that he adopted him as his own son? Shall I tell you how Dorian fell in love with his adoptive half-sister Princess Yasmini and they eloped together? How she bore him a son, whom they named Mansur? How Yasmini's half-brother Zayn al-Din became caliph after the death of al Malik? How, not a year past, Zayn al-Din sent an assassin to murder my mother Yasmini?'
'Mansur!' Verity's face was as white as the marble Aphrodite's. 'Your mother? Zayn al-Din murdered her?'
'This is the main reason we have returned to Oman, my father and I. To avenge my mother's death, and to deliver our people from tyranny. But now I must tell you the truth about my uncle Tom. He is not the monster you paint him.'
'My father told us--'
'I last saw Uncle Tom scarcely a year ago, hale and flourishing in Africa. He is a kind person, brave and true. He is married to your aunt Sarah, your mother Caroline's younger sister.'
'Sarah is dead!' Verity exclaimed.
'She is very much alive. If you knew her you would love her as I do. She is so much like you, strong and proud. She even looks a great deal
like you. She is tall and very beautiful.' He smiled and added softly, 'She has your nose.' Verity touched her own and smiled faintly.
'With such a nose as mine she cannot be so beautiful.' The little smile faded. They told me my mother and father told me they were all dead, Dorian, Tom and Sarah...' Verity covered her eyes with one hand as she tried to assimilate what he had told her.
'Tom Courtney made two mistakes in his life. He killed his brother William in a fair fight, defending himself when Black Billy tried to murder him.'
'I heard that Tom
