‘Wahir?’

‘Yes, master?’

‘And you can stop that right now. When either you or the camel gets tired, stop. There’s no great skill in pretending you’re stronger than you are.’

‘Aren’t you worried about Ibn Alam?’

‘Concerned. Not worried. If he finds us, I’ll deal with it then.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘So what have you heard about El Asnam?’

‘Only what the slaves say. I’m not supposed to talk to slaves, especially ones that don’t belong to my family.’

‘But you do anyway.’

‘They’ve seen places that I haven’t.’ It was as good a justification for breaking a rule as Benzamir had heard in a long time. ‘Only some of them speak Arabic. But the older ones pick up enough to tell you what their homes were like. They don’t live like us. They build houses out of wood, and it rains all the time.’

‘These are the Ewer people, yes? What about their towns and cities?’

‘I think they have towns, but they’re not like ours. Imagine being wet all the time. I think they’d rot, and end up covered in fungus and mould.’

‘Clearly not, since you’ve met some of them.’

‘They’re all taken when they’re young. I don’t think there are any old Ewers.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Benzamir, ‘the slavers kill all the old Ewers while they drag Ewer children screaming from their beds.’

Wahir stopped and stared. His mouth contorted into various shapes without sound coming out.

‘No one chooses to be a slave, Wahir. So be kind to all those you meet.’

The boy blushed at past memories, and turned to face the coast road again. The road was set back from the shore, on a shelf of land that sloped steeply on either side. It was only when the short, stubby grass that grew on the road itself was worn away that Benzamir could see the underlying substrate: it was dark, flat, cracked into a million palm-sized pieces.

‘This road,’ he called, ‘does it follow the same route as one of the Users’ roads?’

‘The Users lived in a country far away.’ Wahir was glad of having something else to talk about. ‘These roads – we call them tar roads – were made by our ancestors. It’s very wide, isn’t it.’

‘What did they use them for? What do they say now?’

‘There were these travelling bazaars, dragged by many horses. You could buy anything you wanted from them. They needed roads like this because of all the wheels under the bazaars. They went from place to place, and there were gifts and slave auctions and games and processions. Like the festivals we have now, but much, much bigger.’

Benzamir nodded. ‘We have festivals too. My people, we celebrate our Founding Day, and each tribe has its saints. There’s a party, and games for young and old. We tell the old stories of the saints late into the night, and there’s no work that day. We sing together and play instruments. They’re good days.’

For the first time since he’d arrived, he felt a sudden wrench of homesickness – not for some imagined ancestral homeland, because that was in the distant past – but for his real home where his friends and his family were. He was separated from them by more than distance now: it was the proximity of his enemies and the fact that he was alone that made his abrupt longing feel like a physical blow.

Everything was too familiar and yet too alien. These were his people, his cousins, yet they neither knew him nor knew of him. This was his country, but the stories hadn’t painted the least part of the picture. He took a deep breath. The desire to pack up and go would pass. He would remain.

‘Benzamir?’

‘Just remembering,’ he said, ‘and thinking of all those nights when I’ll be able to tell everyone about this camel boy I met. His name was Wahir, and he was a good and faithful friend. All the children listening will sit and wish that they could be him, walking a camel along an ancient road, the sun beating down on their heads and the sound of the sea in their ears.’

‘Will you? Will you really?’

‘Consider it done.’

‘It’s good to be in stories.’ Wahir turned and smiled up at Benzamir. ‘I’ve never been in a story before.’

‘The story starts before you’re born. That way, it doesn’t end when you die.’

It was dusk, and there was no sign that they were on the right road. Benzamir wasn’t concerned, though he could see that Wahir was starting to doubt what he’d been told. What if El Asnam lay to the east of El Alam, not the west?

‘The day after tomorrow, Wahir. It’s there.’

Wahir stood at the water’s edge, looking along the length of the bay for anything: a hut, a boat, drying nets. It was human nature to build next to the sea, to catch fish from it and use it as a trade route. The absence of people made him shiver.

‘And what if it isn’t?’

‘There’ll always be another port with another name somewhere along this coast, even if we end up in Misr El Mahrosa itself. And there are always places to buy food and replenish water, and just perhaps get proper directions from someone who isn’t twelve years old.’ Benzamir laughed as Wahir’s face fell. ‘Leave the navigation to me just as I leave the camel to you.’

They collected driftwood and built a fire on the beach, which Wahir lit using a steel and flint. Benzamir got down low to watch him work the stone against the metal, the cascade of sparks that turned the dried cotton-fluff into glowing embers, the cautious blowing and flapping of jellaba hems that finally ignited the kindling with a hiss and a crack.

‘You did that well,’ he said, without adding he’d never seen it done that way before.

From the saddlebags came cheese, fruit, dried fish and bread, and they rolled out thick cloth mats to sit on. As the sun set in the east, they moved closer to the fire and shared what they had. Wahir had the tendency to offer Benzamir the first of everything, the best parts of what they had.

‘There are lots of things that my people do that yours don’t,’ said Benzamir, ‘but when we sit down for a meal, we’re equals. I’m not more important than you just because I paid for this – and in all honesty, the sheikh did – and you’re not less important because you walk in front of the camel. I tried to get you a mount, but you refused. That’s up to you. For now, we eat.’ To make the point, he took the only orange and put it in front of Wahir.

‘Your people should have been crushed by their neighbours a thousand years ago.’ Wahir didn’t return the orange.

‘We were. Then we discovered that our neighbours had weaknesses all of their own.’

Wahir reached around and pulled two pottery bottles out of the saddlebags. ‘I bought these. I didn’t know how good a Muslim you were.’

Benzamir took one of the bottles and eased out the cork stopper. He sniffed. ‘Beer?’

‘The sheikh drinks it sometimes, so it gets made. I know whose house to go to to get it.’

‘I’m a very bad Muslim,’ said Benzamir and drank deeply. ‘Are you considered too young to drink?’

‘I am a man.’

‘Not where I come from.’ He held out his hand for the other bottle. ‘Still, one day, Wahir.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the boy sulkily.

Benzamir raised his finger to his lips. ‘Horse bridle,’ he whispered.

‘Ibn Alam?’

‘Honest travellers would have stopped for the night by now.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Get out of the firelight. Go down to the sea and wait for me to call you. Go!’

Wahir scurried away, the sand spurting up under his heels and leaving momentary white ghosts in the failing light. Benzamir stood and stepped away from the flames, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.

After a while he saw movement across the old tar road. Two men, betrayed by their body heat and glinting knives and the rustle of cloth, bent double, running awkwardly to the seaward side of the rise.

‘I see you, Hassan Ibn Alam,’ he called. ‘Coming like a thief in the night to rob me of my life.’

The men stopped, crouched down and hissed at each other like cats.