‘You’ve done more than enough, and we’re grateful.’ Benzamir looked at his sceptical companions. ‘They don’t look very grateful, but trust me, they are.’

Selah stepped back with a bow into the midst of his bodyguards, who took up a less than discreet distance from him. ‘As Allah wills it.’

He walked away, and the men around him fell into step.

‘You see,’ said Said. ‘That is how to meet diggers. With numbers. Master, we are just three. And one of us is a mere boy!’

Wahir was about to spring to his own defence when Benzamir silenced him with a raised hand.

‘Look around you. Who will people remember in a day’s time? Selah, or us?’ He pointed to a flamboyant merchant in purple and green, walking on the hot ground shadowed by a canopy carried over his head by slaves. ‘That man there, or us? We’re nothing. I prefer it that way.’

Without waiting, he strode off towards the first tent.

The guards were Ewers, their pale faces shiny with grease and sweat under the weight of their iron helmets. They carried spears decorated with little metal trinkets dug from the ground, which glittered and tinkled in the early light.

‘Is your master receiving guests?’

The men crossing their spear heads over the entrance looked at them with blank incomprehension.

‘They do not use our language, master,’ whispered Said.

‘Really? What do they use then? I know lots.’

‘I don’t know. Try them all.’

So Benzamir tried ancient versions of several long-dead European languages, and had most success with English. There were sufficient words the guards recognized for him to make himself understood. The spears uncrossed and all three of them went into the soft white light of the tent.

It was spartan inside. A rug had been unrolled across the floor, and three folding chairs arranged more or less at random in the middle. The back of the tent was open, leading out towards the display of goods on offer. A man with his back to them was talking to another hidden figure. He was alerted to his visitors’ presence by Benzamir’s affected coughing.

‘Buyers,’ he said. He lifted his eye patch to give his cloudy pupil a better look. Wahir curled his lip and took a step back. ‘Child not for eating?’

‘No,’ said Benzamir. He was struggling; there just weren’t enough words to go on. He hoped that he’d mistranslated the digger; surely he wasn’t a cannibal? ‘Buyers, yes.’

‘What have you? Chinks?’ The man scratched his stubble and lurched forward. One of his legs was false. Possibly both.

‘Chinks? Coin, yes.’ He tapped his purse so that it made a noise.

‘Boy?’

‘No, not boy. Definitely not boy.’

The digger looked disappointed, then consoled himself with the thought of legitimately minted money. ‘What buy you? Metal like friend Selah? Much iron, much copper, some lead, small tin.’

Benzamir chanced his arm. ‘User tech. Anything that works.’

The digger’s whole body language changed in an instant, from hard but fair trader to furtive runner of contraband.

‘No User machines for me. Shah run clean business.’

‘Of course you do. You leave all that sort of stuff behind for your rivals to find, Prince Digger. What do you have?’

‘Shah won’t trust stranger, though friend Selah says good of him. Shah asks stranger to leave.’ He barked out an order, and a giant pale-eyed Ewer stepped through the rear entrance.

‘We’re leaving,’ said Benzamir, and hurried Said and Wahir out into the sunlight.

‘I didn’t understand any of that,’ said Said, ‘but even I can tell it didn’t go well.’

‘It was fine up to the point where I told him what I was looking for. I may as well have asked for his head on a stick. I’m not well enough known here.’

‘Perhaps they think you’re a Kenyan spy,’ said Wahir.

‘What does a Kenyan spy look like? No, that was a silly question. What I’m saying is, this could take a very long time and be utterly futile.’

‘Don’t be down-hearted.’ Said pointed to all the other tents spread out at the base of the pyramid. ‘There are others we can try. They might not be as suspicious as that one-eyed, one-legged digger.’

‘We’ll work our way down the line. Wahir? Special job for you. I want you to listen in on other people’s conversations, see what the locals are saying. If you hear anything interesting, let me know. And if you can track down some food, that’d be useful.’ Benzamir put his hand on the boy’s head. ‘You can do that, yes?’

‘Yes, master.’ Wahir looked less than certain, but determined to do his duty. He strode off purposefully, searching for an opportunity to eavesdrop.

‘I just hope no one tries to eat him.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Said’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’m sure that wasn’t what he meant. Come on, we’ve got our work cut out.’

They were rebuffed more often than not. Only twice did the diggers show him anything of use. One had an old chemically powered projectile weapon, beautifully preserved but useless: no firing pin, and the owner had no idea what a firing pin might do or look like. The other had a cache of holograms – fragile plates of plastic that showed pictures of a white-skinned family dressed in a succession of outlandish clothes: they were eating at a table; they were standing in front of what could only be their house; they were sitting in a long white box, laughing.

Benzamir’s fingers felt all around the pictures and found what he presumed would be the play button. The power had long since evaporated away, and the images stayed frozen in time.

‘Amazing, but not what we’re after,’ he said, and reached up to push Said’s mouth closed.

Back out in the sun and the wind, Wahir came running up. ‘Master! I’ve found a man selling food. And I’m told that you need someone called an agent, and that Alessandra is who you want to talk to.’

They talked as they walked.

‘What does this agent do, Wahir?’

‘I was talking to a man by the horses. He said that his master always used an agent and that unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, you were going to be drugged, robbed and buried in the sand.’

‘I’m sure he did,’ said Benzamir, ‘but what does the agent do?’

‘They match buyers and sellers, for a proportion of the sale. And you hire them if you’re after something unusual. That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is. Good work, Wahir. This Alessandra . . . it’s a woman’s name.’

‘I think she’s a Ewer. Free, so the man said. Her skin is a bit like yours, a little lighter, but not that southern whiteness that makes them look like they’re dead. She’s waiting for you where they’re serving the food.’

‘Now I’m seriously impressed,’ said Benzamir. ‘Lead on.’

Wahir crowned his achievement by introducing Benzamir to the woman in a thoroughly self-important manner, putting himself as her equal, and portraying his master in such glowing terms that she might have been fooled into thinking Benzamir was a king in his own land.

Alessandra wasn’t deluded by Wahir’s fine words. She didn’t stand up for them; barely acknowledged them with her dark eyes from under her patterned headscarf. She raised a foot and pushed back a chair. Benzamir took this as permission to sit with her.

He undid his purse and handed a fistful of coppers to Said. ‘Get yourselves something. Mistress?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Will you be all right, master?’ asked Said, weighing the money in his hand.

‘I’m sure my virtue will be perfectly safe, Said. I’ll call if I need you.’ Benzamir sat in the proffered chair and looked out at the pyramids, framed between two tent poles.

‘You came with Selah. Him, I trust. Who are you?’

‘Benzamir Michael Mahmood.’

‘Which tells me nothing about what you are or where you’re from. Your boy does you credit, though. I’m to believe you’re a powerful man from a faraway land who’s come looking for traces of the Users.’