she had done as she always did, and tried to banish the memory. She’d thought she had succeeded, too. Odd, how so many of these incidents had popped into her head lately. Which reminded her of something else.
‘Azhar, may I ask you a question which has been baffling me? Why do you think Hanif waited so long to rob me?’
What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been travelling in the desert for over a month. Why wait until now, when they could just as easily have drugged me on the first night, or within the first week.’
‘A month!’ Azhar’s eyes flashed fury. ‘That suggests that they deliberately waited until you had crossed over the border from Petrisa.’
‘Why would they do that?’
His mouth thinned. ‘The only reason I can think of is that they considered it safer to act here. Which would imply that the enforcement of law and order is much more lax in Qaryma,’ he said grimly. ‘If that is true, then things have changed radically.’
‘Changed? It has been some time since you have been here, then?’
‘Ten years,’ Azhar said. ‘I have not been home for ten years.’
* * *
‘Home? Qaryma is your home?’
Julia Trevelyan was looking at him inquisitively. Azhar cursed inwardly. He had no idea how the word had slipped out. He had houses, but he had no home. ‘Was, not is,’ he said. ‘Explain to me if you will, what is it that has occupied you for so many weeks here in the desert?’
The words sounded more like a command than a request, but they had the required effect. Though she hesitated for a moment, Julia accepted the deliberate change of subject. ‘Specimens,’ she said. ‘I’ve been collecting plant specimens. I’m a botanist.’
He was surprised into a snort of laughter. ‘Plants! You are here to collect plants?’
‘Not so much plants as roots and seeds,’ Julia Trevelyan replied haughtily. ‘And what I mostly collect are drawings and notes, of the plants themselves, their habitat, companion plants, that sort of thing.’
‘You are an artist, Madam Trevelyan?’
‘Julia. If you are Azhar, then I ought to be Julia. I have some draughtsmanship skills.’
‘And your drawings, where are they?’ he asked, though he had guessed the answer.
‘Gone,’ she confirmed. ‘Along with my paints and my notebooks and all my specimens. They were in a special trunk. It had lots of little drawers, and—and trays and—and the like.’
She was frowning heavily, clutching her fingers tightly together. Her determination not to cry was much more affecting than the sight of tears. ‘It is this trunk you wished so desperately to recover, even more than your husband’s watch?’ Azhar asked, recalling with regret the harsh dose of reality he had administered earlier.
Julia nodded and forced a shaky smile. ‘As you so emphatically pointed out, they will be long gone. I am hoping—that is I would very much appreciate if, when we arrive in Al-Qaryma, you might help me procure another guide.’ Another smile. ‘With your assistance, I’m sure I’ll find someone more trustworthy than Hanif.’
Now she truly had astonished him. Another woman—even another man—would have been too affected by their recent experience to wish to do anything other than to count their blessings and return to the safety of their home. ‘You cannot wish to remain in the desert after what has happened?’
‘It is my only wish. I have to start again. Please, Azhar,’ she said, gazing at him across the fire, her big green eyes wide, her expression earnest, ‘please say you’ll help me.’
‘What did you intend to do with the specimens you collected? Sell them? As an international trader, I am aware there is a lucrative market for exotic plants, especially in light of the recent fashion for establishing botanical gardens.’
‘Yes, yes, my husband and I have supplied plants to several such gardens with specimens garnered on our trips to South America, though Daniel, ever the purist, refused to sully his scientific research with commercial gain and so would not accept payment for them. I personally would have been more than happy, given our straitened circumstances—but that is beside the point.’
A husband who chose to subject his wife to poverty, whatever his scientific principles seemed a most relevant point to Azhar, but he refrained from saying so. ‘What, then, is the point?’ he asked.
‘A book. My husband’s book. His magnum opus. His life’s work.’ Julia gazed down at her lap, deep in thought for several minutes, before giving her head a little shake, as if to clear it. ‘It is a treatise. A comprehensive illustrated guide to rare and exotic species of the plant kingdom. But it is not yet complete, and it was his dearest wish—his dying wish—his only wish—that I complete it for him.’
Her tone confused him. Brittle. Perhaps she was simply trying not to become upset. ‘A compliment indeed,’ Azhar said, ‘to entrust the completion to you.’
Julia shrugged. ‘My father is a renowned naturalist, a specialist in the flora and fauna of Cornwall. The illustrations for his book on the subject were mine. I first met Daniel when Papa took him on as an assistant. Even before we were betrothed, I worked on specimen drawings for him, and for almost all of the seven years of our married life I have travelled with him, taking notes, drawing and painting. So you see, Daniel did not mean it as a compliment. There is no one more suited.’
Her explanation, the toneless voice in which she spoke, confused him even further. Emotionless, or too filled with emotion? Azhar had no idea. ‘This trip you have made, halfway across the world and all alone, it is then a pilgrimage of sorts?’
‘It is, in the sense that it is a journey I must complete. But only so that I may then start my own journey, free from encumbrance. My husband’s life’s work has perforce been my life’s work, and always will be until I complete this one final marital duty. But I grow weary of doing my duty. There, I have said it now. Finally, I have said it.’
She glared at him, daring him to speak, but Azhar was so taken aback at the change in her, he said nothing.
Julia appeared to take his silence for condemnation. ‘You think I’m callous, don’t you?’ she demanded. ‘You most likely think I’m selfish and unfeeling, but you don’t know the facts.’
She obviously wanted to tell him, however, and Azhar’s curiosity was now well and truly piqued. ‘What is it I don’t know?’
She hesitated only fractionally. He could see the point where she cast caution to the winds, and wondered if she was aware of how her face mirrored her emotions in a most transparent fashion. He suspected not.
‘Daniel made me promise him on his deathbed that I’d complete his masterpiece,’ Julia said. ‘On his deathbed, that was all he could think about—his book. So of course I promised, because how could I refuse a dying man’s last wish?’
What could he reply to such a question? The parallels with his own situation struck Azhar with some force. Was the universe playing a trick on him?
Fortunately, Julia did not seem
