you have many years of exploration ahead of you.’
She had a habit of turning her head to one side, of lowering her lids to mask her eyes and her emotions. ‘I’m twenty-four. My father and brother think that I am already past my prime. If they have their way, which they will imminently, I have very little time left in which to indulge my passion.’
‘What do you mean?’
But Tahira shook her head, forcing a smile. ‘I intend to make the most of what little time and freedom I have, that is all. Tell me, what is it that you survey?’
It was an obvious change of subject, but he followed her lead, for she was clearly upset and just as evidently determined not to be. ‘I specialise in the discovery of minerals and ores,’ Christopher said, ‘and by doing so, I fund my archaeological research.’
‘Including your trip to Arabia?’
‘It is not business that brings me to Arabia.’
‘No, indeed, you are here on a quest to solve an ancient mystery which I may be able to help you with.’
‘Precisely. I propose, if you are amenable, that we work together, pool our resources. Time is of the essence here. It’s likely that the evidence we’re looking for will be destroyed once mining gets underway.’
‘That is very true and also rather flattering,’ Tahira said, giving him a straight look, ‘but you still haven’t told me why you wish to explore the site in the first place?’
A simple question, and one he must answer if he was to enlist this fascinating woman’s help. Yet Christopher hesitated. Could he trust her? Clearly she had not been sent to spy on him, as he had somewhat ridiculously assumed. In the course of the last six months here in Arabia, the agents he had been so reluctantly given access to had been a diverse and frequently dubious group, but none had been a woman. Might she be a speculator? Equally ridiculous, surely. No, he was pretty certain that her claim to be an antiquarian was true. Whatever else she was...
Was not relevant, he decided. ‘It is the turquoise which matters,’ Christopher said. ‘I need to prove that it was mined here about fifteen hundred years ago, and I need somehow to obtain a sample of the mineral.’ Feeling slightly sick, he reached for the leather pouch, took out the amulet and handed it to Tahira. ‘In order to match it with this.’
Tahira gazed at the artefact in astonishment, turning it over and over in her hands. The gold links of the chain were the intensely deep-yellow colour which indicated purity. The amulet itself was round, the rim studded with alternating diamonds and turquoise. An intricate design composed of narrow bands of vivid blue enamel on gold had been overlaid on to the main pendant, forming petal-like segments, into which were set much larger diamonds surrounded by more turquoise. But the centre of the amulet was empty.
‘There is something missing here,’ she said, tracing the oddly-shaped inset with her finger. ‘Another stone?’
‘Possibly. That is something I’d very much like to find out, though I doubt I ever will,’ Christopher replied. ‘What do you make of it?’
‘I think it is the most beautiful piece of jewellery I have ever seen.’ Tahira scrutinised the amulet more closely. ‘The design is very distinctive, and typical of this region. I have seen pictures of similar examples in ancient manuscripts. It almost certainly originates from southern Arabia and is clearly very old and very valuable. The light is too poor for me to make a proper examination, but the clarity of these diamonds looks to be peerless. And the turquoise—again, I cannot be certain, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen stones of this particular hue.’
‘They are indeed very rare. I have not found a single match anywhere. Yet.’
‘Oh!’ Realisation finally dawned on her. ‘Do you think that this mine...?’
‘I very much hope so.’
‘Mined on this very spot, fifteen hundred years ago,’ Tahira said dreamily, running her fingers over the turquoise. The amulet was warm in her hand. Her fingers traced the design compulsively. ‘How absolutely wonderful if you could prove that to be the case. I have never felt so drawn to anything as this. How on earth did you come by it?’
Christopher’s smile became rigid. ‘It came to me through my mother. Though not directly. I never knew her. She died giving birth to me.’
‘Oh, Christopher.’ Tears sprang to Tahira’s eyes. Even now, after all this time, her own loss could catch her unawares. ‘My mother too died in childbirth, but at least I had ten precious years with her. I am so very sorry.’
‘One cannot miss what one never knew, nor mourn what one never had.’
He spoke curtly, as if he would not have cared to know the woman who gave birth to him, but that could not be. He was a man, that was all, and as such did not care to show his pain. ‘Then this amulet must mean a great deal to you,’ Tahira said. ‘A very precious connection to your past.’ She reached inside the neckline of her tunic, pulling free her gold chain. ‘My mother gave me this. It is a Bedouin star. The traveller’s star. I wear it always. My most precious connection to my past. I would never wish to be parted from it.’
‘Be that as it may, I am determined to sever mine.’
Tahira’s jaw dropped. ‘Sever?’ she repeated, thinking she had misheard him, or that he had translated the word wrongly.
‘Sever,’ Christopher repeated. ‘By returning this object to its true owner.’
‘But surely you are its true owner?’ she said, utterly bewildered and a little intimidated by the turn in his mood.
Sensing her confusion, Christopher made an obvious effort to lighten his tone. ‘I’m sorry, I should not have spoken so vehemently. I have been six months in Arabia, attempting to match the stones set in the amulet, and am grown weary of the task.’
‘But why attempt such a task in the first place? I don’t understand, do you believe the amulet to be stolen?’
He laughed shortly. ‘Almost certainly, by tomb-robbers, centuries ago. But as to its recent provenance...’ His lip curled. ‘I have it on unimpeachable authority that I am the legal owner.’
‘Yet you wish to give it away? It must be very valuable. Why not sell it, if it pains you to own it?’
He shuddered. ‘To profit from such a thing—no, unthinkable. I could not square that with my conscience.’
Tahira furrowed her brow. ‘Because it is a sacred object? I can understand that, but why then don’t you put it on display in a museum?’
Another curled lip was his reply to what Tahira thought a perfectly reasonable suggestion. ‘A solution suggested to me by another. You cannot understand, though he most certainly should have, why that too is impossible. The amulet belongs here in Arabia, and nowhere else.’
‘Your sentiments do you great credit,’ Tahira said, which was true, though her instincts told her those sentiments were very far from the whole truth. ‘But to come all the way to Arabia on a—a quest, as you call
