Jon Grimwood - Pashazade

Served with the roast kid was a silver-edged clay bowl of saffron rice, plus a dish of red couscous, a chicken tajine where the juices had been sweetened with honey and reduced to a sticky syrup, fried red mullet with marjoram, and fresh matlou bread, which Lady Nafisa asked Raf to break and portion out in order of precedence. Hani got her chunk last, being both female and a child.

All the recipes chosen were classically Tunisian: which was to say that they were really from Andalusia, carried to North Africa when the defeated Moors finally retreated from Spain in the fifteenth century. Except that Andalusian cookery had originated in North Africa in the first place, having been taken to Spain several centuries earlier by the armies of Islam. Its complexity of flavour a response by Islamic cooks to the new ingredients they suddenly found surrounding them.

Lady Nafisa had decreed the cuisine be Megrib to remind everyone of Ashraf's heritage. And every dish relentlessly reinforced the fact. Even the fried brieks, small paper-thin pastries stuffed with vegetables, eggs or chicken, were a Tunisian staple. Raf's aunt was making sure Hamzah appreciated exactly what he was getting. A genuine Berber princeling, a real bey.

If Hamzah hadn't decided to talk up his own end of the bargain, then disaster wouldn't have struck; but he did and so it began, with a compliment from the girl's father.

'She's a good kid,' Hamzah said firmly.

'Dad.'

'She doesn't make a fuss. Doesn't cry over stupid things.' He paused. 'Actually, she doesn't cry at all. Gets wound up occasionally, like girls do. Usually over animals or children. Stuff that can't be changed ...'

Zara snorted.

'You don't agree?' Raf asked. 'That things can't be changed?' He only meant to make conversation but it was obvious from Madame Rahina's sudden silence that she didn't think he'd like Zara's answer.

'What's to agree?' said Zara. Her slate-grey eyes came up to meet his and for the first time that afternoon she didn't blink or look away. 'And what does it matter if I believe things can be changed or not? In Iskandryia, daughters don't have opinions ... Or rights.'

'Zara.' Her father sounded more concerned than angry.

'No rights?' Raf's voice was gentle. 'Why not?'

'Tradition,' said Zara bitterly. She stood up from the table. 'You see Dad's case over there?' The briefcase was Calvin Klein, black crocodile skin. 'That contains ten per cent of my dowry. You get a further fifty per cent when we marry, minus whatever your aunt's already had for expenses. The remainder you don't get for twelve months.'

From the surprise on Raf's face it was obvious he hadn't known money was involved at all.

Twelve months ... ?'

'Apparently that's meant to stop you beating me.' Zara stepped away from the bench. 'Well, for the first year, at least ...' She turned to her father. 'I'm sorry. I need to get some air.'

'Go after her,' Raf's aunt hissed as Raf stood watching Zara go.

'And say what?'

'Anything you like.' Lady Nafisa was almost shaking with fury. 'All girls get nervous before their wedding. Make something up. Tell her whatever she wants to hear.'

Raf nodded, 'Okay,' he said. So he did.

As soon as Raf saw Monday morning's newsfeeds, he tried to ring Zara. But she wouldn't take his calls. Raf knew she was at Villa Hamzah because the butler who answered made no pretence of her being anywhere else. The girl just didn't want to talk to him.

He kept calling and by that evening the butler could recognize Raf's voice without him having to give his name. But she still wasn't taking his calls.

'No luck,' said Raf and tapped his watch strap, breaking the connection. He was in the qaa, his back to a wall. And it was obvious from the anger twisting Lady Nafisa's face that she'd dearly have loved to have him lifted bodily, carried to the edge and tossed to the flagstones below. Hani had been slapped and sent to the haremlek for nothing more than being there when Lady Naflsa finally and completely lost her temper. So far, Lady Nafisa had tried ordering and begging, now she was trying moral blackmail.

'You've ruined her. You know that, don't you?' Fury and three arguments had worn Nafisa's voice to an ugly rasp. The first had begun as Madame Rahina stormed out, dragging Zara behind her. The second took place the following day, when Raf angrily told his aunt there were no circumstances under which he would marry the girl. And finally there had been today's, the third and worst.

Raf skimmed the evening paper she'd just handed him. The compulsory box-out on page two featured General Koenig Pasha's new crackdown on smuggling, with separate pix showing the young Khedive, the General and sunrise over Western Harbour. General Koenig Pasha's was the biggest picture by far. The rest of the paper was filled with what interested Lady Nafisa.

'Oil heiress jilted ..." The story wasn't going to go away. That morning's Zaghloulist tabloid had been more upfront, less pleasant. Dumped dumpy read the kindest comment. Above it an unflattering and outdated grab showed Zara in a voluminous swimming costume, aged about fifteen, all expanding chest and puppy fat. The fact she no longer looked anything like that was nowhere mentioned.

'Do you realize what you've done?' Lady Nafisa asked furiously.

Raf sighed. Her question was entirely rhetorical. He'd tried several times to explain himself but Lady Nafisa wouldn't even let him reach the end of a sentence.

'She's disgraced,' said his aunt. 'Unmarriable. You think anyone in El Iskandryia wants your cast-offs?'

'She's hardly a cast-off,' Raf said angrily. 'Besides, her father's worth millions.'

'Billions,' Lady Nafisa corrected him without even thinking about it. 'That's not the point. No one who matters will marry her now.'

'Maybe she doesn't want to marry someone who matters ...' Raf said between gritted teeth. He put as much scorn into the words as possible. 'Maybe she doesn't want to get married at all.'

'That's not how life works,' said Lady Nafisa. 'You know nothing about it.'

'No.' Raf tossed the paper onto the marble floor. 'You're right, I don't. But I don't like what I've seen so far.'

'And I suppose you prefer prison?'

To this?' said Raf. 'Yes, I do.'

That wasn't entirely accurate. There were brief moments when Raf looked out along the heat-hazed sweep of the Corniche and El Iskandryia felt bizarrely like home. But liking or not liking Isk wasn't Raf's big problem. His problem was Hu San and Wild Boy. They would be looking for him and when those two went looking, they found ... All Raf had going for him was they didn't yet know where he was or who he'd become.

Which meant Raf needed to keep on being Ashraf al-Mansur the way he needed to keep breathing. And, unfortunately, it looked like the two states were inextricably linked.

Disappear into the night?

That was a definite possibility. Isk was full of foreigners running bars, brothels and dubious businesses, doing the work pure-born Iski regarded as beneath them. The only flaw there was that Lady Nafìsa would undoubtedly call the police. It didn't matter what version of the truth she told them. She was someone who mattered: they'd find him.

Killing her or staying close were his safest options, maybe his only options. Either way, he kept ahead.

'Ashraf?' The question was a whisper.

He spun, fast. 'How the fuck did you ...'

Wide-eyed, Hani held up her hands so he could examine the grease smeared across her palms, then lifted her arms to show the oil smeared down the front of her flannel pyjamas. 'It's a bit slippery,' she said seriously. 'It gets easier when you've done it a few times.'

Like using the glass sword in Dragon's Bane III or writing your own level for Imperial Assassin. Hani didn't really distinguish between what she did on screen in her nursery and what she did in life, it was all real. Sort of ...