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quickly. I presume there’s some exhibition coming up and they want to put some of the reassembled vessels on display. The trouble is that all the shards of pottery seem to be about the same size and almost exactly the same color, so trying to achieve anything meaningful is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle when you have no idea what the finished picture is supposed to look like.”
    “That must be incredibly frustrating,” Bronson said.
    “It is. It’s frustrating and boring and important and urgent all at the same time, which is a pretty unpleasant combination. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow morning at all. Which is why I want to make the most of today,” she added, snuggling up close to him.

6
    Cairo
    The present Khan el-Khalili souk dates from 1380, but it had been known as a Turkish bazaar for decades before that date. The name itself is something of a misnomer, because
khan
translates as a “caravanserai,” rather than a bazaar or market, and is a reference to the stopping place for traders and their camel trains that grew up on that site in the fourteenth century. In those days, Cairo was one of the most important merchant towns anywhere on the old Silk Road, and the Khan el-Khalili area was where most of the trading in the city took place.
    In the latter part of that century, the Sultan Barquq began his madrassa in Bayn al-Qasrayn, sparking a rebuilding program, one phase of which resulted in the establishment of the souk. It’s changed very little over the centuries. It’s still Cairo’s main souk, a maze of narrow streets, twisting alleyways, tiny shops, street traders, medieval arches and bizarre architecture, mosques and madrassas. The sights, sounds and smells—especially the smells of the spices—would be familiar to anyone who had ever visited a Middle Eastern bazaar: in fact today it is visited by almost as many tourists as locals. Visitors walk in a daze, staring about them at the astonishing range of goods for sale, at the antiques and antiquities, carpets and
kilims
, lamps, gold, silver, jewelry, alabaster ornaments, pottery, shisha pipes, cloth and textiles, clothing and anything and everything else.
    On a particularly stuffy day, while pale and sweating visitors ambled through the streets and alleys of the souk, a local dealer slipped silently and efficiently through the crowds. He dealt in antiques and collectables—a term that covered almost everything—and knew that many of the objects he saw on the stalls, being touted to passing tourists as genuine ancient relics, were probably significantly younger than he was, and in some cases might have been made as recently as the previous day.
    Anum Husani visited the souk almost daily, trying to seek out the genuine goods, the occasional real bargains, and any attractive items of whatever age that he could sell through his shop. He knew most of the stallholders, and was in his turn known by them. He knew what he was looking for, and was used to getting what he wanted at a price he felt was fair, even if the negotiations involved prolonged haggling and more than one visit to the seller.
    As was indicated by his first name, Anum Husani was the fifth child in his family. The son of comparatively wealthy parents, he had been born and brought up in the city. His second name—which followed tradition in that it was his father’s first name—meant “handsome,” which proved the optimism of his parents, if nothing else, because his face was dominated by a large, curved and bladelike nose, and under his scrubby beard his cheeks were marked by a rash of old acne scars. His eyes were perhaps his best feature, their piercing blue hinting at an interesting genetic mix somewhere among his forebears, and clear intelligence shining from them.
    As was his habit, Husani paused for a few minutes at one of the many tiny cafés deep inside the souk and drank thick black coffee from a cup little bigger than a thimble. He was about to continue his