That night, the sun had set and I was sitting beside the fire, using its light to look at the scrap of parchment I had taken from Ljósberari. As I had many times before, I stared at the flowing script but, without a reference to help me interpret the symbols, no matter how easily I could learn new languages, the marks meant nothing to me. I was certain that they held a clue that would lead me to The Treasure of Life and now, even though I truly wanted nothing more to do with the book that had caused so much suffering, I could think of little else. Leofstan had been obsessed with finding it and I felt that I owed it to his memory to keep searching.

A movement beside me caught my attention and I looked up to see Ahmad gazing down at me. His face was dark, framed in his black hair and beard. As always, he carried himself with a haughty assurance, but where he normally ignored me and the others unless given an order, now he crouched at my side and reached out his hand.

For a time I was confused, then I understood.

“You can read it?” I asked, handing him the parchment. And such was my foolish, youthful pride that, despite Ahmad’s bearing and his actions aboard Brymsteda when he had brought Gwawrddur back to life, I was still amazed at the thought that a slave might possess knowledge that I did not.

“I am not an animal,” he said in his thick accent. “If you had bothered to speak to me as Leofstan had, you would know this. I studied Law, Theology, Philosophy and Alchemy under the best teachers in Išbīliya. Of course I can read.” He plucked the parchment away from me.

“I did not know,” I said, feeling chastened and stupid and wondering how this man came to be a thrall in Northumbria.

“How would you?” he said, scanning the lines scratched there. “To you, I am nothing but a slave. A man to do your bidding, just as you would command a horse, or an ox.”

His words shamed me and I felt my face grow hot. I had no words to offer him, and to apologise seemed pointless, so instead, I said, “What does it say?”

He sniffed and handed back the paper.

“It says that a book was purchased by Abu Jafar Yusuf ibn Sa’īd al-Zarqālluh, servant of the great and holy Hisham Al-Reda, Emir of Cordova.”

“That is all it says? Just a record of the purchase?” I had hoped for more, but perhaps a name would help me to find the book. Surely it was a step closer. Ahmad was looking at me strangely.

“What?” I asked.

“I had thought you might thank me,” he said, and again I flushed.

“You have my thanks,” I said, awkward under his dark gaze.