As evening cooled the land and painted the sky with pastel shades, they gathered in the Samburu manyatta to watch the dancing. Chanting warriors rose high into the air with a leaping, gravity-defying motion, their bodies adorned with necklaces and bracelets that jumped and rattled as the sounds and movements became more hypnotic and trancelike and the voices deepened. Feet and spears hit the dust, heads and necks moved back and forth, cobra like, as their ochred hair whipped at polished, sculpted shoulders. Beside them the women clapped and swayed and sang in high, nasal voices. Sarah turned her lens again and again, backing away from them, closing in on faces and unseeing eyes absorbed in the rituals of their forebears, unaware and uncaring when it came to the identity of their audience. Afterwards the women beckoned them over to the area of the manyatta where they had set out beaded jewellery and trinkets for them to buy.

‘There’s some lovely work here,’ Camilla said, peeling off another banknote, and handing it over.

‘What on earth are you going to do with all that stuff?’ Anthony asked. ‘We’ll need another trailer to carry it away. You’re not going to wear it, surely?’

‘These collars and bracelets could sell in London, just as successfully as all the Indian stuff that everyone is so crazy about. But it stinks of firewood and cow dung, and I don’t know what else. Someone should teach them how to cure the hides properly, and put some decent clasps on the jewellery. They could support this whole manyatta on the proceeds, if these pieces were better finished.’

‘Well, there’s a mission for you.’ Hannah linked Camilla’s arm. ‘You could do it from Nairobi, if you really don’t want to go back to the bright lights and modelling and so. Can’t you imagine her, Anthony, visiting the manyattas, teaching Masai and Samburu women to produce high-quality work for some fancy boutique in London? It would be a great business.’

‘There’s a moran here who wants some of your hair, Camilla.’ Anthony showed no sign of having heard the question. He pointed at a young Samburu who was looking Camilla over with undisguised admiration. ‘He’d like to offer a good price for you as a bride.’

‘What about me,’ Sarah asked. ‘Don’t I fit the bill?’

‘You’re not blonde,’ said Anthony.

‘It’s certainly the best offer I’ve had all day. All week in fact,’ Camilla said. She laughed, a shade too heartily, and then cursed herself for her crude attempt to send him such an obvious message.

‘We’re going back by way of Samburu Lodge,’ Anthony said. ‘Piet wants to contact Langani and see if he should stop for anything in Nanyuki, on the way back tomorrow. We can sit on the verandah and watch the tourists at play.’