“And those who he’d been with perished in the same accident,” continued Zavian.
“Yes.”
“Leaving only you.” At last, he turned to her, and his gaze settled on her. “Would you ever have revealed its existence, if I hadn’t insisted?”
“Honestly? No. I thought it better to remain secret. A part of history. I couldn’t bear the thought of it ruined by looting.”
“But that might have happened anyway. If I’d known about it, I could have secured it.”
She plucked a fruit, brushed it, and bit into it, the juice dribbling down her chin. “Maybe, maybe not. I decided to leave it alone and let it take its chances without me.”
“And are you not fearful of what I might do?”
She shook her head. She should have been, but she wasn’t anymore. She didn’t know why. “No, it’s time, and it’s only right.”
He reached out his hand, and she took it. Again, it felt right.
“So this was where my forebears came for sensual pleasure. The rumors and legends were correct. Itisa fitting place. No wonder it has gained such a reputation.”
The air, redolent with abundance and sensuality, seemed to enter her pores. “Yes, a strange place to find the Khasham Qur’an.”
“So, are you going to show me?”
“The place where my grandfather found the Qur’an?”
His eyes nodded.
“Of course. This way.”
She led him through a narrow gap, past another pool fringed with palm trees, out to a part of the desert far from the nomad’s tracks, where there was nothing, at least to most people’s eyes. But Gabrielle knew each and every contour of this land. She could walk it in her sleep and often had done.
The sun was beginning to set by the time they’d made their way to the site of the original dig, now covered by a decade of sands, which had shifted and peaked and obliterated any trace of excavation.
Gabrielle stopped and looked across at the craggy hillside above the secret oasis, then at another oasis, which shimmered in the distance. She walked a few more paces forward and then retrieved her compass from her pocket to make sure. She nodded in satisfaction and dropped to her knees. She patted the ground. “Here.”
She lifted the sand in the palm of her hand and let it sift through her fingers, the lowering sun turning the sands orange, a sharp contrast to the dark blue sky. She suddenly realized Zavian hadn’t moved.
He stood rooted to the spot looking down at her, and then at the ground before her, and then around at its setting. He shook his head. “I never imagined it would be here.” He pointed to the oasis. “Our people pass through that oasis on their way to the mountains.”
“Unaware that this ever existed, apart from the songs and poems,” she added.
“Which describe it as it was, but not where it is.”
He dropped down beside her, squinting into the lowering sun.
“So,” he said. “What is the story which you will write to go with the Khasham Qur’an?”
“I’ll write of how it was created long ago when this land was at the heart of the world’s economy and learning and religion. I’ll write of how the inks were ground from pigment brought from far and near, of how the parchment was made, and of how wondrous the palace and buildings were which once stood here.”
“The fabled land of Havilah, indeed,” murmured Zavian. “And what else will you write?”
“Of how the Qur’an passed from hand to hand. Of how both its beauty and its contents bound these communities, making sense of their world.”
“But that’s not enough.”
She looked at him sharply.
“I want the personal. That’s what touches people.”