Marcus paid the old woman for lunch and she beamed. ‘Thank you, sir. You come back. India is in your heart.’
Kate and Marcus wandered back out into the bazaar. She didn’t mind the dusty kids swarming about her, or peddlers poking at her shoulders and shouting at her to buy beautiful emeralds, beautiful gold bracelets, a golden sari. Women grabbed her hands and promised to make her beautiful with henna tattoos, others draped strands of pearls down their swanlike necks and swayed to Hindi pop music.
Kate stopped and bought a beautiful blue cashmere shawl for Molly and a burgundy one for Jessica. She also bought a handful of green glass bangles.
‘For Emma—my niece.’
‘Who needs an emerald watch?’ he chuckled as he handed over money for a magnificent sheer turquoise cashmere shawl. He offered no explanation as to whom he was buying it for, but he asked that it be gift-wrapped. ‘They don’t have the exact green I was after. But this is lovely.’
Kate nodded. ‘It sure is,’ she said as he tucked the gift into his camera bag.
They kept walking, Marcus with his camera in hand, discreetly taking photos as they walked among the crowds. He was so respectful of the people around him, never training his lens on someone’s face, instead taking a detail of a painted tile, the line of a copper pot or a plate of grilled lamb kebabs steaming with coriander, cumin and garlic.
They stopped to watch a spice merchant pull trays of spices from an old brick oven at the back of his stall and then grind them up to make garam masala. Kate bought a bag for Molly, who loved curry perhaps more than any other food.
‘I’ll have a bag too, please,’ said Marcus. ‘Though I’m not sure I could replicate any of the dishes we just had. Still, I might try my hand at that biryani. You could come and taste it for me, tell me if I get it right.’
‘Where’s home for you when you’re not travelling?’ Kate realised she’d never asked. They’d been acquaintances and occasional colleagues for years but she had no idea where he was based.
‘Sydney, mostly. Plus I have a shoebox bedsit and studio in New York. Paris for the shows.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Right, then it should be easy for me to make it from Boston for dinner …’ As soon as she said it, Kate had a yearning to be curled up with a hot chocolate and a good book on her velvet sofa at home in Louisburg Square. She touched Essie’s sapphires at her ears as if they were Dorothy’s red shoes and could transport her home. She’d landed in a supersized Oz and it was both exhilarating and baffling.
Marcus checked his watch. ‘We have a bit of time before the first appointment Aarav has arranged. He’ll meet us at the diamond dealer—over on the far alley where you can see the Charminar. Very discreet. Eighth-generation dealer.’
‘Should have some interesting stories from the past.’
‘Definitely! I’m also really glad that you scheduled a trip to see some mining in Sri Lanka. The mines up near Ratnapura are something else. I think we can do something amazing with the pics—and your article—linking in this bazaar, then the mines, to give people a sense of the journey of a gemstone.’
‘Hope so,’ Kate grinned.
Marcus went still. ‘After Golconda Fort tomorrow, I’m going to Galle for five days for a beach break before I meet you up in the mountains. You should come. I know you planned to stay at the hotel here and do some writing, but who doesn’t love a few days by the sea?’
‘Marcus …’ Kate felt flustered as they stepped out of the shop and warm bodies bumped into her, pressing silk and sweaty cotton against her sticky skin. ‘Aren’t you . . meeting someone? I heard you on the phone …’ Kate ducked her head. She didn’t want Marcus to see how embarrassed she was at being caught eavesdropping on his phone call to AAA OLIVIA.
‘Yes, I plan on having a few days break with Liv.’ Marcus hesitated for a moment. ‘She’s my daughter.’
Later that afternoon, as the light faded and the call to prayer rang out across the city, they walked among the surging crowds. Kate’s shoulders were knocked and she was almost forced against the wall as the street heaved with bodies. Never had she seen so many people. Marcus stopped at a shop selling vintage framed photos. Kate pulled out her notebook and wrote about the line of jewellers opposite, each with flashing lights in the windows, and sample of gold chains and pastel gems arranged on velvet pedestals in the windows. Hawkers were out the front, each louder than the last.
A man with no teeth grabbed Kate’s arm and tugged her inside to where Marcus stood. ‘Come see.’
The hunched shop owner pulled out a black and white photo of a striking Miss World winner from 1966. Her poise, long glossy hair and liquorice eyes suited the diamond crown and sceptre. But it was a reproduction painting that caught Kate’s eye—it could have been a scene straight out of Bollywood, with a white man lounging on a red velvet seat dressed as a Hyderabadi businessman in a burgundy-and-gold qaba skirt, fur-lined gold robe and a silk cream turban studded with rubies and diamonds. Kate instantly recognised the figure as one of the most famous early foreign diamond merchants.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Marcus, narrowing his eyes to read the caption.
Kate smiled. She’d seen this face in many of her history books. ‘Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. He wrote volumes about his travels in Golconda. He came six times from Europe in the seventeenth century. But there were other European diamond buyers from Britain, France, Holland and Belgium. The East India Company had their own British gem traders on the ground.’
She thought of the Golconda diamond that had caught her eye at the museum. There was every chance the diamond rough would have been sold in a market just like the one she now stood in. But where did it go next? How did that Golconda rough end up in a champlevé ring abandoned in a London cellar?
Marcus asked the shopkeeper the price and paid for the painting without haggling.
Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘You could probably have bought the original oil painting for that!’
Marcus shrugged and held it out. ‘We flew here business class, caught an air-conditioned taxi and checked into a hotel that used to be a palace. Men like these guys would have come by ship, risking shipwreck, pirates or scurvy. Or come overland, risking disease, robbery and murder. Also, can you just imagine the heat?’
‘Not in those robes, I can’t.’ Kate tapped the picture. ‘But I agree, that’s the lure of gemstones.’ She thought of George saying he wouldn’t necessarily sell to the highest bidder. ‘It sets something afire in our soul when we touch a beautiful gem,’ she whispered, almost to herself.
THE BAZAAR
HYDERABAD, INDIA, 1630
Ekmel stood at the edge of the bazaar setting up his stall. Just steps away the creamy minuets of the Charminar stood like sentinels, ghostly in the morning mist, as the hum and bustle of the markets started to rise.
The gem merchant unfurled a roll of hide across his table, but left the gemstones and jewels tucked under his turban. He preferred to stick to the edges of the market, staying well clear of the carpet peddlers, beggars and loud-mouthed diamond dealers who screeched and bickered across the middle aisles until the market closed ahead of evening prayers.