‘You have brought me luck,’ he said as she reached him and sat down. ‘Now you must stay close by me so that my luck remains.’

‘Surely you’re not superstitious?’ she asked with a smile. ‘Your luck will come and go. It has nothing to do with me.’

‘I think otherwise,’ he pronounced in a tone that silenced further argument. ‘The spell you cast is for me alone. Not for any other man. Remember that.’

Arrogant beast, she thought. If this didn’t happen to suit me I’d enjoy taking him down a peg.

‘Place your bets.’

With a gesture of his hand Ali indicated for her to place the stake for him. She put the counters on red fifteen, and held her breath as the wheel spun.

Red fifteen.

A sigh went up from everyone around the table.

Almost everyone.

Ali alone was not watching. His eyes were fixed admiringly on Fran. As the counters were pushed towards him he gave a shrug which said, ‘Of course.’

‘I don’t believe that happened,’ she breathed.

‘You made it happen,’ he assured her, ‘and you will make it happen again.’

‘No, it was chance. You should stop now. Take it while you have it.’

His smile said that it was for petty men to worry about such things. Princes controlled their own fate. Under his hypnotic glance Fran found herself believing it.

‘Put it on for me again,’ he said. ‘All of it.’

Dazed, she piled up all his winnings and went to put them on-on-

‘I can’t decide,’ she said frantically.

‘What day of the month is your birthday?’

‘The twenty-third.’

‘Red or black? Choose.’

‘Black,’ she said recklessly.

‘Then black twenty-three it is.’

She watched in agony as the wheel began to spin.

‘Don’t look,’ he said, smiling. ‘Look only at me, and let the little gods of the tables take care of the matter.’

‘Can you make them do your pleasure as well?’ she whispered.