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Francis Weybridge was bored. His father, Arthur Weybridge, found this boredom intensely annoying, but being a mild-mannered Englishman, he expressed his annoyance by humming a little tune to himself and tapping his shoes on the gravel beneath their table.

The Weybridges, father and son, were seated in the tea garden beside the sacred carp pools in the town of Urfa in south-eastern Turkey in the twilight days of the Ottoman Empire. The sun had already disappeared over the nearby minarets and swallows were gathering to roost among the branches of the surrounding trees, squabbling noisily over their perches.

'I fail to see how anyone could be bored,.' said Mr Weybridge. 'You are at the city once known as Edessa, the birthplace of Abraham, a place mentioned in both the Bible and the Qur'an. Look about you,.' said Mr Weybridge with a theatrical flourish. 'Do you really mean to tell me that you find this dull?'

Francis made no reply but closed his eyes and sighed deeply, causing his father to hum once again, but this time a little faster. When Francis opened his eyes he saw a cat stealing up the tree beside them, disappearing behind the trunk and reappearing ten feet above their heads in the crook between two branches.

'So far on this journey,.' said Mr Weybridge, 'you have been privileged enough to see Istanbul - the fabled Constantinople, jewel of Byzantium. You have stood beneath the great dome of Haghia Sophia. You have sailed along the Black Sea to Trebizond. You have travelled in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Was it all "boring"?'

'Not all,.' said Francis.

'Well, then,.' said his father. 'I'm pleased to hear that, at least.'

It had not all been boring. Near Van he had seen a shepherd with a huge dog that wore a terrifying spiked collar. His father had told him it was probably to protect it from wolves. But this had been a small reward for such a tedious trip.

Francis looked up again. The cat edged along the branch above their heads. Now Francis could see the reason for the frantic jostling for position of the roosting swallows: none of them wanted to be at the end near the tree trunk. The cat lunged forward, grabbed a swallow in its teeth and scurried down the tree with its prize.

'This land is extraordinary, Francis,.' said his father, lighting one of the noxious Turkish cigarettes he had developed a taste for. 'Wave after wave of civilisations have washed across its surface, and yet there is still something primeval about it.

'Jews, Christians and Muslims have all lived here and left their mark, but there is always the pull of something older, darker, more mysterious. Do you know there were pagans in Harran until the twelfth century?'

Francis had learned that any answer resulted in a lecture, so he kept quiet. Harran was a town nearby they had visited the week before. It was full of beehive-shaped houses and was mentioned in the Bible. Francis had sat in the shade, watching his father draw while children buzzed about them asking for sweets.

It was here that Arthur Weybridge had been told of a village that was just as ancient and just as picturesque, but that no one ever went to. They would be visiting the village tomorrow, and Francis was not keen.

His father paid for their drinks and they walked back to the hotel. They ate well and Arthur Weybridge drank two gin and tonics, as was his custom, after which he began to tell Francis a long anecdote about his journey through the Russian steppes. It involved a Cossack and a three-legged dog and Arthur had already told it in Erzerum.

'I'm tired, Father,.' said Francis, rising to his feet.

'I think I'll turn in.'

'Good idea,.' said his father, downing the rest of his gin. 'We have a tiring day ahead. Goodnight then, Francis.'

'Goodnight, Father.'

They left in the morning after a breakfast of bread, honey and olives, the hotel manager's brother-in-law, Mehmet, driving them out of Urfa at bone-jarring speed in a rather ornate black carriage Mehmet