Whoever this Orlana beauty was, she propped one foot on her bench and her robe fell loose, revealing a thigh like polished marble. Even from there, Einar could see a shadowy orb of flesh and the flash of a dark nipple. Aye, he thought, full of distractions this city.

She planted a hand on her shapely hip. ‘I see no geese.’ This only made the crowd cheer the louder.

‘I’ll be your goose!’ cried one sailor.

‘And me!’ yelled another.

In a second, the room was fairly bursting with volunteers. Seemed everyone in the place knew what was about to happen except for Einar. But the woman could certainly work a crowd. A flick of her hand and they all fell silent. ‘None of you slavering dogs,’ she said, to groans of disappointment. ‘Her.’ She pointed a long-nailed finger at another woman standing along the counter from Einar.

Whether this other woman knew the actor or not, she affected total surprise. She was a lissom piece under a cloud of hair dyed red. Ignoring her token protests, the sailors dragged her to the table. Someone was yelling for grain. Einar leaned back on the counter and accepted another refill from his drinking companion.

‘You’ll enjoy this, Northman. It’s quite the spectacle.’

Somewhere at the back of the shop, a bag of grain was produced and passed forward, spilling kernels over the laughing customers. ‘What’s that for?’

‘You’ll see. They say it was the favourite trick of the Empress Theodora two centuries ago. Back in her days at the Hippodrome.’ The Armenian winked. ‘Before she was raised to the purple.’

Einar could only imagine that if their empress had been anything like Orlana, life at the imperial court must have been anything but dull. She ordered the jugs and cups cleared from the table in the middle of the tavern. The redhead was led forward. The crowd was yelling something fearsome, but Orlana took the woman’s hand and helped her onto the table. It was all done so deftly that Einar began to suspect this wasn’t the first time they had done this together. The redhead lay on her back, her scarlet fan of hair falling in a cascade over the end of the table.

‘I have to say,’ observed Einar to the Armenian, ‘none of you folk seem much concerned about the hundred thousand Arabs camped outside your gates.’