They entered the Daphne palace – which Katāros told her was the imperial family’s private wing of the sprawling Great Palace complex. They passed over endless mosaics, each fashioned from a hundred thousand shards of glass and stone: an eagle swooping on a snake, a deer caught in the hunt, children playing with a hoop, so lifelike she could almost hear their laughter. At last they came to a huge set of golden double doors that rose to a vaulted ceiling, flanked by two guards in white.

‘This is the Chrysotriklinos,’ said Katāros. ‘It means something like the Golden Meet-Hall in our tongue.’

She nodded silently, throat tight with nerves.

‘A word of advice, my lady. When you enter, you will see many things. Ignore them. Focus on him only. He has little time for pomp, despite what you see.’

‘I’m ready,’ she said.

He was not as she had expected. Although what was that? A man like the heroic statues adorning the city? A man of beauty? A man more like a god? Certainly it was not this man. A man this. . . ordinary. Yet his gaze was direct, unwavering.

He was set in his throne like one of the rubies set in his own crown: one piece of a larger whole. The purple of his robes surrounded by a blast of gold, quite unlike the carved oak of her own royal seat. Behind him rose a semicircular recess adorned with an image of their Christ-God with his symbol of the cross. She had counted eight such recesses coming in, and above them a circuit of windows filtering sunlight onto gilded mosaics. She dared not glance around to take in more than that as Katāros announced her, then stood aside to serve as translator.

The first of the emperor’s words he translated were these:

‘It sounds almost as though we are equals, Queen Lilla, daughter of Sviggar. And yet I have never heard of such places. Sve—ahl—and. . . Dee—un—mark.’ His voice was unusually deep. It was strange to hear the lips of a man so powerful forming the name of her homeland for the first time.

‘There is a world between your lands and mine, Your Majesty,’ she replied.

‘So the lord chamberlain tells me.’ He brushed a thoughtful thumb across his lips. ‘One day you must tell me of it. And of your own lands and customs.’

‘At your leisure, Majesty.’

He glanced at Katāros and back at her. ‘You understand our time here must be brief.’

‘It was gracious of you to see me at all, Majesty.’

‘That is to say, Queen Lilla – why are you here?’

His directness disarmed her momentarily. Suddenly the whole venture seemed absurd. A fantasy concocted in the mind of a drunkard. Or a fool. But then she remembered the metal taste of earth in her mouth and drew herself up.

‘I came here to form an alliance, Your Majesty.’