‘I do not disagree with you. I’ve always thought the reverence of images strays easily into idolatry. But there are ways of guiding people to the truth. Do they not say in your own land, if you cut off a man’s nose, there’s no point giving him a rose to smell?’

The young envoy snorted. ‘It is not we who are famous for cutting off noses, Majesty.’ Nevertheless, he considered the emperor’s point. ‘This, then, is your answer to my Lord Maslama.’

‘It is.’ Leo’s eyes flashed at Katāros. ‘We each have our part to play. For now.’ His tone brightened abruptly. ‘But you must call on us again, Abdullah Abu Yahya al-Antaqi al-Battal.’ He rattled off the name with ease. ‘Your lord must treat me as a brother prince. And brothers talk, do they not?’

Abdal-Battal cast him an uncertain look.

‘That is all.’

Whatever thoughts turned in the envoy’s mind, he drew himself up and, with an elaborate bow, took his leave.

Leo waited until the golden doors had closed behind him and the envoy’s footsteps had grown faint before he turned to Katāros.

‘As you doubtless understand, there is more to this than you know, Lord Chamberlain.’

‘So I see, Majesty.’

‘An explanation for another time, I think,’ he sniffed.

A mere play for time. Katāros knew he would never tell him. Or if he did, it would be some shadow of the truth. It didn’t matter. Katāros had already begun to fill in the missing pieces for himself.

‘Do you think it wise, Majesty, to gamble with an entire empire?’

Leo chuckled. ‘To catch a lion, my friend, you need a large piece of bait.’

Katāros hurried down the corridors of white marble, past porphyry pillars and ivory statues of emperors and their consorts long dead. He saw none of it.

Leo had delayed him too long, talking much – of reinforcements, supplies, councils – but giving away nothing. Well, let Leo have his schemes. Katāros had some of his own.

His footsteps rang off the stone as old memories circled in his mind like crows in search of carrion.

Vengeance. A word he knew so well.

For what, though? For a lifetime of bitterness? A sea of injustice? An ocean of torment?

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

For all of it. . . all the way back to the beginning. For the wrongs of the seiðman who saved him from a pitiful death only to force on him a still more pitiful life. That black-souled scoundrel had called himself ‘father’. ‘The closest you’ll ever know to one, anyway,’ he’d croaked. But he treated him like a slave not a son. He named him Skírpa – ‘Scorned’ in the Norse tongue. ‘Because no one else wants you.’ Only he cared for him. Only he loved him. Yet no child ever endured such hatred.

And then the nights became a terror, too. . .