As for their Bulgar escort, they didn’t talk much, even among themselves. They were another dark people. To a man, they had black hair, lean faces, weather-worn skin, but more ruddy than tanned. Those with armour wore leather breastplates and grieves on their arms. Their leader carried a curved sword, but most of them were armed with lances like the Arabs, except longer and with smaller spearheads. Useless weapons, by Einar’s reckoning, until Davit told him a Bulgar rider could pierce a man through the eye at full gallop. They as good as proved it one day – two of them chasing across the open pasture after a hare, whooping and shrieking like berserkers, trying to shove each other off the line. The wretched hare was ripped in two.

Nearing their destination, their progress was slowed by herds of cattle on the road heading south, then vast flocks of sheep which seeped around their horses like a white sea, setting Aska off to bark all morning. The mounted shepherd boys stared at the foreigners, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

At last tall wreaths of smoke appeared on the horizon ahead of them. ‘Pliska! Pliska!’ their escort yelled, showing black-toothed smiles. Ahead of them a massive earthen rampart rose out of the pastureland, stretching away east and west. The road drove straight through the huge bank of earth and then another mile ahead approached a high wooden inner stockade.

The space between was spread with clusters of pit-house dwellings, more grazing land, and several vast livestock enclosures, each filled with herds of horses, cattle and sheep. Erlan noticed workshops and forges, even kilns. The further they rode, the larger the crowd that fell in behind them. Children mostly, laughing and calling out to them. Passing through the inner stockade, Erlan touched his hilt for luck, and a glance at Einar showed his friend looking serious for once.

More riders fell in around them as they came, at last, to the heart of the settlement which seemed half city, half herder’s camp. At the centre of it stood an enormous hall, big as any in the north. In style, it was more like a wooden palace in imitation of the Byzantines’ stone buildings than the simple grandeur of, say, Sviggar’s Hall. It even had two floors, supported by massive pillars of oak and dressed with scores of skulls of horses and horned oxen.

To one side of it was a kind of shrine, where pungent oils burned in silver censers before a crude lump of limestone, blood-spattered and buzzing with the first flies of the year. Erlan noticed a cross as well. That, too, was covered in blood. The smell was appalling.

The leader of their escort halted and told them to dismount.

‘Bring the gold,’ Erlan said to Davit and Bringas.

‘Who put you in charge?’ growled Davit.

‘You think you can represent the emperor? What are you going to say to him?’