‘Well,’ Davit blustered, ‘I suppose that the khan has to honour the treaty, that we’ll pay him for it—’

‘Just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.’ Erlan snorted. ‘One barbarian to another.’

Another Bulgar appeared, an important one judging from his attire of expensive furs and silks. Erlan looked around while the newcomer and their escort leader conversed in a rapid patter. He noticed a large pit, perhaps fifty feet across, on the west side of the hall. He wondered what it was for. Seemed a strange place for a midden heap. . .

‘You go with him,’ the escort leader declared abruptly, bustling them forward. ‘He is Kavhan. He takes you to Khan. . .’

Tervel, Khan of the Bulgars, looked like an overfed ox draped in an expensive bearskin cloak. He sat on a large brass throne behind a broad wooden table arrayed with a sea of vittles, which he attacked with an appetite that saw no signs of abating even as the emperor’s representatives stood before him.

So this was the Bulgar khan, chief of the Dulo, son of the famous Khan Asparukh the Vanquisher. His small eyes still on them, he snapped his fingers. A servant rushed forward and furnished him with the biggest beaker of ale Erlan had ever seen. In the space of five heartbeats, the khan had sunk its contents. He leaned back in his throne as his servants set about clearing the table, and delivered a belch like a war-horn.

His stomach now settled, he stabbed a fat finger at the saddlebags resting at the guards’ feet. ‘You have something for me, I think,’ he croaked in heavily accented Greek. Erlan gave the two Byzantines a nod and they heaved their loads onto the table, spilling a slew of gold coin and precious objects before the khan.

‘You’ve come a long way to deliver a few trinkets of gold,’ he grunted.

‘The basíleus sends heartfelt assurances of friendship, one sovereign to his brother.’

‘Does he, by heaven! Then let’s see what this brotherhood is worth to him.’ He leaned forward, prodding at various priceless articles before him, then shoving them away. He tipped a pouch full of gold solidi over the table, sending the coins scattering to the floor. He seemed to take pleasure in creating an almighty mess.

‘My lord, all this is a mere token. Emperor Leo promises far more. He asks only in return that you remember the treaty that still holds between Bulgar and Byzantine.’