He could see the main syphon and the piping that fed into the bronze figurehead mounted in the bows. A lion’s head, its mouth gaping wide in a brazen roar, hungry for the enemy’s blood. Lilla had laid down all she had, he thought. There was nothing she wouldn’t give, hadn’t already given, for him, or for her dream of winning back her kingdom. Why should he pay any less a price? What right had he to hold anything back from her when she had given all for him? Even if it was to a man like Arbasdos.

Davit saw he was staring at the fire-syphon. ‘You seen them before?’

‘Only from a distance.’

‘Best place for it,’ he chuckled. ‘Any man gets caught in the way of that thing, his friends will be sweeping him up with a brush.’

‘How secure are those other things?’ asked Einar. ‘The little pots.’ There were several baskets of these stowed in the bows as well, each pot the size of a man’s fist and filled with the fire-makers’ deadly concoction.

‘Feeling nervous, Northman?’ grinned Davit.

‘Of you clumsy Greek bastards, aye.’

‘Relax,’ he said, with a friendly pat on the shoulder-plate of his scale armour. ‘No one handles fire better than those men.’

The fleet was clear of the promontory now and wheeled south. Across the straits, Erlan saw the silhouettes of the hills of Asia Minor, saw lights glimmering on their dark slopes, and found himself wondering what they were. Hearth fires in shepherds’ huts? A man and wife finishing supper, turning into their bed, oblivious that the fate of the world hung in the balance?

A lookout cry broke his thoughts. ‘There away! Off the starboard bow!’

Men raced to the gunwale. He and Einar were close behind. It took a moment for his gaze to adjust to the darkness, but there, strung out across the strait, was a long line of torch flames. From the sterncastle, Arbasdos ordered the fleet to steer wide. ‘We don’t want to run over the poor sods.’ The trumpet call sounded and the fire-runner at the head of the fleet changed course.

‘What’s happening?’

‘What, didn’t Leo tell you?’ Davit’s teeth flashed in a grin. ‘It’s his last surprise.’

‘Surprise?’

‘A trick, man! Another of his schemes to scupper the Arabs.’

The Belisarius drew level with the first of the torches. Only then did Erlan see that under each torch was a skiff; little boats so small even the fire-runners dwarfed them, and full of swarthy men, half-naked and lean as rats, apparently rowing hard for the safety of the Golden Horn.

‘But who are they?’ asked Erlan, still mystified.

‘They’re deserters.’

‘What the hell are they deserting from, out here?’ muttered Einar.