Stools, benches, recliners, and bed-like sofas lay clustered around the banqueting hall, framing the walls and cluttering the interior but leaving much of the center bare. Tasseled pillows, embroidered cushions, and dyed linens covered items of furniture and were covered again by lolling occupants in opulent costumes. Fires roared in the six great hearths, filling the hall with warmth that was utterly unnecessary on an evening in early summer.

The forty guests wiped sweat from brows, laughed uproariously, ate salty food, and then called for more wine to slake their thirst. The aroma of roasting lamb and goat rose from the cooking hearth, an iron bed the size of a table, occupying a wall near the wide-open doors leading to the Flower Terrace. Two servants stood at either end, regularly rotating the two spitted beasts that sizzled over the crimson coals. The noise of loud conversation drowned out the music, though the two seated musicians with lyres played on regardless.

Dion sat on a bench near his brother, who drained his cup and then held it up into the sky to call for more wine. They were near the banqueting hall’s back wall, which afforded them a view of the entire room. Nikolas had been saying something about the different lengths of a pike and the effect on tactics when he’d forgotten what he was saying, had his cup refilled, and now suddenly looked at Dion with an expression of alarm.

‘Luni . . . My son. Where is he? The magus will come at any moment.’

‘Nikolas,’ Dion said, shaking his head and grinning. ‘You’re drunk. Look.’ He nodded. ‘Over there. Next to my mother. There’s Helena, and your son next to her.’

‘Good, good,’ Nikolas said, smiling. He sipped again at the wine and his smile fell. ‘What if the magus doesn’t choose iron?’

‘Everything will be well, brother,’ Dion said. ‘He’s a strong lad, and waves his toy sword at anyone who comes near him. The magus will choose rightly. He’ll make a fine warrior.’

Dion looked across the room at Nikolas’s black-haired seven-year-old son, who was dressed in the naming gown, a special garment he would wear only today. The crimson tunic was oversized on his small frame and he looked overwhelmed by all the attention. Nikolas’s statuesque blonde wife, Helena, was beside him, crouching and arranging the folds of his tunic as she smiled and spoke to Dion’s mother. Thea chuckled as she assisted Helena. The women stood clustered in a group close to the empty center of the room and apart from the men. There was an air of expectancy to their posture; they were evidently nervous as they awaited the magus.