‘You have a sentimental streak, Roman. I don’t agree. War is in our hearts. We Hatti know that; my dynasty has survived millennia by waging constant war against our enemies. War is what we are for, Fabius. It is why the gods created us. That’s my view, anyhow, though you’ll find some of Jesus’ more weak-mouthed apologists with differing ideas. And this war, in particular, is inevitable.’

‘How many people have you brought over?’

‘Now we are settled we are trying to count them. My guess – perhaps as many as a million.’

Fabius had to check he understood the Nesili word. ‘A million.’

‘We did drain all the Land of the Hatti, Fabius. And there are more on the way; you saw the ships.’

‘And, whoever wins or loses this war – how many must die, on either side?’

‘That is in the hands of the gods.’

‘Literally so, perhaps,’ Fabius said. ‘The Trojans used to see war as a kind of trial. Before the fight you would argue your case before the gods, your own and your enemy’s. And then the war itself was a resolution of that trial.’

‘You know your history.’

‘In such an age as this, I find it helps.’

The soldiers scooped up the hot pebbles with their bare hands and chucked them into the water, where they created a hissing of bubbles, an evanescent rage, before quickly subsiding. Fabius watched this little ritual, and grinned, showing his teeth. Nelo sketched the soldiers and the water and the pebbles, and Fabius’ grinning face.

58

The smoke from the burning suburbs of Quinsai billowed across the water as the small boat bearing Avatak and Pyxeas pulled away from the jetty, rowed by a scrawny young Mongol. The harbour was crowded with rowboats and tenders, all trying to leave the city. Small sounds carried over the water, the calling of the crews, the lapping waves, the splash of oars and the snap of sails – and graver sounds from the land, the crump of a collapsing building, throatier roars that might be the firing of eruptors.

Further out, outside the harbour, the great ships floated on the still ocean water. Some were magnificent, serene, their decks crowded with masts like spindly forests – serene at least compared to the frantic scenes in the city. Avatak wondered which of them was waiting for him and Pyxeas.

Pyxeas himself was huddled over, wrapped in a coarse blanket against the unseasonal chill of this early summer day, and with one liver-spotted hand resting on the small trunk that contained his treasure, the records of his study with Bolghai in Daidu. He muttered to himself, barely audible. He seemed to take no notice of the scene around him, the burning city, the crowded harbour.

The Mongol boy was grinning at Avatak as he rowed. ‘He sick?’ He spoke in heavily accented Persian.

‘I don’t have much of that tongue.’