Then a rough hand shoved him in the back and he fell heavily to the cobbled ground.

With a scrape of armour, heavy steel plates stitched into leather, Himuili Chief of the Chariot Warriors of the Left, came and stood over Kassu and kicked him in the ribs, as it happened just where Zida had got him that morning. ‘Get up, idiot.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Kassu scrambled to his feet.

Himuili was half a head taller than Kassu, maybe forty years old, with a face like a clenched fist. ‘Kassu, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. Of the Fourth Infantry—’

‘Shut up.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I told that idiot Zida to take somebody and go scout out whatever’s going on at the Simoeis. He said he’d take you, Kassu. He said you’re an idiot.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But he didn’t say you’re an idiot that deserves to get his head stuck on a pike for failing to prostate himself before My Sun,’ and they both nodded their heads at the King’s title. ‘A dozen lashes. Report to the wall barracks later.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Shut up.’ Himuili beckoned, and led Kassu back to the group of high-ups.

Father of the Churches Angulli regarded Kassu with curiosity, Prince Arnuwanda with a kind of grim readiness despite his youth, and the Hazannu stared with contempt. They were all tall, well-fed men, like great trees standing around Kassu, and he prayed that his tongue wouldn’t tie itself up.

‘Well?’ Himuili snapped. ‘Good news from the Simoeis, or not?’

Kassu briskly described what he had seen on the far bank of the river, the fires he had counted, his own rough estimate of the force that was approaching the city.

Arnuwanda spoke now. ‘The question is who they are. The Franks rarely come so close to the city and we can usually buy them off anyhow . . .’ The prince was no more than twenty years old. He wore his hair long but loose, his upper lip was clean-shaven, his beard carefully shaped, and his young skin shone with expensive oils. He had a new tattoo on his cheek, a circles-and-bar design that looked like a souvenir of his long summer visit to Northland. His accent was smooth, Kassu thought, but oddly spiced, probably thanks to the Greek and Northlander tutors who had been imported to educate him. But he held himself like a warrior, having been educated in those arts by men like Himuili, and having ridden out in battle at the age of fifteen, or, some said, even younger. The Hatti had always needed their princes to be generals. ‘If it’s nomads,’ the prince went on, ‘we might have more trouble. Difficult wretches who don’t know when they’re defeated. They just scatter on their ponies hoping to lure you into traps—’

‘If they haven’t eaten their ponies already,’ Angulli said, and he giggled. This was the Father of the Churches, Brother of Jesus; he sounded slightly drunk to Kassu.

Himuili rolled his eyes. ‘We’ve ways of dealing with nomads, sir. The Turks are more persistent nuisances, especially now they’ve captured so much territory in eastern Anatolia. Gives them a base to fight from, you see.’