‘Nobody wants the drought,’ he said more gently. ‘Nobody wants the winter. At least we’re playing our part. I fight for the King, for New Hattusa, and we produce more food than we eat, and there’s not many can say that these days.’

‘Oh, how noble you are,’ she said blackly. ‘Playing our part. You are a lump of the dirt you love so much.’

‘The whole world is suffering. The story isn’t all about you.’

She lifted her head, her cheeks stained by tears. ‘Oh, of course it is. Of course it’s about me, and you, and him. What else is it about? You useless lump. You understand nothing. Palla understands . . . Go.’ She picked up bits of his clothing, scattered on the floor where he’d been sleeping, and started throwing them at him, breeches, socks, tunics, woollen caps. ‘Go! Go to your precious general!’

He left with as much dignity as he could muster. Burning with humiliation. Burning with thwarted passion, for he still loved her.

The morning was still early. No fresh snow had fallen overnight but nor had yesterday’s fall melted, and it lay in the furrows and ridges of the churned-up mud. Everybody was getting used to the snow now, but Kassu remembered childhood winters when snow in New Hattusa had been a rare event.

But he forgot about the snow when he met Himuili at the gate in the city’s Old Wall. For, beneath the gaping mouths of weathered stone lions, Palla, the adulterous priest, was here too.

The gate itself was firmly locked, a great barrier of wood and bronze. These were times of insecurity, and had been even before thousands of Rus and Scand had shown up in the autumn to make camp on the far bank of the Simoeis river. But Himuili’s party, plus Kassu, was evidently going out into the country, not into the city. It was an impressive force. Kassu counted fifty men, all heavily armed – plus himself, though he hadn’t known about the nature of the assignment before now. He thought he recognised a couple of them, Men of the Golden Spear probably, an elite unit close to the King and second only to the Bodyguard. There were no mercenaries among their number, as far as he could tell from their armour and equipment, which was unusual for a Hatti force.

These formidable-looking men stood by a dozen carts, which were covered with leather sheets and harnessed to depressed-looking donkeys, with shivering boys standing by with switches. Kassu wasn’t so surprised by the strength of the force when he glimpsed what the carts were carrying, as one of the wagon covers was shifted to make it more secure. Bread! Loaves, hard-baked, heaped up. They were still warm from the oven and Kassu, never far from hunger himself, could smell their delicious crisp heat. There was no greater treasure in all of New Hattusa just now, he knew that. Kassu had no idea where these supplies were to be taken – some suffering town deeper in the Troad, perhaps.