‘Never mind – a philosopher’s term. The point is that followers of Jesus are less likely to go to war with each other. We began to trade with them rather than fight. And we taught them to read and write. Did you know that? We actually devised a written language to represent their tongue and taught it to them. And all this against a drumbeat of war. That is how I know them, Kassu. Some would say that civilising the Rus is a great achievement of the Church.’

‘You brag a lot for a priest, don’t you? What would Jesus think of that?’

Palla actually blushed. ‘I don’t mean to be immodest.’

‘And what would Jesus think of what you’ve done to my wife?’

Now there was a dash of anger in Palla’s look as he turned on Kassu, though he kept his voice down. ‘I didn’t do anything to her. It was her choice too. We’d met when we were younger, at the Church of the Holy Wisdom, where she trained as a scribe like her father, before . . .’

Before she gave up the city to become the wife of a farmer-soldier, with Kassu.

‘Then I bumped into her again at a festival. We remembered each other. We talked – we’d always talked. She was full of questions about the court, the Church.’

‘Discussions she could never have with me.’

‘No,’ the priest said bluntly.

‘I was a good husband. I left the soldiering at the door, every night. I never bragged of the killing, as some men do. On campaign I never raped, or took whores—’

‘You never gave her a child.’

‘That was her choice! We discussed it. We’d lost one child already. We wanted to wait until the bad weather is over; this is no world to bring a child into.’

Palla said, almost gently, ‘Look around you, soldier. How many others go childless? Even though we’re all in this world-winter. She was keeping you at a distance, Kassu. She knew she had made a mistake, with you. She loved you – the strong solid core of you. She still does, in a way, I think. She still speaks of you when—’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘All right. But it wasn’t enough.’

‘And then you showed up.’

Palla took a breath. ‘We love each other,’ he said defiantly. ‘Perhaps we always did when we were younger, and never knew it. We knew we could not have each other. But we could not stay apart, we are not strong enough for that. If you had not spotted us, if not for the extraordinary circumstances of the day the King died—’

‘You’d be carrying on now.’

‘Our lives are yours to dispose of,’ Palla said, calm now. ‘That is literally true. You must make your decision.’

They said no more, walking on in silence into the deeper snow.