But then Sihtric’s daughter lifted her head and looked directly at Robert, and he forgot his irritation. Surely she was only a little older than he was. Her face was a perfect oval, the colour of honey, her lips full and red, her nose fine, and her eyes bright blue.

‘Her name,’ Sihtric said drily, ‘is Moraima.’

Robert barely heard him. He was already lost.

II

II

They stayed a single night in Santiago de Compostela, and then formed up into a party to ride south. They planned to travel all the way to Cordoba, no longer the capital of a western caliphate, but still the beating heart of Muslim civilisation in Spain.

And, Robert learned, ‘ride’ was the correct word.

They would all be on horseback, their goods carried on the backs of two imperious-looking camels. When they set off, Ibn Hafsun led the way. Robert was expected to bring up the rear, with his eye on these camels. He quickly found it was no joy to plod along immersed in camel farts and hot dust, with nobody to speak to.

What was worse was that the girl, Moraima, rode at the front alongside Ibn Hafsun, never closer than two or three horse-lengths from Robert.

‘For such an advanced civilisation,’ Sihtric observed, ‘the Moors are oddly reluctant to employ the wheel.’

Ibn Hafsun just grinned. ‘Who needs wheels when Allah gave us camels?’

‘So, a daughter,’ Orm said to Sihtric. ‘I wasn’t expecting that. She’s a beauty, priest.’

‘Ah, yes. There is beauty in my family, of a sturdy sort - as you know all too well, Viking, God rest my sister’s soul.’

‘And the mother is a Moor?’

‘Was. Moraima has grown up a Muslim.’

‘I thought the bishops discourage you priests from ploughing your parishioners.’

‘Well, she wasn’t my parishioner. And a man gets lonely, so far from home. You have to live with the people around you; you have to live like them. The Moors call me a Mozarab - Musta’rib, a nearly-Arab . . . The bishops are a rather long way from Cordoba, Orm.’

As the day wore away and the sun sailed over the dome of sky, the country changed gradually. They passed through the foothills of a sharp mountain range and crossed into drier land, dustier, where the grass was sparse or non-existent, and the hills were like lumps of rock sticking out of the dirt. The towns were tight little clusters of blocky houses the colour of the dust. In the land between the towns olive trees grew in swathes that washed to the horizon, and herds of bony sheep fled as they passed. The people here were different too, their skin darker, their teeth and eyes bright white. On the road they occasionally passed muleteers, hardy, wizened men driving little caravans of laden animals; the bells around the mules’ necks rang mournfully. This was not like England, Robert thought.