Thomas Busshe led him to the abbey at Westminster, and they waited in a small room where a nervous young novice served them warmed wine. This was a room used by Roger Bacon, this brilliant monk of Thomas’s, and Saladin leafed idly through a heap of the scholar’s well-read books: a grammar by Donatus, the Consolation of Philosophy by somebody called Boethius, Aristotle’s logics and metaphysics, with commentaries by later authors - even by an Arab. So many books, Saladin thought. Did the world need them all?

The novice returned and said they had to wait for Bacon.

‘For, I’m told,’ said Joan, sweeping into the room, ‘today’s the day for his annual bath, and he’s not about to miss that for a couple of ragged refugees from the Outremer.’ She was dressed smartly, in a long crimson robe and a white wimple.

Saladin got to his feet and kissed his mother. ‘You don’t look ragged to me, Mother,’ he said.

‘Appearance is everything.’ She nodded stiffly. ‘I thank you for the stipend you send me. I spend it well, I hope.’

‘Spend it as you like.’

Her movements as she chose a chair and took her wine were firm and decisive. Her face was still young, he thought, still beautiful; she was only thirty-five years old. She was flushed, though, but not with health. Flushed with an impatience that had been building all the long years of her exile in England, as she saw it. She eyed her son. ‘No wife yet? No grandchildren for me?’

‘Not since I last saw you at Christmas,’ he said drily. ‘And no husband for you, Mother?’

‘A husband would only get in the way.’

‘He might provide you with an income,’ Thomas pointed out.

Joan snorted. ‘An income pledged to his ambitions, not mine. I’ve no use for that.’

Thomas looked at them both. ‘You are mother and son, but so different. Saladin is finding contentment. He lives simply; he uses the skills God has given him; slowly, patiently, he is building himself a place in this country. He asks nothing, and he resents nothing. But you, madam, are full of anger, aren’t you? Rage, even.’

‘Rage?’ Her cheeks coloured, her eyes glittered, and her lips were thin. ‘If you say so. You men of the cloth are so terribly wise.’

‘But, Mother,’ Saladin said, ‘what are you angry about?’

‘What do you think?’ she flared. ‘This is not my country. I despise the weakness of these Christians of the west, who cannot, it seems, summon the will to take back the lands which were lost - our home, Saladin. I have no wealth, no position. I am not respected here. Though my ancestors fought and died to win the Holy Land for Christendom, the people in this country even mock the way I speak. Can they not see who I am - what I am?’