‘And the Christians and the Moors?’

Ibn Hafsun said, ‘You must think of Spain as sliced into three: the Moors in the south, Christian kingdoms in the north, and a kind of frontier land between. As the Christians have gradually grown stronger, the frontier has, with the centuries, been pushed southwards. Now that the Castilians have captured Toledo the frontier roughly cuts the peninsula in two, east to west: the north Christian, the south Moorish.’

Robert nodded, picturing it. ‘And one day that frontier will be pushed all the way south, and Spain will be free of Moors once more.’

‘Are you sure? Look around you. Look what the Moors made of this country.’

They happened to be following a river bank. Robert saw that irrigation systems striped the countryside, and along the river itself huge waterwheels turned patiently.

‘All this is Moorish,’ Ibn Hafsun said. ‘There was a high civilisation here, Robert son of Orm. The highest since the Romans. Higher than Christendom.’

‘Not so high,’ Robert said fiercely, ‘that Alfonso’s Christian armies could not drive the Moors out.’

Ibn Hafsun shrugged. ‘Well, that’s inarguable.’

‘Must it be so?’

The soft voice startled Robert. It was Moraima, who had come to ride alongside the two of them. She spoke English, her father’s language, but heavily accented.

Robert said to her, ‘Those are the first words you have spoken to me. And must they be about war?’

‘But it’s all you talk about. You and our fathers.’ Her voice, like her face, was delicate, and yet Robert thought he saw a strength beneath the fragile surface. It only made her more desirable.

‘We weren’t talking about war. Ibn Hafsun was telling me about the country.’

‘Ah,’ said Ibn Hafsun, ‘but you are a warrior of God - a warrior cub at any rate. Tell me that you aren’t dreaming of riding across this land in your mail coat, your sword in your hand, at the side of Rodrigo, El Cid, “The Boss”, the greatest Castilian warrior of all!’

Moraima laughed, a sound like bubbling water. ‘I ask you again, Robert: must it be so?’

Robert said reluctantly, ‘The Pope himself says that if you fight to reclaim Christian lands from infidels, you are fighting for Christ.’

‘Well, the Pope would say that,’ Sihtric called back from his own mount. ‘But the Pope has wider ambitions.’