‘Are you an honest man, Ibn Hafsun?’ Robert asked. ‘You won’t take it and exploit it for yourself?’

‘Not I,’ said Ibn Hafsun. ‘I don’t have the imagination for such things - or the stomach. After all I am caught between two worlds; who would I attack, my Muslim brothers or my Christian cousins? You can trust me, Robert Egilsson. I hope you know that of me by now.’

Robert and Moraima eyed each other. ‘Agreed,’ said Robert.

She nodded.

‘And for you two,’ Ibn Hafsun said sadly. ‘Is there no hope?’

‘No hope,’ Robert said.

Moraima asked coldly, ‘What of the baby?’

Robert shrugged. ‘Have it born. Have it scooped out of you by your clever Islamic doctors. I don’t care. It is your responsibility, only my shame.’ And he turned to walk away.

‘A shame that will haunt you, Robert,’ she called after him. ‘Haunt you!’

He kept walking, faster through the narrow streets, until he could no longer hear her voice.

As he approached the river he dug into his pack, checking his money.

And he found al-Hafredi’s bit of tattooed wrapping skin, and scraps of the fire-damaged Codex, torn off. These fragments had been left behind when he had pulled out the scroll. He picked out the largest bit of the Codex, held it up in the bright Spanish sun, and studied it curiously. The words Incendium Dei had been ripped through, leaving incomplete letters, D, I, V, M. And there was a string of garbled lettering:

BMQVK XESEF EBZKM BMHSM . . .

Perhaps he should discard these bits of grisly, enigmatic rubbish. But that felt wrong. After all men had died for this - his own father had.

He thrust the scrap back into his pack, with the bit of skin. He could decide later. Then he walked along the river front, looking for a ship to England.

II - CRUCESIGNATI

II

CRUCESIGNATI

AD 1242-1248

I

I

AD 1242

‘On the day he left Seville Robert was only fourteen years old,’ Joan said. ‘A year younger than you are now, Saladin. He grew to become strong and pious - but a savage warrior, a driven man, it was always said. He took the Cross, and won Jerusalem. And he died on Temple Mount, far from home. This Christian country was his enduring achievement. Since then six generations of his children, six generations of us, have lived and died here. But Robert, that confused boy, has vanished into time, his life transient as a breath . . .’

Saladin sat with his mother on a blanket spread over the dusty ground of the Mount of Joy. On the hill a goat bleated, and their tethered horses grazed peacefully. The sun was high, the last of the morning’s cloud was shredded, and a sharav, a desert wind, hot and dry and scented like spice, stretched the skin of Saladin’s face tight as a drum.