‘Not just yet. There’s something I need to tell you. We are to receive a visitor. From England.’

Saladin was thrilled. To him, England, birthplace of Robert, and of Richard the Lionheart, the greatest Christian warrior of all, was as remote and exotic as the moon. ‘Who? A knight, a prince?’

She laughed softly. ‘Somebody much more useful. He is a man called Thomas Busshe. He is a monk, a friar in a Franciscan monastery near Colchester. But he also lectures on theology and philosophy in Oxford.’

Saladin’s disappointment was crushing. ‘A monk,’ he said with disgust. ‘A scholar. I don’t even know where Colchester is.’

‘It’s an old city, north of London.’

But Saladin had no clear idea where London was either. ‘So why is this fat old scholar hauling his backside from one end of the world to the other?’

She laughed again. ‘Actually he has two purposes. He wants to speak of the Mongols, and our family’s business. And he means to deliver me a letter. It was sent to his monastery, but it is intended for us. It comes from Cordoba.’

He frowned, thinking through his mish-mash geography. ‘Cordoba? The city of the Moors in Spain?’

‘Who would write to us from Cordoba, do you imagine?’

‘Family? A Christian warrior?’

‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘Quite the opposite. Our correspondents are Moors, Saladin. Muslims. And yet they are cousins. And yet they are descended from Robert the Wolf, just as we are . . .’

II

II

The letter had come about because of a visit by an English scholar called Peter to his sponsor, Subh, a lady of Cordoba - and Joan’s distant cousin.

It wasn’t difficult for Peter to find his way through the dense heart of Cordoba. Though born in England, he had spent years in Toledo, and was used to tangled Moorish streets. But Cordoba had its own intricate beauty. As he walked, he came across little squares where the prospect would unexpectedly open up, and he found himself looking down sloping cobbled streets and under arches to silent crowds of rooftops beyond. It was May, and baskets of flowers added splashes of colour everywhere.

But the city seemed half empty. There were fewer people than flower baskets, it seemed, ragged children throwing stones into dry fountains, a firewood seller leading his donkey through deserted streets. Some of the grandest houses were abandoned, the gardens weed-strewn, the vines out of control, the ponds clogged.

He found his way to the River Guadalquivir, in whose embrace Cordoba nestled. The old bridge still stood proud, the labour of the Romans enduring centuries. From here he took his bearings. To the north-west was the Jewish quarter, to the east the Christian, and between them the Moorish quarter.