‘In the archives I explored in Toledo,’ he said carefully, ‘I found answers to your questions - and more. Some of this will please you. Some of it will not.’

‘Tell me, then. Did you find my ancestor?’

‘Yes.’ In fact that part hadn’t been hard. Even in the fractured age of the taifas, the Moors had always been fine record-keepers. ‘Yes, there was a vizier; his existence isn’t just a family tradition. And his name, as you know, was Ahmed Ibn Tufayl. I can prove a direct line of descent, in places through the female line, to you.’

‘Hah! I knew it! Oh, every Muslim in Cordoba claims descent from one royal lineage or another. But I knew we were different - I knew it.’

‘I have some details of his career’ - and Peter patted his bag - ‘but what may interest you more is not how Ibn Tufayl lived, but how he died.’

V

V

‘Much of this was written down after his death by his granddaughter, Moraima, who survived him.’

‘My distant grandmother,’ Subh breathed, eyes heartbreakingly wide.

‘Over a hundred years dead.’

Peter summarised for her the story of Sihtric, the priest from England. ‘Who as you know,’ he said cautiously, ‘fathered Moraima by Ibn Tufayl’s daughter.’

She sighed. ‘We’ve learned to live with that, I think.’

‘The question is why Sihtric came to Spain. He approached Ibn Tufayl for sponsorship for a project: the development of designs for marvellous weapons called the Engines of God.’

Subh’s eyes widened at that. ‘Weapons?’

‘These designs had a mysterious origin,’ Peter said. ‘Or murky, you might say. They were supposed to be the result of visions, divine or satanic, implanted in the mind of an English monk, now two centuries dead, who—’

Subh waved her hand impatiently. ‘I’ve no time for visions and miracles. Tell me about these weapons. Did Sihtric build them? What became of them?’

He told her how Sihtric, with great difficulty, had got as far as a few prototypes. ‘But there was something missing, so Sihtric came to believe. An agent he called Incendium Dei - the Fire of God. It was something like Greek Fire, perhaps - though there I’m guessing. It was mentioned in the designs, but nothing the alchemists could crack.’

‘And then what? Get on with it, man!’

‘And then,’ Peter said, ‘a man called Orm Egilsson, English or possibly a Dane, came to Cordoba in search of Sihtric. He brought with him his son, called Robert. Orm had a head full of a prophecy of his own, a “Testament of Eadgyth”, or Edith, something to do with a mysterious figure called the Dove. And he seems to have been determined to put a stop to Sihtric’s work.’

‘Why? No, don’t answer that. Prophecies and visions! Sometimes I think the whole world is gripped by pious madness. Did he stop Sihtric?’