‘Didn’t they?’ Ibn Hafsun grinned. ‘Once there was but a tiny salt crystal of Christianity in a cupful of Islam, here in the north, after the Moors overran the peninsula in just a few years. And once, oh, this is only a century ago, a great Moorish vizier called Al-Mansur sacked this very city and carried off the bells of Saint James’s church to Cordoba where they rest to this day.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Robert said.

‘About what?’

‘That the Moors took only a few years to overrun the whole of Spain. The Romans would have pushed them back.’

‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ Ibn Hafsun said. ‘It was only a hundred years after the death of the Prophet. The kings then were not Roman, for the empire had lost the west, but Gothic. We ruled as the Romans did, or better, for centuries. But we could not stand before the Moors.’

Orm asked, ‘Why do you say “we”?’

Ibn Hafsun said proudly, ‘My family were Gothic counts. Our family name was Alfonso.’

‘Like the King,’ Robert said.

‘In my great-grandfather’s time we converted to Islam, and took an Arabic name. The Moors call the likes of us muwallad, which means “adopted children”. And now I find myself a left-behind Muslim in what is once again a Christian kingdom. You see, history is complicated.’ He smiled, a Muslim with blue eyes and blond hair.

Robert said rudely, ‘If your family were once counts, why are you reduced to escorting travellers for pennies?’

Behind him a new voice said, ‘Because in al-Andalus, it’s hard for anyone but a Moor to get rich.’

Robert turned. A man approached them, short, not strong-looking, with a pinched face worn with age. He wore a modest priest’s black habit, and his tonsure was cut raggedly into a scalp that was losing its hair. A girl followed him, in a simple flowing gown. She had her face downcast modestly.

Ibn Hafsun stood, and the others followed his lead. ‘Sihtric. The peace of Allah be on you. And your daughter.’

‘And God go with you too.’ The priest was a skinny man, Robert saw, but with a pot-belly that spoke of indulgence. He studied Orm, who towered over him. ‘Well, Viking. When did we last meet?’

‘William’s coronation. Nineteen years gone, or the best part of it.’

‘I wish I could say I was glad to see you. But life is more complicated than that, isn’t it? And this is your son.’ He turned to Robert, grinning. ‘The ardent pagan spawned a devout Christian. How amusing.’ He laughed out loud.

Robert was irritated to be spoken of in this dismissive way.