They arrived at last at a patio with an elaborate sunken garden surrounded by graceful arches. Peter heard laughter, and in the shadowed spaces beyond he saw lithe running figures. At the western side of the patio they were brought through an elaborate horseshoe-arched doorway into a hall called the turayya. This grand hall was the emir’s throne room; beneath a domed roof pillars of fine marble supported complex arcades. The chamberlain said it was named for the star system called in the west the Pleiades. It was so called because the rooms around this central hall were set out like those stars in the sky.

Peter’s eye was drawn to the tile work which adorned the lower walls. A pattern of black stars, rich blue rectangles and white strips, repeating endlessly, somehow covered every scrap of the surface. ‘I think I could spend my whole life,’ Peter said, ‘just looking at the tiles on that wall.’

‘I’m afraid I have other plans for you,’ Subh said. ‘Enough gawping. Come now and sit with me.’

He joined her on floor cushions, and allowed a servant to pour him a glass of the juice of crushed oranges, as they waited for the first of their scholarly guests to come and talk of engines of war.

XIV

XIV

AD 1244

It was two years before Joan and Saladin saw Thomas again. They were years in which troubles more urgent than the vague promises of prophecies rose up and overwhelmed them - and, at last, after generations, the family of Robert the Wolf was forced to flee from Jerusalem.

Saladin thought of England as home, for this was the birthplace of his ancestor Robert; this was where his family had its deepest roots. But to a boy from the Outremer it was a strange, dark place. The sun never seemed to climb high in the sky, and was somehow dim even at noon. And Saladin felt cold, cold to his bones.

But as their ship sailed cautiously up a great estuary and into London he clung to the rail, staring out curiously at a city that sprawled across the horizon. Even the river was crowded, busy with trade, and upstream of a grim fortress called the Tower wooden cranes like long-necked birds pecked at ships laden with English wool, or with silk and wine coming into the country from the continent.

Thomas Busshe met them off the ship. Saladin was glad to see a familiar face in this strange country. Thomas had arranged lodgings for them for the night at a Franciscan priory. He had aged in the two years since their last meeting, and walked with a limp. But he seemed excited and pleased to see them - indeed, bursting with news, as he led them into the city.