‘We are the saviours of his people. He begs us to accept his hospitality, and dine with him.’

‘Tell him it has been a hard day on the mountain, and we will eat and rest in our compound.’

Hairan’s translation brought forth a torrent of words from the native.

‘He asks if there is anything we need. Can he send us food or wine. Would we care for some of his serving girls to ease our cares.’

Valens placed the gory object on the floor. ‘Tell him we have everything we need for tonight.’

Again the reply provoked a vociferous outburst.

‘He says his house and goods are ours. If there is anything we want.’

‘Tell him, with the daemon dead, there is no barrier to one of his people accompanying us as a guide. We want a reliable man, a merchant who has made the journey down to the Mardoi and the shores of the Caspian.’

Valens did not need to understand the language to know the response was favourable, its expression laudatory. When it had run its course, Valens nodded, and turned to leave.

The soldiers waited, then filed out after him. Decimus and Aulus pulled the doors shut behind them.

*

‘He might not have known,’ Aulus said. ‘The leader of his guards could have just developed a taste for killing. Some men do, it is a form of madness.’

‘Of course the headman fucking knew,’ Clemens said. ‘The question is what he will do now.’

They were in the main room of the house. Iudex and Hairan were up on the flat roof keeping watch. Decimus was checking the horses. Apart from the house, the compound contained a range of stables and a store shed. The beaten earth of the yard was surrounded by a low wall. There were two gates. The whole area was visible from the roof.

‘These hillmen have always been bad subjects,’ Narses said. ‘They have never heeded the laws of the King of Kings. They are rapacious and untrustworthy.’

‘Like all easterners.’ The weight of centuries of prejudice lay behind the words of Clemens.

‘Unlike you Romans,’ Narses said. The big black beard of the Persian bristled with indignation. ‘There is no backwater, no desert or mountain range, so remote or poor that it is not coveted by your greed. You ravage the whole world in your insatiable avarice, and claim it is all in the name of good faith and safety. Fides and salus, my arse!’

‘That is a lie!’

‘Then what are we doing here?’

‘Our duty.’

‘And why does duty send us to abduct a Sassanid prince?’ Narses spoke with venom. ‘To give you Romans an excuse to start a just war on my people, a iustum bellum. Even your gods can see through such a threadbare excuse.’