On the fifth morning the mountains fell back, and they emerged onto a wide plain. The land was smooth and rich and well worked. It was dotted with settlements. In the fields the stubble of the harvest lay under vines and fig trees, some still heavy with fruit. Small plots of vegetables were tended in among the main produce. Never put all your eggs in one basket, as the saying went. If a blight or storm hit the plain, with luck not all the crops would be lost. Something should remain to feed the farmer’s family, or to be bartered in the village. In Italy, the peasants around Valens’s family estate employed the same strategy to survive.

The hamlets through which they passed were peaceful and unfortified. Their inhabitants were happy to sell eggs and chickens, bread and cheese to the travellers, who paid over the odds in good coins. In the evenings the sky to the north, out over the gulf, turned a livid purple and orange on the horizon, below dark, threatening clouds. But the rain held off.

On the third day on the plain they came in sight of the main settlement in these parts. Lucia knew it as Sariya, but Narses called it Zadrakarta. The Persian had been here many years before. He said there was a frontier wall two days beyond, which ran from the sea to the mountains, and closed the approach to the plain from the north-east. There was a second another day beyond, and a third further off, which ran due east from the Caspian. They were all said to have been built by Alexander the Great. Now they were garrisoned by Sassanid soldiers to protect the plain from the nomad tribes of the Steppe, and allow the farmers to continue their bucolic life undisturbed.

From Zadrakarta it was planned that Narses would guide them on the final leg of their quest. Before they reached the first of the fortified walls, they would unobtrusively slip off the road, turn south-east, and follow a river valley up into the mountains, and eventually by unfrequented paths come to the Castle of Silence.

Asked how they would get through the Walls of Alexander to the Steppe on their coming down from the mountains, Narses enigmatically replied that Mazda had inspired him with a plan. As it still seemed unlikely that they would ever return from the Castle of Silence, there was little point in pressing him on the subject.

Not far from the outskirts of Zadrakarta, Valens heard the fierce barking of dogs. Off the path, a pack of a dozen strays ringed a figure on the ground. Whether the man was injured, exhausted or both was initially unclear. Feebly, propped on one elbow, he fended the animals off with a stick. As one, Valens and Hairan at the head of the column turned their mounts, and set off to his aid.