The dogs heard them coming and reluctantly fell back, hackles up and snarling.

They were no distance from the man when Narses galloped past. The Persian skidded his horse to a halt, so violently he almost brought it back on its haunches. Turning the horse, Narses blocked their path.

‘Stay back!’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t go any closer. He has the plague.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It is our custom. When someone has a disease that threatens others, he is driven out.’

‘To die on his own? That is inhuman,’ Hairan said.

‘The outcast is given a lump of bread, water and a stick.’

‘But when he gets too weak, the dogs will devour him alive.’ Valens was as horrified as Hairan.

‘It will be as Mazda wills.’

The rest of the party had approached now.

‘We can’t just leave him to die,’ Decimus said.

‘You are all foreigners in this land,’ Narses said, ‘strangers to our laws.’

‘We must take him with us,’ Valens said.

‘The townsfolk would not accept him. They would turn on us.’ Narses was adamant. ‘Even if he returns from the Gates of Darkness, his family will shun him as though he is accursed and still in the service of the infernal powers. If he recovers, they will have nothing to do with him until the pollution has been exorcised by the magi.’

The others sat their horses without speaking.

‘Narses is right.’ Lucia was the first to break the silence. ‘It is our custom. There is nothing to be done.’

Valens looked at the pathetic and emaciated victim. He wished that he had not.

‘Life is not easy,’ Iudex said. ‘Sometimes we have to harden our hearts.’

*

The men were subdued as they ate that evening in a caravanserai. Lucia had taken herself off to the home of some acquaintance in the town.

Feeling the need to justify the practices of his people, Narses was holding forth. ‘Dogs or birds, it makes no difference. It is sacrilege to pollute the earth with a corpse. If the birds do not fly down on a body quickly, or if the dogs do not come at once and tear it to pieces, we hold that the dead man was profane in his ways, and that his soul is wicked and doomed, given over to the power of evil. So then his relatives mourn all the more, thinking him truly perished, and with no share in the higher life. But if a man is devoured quickly, they congratulate the dead man on his good fortune and marvel at his soul, believing that it is virtuous and godlike, and destined for the dwelling of the power of good.’

Hairan looked far from convinced, and Clemens, who never had any sympathy for easterners, muttered something derogatory under his breath. There was an air of tension at the table.