Before Valens could strike, Clemens looked back.

‘There has to be another way to save them,’ Valens said.

Clemens made a small gesture with his sword, as if to dismiss all the horror and pity of war. ‘Not to save the ones I love.’

‘Your family?’

‘Yes, my family.’ Despite his age, and the bulk of the nomad jacket, Clemens was quick.

A hand’s breadth from his face, Valens blocked the thrust. The force sent him staggering. Clemens thrust again, low to the stomach. Again Valens got his sword in the way, backing off around the wall of the tent.

Clemens followed, feet close together, balanced, feinting and probing. The armourer was a master at arms: he knew his trade. There was nothing Valens could do but retreat, try and stay alive. The unfamiliar Sassanid blade felt awkward in his grip.

Slowly they circled around the hearth. There were no sounds but the pad and stamp of their boots, their panting breath, and the sharp clangour of steel on steel. There was no one to hear. None but women in the camp. No one to intervene.

The smoke was smarting Valens’s eyes. His arms and legs were beginning to tire. There was a tight band of pain around his chest. He had to end this soon, before the experience of the old swordsman wore him down. Stepping forward, Valens aimed a cut at Clemen’s head, but in mid-air he altered the angle down towards his thigh.

As if he had long expected the move, Clemens stepped inside the blow, and chopped his sword into Valens’s right wrist. The long Sassanid blade dropped into the hearth, as agony lanced up Valens’s arm. Clemens’s elbow smashed into Valens’s face, sent him sprawling on his back, head almost out of the entrance.

With calm assurance, Clemens placed his boots on either side of the prone and defenceless figure, readying his weapon.

A flash of movement from the rear of the tent, something coming through the whirls of smoke.

Clemens swung backhanded.

The boy fell back in a spray of blood. The old eunuch’s little knife flew across the tent.

With his left hand, Valens tugged the dagger from his right boot. Clemens started to turn back, shifting the hilt of his sword to a double-handed grip. He was going to put his weight behind it, and punch down, skewering his victim to the floor. Still on his back, Valens drove the dagger up into Clemens’s crotch.

Clemens grunted, but did not go down. He raised his blade. If he had to die, he would take Valens with him to the darkness. Valens twisted the dagger, forcing it deeper. Now Clemens swayed. The sword clattered close by Valens’s head. Clemens’s knees buckled. Like a felled tree, he crashed on top of Valens.