A terrible noise startled him awake.

The deep-throated roar of a lion caused the women and eunuchs to give shrill yelps and squeals of alarm. The guards had tried to quiet the harem. There was a net backed by spearmen at the foot of the hillock. They were perfectly safe. Barbad had ignored the commotion around him, concentrated on the hunters.

Shapur, bow in hand, had stepped ahead of his kinsmen. Tall and straight, arrow nocked, he looked the essence of majesty. Alone and brave, calmly facing the onslaught, this was what it meant to be a king.

Prince Papak had been a couple of paces behind, slightly to one side. A slender hunting spear with a crossbar at the base of its long blade was in his hands. Some of the other royal kinsmen had spears, more held bows. None would intervene unless it was absolutely necessary. It was the right of the King to take the first shot. The king of beasts was not the quarry of other men. It was reserved for the King of Kings, and Shapur’s skill with a bow was legendary.

All the attention of the hunters was on the cover. Barbad had followed their gaze. Fifty paces beyond Shapur was a wall of reeds. Although there was not a breath of wind up on the low hill, here and there the feathery heads of the reed bed shifted.

Barbad found he was on his feet, straining forward, like a hound in the slips.

The lion roared again. The ascending vibration reverberated in Barbad’s chest, had seemed to shake the air. And then the reeds parted.

It was a mature male lion, tawny, lithe and young. The feral stench had reached those on the hillock. A eunuch whimpered.

The beast looked back at the undergrowth. The beaters must be close. Their shouts, and the rattle of spears on shields, put up wildfowl at no great distance.

The lion turned to those who blocked his path. Its blank eyes focused on the man that stood nearest and alone.

Shapur half drew his bow.

The lion gathered itself, roared a third time.

The King of Kings pulled the bowstring back to his ear, aimed.

For a moment all was still. The noises of the beaters, the clatter of the wings of the flighting birds, seemed far away.

Shapur’s arm trembled slightly with the strain.

The lion launched itself forward. Almost quicker than the eye could follow, Shapur’s arrow had thumped into its chest. The beast staggered, but bounded again. The second arrow caught it in the windpipe. This time it crumpled on landing. But this was a fierce lion. A bloody pink froth bubbling from its mouth, it crawled on its belly towards the figure that had caused it such pain.