THE VILLAGE THAT WAS HOME TO AL-ZABBA, the woman also known as Lucia, was not large, but obviously prosperous enough. Although remote in its upland valley high in the Taurus Mountains, there was a good road. From springs at the base of the nearest cliff, ice-cold water bubbled forth to irrigate fields of grain, and gardens growing pears, apples, plums and apricots. On the higher slopes, above the springs, were extensive vineyards. Higher still were lush meadows for pasturage and forests of poplar and walnut well stocked with game.

The house in which the feast was held was built of stone. Its main room was tall and cool. They sat in a circle, cross-legged on rugs and cushions. Lucia had warned the Romans that it was ill-mannered to point the soles of your feet at another guest.

From Valens’s left Lucia translated the conversation of the guest to his right. The farmer was waxing lyrical about the hardiness of the black grapes. Apparently they lay buried under deep snow in the winter, and flourished in the hot dry summer without any watering whatsoever. Certainly the wine they produced was sweet and strong.

They were eating lamb and chicken with flatbread and salad. A musician was playing a stringed instrument a bit like a lyre. Serving girls kept their cups filled, and the cook – his mouth ostentatiously covered, so as not to breathe on the food – made sure their plates were never empty.

The Romans had been well received. There had been mourning for Lucia’s murdered husband, but the Romans had been praised both for taking vengeance against the tent-dwellers, and returning his widow unviolated. Hairan and the other Aramaic speakers had given an edited version of her rescue, which – praise the gods! – it was said had been carried out before the nomads could defile her. A compound had been allocated to the Romans, and this feast in the house of the village headman was in their honour.

Unaccustomed to the cross-legged posture, Valens’s legs were beginning to ache. His loquacious fellow diner moved on to describing in great detail how the lamb was rubbed with a sour and bitter gruel and thickened buttermilk, and how the best-tasting chicken had to be fed on hemp seed and olive oil and made to run. While nodding attentively, Valens’s thoughts began to roam.

It was ten days since they’d left the canyon. There had been no more sight of the tent-dwellers. Presumably their casualties had cooled their commitment to the demands of blood feud. At the end of the first day the Romans had come to a hamlet in the foothills. There they had buried Zabda, and bought all the provisions available. Even so, they had been on short rations for the next couple of days until they reached a more substantial settlement. By then they were high in the mountains.