He turned to her, taking in every detail of her features as if she might be snatched away from him in the blink of an eye. Myssa kept staring at the stars. Her hand fumbled across the mud and clasped his, squeezing it.

‘I knew you would come,’ she breathed, so low it was almost lost beneath the whisper of the wind in the rushes.

Her words echoed Sakir’s, though they came from a different place. Piay watched the flames shooting up from the black water in the middle of the river. Myssa slid in next to him. An orange circle spread across the surface of the water around the burning galley. Gradually the circle grew smaller as the ship sank, until it winked out in a hiss and a cloud of steam. Bubbles emerged and disappeared, the ripples ebbed away and Mother Nile returned to serenity.

In the moonlight, dark shapes swam sinuously across the water from the reed beds, then submerged. The river crocodiles were searching for prey.

Footsteps pounded along the track by the river and Piay rested a hand on Myssa’s forearm to urge her to stay quiet. Whoever it was stopped running, the only sound the panting of breath.

The person crashed through the vegetation to the water’s edge and stared across the river.

‘No!’ he shouted, his voice cracking. ‘Why have you gone? I have failed you!’

Piay glanced at the silhouette against the night sky and recognised a familiar outline. He grinned.

‘Silence,’ Piay called. ‘You will frighten the crocodiles.’

The figure jolted as if it had seen a ghost, then moved through the undergrowth towards Piay. Hannu looked down.

‘What foul game is this? You would torment me now?’ he snarled.

Piay rose to his feet, wincing from the burns. ‘No torment, old friend. I am merely pleased to be alive.’

‘I thought you were dead. I followed the burning ship along the river as best I could . . . and then it vanished . . .’

Piay clapped his hands on his friend’s arms. ‘Enough talk. Now it is time to celebrate victory, and a new dawn in a new world.’

There was laughter and raucous song drifting across the water. The land beyond the city walls of Thebes throbbed with a life Piay had never seen before. The victory celebrations were continuing deep into the night. The Spartan army had pitched a vast, makeshift tent city that sprawled from the Nile to the river gate. Fires blazed and men gathered around them in full voice, dashing their cups together and punching the air. Much wine was being drunk and lavish food was brought in by slaves at the behest of the grateful Egyptian citizens.