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waited for your grooming for half an hour. If she has grown sores, or gone lame, I will visit her afflictions on you tenfold.’ He stepped into the room, and let his stare sweep across us. ‘Who are these?’
    ‘Demetrios Askiates,’ I told him. ‘I—’
    ‘Hah. A Greek. Tell me, Demetrios Askiates, what should I think when I find two Greeks alone in a tent with a boy?’
    ‘One Greek,’ growled Sigurd, unhelpfully. ‘And a Varangian from England.’
    ‘A Varangian from England,’ mimicked the knight. ‘A race named for a tribe of catamite slaves. You and the Greeks have the same black soul, and your vices are legendary.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘Get out and see to my horse, or I will whip you into the Orontes.’
    ‘I have not finished with Simon,’ I said. ‘Nor have you told me your name.’
    ‘Nor do you deserve to hear it.’ The knight had come further into the tent now, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could make out more of his appearance. He was neither tall nor broad, but there was a lean strength in his body that a larger man would have done well to beware. His movements were quick and unpredictable, his limbs twitching all the while, and his face was lined well beyond his apparent youth. I did not think he smiled often.
    ‘You serve the lord Bohemond?’ I asked.
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Bohemond has charged me to discover how the knight Drogo came to die.’
    I barely saw him move, but suddenly his eyes were very close to mine. His sour breath fanned my face.
    ‘Even my lord Bohemond can err in his judgement. Or perhaps he believes that the Greek who found my brother Drogo, alone and isolated, may indeed have personal knowledge of how he was murdered.’
    ‘Drogo was your brother?’ I asked, astonished.
    ‘ As a brother. We shared a tent, our hardships, our food and our prayers. When his natural brother died he turned to us as his family.’ He stepped back, his spurs dragging scars into the mud floor. ‘But that is no matter for you. Leave my tent, you and your pederast friend, before I avenge Drogo’s death on you both.’
    Thus far, Sigurd had kept calm under the knight’s provocation, but he controlled himself no longer. Grasping his axe by its head, he swept the haft like a scythe at the Norman’s knees, meaning to knock them from under him. But the knight was faster: his sword swung before him and parried the blow, biting deep into the wood of the axe-haft. Both their arms must have stung from the impact, yet for a moment they held their weapons clasped together, unbending, each staring into the other’s eyes. Then they pulled free.
    ‘Next time it will be your neck that tastes this sword,’ the knight hissed. He was breathing hard.
    ‘Next time, I will break your blade in two and force it down your throat.’
    I pulled at Sigurd’s arm. Behind us, I could see the boy hunched over with terror on the bed. It tore at my conscience to leave him with the knight, but I feared worse would befall all of us if we stayed.
    ‘We should leave.’
    Outside the tent the air was hard, and I narrowed my eyes against the sudden light. I had no wish to linger any longer in the Norman camp, for the knight’s anger at us was no more than most of his countrymen felt, but the sight of an old man sitting cross-legged in the doorway of the tent opposite spurred me to one last effort. Sigurd and I crossed to greet him, and I pulled a bloodied bundle wrapped in cloth from the pouch at my belt. I had intended it to encourage the boy, but perhaps I could make it tell elsewhere.
    ‘The knight who just entered that tent, who was he?’ I let the bundle dangle from my hand.
    The man leaned closer and sniffed at the package. ‘Quino.’
    I remembered the name, for the boy had spoken it. ‘He was a companion of Drogo?’
    ‘Alas, yes.’
    ‘As was . . .’ I searched for the foreign name. ‘Odard?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And there was another, also?’
    ‘Rainauld. A Provençal.’ The old man did