'It is true,' affirmed Yordanus. 'Death holds no terror for them, nor the life hereafter. They sacrifice all to their faith in the belief that they are instruments of God used to bring about divine justice.'

'By murdering their enemies.'

'By slaughtering anyone who opposes their schemes,' Yordanus insisted. 'They are everywhere now, and everywhere loathed. Like God, they see and hear every deed and every word; and, like God, they hold all men to judgement.'

'And their judgement is always the same,' added Nurmal. 'Guilty.'

'Sadly, it is so,' agreed Yordanus, nodding sagely.

'You said they came to Damascus,' I suggested, gently prodding the tale back to its beginning.

'Yes, and it was the worst evil ever to befall that admirable city. They were granted refuge in Damascus in return for helping in its defence. Why old Tughtigin ever agreed to this bargain, I will never understand. No doubt he thought it best to have them inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way. I cannot say.

'But as anyone might easily have predicted, the decision was disastrous. Once settled inside the walls, the Fida'in began to worm their way into every corner of the government. Within a few months they had taken control of the wazir's office and were exerting heavy influence over all state affairs. Tughtigin became a ghost in his own palace; unseen, unheard, he roamed the corridors moaning and fretting with remorse over his foolishness. But the damage was done. The Fida'in would not be moved.

'The people endured as best they could. Trade was difficult and unimaginably complicated. For example, if the Fida'in did not like the colour of the cloth you were selling, they declared it unclean, confiscated it, and imposed a heavy fine on you for selling it. If a man stopped in the street to speak to a woman, they fined him. If a woman ventured outside with her head uncovered, she was fined. If they found your turban too tall, or your beard too short, they fined you. If you could not pay these fines, they threw you in prison.

'In no time at all half the population was walking around with debts they could not pay, and the other half was in prison.' Yordanus shook his head ruefully. 'And should you be so unwise as to protest your innocence, you simply disappeared. Sometimes, if you were lucky, someone might find your head nailed to the city gates. Otherwise, you were never seen again.'

'I suppose Christians suffered the worst of it,' I mused.

'So you might think,' Yordanus allowed. 'But no, the perpetrators of this disaster were exceedingly equitable. Oh yes, they favoured all citizens-rich or poor, young or old, Christian, Jew, or Muhammedan – with the same infernal impartiality. Each year it became worse – for the merchants and moneylenders no less than everyone else. Good trade depends not only on a reliable, healthy ebb and flow of goods and services, but a fair expectation of progress and a modest hope for the future. Let these springs dry up, however, and like a river in the desert, all trade swiftly disappears.'

Nurmal poured water into the cup and passed it to Yordanus. 'We endured as best we could for as long as we could,' he said, draining the cup and passing it back. 'In the end it became intolerable.'

'Is that when you decided to leave?' I asked.

'If only it were so,' Yordanus murmured, 'Julian would still be alive.' His mouth twitched in a smile of such sorrowful regret that I could not bear to see it and looked away quickly. 'All is vanity,' he said softly, 'and nothing more so than the heart of man.'

Seeing his friend in such distress, Nurmal quietly moved the conversation onto a less painful subject, and I was left with more questions than when we first began. As soon as the heat of the day began to fade in the desolate hills, we moved on. I thought about what Yordanus had told me, turning the pieces of his tale over in my mind. It seemed to me that Julian and his sorry fate lay at the heart of the mystery and, thinking I would get no more from the father, I decided to ask the sister. But I did not have a chance to speak to her alone that night, nor all the next day. Indeed, it was not until well after dark when we had stopped for the night and everyone else was going to sleep that I was able to get her alone.

'Sydoni,' I said, moving close to where she sat by the dying campfire, 'I would speak to you.'

She looked up at me, the glow of the embers bathing her face like the rosy light of a far-off dawn. 'Sit beside me,' she said, her voice charming and low. Her long hair was upswept to keep it off her shoulders, but small tendrils had escaped and now curled around her ears and along the slender, shapely column of her neck. I wondered what it would be like to wind one of those curls around my finger.

'I asked your father to tell me about what happened in Damascus,' I said, dropping down beside her on the ground.

'And did he?' She regarded me with the same unnerving directness as the first time we met in the villa courtyard. This time, however, there was less defiance in her glance, and more appraisal.

'He told me a little,' I replied. 'He told me about Julian.'

'Then he told you much,' she corrected, turning back to her contemplation of the embers.

'I asked him why he is helping us, and he said he is doing it for his son-for Julian.'

She seemed to consider this, and then rejected it. 'No,' she said thoughtfully, 'whatever the reason it is not Julian.'

'Vanity, then?' I asked. It was the last thing her father had said, and I hoped she might know what he meant.

'Perhaps,' she allowed. 'You see, my father would have been the Governor of Damascus.' She glanced sideways at me. 'I see he did not mention that.'

I shook my head. 'No.'

'It is true. Julian did not approve. He urged father on numerous occasions to leave the city, but Yordanus refused to go because he coveted the exalted position.'

'He blamed the Fida'in,' I pointed out.

'Of course,' she replied as if this was manifestly self-evident. 'None of this would have happened if not for them. Theywete the ones who wanted him to be Governor.'

This made no sense. 'But I thought the Fida'in were Muhammedans,' I pointed out. 'Yordanus said they were ruling the city.'

'Shh,' she hushed, 'keep your voice down, or you'll wake everybody. Be quiet and I will tell you how it was.' Drawing up her long legs, she wrapped her arms around her knees and, staring into the embers as into the still-glowing past, she began to describe their last days in Damascus.

'The atabeg -'

'Tughtigin?'

'The same. He was a sick old man, and getting weaker all the time. The wazir was a vacillating bootlick named al-Mazdaghani, who sided with the Batini-the Fida'in by another name. The day came when the atabeg could no longer rise from his bed. Seeing he was about to die, Tughtigin gave his title to his son, Buri. The amirs were happy to approve the choice because Buri had vowed to rid the city of the hated Fida'in. And that,' Sydoni declared emphatically, 'is when our troubles really began.'

She spoke with quiet candour and I found listening to her a pleasure – and one I had not experienced in a woman's company for a very long time.

'The Fida'in considered themselves the only true Muslims,' she said, 'and in their eyes Buri and the amirs were faithless and unbelieving. As Tughtigin grew weaker, his son took over more and more of his father's power, and began taking steps to eradicate the hated cult. This alarmed the Fida'in, who had imagined they might control the new atabeg as they had controlled his father.

'The more Buri exerted his growing authority, the more the Fida'in feared losing the only place they had ever been welcomed. They soon discovered themselves hunted and harassed at every turn, and in desperation went looking for a protector who could ensure their survival. In secret-the Fida'in are masters of secrecy-they sent an envoy to Edessa -'