‘Look at him,’ said Zoltan, quietly. ‘The great Count Ugo Carnifex. I will tell you a secret, James: Ugo is no more a count than I am.’

‘I know,’ said James. ‘He’s a goatherd, from the mountains.’

Zoltan chuckled. ‘You seem to know a lot,’ he said and grimaced. He was not finding it easy to lace the gloves with his bad arm and he had to call the attendant over to help.

‘Maybe you also know why Ugo has such a hatred of dirt?’ Zoltan went on.

‘No,’ said James.

‘Then I will tell you,’ said Zoltan. ‘He grew up here in the Barbagia, and his family was as poor as everyone else. So when war broke out it was a chance for him to escape. He joined the famous Brigata Sassari and went off to fight. For two years he fought against the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the mountains along Italy’s north-east border.

‘At the battle of Triangular Woods he was wounded in the head and his younger brother, Guido, who had fought alongside him for the whole campaign, carried him to safety on his shoulders under heavy fire.

‘The wound was not serious, but the shock of it caused Ugo’s hair to turn white.

‘In the confusion of the battle they found themselves cut off from the brigade behind enemy lines. There were four of them and Ugo was not the only one who was wounded. Another man, Colombo, had caught a bullet in the thigh and was weak from loss of blood, so the men could not travel fast. Lost and scared and confused, they found refuge in a deserted building.

‘But it was no ordinary building. It was an abandoned palazzo whose owners had fled and taken everything with them, so that the rooms were bare and empty. The place was still magnificent however, and Ugo had never seen anything like it. The four Sardinians wandered from room to room, amazed. There were so many rooms they soon lost count. How could anyone need so many rooms?

‘And then they heard the sound of trucks and they knew they must hide. They searched the palazzo and at last found a small trapdoor that led down into a septic tank, where the waste from all the toilets was collected.

‘They climbed down and stood up to their waists in stinking filth.

‘All that night they stayed there, listening to the voices in the palazzo above and shaking with fear, waiting for the soldiers to leave.

‘It was hot and dark and choking down there. The stench of human excrement was foul and when the enemy soldiers used the toilets above, more filth rained down on them.

‘The four trapped Sardinians dared not speak or make any sound in case they were discovered.

‘It was worst for Colombo. His wound was bleeding steadily into the wet sludge. But he was a brave man and made no sound at all.