Finally he stumbled and fell forward, and found himself unable to get up again.

‘Please,’ he called out. ‘Wait…’

He heard the girl stop and come back. She squatted down and inspected him, kissed him once, briefly, then ran off.

James lay there panting, his head pressed against a cool rock. Maybe this was just a dream, another fantasy of escape. Maybe the strange, deadly girl hadn’t really existed.

He rested there for some time, stones cutting into him, too weak to move, and then he heard male voices.

Was it Ugo’s guards? What was going on? He felt so feeble and helpless.

He forced himself up, ready to hide if necessary, but he saw the girl again, and she flashed her vivid, bright smile at him.

She was with two tough, weather-beaten men wearing hairy shepherd’s jerkins, who looked at James with unblinking coal-black eyes. One was short and thickset with bandy legs, and the other was tall with a barrel chest and a huge drooping moustache.

‘Please…’ said James, and he tipped forward in a faint.

The barrel-chested man caught him and lifted him as easily as if he was a baby lamb. Then he slung him over his shoulders and set off at a steady trot.

James was dimly aware of being jogged and bounced through the mountains. The jerkin that his face was buried in smelt strongly of sheep, but he didn’t mind; he felt safe for the first time in two days.

The journey seemed to take an awfully long time. They climbed ridges where the wind blew cold; they scrambled down steep slopes and clattered through narrow passes. At some point they padded through a dense wood. Then, as day broke, James opened his eyes to see that they were moving along a path that clung to the side of a mountain with a heart-stopping drop beneath them and a view out over a wide valley.

They came into a village that seemed part of the mountain itself, built of crumbling, square stone buildings all huddled together and perched on the cliffside like Ugo’s palazzo.

Old women in scarlet dresses and headscarves came to their doors as they passed. They looked at James with impassive, leathery faces. In a tiny square two old men with watery, malarial eyes and white beards were sitting on some steps smoking.

James could see straight away that the people who lived here were very poor. They all looked worn down and craggy, like the granite rocks they lived on. There was tiredness in their faces, as if everything was an effort. He knew how hard it must be to try and scratch a living from this barren soil.

The shepherds stopped and exchanged a few words with the locals. James was given water and bread, then the big man picked him up again and they left the village, climbing higher up the mountain.