‘But you’re a sailor,’ said Amy. ‘How can you be afraid of the sea?’

‘A sailor should fear the sea,’ said Zoltan. ‘He should respect it.’

‘I love the sea,’ said Amy. ‘I love to swim in it.’

‘I can’t swim,’ said Zoltan.

‘You can’t swim?’

‘Oh… Many sailors can’t swim. It is considered bad luck. Tempting to fate.’

‘But that’s so dangerous,’ said Amy.

‘The trick is not to fall in,’ said Zoltan, and for the first time in a long while, Amy smiled.

‘I will never swim,’ Zoltan went on. ‘I fight the sea. I have mastered the sea. I sail my boat upon it, and I will not put myself into its mouth. The sea is for the fish, for crabs and lobsters and squid. I never even saw the sea until I was sixteen. I had left my farm to join the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The whole world was at war. I was sent to the Italian front, but I soon realised that it was stupid. Our young men fought the young Italian men, and for what? To try to win back some land that the Italians said was theirs and we said was ours. It was nothing to do with me. I had no stomach for it. I ran away and made my way down through Albania into Greece. Where I fell in with criminals, smugglers, pirates, murderers and deserters. In the chaos of war there are many opportunities for a clever man. I soon had my own ship, after the captain fell overboard and sadly drowned.’

‘Fell, or was pushed?’ said Amy.

‘He was old and weak,’ said Zoltan. ‘I simply put him out of his misery like a sick dog. And one day, if I get too old and weak, I am sure that one of my crew would do the same to me. That is why I keep on, Amy. That is why I will not take to my bed and let your wound have the better of me. My men must not see me sick.’ He stopped and poured himself more wine. ‘I am hoping, though,’ he said after a while, ‘that I will not grow old on this boat. Soon I will be rich enough to leave this life behind me and buy land and a fine house and settle down.’

‘You think my grandfather will pay that much for me?’ Amy scoffed.

‘It is not only you,’ said Zoltan. ‘It is everything I have in my hold below. Don’t you worry, it is all planned. Once we get to Sardinia everything will be different.’

7

Terror Firma

The tower had stood there for 3,000 years. Built from massive blocks of black stone, some over 6 feet long. How the ancients had got them here and piled them on top of each other, James couldn’t imagine. There was something of the mystery of Stonehenge about the place.

‘It is known as the Sant’ Antine Nuraghe,’ said Peter Love-Haight, with a dramatic sweep of his hand. ‘We don’t know a great deal about the Nuraghic people who built these towers, or, for that matter, why they built them. The most obvious answer is that they were castles of some sort, built for defence against the many invaders who used to plague this island. But they may have had a religious significance. There are over seven thousand of them here in Sardinia, and this is one of the largest and most impressive. The main tower used to be three storeys high, some 70 feet, but a local mayor removed the top layer to build a fountain in the nineteenth century.’