James felt utterly worn out; his neck was stiff, his eyes ached and his mouth was full of gritty dust. The sun was burning in a clear blue sky, and it looked like it was going to be another scorching day.

‘This is no good,’ he said to Mauro. ‘We should leave the car and carry on on foot. We walk? Sì?’

‘Sì,’ agreed Mauro, who looked slightly numb and shell-shocked.

They pulled off the main road, dumped the car in a side street and got out.

Sant’ Ugo was built in an arid, rocky valley beneath two mountains; they had not been able to see much on the drive in, but somewhere up there was Ugo’s palazzo and Victor Delacroix.

The two weary boys shouldered their way through the milling carnival-goers until they reached the far side of town, and, as they cleared the buildings, James got his first proper view of the twin mountains.

The scene was just as Ugo had described it; far up above was the dam, spanning the gap between the two peaks, and directly beneath it was the aqueduct, crossing the valley on impossibly tall arches. To the right of the aqueduct, stuck on to the side of one of the mountains, was what looked like a model. Surely it was too strange and perfect to be real.

It was a gleaming, white, fantasy Roman town, complete with temples, villas, colonnades and what looked like a small amphitheatre.

It had been built on several levels, one on top of the other, so that a terrace in front of one building was the roof of the building below, and seemed almost to hang in space, far above the valley. He couldn’t help smiling. It was like a toy. He felt as if he could simply reach up with his hand and put a tiny model Roman soldier on it.

Mauro pointed and James saw a steep funicular railway track leading up the side of the mountain. They headed towards it, leaving a trail of dust behind them.

At the foot of the railway was a scene of frenetic activity. A team of boys was unloading baskets of food from a railway car that was parked in a shed. They bustled around, throwing the baskets to each other, shouting and arguing and laughing, while a bored-looking guard made a half-hearted attempt to oversee the chaos, struggling to stay awake and yawning heavily.

James hurried over to the guard, knocking dirt off his clothing. He started to try and explain what he wanted in his halting Italian, but the guard simply stared at him with the same bored expression and yawned into his face. Mauro joined in, but it was obvious they were getting nowhere. The guard didn’t want to know.