And as he was off balance the young man next to him punched him in the belly, and there was an explosion of quite unreasonable pain, while a hand rummaged inside his tunic.

Another hand, much stronger, grabbed him by a fistful of cloth at the back of the neck. ‘Thalius. Are you all right?’

For two, three long breaths Thalius felt his heart racing, and his vision greyed. But he did not fall. Gradually the pain in his punched belly receded. He looked up.

A man stood before him, in his thirties perhaps, tall, well-built, his hair bright strawberry-blond. He was a soldier, as you could tell from the elaborate military brooch at his shoulder, and his expensive-looking belt. He held up his hands. He was holding two items: the Claudian memoir, and Thalius’s leather purse. ‘Those two rascals were hunting in a pack.’ He tossed the purse to Thalius, who caught it clumsily. ‘I’m afraid I had my hands full and had to let them go.’

Thalius glanced around. The shoppers thronged oblivious; there was no sign of the robbers. ‘The shame of it,’ he growled. ‘To use books as a lure for thievery and violence! What is the world coming to?’

‘I rather think you’re owed this, don’t you?’ The man handed Thalius the Claudian scroll.

Thalius took it uneasily. ‘I long to read it,’ he said. ‘But how shall I pay?’

The soldier laughed. ‘The same old Thalius - honest through and through, but so unworldly you’re concerned about paying the men who just tried to rob you! Forget it, Thalius. Take the book - they won’t be back for it, it was probably stolen anyhow, and it will only rot otherwise.’

Thalius nodded. ‘If there is no right course of action—’ He looked up. ‘But how do you know my name?’

The soldier smiled. ‘You really haven’t changed, dear Thalius. When I arrived here I knew that to find you I only had to follow the smell of musty old books.’

‘Audax.’

XV

XV

Tears embarrassingly pricked Thalius’s eyes. ‘I’m such a fool. I was somehow expecting the boy. Why, how you have changed! I really wouldn’t recognise this great tree of a man as having grown from the wretched sapling I found in that gold mine, all those years ago.’

But Audax’s face clouded a little, and Thalius understood there were layers of memory probably best left undisturbed.

He went on hurriedly, ‘Besides, you know, with my head full of books I had quite forgotten that I was here to look for you. I’m like that nowadays, I’m afraid. And now here you are caring for me, as poor Tarcho looked out for me all those years.’

‘It’s been a long time.’

‘And how is your wife?’