He bought the ewes instead (he didn’t even know they were ewes). There was plenty of cheap land outside of town. John Myer was searching for peace, though it was true he mainly went about drinking for it.

‘What would you rather?’ he said, hoping she’d agree to come with him.

Kathleen laughed. She’d have no more of that work, she said. The stink of wet wool and pellets of shit slimy in the rain, the dreary long days of her girlhood.

She washed back into the crowd, down at the Rocks, gone.

The soldiers came for him, on the very morning he got his sheep, a set-up plain from the start. Seven sheep there, plump too, but the soldier boys only counted four in the ledger.

UPON HIS RELEASE, THE GÉNÉRAL HAPPILY RETIRES FROM THE LIFE HE ONCE KNEW

Field Marshal Curado said, ‘Where will you go?’

Marta, heavily pregnant again, wore Juan strapped to her back and she rolled clothes into bundles, gathered their things from around the room. Curado and the général stood watching her, cups of dark rum in their hands.

‘Somewhere quiet,’ Fourés said.

‘You will not return to Cayenne? Or to France?’

‘It would be no life for Marta and the children in either place,’ Fourés said, looking at his young family. ‘Nor for me.’

Curado had expected it. He slipped out some folded documents from his pocket. ‘These will help you pass through the territories,’ he said, handing them over. ‘Beyond that is beyond my control and forecast.’

The général thanked him.

‘I cannot dissuade you?’ the field marshal said. ‘The wild lands are volatile, things change by the day.’

Fourés touched Curado on the arm and smiled. ‘That is the whole world, my friend,’ he said. ‘There’s no escaping it.’

Curado glanced at Marta. ‘They’re different, you know. From you and I.’

‘Yes,’ Fourés said. It was beyond him to explain in words. Marta wanted nothing of him, she’d placed no obligations on his shoulders, and yet there he was, heart brimming for her, the bond between them unbreakable.

‘I wish you good fortune, Général.’

A final look around the room. Marta checked under the bed.

‘Away now,’ Fourés said.

The guard brought their things down to the street. Curado had supplied Fourés with a small horse, a musket, pistol and ammunition, a dagger and an axe, some supplies. From his own pommel, he retrieved the général’s cavalry sabre, from so long ago, cleaned and polished and the scabbard shining black and silver.

‘Sharpened and without a speck of rust,’ Curado said.

‘I am in your debt.’

‘It has been my privilege.’

Fourés wrapped the belt around the scabbard and sword, tucked it into one of their bags. Everything was tied securely to the horse.

The two men kissed, holding shoulders, then braced at arm’s length.

‘Goodbye.’