‘But I got to know Carthage. I mean, the real city. Not as it exists in the imagination of the suffetes and the elders and the tribunes. Not even the priests know what’s going on, I don’t think. Mother, the bread ration, such as it is, doesn’t reach half the people it’s supposed to. There’s a whole population who have been simply abandoned. Yet they’re still there – many of them in a huge slum city outside the walls beyond the western gate. There is terrible corruption out there, terrible cruelty.

‘But most people are decent. I started to see the ways they help each other. One has room to take in an orphan, and does so. Another has a sort of food that her own child can’t eat because it sickens her, so she gives it to the family next door. There’s no fresh water but for a couple of dried-up springs, and even they are polluted by sewage, but they get organised, and dig latrines and sewage channels. Now we have doctors and nurses who can at least advise the sick. Of course it all depends on food, and there’s a dwindling supply of that, and in the end . . . Well, I suppose it’s best not to think about the end.’

‘So this is what you’re doing. You’re in the middle of this network of – of helping.’

‘I’m educated, Mother. I can organise things on a bigger scale than most. Write things down, work out the numbers. And I’m a Northlander. I’m not in any of Carthage’s factions or cliques. That helps, I think.’

She had become a woman Rina barely knew, so much had she grown just in the few months they’d been in Carthage. She was still not seventeen. ‘Oh, Alxa! The risks you must run, of disease, of robbery . . .’

Alxa smiled. ‘Mother, there’s always a risk. But people know me. I’m the Ana. If anybody tried to hurt me there would be a hundred to step in and protect me.’ Alxa patted Rina’s hand, as if she was the parent, Rina the child. ‘Besides, what choice is there?’

‘The family would be proud of you. But I wish I could spare you this!’

Alxa pulled back and stood up. ‘What would you do, hide me in a broom closet? I wanted to tell you – well, that I’m fine. Now you must go. Himil told me about your demanding boss.’

Rina could barely bring herself to stand and leave her. ‘Give my love to Nelo if—’

‘If I hear from him, I will.’

They embraced again, and it was over. Rina let Himil lead her out of the tavern and back up the hill towards Barmocar’s residence.

It was only then that it occurred to Rina to wonder why Alxa had arranged to see her now, and not before.