It was when she overheard grim reports delivered to Barmocar of authenticated cases of the blood plague not far from the city that she began to suspect the truth. Alxa had wanted to see her because she knew, from her own network of informants, that the plague was coming. And Alxa, following her own self-appointed mission, was not going to stay away from the afflicted.

It was a month since her meeting with Alxa. One night, while her bed was still occupied by the snoring night maid, Alxa once more pulled on her cloak, and her Northlander boots, about the only worthwhile possession from home she had left, picked up a small purse with a few treasured Carthaginian coins, and slipped out through the grounds. That gap in the external wall had been roughly patched up, but the dry stonework was loose – mortar was in short supply like everything else this dismal winter – and she easily pulled a few stones loose, clambered over the wall, and slipped away into the dark. There was an abandoned property not far away, a small warehouse, used by some of the younger staff for love-making. Tonight it was empty save for the scuffling of rats.

She sat, favouring her back, wrapped herself in her cloak, and waited for dawn. It wouldn’t be long until her absence was discovered. The night maid who shared her bed might tell on her; she was the kind who liked to win favours that way. One way or another Rina would be in for another whipping, or maybe this time just a chucking-out to join the starving in the streets. Well, what came next didn’t matter. She had to see Alxa again; she had to know.

When the light of the African morning was strong in the sky, she slipped out of the warehouse and walked down the narrow street.

She soon came to Myrcan’s tavern. He was just opening up, throwing open the doors, sweeping half-dried vomit into the street, setting out his chalkboard of exclusion and welcome.

‘The Ana,’ she said to him in Carthaginian.

He eyed her cautiously. ‘What did you say?’

‘Forgive me. My speaking is poor. I am her mother . . . I was here. You remember? You gave us wine, a month ago.’

He nodded, still cautious. He probably thought her accent was oddly upper crust, since she’d learned it from Barmocar and Anterastilis. Was she a spy, here to check up on black markets in food rations? ‘Why do you want her?’

‘I am her mother.’ She longed to shake him, to make him understand. ‘Is she here?’

‘Not for days.’

‘Then where, where?’

He shrugged. ‘Out of town, maybe.’

‘Outside the walls?’

‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. You look.’

The western gate. Alxa had said there was a big community of the excluded outside the western gate.