Sergeant Gisco was here, to add to his burden. And then he learned that the escort as a whole was under the nominal command of a man Nelo knew: Mago, nephew of Barmocar, a scion of one of Carthage’s great families appointed to lend a bit more weight to the party.

Mago soon spotted Nelo. He was more grandly dressed even than Fabius himself, with a spectacular crimson plume on his helmet. ‘Ha! When I heard the general had adopted a Northlander runt who could scribble a bit, I thought it must be you.’

Nelo thought it was a long time since the two of them had worked together in the aftermath of the Autumn Blizzard in Etxelur. As soon as he was back home, the worst of Mago had come to the fore once more. ‘What do you want?’

‘What do you want, sir.’ Mago stalked around Nelo, inspecting his quilted tunic and light mail coat and cloak, his pouch with his paper and crayons for the sketching. ‘Treats you well, does he, the general? I don’t hold with the rumours that he’s bumming you, though Romans are notorious for it. Greek influence, you see. No, you’re not pretty enough. You’re his little pet, though, aren’t you? Feeds you on scraps from the table, does he? And how’s your mother? And that tasty sister of yours—’

Nelo faced him. ‘My sister’s dead.’

They faced each other, eyes locked.

Mago sneered, contemptuous, arrogant. ‘You’re no soldier.’

‘I agree.’

‘What?’

‘I agree. Sir. I never asked for it. I do my best.’

‘And it’s a poor best from what your sergeant’s told me.’

Something in Mago’s arrogance struck Nelo in that moment, his complacency, his absolute certainty about his place in the world. Nelo had been around Fabius long enough to see the Roman’s point of view, to believe it: whatever was to come this campaigning season, the world was changing, utterly and irrevocably. He had a sudden vision of Mago in two or three or four years, standing in the frozen ruins of Carthage. How arrogant would he be then? How complacent? He tried to think how he could capture this insight on paper.

Mago seemed to sense there was something going on inside Nelo’s head that he couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch. ‘Pah! You are a waste of grain, you Northlander cur. And if the protection of your precious general ever wavers, I will make sure you are cast down where you belong.’

‘Thank you, sir.’