They came to a darkened property that had once, according to a faded sign over the door, been a manufactory of jewellery. Now the frontage was scarred by fire, and the door had been broken down.

Gisco checked his bit of paper. ‘This is the one.’ He gestured to Suniatus. ‘No need to knock.’

Suni grinned, drew his sword, kicked the door in, and led the way inside.

If this had been a manufactory it had long been stripped bare, the contents looted. Now in two, three, four ground-floor rooms people huddled, whole families crammed into one corner or another, mothers clutching infants, cowering back from Gisco’s light. There was a complicated stink of milk, piss, shit, sweat, and deep ingrained dirt. Gisco, without a word, stalked through the rooms, blade in hand, holding his lantern so he could see faces. Eyes gleamed bright from heaps of rags. He still hadn’t told Suni or Nelo what he was looking for.

‘Not here,’ he said once they had gone through all the rooms. He saw that Suniatus had grabbed a bit of bread from some wretch, and was biting into the hard crust. ‘Oh, give that back, Suni.’ Suniatus cast the fragment over his shoulder, and the huddled forms scrambled for it. Gisco looked around. There was an upper floor, but the ceilings of the rooms were flimsy and cracked, and the dawn sky showed through, a reluctant grey.

‘Nothing up there, Sergeant,’ Suniatus offered. ‘I saw from outside. Top floor pulled down, for the wood to burn, I guess.’

‘All right.’ Gisco stalked through the rooms again, ignoring the people who had to shrink back out of his way. At length he found a hatch in the floor. ‘Aha! A cellar.’ He gestured at Suni, who found an iron ring fixed to the hatch, and hauled it up. Gisco held up his lantern over the hole. Nelo glimpsed a wooden ladder, a floor of packed earth beneath.

Gisco nodded to Suniatus, his finger to his lips. ‘You first, Suni. Quiet, now.’

Suni grinned, settled into the hatch, and let himself down the ladder one-handed. Gisco passed the lantern. Suni looked around, then headed off determinedly to one corner, moving out of sight.

Nelo waited with Gisco. Somewhere an infant murmured, and was hushed. Nelo wondered what happened to these people when it rained, under that roof. But then it rarely rained in Carthage nowadays.

There was a brief sound of a struggle, a surprised grunt. Then Suni called up, ‘You can come down, sir.’

Nelo led the way down the ladder.