Rina asked around Carthage for advice; this was a city of travellers and traders after all. In the end she talked to the innkeeper called Myrcan – not for the first time, for it was in his dingy bar that she had had one of her last meetings with her daughter, and she had come back many times since, as if in search of the echo of Alxa.

‘People tell me the truth,’ he said. He poured her a cup of wine. ‘Make the most of this, by the way, the last really good vintage we got before the weather turned to shit. Pardon my language.’

‘I’ve heard worse,’ Rina said drily.

‘The truth. Every traveller is expected to file a report with the suffetes. It’s not just scholars who need to know what’s becoming of the world. And when they’ve reported to the suffetes most of them come here, and report to me – or rather, to the best listener in the world,’ and he rapped a fingernail against the neck of the wine flask.

‘Well, I want the truth, as best you have it,’ she said grimly.

‘Then tell your uncle he must travel overland. That Coldlander boy is right. The interiors of the countries are emptying out. This has been going on for years. By now the people have either fled south or to the coast. So if you travel by sea you have these crowded coastal ports full of starving nestspills, and everybody’s out on the ocean fighting for the catch, and you have pirates who’ve got bolder and bolder. Why, I’m told the market for slaves from the west, shipped over to what’s left of the countries in the east, is one of the healthiest businesses in the world.

‘So your son and his party want to avoid all that mucking about. Go across country. That way they’ll only have to deal with a few starving farmers, and wild animals who are as confused as we are. Tell them Myrcan said so. Now, do you want some more of this reasonably priced nectar or shall I stopper it for you to take home?’

From such recommendations, and partly because of all of them it was only the Coldlander boy who seemed to have any idea of how this journey might actually be achieved, the decision was made: overland it would be, after a short sea crossing to the southern shore of Ibera.

The Carthaginian authorities were lavish in funding Pyxeas’ expedition, in a mood of nervous gratitude. Or perhaps the city just wanted rid of him, he joked. So the party gathered equipment and supplies, heavy jackets, breeches, hats and boots made from the fur of seals and bear, meat and fish dried and salted, pickled vegetables in clay pots – and a carriage.