‘For folks’ valuables,’ Esterházy says smoothly, when she sees me looking.

I only nod. I want to grab the old woman’s thin, papery arm and demand to know what the symbol means and who carved it into my flesh and who saved my life. But I know I cannot. As far as she is concerned, I’m simply “Doc”, simply a medic and a friend of Falco’s, travelling east. Would that I were. I take a seat at the table she shows us to.

‘Excuse me?’

A woman is addressing me. Her black hair hangs limp down her back, and a battered holster, with two pistols, is slung over her faded floral dress.

I try to smile. She returns it. Her teeth are fibreglass, cheap ones.

‘I was just wondering,’ she says softly, ‘would your niece mind spending a little time with my Franzi? It’s so rare he meets another child, these days.’

‘I’m sorry?’

A small boy peers from his mother’s shadow. He looks to be around nine, but could easily have been older. Growth is often stunted out here, faces worn too soon, so that it’s impossible to guess at ages. The boy’s light brown skin is grubby, his dark hair close-cropped. He stares fixedly at the General.

‘Ah.’ I look across the table. ‘Well, that is up to Gabi.’

‘No,’ the General says without hesitation, her eyes on the tray of tumblers being carried by the man who works as bartend. He’s heavily muscled, his shaved head smudged with the shapes of tattoos.

‘Manners, Gabi.’ I give her a warning look. ‘Why don’t you go along and play with Franzi?’

The General stares daggers at me. ‘Because I don’t want to. I’m thirsty. I want a drink.’

The man with the tray hears. ‘It’s alright, sweetheart, I’ll bring you out a soda. How about that?’

Franzi’s face creases with envy. Soda is a rare treat indeed on Factus, sugared as it is. Shyly, he creeps around the table and grasps the General’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘I got beetles.’

The General gives me an outraged look as the child drags her away. I shrug, trying to keep down a smile.

‘Thank you,’ the woman watches them go, ‘it’s been months since he saw anyone even close to his age.’

‘Do not start crying, Bebe,’ Ma Esterházy says, limping over from the bar, an unlabelled bottle in her hand. ‘Not when we have friends here.’ She thumps the bottle down and drops into a chair.

‘It is only right,’ she continues, pouring clear liquid into small metal cups. ‘That we begin with a drink. Xenia, the ancient Greeks used to call it, the sacred law of hospitality. Or translated for Factus, “liquor first, questions later”.’

Bebe rolls her eyes good-naturedly as she takes a cup and leans back against a table. It seems compulsory that we all do the same.

‘Egészségedre,’ Esterházy announces, looking us all in the eye.