He checked his small leather pack. Dagger. New bronze sword, rolled up in cloth. Water pouch. Some hard bread he’d taken from the stores. The wooden box on a thin chain which he was going to use as a dummy. He thought for a second about waking Brutus up. Be strong, he would say to him. Be strong and obey your parents. He knew that wasn’t what he was doing. But it would be better for Brutus to stay safe.

Aeneas’s room was further along the corridor from Silvius’s own. The family’s sleeping quarters all faced onto a wide earthen-floored courtyard. Lavinia’s rooms were the largest and most comfortable. She had furnished them with soft things from her home city, fine materials from the tribes further north. Her Latin maidservants slept in the antechamber. Silvius crept past her door, aware that a candle was lit within, aware of every creak of a plank and hoot of a bird.

But nothing stirred, and he arrived unchallenged at his father’s door. He paused at the threshold to put down his pack, removing the decoy box. Taking a deep breath, he entered. The wooden hinges creaked slightly, like the timbers of a ship, and Silvius was momentarily startled by something brushing across his face; but he held his breath, and stifled the shriek of fear that was trying to escape his lips. It was a moth, whirring away.

He stood with his back pressed against the door.

The room was doused in moonlight. It seemed spectral, unreal almost.

His father was lying on his back, hands by his sides, without a cover, wearing a day tunic, his polished armour laid out ready on the floor next to the bed. A sword, unsheathed, was within reach.

The rest was almost completely bare. For the first time, it struck Silvius that his father really had lost everything at Troy. There was a small chest under the window, which Silvius assumed held linen, and a statue of the goddess Venus, big-thighed and squat. The only other thing that broke up the wooden walls was a tapestry that hung opposite Aeneas’s bed. Silvius had seen it many times before, and even now he could pick out the scene: the towers of Troy, burning to the ground, the Achaean soldiers looting, slaughtering and causing chaos. It gave him pause. Was he doing the right thing, plunging into the land of their enemies? In the top left-hand corner, a small group of Trojans, led by Aeneas, was escaping, ready to make their desperate way somewhere else. His father had made a difficult journey. Why shouldn’t he?

Gulping, he stepped carefully towards the bed across the clean wooden boards. The golden chain was hanging around Aeneas’s neck, the casket holding the Arrowhead a dark lump upon his chest. Silvius tiptoed closer. He could hear his father breathing deeply and evenly.