‘Should we send a message back home when we reach land?’ Elissa kept imagining Lavinia, weeping over her spinning wheel, or Aeneas, angrily pacing the streets of Lavinium, dust in the reddish tufts at his temples.

‘Yes.’ Silvius crossed his arms determinedly. ‘There will be enough time for us to find the rest of the Arrow without them catching up to stop us. No one can travel faster than a divine ship!’

All around them were other ships, the dark hulls of merchant traders speeding on their way, with cargoes of tin, bronze, pottery and silks. Every time one of them came near, Elissa strained to see if it was Carthaginian.

She’d never met one of her own people. Once she saw a boat that looked promising, with a dolphin as its figurehead, but the men on it were Achaeans, and called out amazed words of greeting before passing on. Silvius, looking up from his bow at the Achaean shouts, frowned.

Sometimes they saw fishermen, two to a boat, gnarled and ancient, taking the day’s catch home to their families. These would stand in surprise and bow before the ship nymph – which obviously pleased her greatly.

A ship carrying priests, who were decked in white ribbons, engaged on some holy mission, came alongside them. They began a chant in praise of the ship nymph, which caused her sails to become almost red with pleasure. ‘Hail!’ they called across the waves. ‘Hail, o beauteous example of the divine!’

Elissa, giggling, waved at them. Their chants continued until they were out of sight.

Only once did she see a ship full of warriors in the distance, surging onwards, the roar of drums and shouts racing across the sea; she shivered a little as she watched it disappear towards the scatter of islands that bore the easy prey of goats and cattle. Silvius, though, sprang to the stern, and looked out, eyes shining.

Later, Elissa stood by the figurehead, dolphins playing joyfully around their ship, their blue-grey backs curving and jumping.

‘What do they say?’ asked Elissa.

‘It is very difficult to make out what dolphins say,’ replied the ship nymph, a little testily. ‘Most of it is about fish. But what they do ask is why a dolphin is sailing with a wolf.’

A dolphin and a wolf. The dolphin, she supposed, was the one around her neck. And the wolf – well, that was Ruffler, clearly. She fingered the pendant, and remembered what the Sibyl’s obscure words had been. Dolphinlight. What light was that? And lionstone. The Sibyl’s lion, perhaps.

Night fell, and the stars rose, spotting the waves, so that the sea resembled a mirror.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Elissa. ‘Not now.’

‘Me neither. We should think about what we’re going to do when we get to Mykenai. What kind of people will they be? Will they welcome us? Will they hate me, as Aeneas hates them? Or send us away?’