Rolling hills surrounded the southern end of the lake. The marina was large, with graceful sailboats rocking gently so that their masts moved like metronomes. Sam and Remi could hear the soft sound of rings and pulleys swinging against the aluminum masts in the light summer breeze. The little town on the big lake indeed had a vacation feel to it. From here, it seemed to be all boats and hotels.

“What did you learn in the guidebooks?” Sam asked.

“The lake is the biggest in Italy, thirty-four miles long. The upper end is surrounded by mountains, but down here there are lots of beaches. The water enters in the north and flows out in the Mincio River here in Peschiera del Garda, and a bit farther on it flows into the Po River.”

“So we’re getting close,” said Sam. “The account Albrecht e-mailed us says Pope Leo I went with his delegation to meet Attila south of Lake Garda where the Mincio River meets the Po.”

They walked along the pebble beach past several docks and a café. The buildings they could see were mostly two to four stories high, and old. They were painted white, pink, and yellow. There was a sixteenth-century brick wall around the old boundaries of the city, with walkways on top. They found a parking lot outside the walls that had a garden with Peschiera del Garda spelled out in flowers at the main gate and then a pedestrian mall where there were cafés and shops.

“How are we going to find the spot?” Remi asked.

“The usual ways, I guess. We start with the things that were already here in 452.”

“The town was founded in the first century, so it was already three hundred years old when Attila arrived.”

“It was just a little village along the shore. Without much warning, out of the north comes Attila the Hun, of all people, at the head of a huge army of horsemen. He had just devastated much of northern Italy on his way here.”

“The people were probably too busy running to look at him closely,” said Remi. “I know I would have been.”

“Me too. That’s how Venice was founded. People running from Attila as he came down from the north hid on the islands. When he left, they didn’t.”

“Okay, smart guy,” she said. “The towns around here have changed. But the place where the river leaves the lake must be the same.”

“That’s logical.”