"And we march with the perseverance of a charcoal burner's donkey bound for home," Auguste added, then qualified it with: "Once you've got him started."

At that moment Rossi, walking beside Orsini at the head of the column, pointed up the track. "Something is coming. You see the dust?"

Ramage, having to look into the glare of the rising sun, pulled down the peak of his cap. "Yes - one person, I think, on a horse or donkey. Yes, a donkey, because a horse would make more dust."

"A farmer going to Orbetello?" Rossi suggested.

"No threat to us, anyway. He can tell us what there is in Manciano - always assuming there is something in Manciano!"

As it came nearer, the donkey seemed to be walking along by itself, head down, its large ears flapping and carrying a shapeless sack on its back. Then Ramage thought he could distinguish a barrel at the bottom of the pile, balancing on the wooden frame, shaped rather like a sawing horse, which served as a saddle or repository for whatever load it was carrying. The shapeless mass was in fact a man draped over the flanks of the donkey and partly over the barrel, a man who was either asleep or drunk.

Ramage held up his hand to halt the column and with Orsini and Rossi walked over to stand in front of the donkey, which seemed grateful for the opportunity to stop.

This woke the man, who rubbed his eyes but did not seem startled to find himself facing soldiers. "What have I done now?" His tone was surly but deferential; these were the enemy, he seemed to imply, and they made so many rules and regulations that it was impossible for a simple contadino to understand or remember.

"I do not know yet," Ramage said evenly. "Where have you come from and where are you going?"

"From just this side of Manciano, and I'm going to Orbetello to sell wine." He slapped the barrel with his hand.

"Have you seen any strangers in the fields, or along the road: people who are obviously enemies of the Republic?" That, Ramage hoped, would reveal the attitude of at least one contadino towards the French and anyone who might be their enemy.

"No one. Just Giuseppe, who is my neighbour: he was out at dawn. A wise man gets as much hoeing done as possible before the sun gets hot."

Ramage nodded affably. "Can't you sell your wine in Manciano? It's a long ride to Orbetello."

"Manciano?" The man sounded disgusted by the name. "In Manciano half the men press their own grapes and the other half are too mean to pay a decent price."

"They're thirstier in Orbetello, eh?"

The man shrugged his shoulders and finally slid off the donkey. He stretched one leg and then the other and, after apparently reassuring himself he could still walk, said: "Different people. In Orbetello, many men fish in the lagoon, others make charcoal. Several shops there. Not many people grow grapes. Most of the land is used for olive trees, so they need to buy wine and sell oil."

Again Ramage nodded. "And the French troops there - they buy your wine?"

The man looked him up and down and said nothing.

"What about the French in Manciano - where do they buy wine, eh?"

"French troops do not buy wine from anyone," the man said finally, as though explaining something to a child. "They just commandeer what they need. Anyway, there are no French troops in Manciano." He stopped and thought for a moment. "Are you going to Manciano? A garrison, perhaps?"

"We are just passing through - on our way to Orvieto."

"Yes, you would be," the man said. "Many French there."

"And Pitigliano, too?"

The man looked at him warily, and then agreed. "And Pitigliano, too. Now, Colonel, can I go on?"

Ramage nodded: there was little more that the man could tell him. Then suddenly he remembered a question. "Why don't you sell your wine in Pitigliano?"

"The same reason that I can't sell it in Manciano. Too many men grow their own grapes. Anyway, I don't like Pitigliano. My wife's family live there and they've never liked me: think she married beneath her - and her father only a tailor! You'll see his house just inside the town gate. You can't miss his sign, a pair of wooden scissors hanging over the door. Between two falegnami, although I wouldn't recommend either of them if you wanted a table made with four legs the same length. Can I go now?"

Ramage nodded and watched the man step back a couple of paces and then run at the donkey, jumping on to its back like a boy playing leapfrog. The donkey did not move and the man reached down beside the barrel and found a stick half as thick as his wrist.

He whacked the donkey with it, but the animal took a deep breath, stretched its neck and brayed, the noise as always reminding Ramage of a cow being strangled. The man whacked again, and reluctantly the donkey began to move. Ramage waved to his column and they continued their march.

"He didn't seem to know much, sir," Orsini commented.

"Obviously not a lot happens on the outskirts of Manciano," Ramage said dryly. "But he knows there's something unusual at Pitigliano."

"Yes, yes," Rossi said excitedly, his Genoese accent strong, "you noticed it too, sir! That was a strange expression on his face after you mentioned French troops in Pitigliano - as though he thought you were trying to trap him."

"Yes, but I decided more questions would only make him more suspicious. Those hills ahead of us are just the sort where partisan bands live. He saw we were escorting prisoners so he might get word to them . . ."

"You think there are still partisans, sir?" Orsini asked. "There were when I escaped from Volterra, but that was a long time ago."

"I'm sure the French have done nothing to make the partisans change their minds about the French Republic, One and Indivisible."

"But how can partisans survive?"

"I doubt if they live like a group of bandits on the Maremma; they're probably like the man we've just seen: tilling fields most of the time, and then one night joining up for a raid on a French garrison, or to ambush a convoy of carts carrying supplies for garrisons."

Rossi nodded his agreement. "That's what happened round Genoa when the French first came," he said. "Accidente, I wish we had some somaro to ride on. That man did not look comfortable, but his feet weren't sore."

"Not his feet," Paolo said.

Rossi thought for several moments. "I see what you mean. He could harm himself, too."

They reached Manciano shortly after noon, and as soon as Ramage had commandeered bread, all the cheese he could find (some extremely strong pecorino fresco, made of goat's milk and, according to Stafford, likely to make your hair fall out) along with several salami sausages and fiaschi of red wine, the column continued along the road to Pitigliano. Ramage soon halted them where they could sit in the narrow shade made by a row of cypress trees. The sun was high - but Ramage remembered the Tropics where, at certain times in the year, the sun was directly overhead and a man made no shadow.

"Take your boots off, and as soon as you've eaten, rest with your feet up. You have two hours to sleep."

Hearing Stafford's startled but delighted exclamation, Ramage explained to the men: "No Italians or French would be marching at this time. Any movement during siesta time would make people suspicious."

The bread was fresh, obviously baked early that morning: the salami was good, the slightly smoky taste almost overpowered by garlic, and the pecorino fresco was as strong as Stafford anticipated but cleaned the mouth of the greasiness left by the salami. Ramage had a sip of wine, curious about the taste of the product of Manciano's vineyards.

He pulled off his boots, rolled up his coat as a pillow, and lay back on the parched ground, his sword and two pistols beside him. The dark green cypress were like jutting spearheads, he thought sleepily. Cicadas buzzed monotonously - and Ramage realized how much the countryside was part of him because he had not paid them any attention until now, although they were loud enough. A single lark, in line with the sun, sang as if to welcome them. Five minutes later a sparrowhawk (or was it a kestrel - difficult to tell in this bright sun) poised over a small sugarloaf hill; then it dropped like a stone on its prey.