"So you won't inherit it," Aitken commented.

Paolo looked embarrassed. "Well, it's not quite the same as England - or Scotland," he added tactfully. "The big English and Scottish families usually own single castles, and estates, which pass from eldest son to eldest son. Here in Italy we do not have primogeniture; the eldest son has no more (and no fewer) rights than his brothers. If - I take an imaginary example - the Count of Orbetello has three sons, then all three are counts, and so are each of their three sons. When the father dies his estate is divided into three, and so on when each of the sons die. In two generations it will have been divided twelve times - three times, and then three times for each of their sons.

"So the Palazzo degli Orsini in Pitigliano has not been passed from eldest son to eldest son. Quite apart from primogeniture, the Orsini family is large and owns many palaces (what in England would be called large country houses), and when the head of a particular branch of the family dies, his property is divided among many people."

Aitken asked bluntly: "How does this affect you not having a claim on that place in Pitigliano?"

Ramage realized that the real explanation was embarrassing Paolo, who was afraid that Aitken and Hill would think he was boasting. "What Orsini hasn't told you is that he's the present head of the Orsini family. He might well be the ruler of Volterra, if his aunt - the Marchesa, whom you know, Aitken - is dead. The Palazzo degli Orsini in Pitigliano probably belongs to a distant cousin who fled when the French came."

Aitken's curiosity was aroused and both Ramage and Orsini realized that the Calypso's first lieutenant was genuinely interested, not prying.

"So if - if anything has happened to the Marchesa and you are now the ruler of Volterra, where - what, rather - is your home?"

"The palace in Volterra. Or would be if the French had not occupied Volterra, along with the Kingdom of Tuscany."

"So you own a lot of land," Aitken commented.

"My aunt does - or did. If she is dead I inherit a kingdom. But to no purpose: at the moment everything I own is stowed in my trunk in the midshipman's berth on board the Calypso."

Aitken nodded and said quietly: "I'd never thought about this very much. We're really marching across your land."

"Not quite that," Paolo said hastily. "All this area belongs to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Or did. Who knows what Bonaparte has done now he calls it the Kingdom of Etruria."

"But it's as though we were marching across the hills of Perthshire," Aitken said. "I come from near Perth," he added. "Aye, laddie, you carry a heavier weight on your shoulders than I realized."

The youth shrugged. "If I'd stayed, the French would probably have shot me - or at least let me rot in some prison. By escaping I can at least -" he gave a dry laugh, "- pay occasional visits."

"Aye, this'll be your second that I've been on. Port' Ercole's not that far away."

"But out of range of a bomb ketch," Orsini said, and moved over as Jackson came up with food and the flasks that were full of water when the Marines used them, but now contained wine.

That night Ramage slept fitfully: mosquitoes seemed to whine past him in line ahead, and from nearby a nightjar kept up its drearily monotonous "quark ... quark ..." Occasionally a nightingale began singing and Ramage found himself wakening fully so that he could listen to its song. One of the few drawbacks of life at sea was that apart from the mewing of gulls when they were close to land, the sea was barren of birdsong.

For too many nights now waking meant only lying and thinking about Sarah. He recognized that the worst part was the uncertainty. If he knew for sure that the Murex had been sunk in a gale or by the French, he could mourn her. She would be dead and (the thought seemed harsh but was not) that would be that, because she could not still be suffering in any way. But because she might have been captured (perhaps by privateers) anything could have happened. He forced himself to think about it, even though it made him shudder. If by privateers, they could have raped her and now be waiting for a chance to ransom her. If captured by a French national ship, she would be a prisoner and, given that Bonaparte appeared to be collecting the important and the famous as hostages, she might be a closely guarded prisoner in Paris.

Yet. . . yet. . . there was no point in having hostages unless your enemy knew about them. Their value was that the enemy knew you had them and that something unpleasant would happen to them unless he did whatever was demanded as the price of their lives or liberty.

Dead or a prisoner? And the same went for Gianna: assassinated or a prisoner? Yes, he thought bitterly, fear is not knowing, and he thought he would never sleep, but eventually he did, wakened as dawn broke by Jackson's insistent, "Sir. . . sir."

Another day . . . another march . . . more decisions . . . hell fire and damnation, he was more tired than he realized. He wanted to sleep, free of those nightmares which were not nightmares because he was still awake.

Jackson passed him his boots and then waited to see if there were any orders. Ramage shook his head. His mind had never been so empty of ideas or, for that matter, so hostile to them. Ideas meant action, and every bone in his body seemed bruised from marching and sleeping on the hard ground, every muscle stretched beyond its limits.

There was a smell of burning and he glanced round to see that the men had lit a small bonfire and over it swung a pot suspended from a tripod of three tree branches.

Sailors always wanted something hot to drink for breakfast, and the fact that they were in the lee of a row of cypress on the road from Manciano to the sea apparently made no difference. Well, to the onlooker it was natural enough: soldiers were always lighting fires to cook their food . . .

An hour later the column was marching westwards: for once the sun was cool and at their backs, and by noon they expected to be resting in the shade of the cypress only a mile short of the Via Aurelia, free to swim in the Albinia river. Wash in it, anyway, as long as oxen had not been sloshing about upstream. Ramage rubbed his chin, the bristles rasping. Within the first hour he was back on board the Calypso, he vowed, he would shave . . .

They had just come in sight of the cypress grove when Rossi laughed and pointed ahead. Coming towards them in the distance was a donkey, and on its back the same hunched figure they had first seen going the other way.

"He's sold his own wine," Orsini said, "and from the look of it he spent some of the money sampling the wine of Orbetello."

"Let's hope he's sober enough to talk sense," Ramage growled, "otherwise you can dip him in the river a few times. Though come to think of it, that won't put him in the right frame of mind to help us!"

The man turned out to be tired, not drunk, but he was extremely nervous, though there seemed to be no obvious reason. Ramage gestured to his men to fall out and rest along the side of the track, and then, with Orsini and Rossi, squatted down on the ground, offering the man some wine from a flask. He shook his head.

"You sold your wine for a good price?"

"Yes," he said abruptly, as though he did not want to discuss it.

"Is Orbetello crowded?" Ramage asked casually.

"No more than usual."

"You stayed longer than you expected?"

"Yes," the man said and rubbed his head as though trying to erase an unpleasant memory. "Mamma mia, when my wife hears . . ."

"What happened?" Rossi asked sympathetically, responding at once to Ramage's wink.

"Gambling," the man muttered. "I can't resist it. I used the wine money."

"But you won!" Rossi said jovially.

"Yes - to begin with. The first night I doubled it."