"Do you think we'll get away with it, sir? Just going up to the commandant and asking?"

"We're not 'just asking'," Ramage said impatiently. "As far as we and the commandant are concerned, we have more hostages we were ordered to deliver to Giglio. Very well, the others are not here, and there's been the sort of mix-up made in anyone's army." Ramage held his arms out, palms uppermost, and looked despairing. "So we march back to the port. If the hostages are there, we keep quiet about our 'prisoners', and relieve the commandant. . ."

Aitken added two more twigs to the barrier in front of the beetle. "I haven't seen a scorpion yet. What size are they, sir?"

"About twice as long as that beetle, but not nearly as fat. You won't mistake one - long thin tail, which it arches up over its back like a dog's tail and points forward if it meets an enemy, and jaws like this -" he held up his hand, the thumb and forefinger making a half-circle. "The jaws don't hurt you -they just get a firm grip so that he can give you a jab with his tail, which looks like a bent fishing rod and has the sting in the end. Probably a couple of them under that rock - just the sort of place they like."

"I'll leave them in peace. The gate of Castello seems to be open. And look, just a few wisps of smoke: cooking."

"Cooking and baking," Ramage said. "Don't forget, that's more of a small walled town than a fortress. Many more local people live up there than down at the port, where we landed."

"They have a quiet life!"

Ramage shook his head and gestured down into the valley separating them from the high peak on which Castello was built. "Look down there carefully. Wherever it slopes it's terraced with vines - see? And the groves of olive trees to the right of those big rocks. The contadini are already working. Weeding, pruning - and see, those two men at the foot of the terraces are sorting out the right size rocks: they're making another terrace."

"Plenty of rocks, not much soil. Reminds me of parts of the Highlands in summer."

Ramage nodded and stood up. "We must be on the move. The next time we speak English we'll know - I hope - where the hostages are."

"Better still," Aitken said, "we'll have them with us. But -" he stopped as the thought struck him, "how are you going...?"

"I've no idea," Ramage said with a grin. "You draw me a plan of Castello and where the garrison is, and where the hostages are held, and I'll tell you. Until then, let's keep an open mind. Or, to be honest, let's see what opportunities present themselves."

In the last valley a surly contadino jogged past on his donkey, whacking it with a monotony which indicated it was a habit rather than a spur to the animal, which ignored everything with a raffish unconcern. "I wish I could talk with that donkey," Paolo said. "I think he could tell me much about life."

"I'm sure he could," Ramage commented, and Rossi laughed.

The muscles along the front of Ramage's shins ached: he had a stitch like a knife in his side. Ramage had thought the march to and from Pitigliano would have put him in trim but now he realized the difference between marching horizontally and (it seemed) almost vertically. Admittedly the track twisted and that took out the worst of the steepness, but the fact was, as Southwick had announced with something like glee, Castello was fifteen hundred feet high . . .

There it was! A sudden turn in the track brought them to the gateway and Ramage saw at once that the most fearsome thing about Castello was its name: the thick, turreted walls built round the village were crumbling. Obviously only a garrison from an occupying army was likely to do repairs - and then an enemy would have to be threatening.

Certainly the present garrison saw no threat, and the villagers clearly left it to the Church and the French to defend them against i Saraceni, so shrubs and cacti grew between the carved stones and the roots slowly but quite relentlessly levered many of them apart so that, helped by decades of winds, hot sun and torrential rains, one stone after another tumbled down the slopes, making the steep hill look as though Castello had been through a siege.

Luckily for the future of Castello, the blocks of stone which had been cut by masons long since dead were too big for the villagers to carry off to build houses for newly wed sons. Obviously, since the French had arrived, iSaraceni had been forgotten; it was not in the people's character, Ramage reflected, to remember that they were still there, lurking along the distant coast of Africa with their galleys ready to raid as soon as the French had gone.

The Saracens, Moors or Barbary pirates (the names changed, the people remained the same) had plagued the Mediterranean for a thousand years, and their strength was that they raided small towns and their victims had short memories. Short memories and too preoccupied with their own quarrels to unite and crush the raiders.

Half a dozen children stood shyly at the gateway, not afraid because they recognized Gilbert's and Louis's uniforms. A pack of dogs led by a mongrel as big as a wolf, scarred along its back and one ear almost torn off, came rushing out, a mass of hysterical yelping until a couple of the children set about them with sticks and cries of abuse.

The noise brought a French soldier to the gateway, bleary-eyed and unshaven for a week. He stared at the column of men outside, and Gilbert stepped forward, pointing at him and snapping: "Report at once to your commandant that the special party has arrived."

The soldier stood there obviously befuddled with sleep and a numbing headache from last night's wine. "He won't like that. He's never called before roll call at noon."

"Noon!" Gilbert exclaimed and pointed dramatically down at the harbour. "By noon we shall have sailed again!"

"I'll tell the corporal," the soldier muttered. "Let him have the responsibility."

As the man lurched away Gilbert muttered to Ramage: "Soldiers are the same, whatever uniform they wear -"

"Snarl at the corporal," Ramage advised, "otherwise we'll be standing here all day!"

When he arrived the corporal could have been the other man's older brother, except that he squinted at the column as though he had a bright light shining in his eyes.

"You!" snapped Gilbert. "Fetch the commandant at once. I have orders from the general. Are we to be left standing here all day with the dogs pissing all over us and the children throwing stones?"

"At once, Major, at once," the corporal stammered and disappeared, leaving only the wide-eyed children, who had not understood a word. A breeze started blowing through the gateway and Ramage cursed: it brought them the smell of the village - rotting cabbage, stinking fish, donkey dung, the sewage of centuries ripened and refreshed by hot sun and warm showers.

"I'll have the first tilt at the commandant when he arrives," Ramage said. "Anger and outrage sounds better in Italian than French. He probably won't understand a word but he'll guess the meaning. Then you can take over for the coup degrâce!"

Gilbert chuckled: his original dislike of wearing this version of the uniform of Bonaparte's Army of Italy was disappearing rapidly at the prospect of abusing the commandant of Castello.

A good five minutes passed before the commandant appeared, still buttoning up his coat, the corporal carrying his sword and hat. He was a plump little man, swarthy, with perfect teeth beneath sagging black moustaches which had not been combed after a night's sleep.

"Good morning Major," the commandant said, obviously having taken the corporal's word for Gilbert's assumed rank. "No one told me you were coming . . ."

Ramage stepped forward and released a torrent of abusive Italian, but the man stood helpless, his hands held down, palms outwards as though submitting. With feigned ill-grace Ramage gestured to Gilbert, who snapped out crisply: "You've had no orders? No orders - I can't believe it! What about your hostages?"