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you!” But there was nothing there. His moustache is bigger than his brain!
    The four of us rode forward at the same pace, pretending not to notice his gallops, his stopping and starting, or the clapping of his legs against the flanks of his mule. But at noon, when Hatem prepared some food — only local flat bread stuffed with local cheese, seasoned with oil and oregano — I invited the intruder to share our meal. Neither my nephews nor my clerk approved of my generosity and, given the ill-mannered oaf’s behaviour, I must say they were right. For he grabbed what we offered him, took it to the other side of the road, and devoured it all alone like a brute beast, with his back to us. Too uncouth to eat with us, but not proud enough to go hungry. What a pathetic wretch!
    We are going to spend this first night at Anfé, a village on the coast. A fisherman has offered us food and shelter. When I went to open my purse to give him a token of thanks, he declined, then took me aside and asked me instead to tell him what I knew about the rumours concerning next year. I spoke in as learned a manner as I could to reassure him. They are only empty rumours, I told him — the kind that always circulate when men lose courage. Don’t be taken in by them! Does it not say in the Scriptures, “Ye know neither the day nor the hour”?
    My host was so comforted by these words that, not content with having offered us hospitality, he took my hand and kissed it. I blushed with shame. If the good fellow only knew the absurd reason for my journey! And there I was pretending to dispense wisdom!
    Before going to bed I made myself write these few paragraphs, by the light of a rank-smelling candle. I’m not sure I’ve selected what’s important. It’s not going to be easy to distinguish the essential from the trivial every day, the significant from the incidental, the true paths from the blind alleys. But I mean to go forward with my eyes open.
    Tripoli, 25 August
    We seem to have shaken off our unwelcome fellow-traveller. Only to meet with other troubles.
    This morning Rasmi was waiting for us outside the house where we’d spent the night, moustache bristling, ready to go. He must have slept in another house in the village, I suppose — some brigand of his acquaintance. When we set out he followed us for a few minutes, then rode to the top of a headland, as he had done yesterday, to scan the landscape. Then he turned back and went off in the direction of Gibelet. My companions are still wondering if it wasn’t a ruse, and if he won’t try to surprise us further on. But I don’t think so. I don’t think we shall see him again.
    We reached Tripoli at noon. This must be the twentieth time I’ve been there, but I never pass through the city gates without emotion. It is here that my ancestors first set foot in the Levant, more than 500 years ago. In those days the Crusaders were besieging the town, unsuccessfully. Ansaldo Embriaco, one of my ancestors, helped them build a citadel designed to overcome the resistance of the beleaguered defenders, and offered the aid of his ships to blockade the harbour. In return he was given the seigniory of Gibelet.
    The domain remained in my family for a good 200 years. And even when the last Frankish state in the Levant was destroyed, the Embriaci managed to persuade the victorious Mamelukes to let them hold on to their fief for a few more years. We had been among the first Crusaders to arrive, and we were the last to leave. We didn’t quite go even then. Am I not the living proof of that?
    When the reprieve was over and we had to abandon our domain of Gibelet to the Muslims, what remained of the family decided to return to Genoa. “Return” is not the right word: they had all been born in the Levant, and most of them had never set foot in the city their forefathers came from. However, once back in Genoa, Bartolomeo, my ancestor at the