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Go and stop them shaking the tree.’
    She gave me a little push. I did as I was bidden.
    They seemed no older than when I had first encountered them. That was the price they paid for staying in this sanctuary, at the edge of Ghostland. As I approached them, Munda recognised me and smiled broadly. Kymon frowned, looking around, no doubt hoping to see his father.
    Munda was just as I remembered her, freckle-faced and auburn-haired, with little arrows painted on her cheeks. She wore a simple green dress, belted at the waist.
    Kymon, by contrast, was in his little warrior’s outfit, check-trousered, bare-chested, but with a short blue cloak pinned over his left shoulder with a sparkling metal clasp. Over his back was slung a small, bronzed oval shield bearing the image of a hawk riding a horse.
    He stood warily apart from me, one hand resting on the small knife at his belt, the other flexing with nervous energy. His stare was very direct and reminded me of that searching gaze of Urtha’s, as he tried to understand all things that were strange whilst defiantly proclaiming with his eyes that nothing strange in the world would concern him.
    ‘What have you done with my father?’ the boy asked suddenly.
    ‘I have done nothing with him,’ I answered. ‘I journeyed with him, I fought with him, I watched him defeat a great enemy.’
    Both children smiled, their bright eyes widening. ‘He won his combat?’ Kymon demanded.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Cunomaglos, that traitor, is dead?’
    ‘Yes. A river combat in the land of the Makedonians.’
    ‘Then where is he? Where is my father?’
    ‘Coming home by land. Slowly. I came by boat. Swiftly. You must have patience. There is a more urgent task for the two of you. I have to take you to your grandfather, Ambaros, back across the river.’
    ‘I am certainly ready to do that !’ the youth declared.
    His sister clapped her hands together, equally keen. But whilst her brother stood and watched me carefully, she ran over to the other children, who were still playing their game of stickball. She stood and talked to them, and there was the sound of excitement and laughter. A moment later they had all scattered to gather objects and plants from around the meadow, within the stone walls, and grouped again in some childish but significant ritual of parting.
    Kymon played no part in this celebration. His hard gaze had softened, but he was urgent to know the details of his father’s triumph. On this side of the river he was very much a child; but like his sister, like all the forlorn, he would age to his true years when he set foot upon his own land.
    That was why most of the happy brood of exiles would never be able to return to the land of the living.
    ‘Is my father wounded?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘Is that why he’s coming home so slowly?’
    ‘He defeated Cunomaglos magnificently. But his wounds were very severe.’
    The boy thought about this. The man shone through his sudden smile, through his eyes. ‘We’ll all one day die of our wounds,’ he proclaimed, as if rallying a band of skirmishers. ‘But we can all live with them for years!’
    ‘I don’t doubt it,’ I agreed, trying to hide my amusement at his precocity. ‘Don’t you want to say goodbye to your friends?’
    He looked coy for a moment, as if coming to a decision. ‘I had a good friend. But he went away. He didn’t live with us here. But come and see what we built together!’
    Glancing at the Mothers, he led me through the trees to a narrow path from the enclosed meadow. ‘We’re not allowed to do this, really, but I always get away with it.’
    He brought me to an overhang of grey stone, deep enough to allow Kymon and myself to crouch inside. On the rock above my head was a crudely chipped image of a ship, the mast more than obviously phallic. The heads of the oarsmen could be seen, little helmeted figures with bulging eyes, though the oars they held were impractically thin. There were other little figures,