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have behaved when confronted with a particularly doltish novice wilfully refusing to grasp the obvious – me, perhaps, craning my neck and squinting at the night sky and for the twentieth time getting the Celestial Marketplace mixed up with the Ball – Court of the Stars. Imitating him, I uttered a long, weary sigh. ‘Very well. Let’s look at this print again, shall we? Does anything strike you as odd?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Lift your foot up.’
    The captain gave me a suspicious look but did as he was told. His leather-shod sole hung uncertainly in the air for a moment, making him look as if he had been frozen in the act of kicking me in the face.
    â€˜Now, look at your own footprint. You’re not exactly little, are you? How come your footprint’s so much shallower than this one?’

    He put his foot down again. ‘Is it?’ He bent forward. ‘Hmm. I suppose so’, he added reluctantly. ‘What of it?’
    I had to bite my lip to stop myself breathing a loud sigh of relief. The difference in depth between the two prints, if there was any, was imperceptible, but if he convinced himself he could see it and accepted my explanation, I knew I might live through the rest of the morning, at least.
    â€˜Well, obviously there was more weight on this foot.’
    â€˜You mean whoever made this print was bigger than I am? Interesting.’ He stood upright again, rubbing his chin speculatively. ‘This could be more fun than I thought it was going to be!’
    I twisted my neck to look up at the towering, brawny figure. ‘That’s unlikely,’ I pointed out. ‘What I think is, this was made by two men. One of them was carrying the other!’
    With the Sun peering at me over his shoulder it was hard to make out the man’s expression. I found myself holding my breath while he thought about what I had said.
    The thoughtful silence went on and on. The muscles in my chest were taut and straining. I started to feel slightly dizzy. The longer I knelt in front of the captain, looking up at him, the more he seemed like a statue, a great, crudely carved block of granite about to topple over on to my head.
    â€˜Fox!’
    I let my breath out in an explosive gasp as the line of men behind the captain stirred. Fox came forward.
    â€˜See these prints? See the difference between them?’ The captain lifted his foot again.
    The breechcloth-clad warrior looked uncertainly from one indentation to the other. ‘I see them,’ he said at last.
    â€˜You’re an idiot!’ his captain roared suddenly. ‘Can’t you see how much deeper that one is? Obviously made by a man carrying someone else on his back. How many times did you go
over this ground yesterday? A child could have spotted this. Even this slave saw it, almost the moment I did!’
    Fox stepped back hastily, his eyes wide with terror. ‘Sir, I’m … I’m sorry, sir. I should have seen it … I just couldn’t see … I mean, why …’
    â€˜You’re as blind as you are stupid, that’s why!’
    The man swallowed nervously; but when he glanced at me, I saw that much of his terror was feigned. His eyes were clear and unblinking, and even though he quailed visibly before his captain’s sudden rages, I could see from the way he curled the corner of his mouth and his swift, shrewd appraisal as he looked me up and down that he was not the one in real danger here.
    â€˜I couldn’t … Sir, I just couldn’t see why one of them would have been carrying the other.’
    â€˜Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ the captain shouted. He prodded me hard with his upraised foot. ‘You tell him, slave!’
    I stood up carefully. ‘Could be any number of reasons. Perhaps one of them was lame. Twisted his ankle getting out of the boat, maybe.’
    â€˜You see?’ The captain sneered.
    Fox lowered his