It never struck me as a particularly original idea. Erase the weak for the sake of the strong. Sometimes the best ideas are so simple they feel as if they’ve been tried before. But it was an idea required for the times.

It was our duty to ourselves to adopt it.

As I stopped talking Tora stood up. She was not supposed to speak.

She had been invited to observe only, not being a leader of men. Some of the older men in the audience shouted at her, told her to hush. But she was not put off. I noticed her even as she began to rise and for a moment everything stopped for me. There was something in her, at the time I did not know what, that made other things seem unimportant. I did not hear much of what she said, or do not remember. I do remember her voice though. It was soft, yet clear and firm. Somehow it held out through the cat calls, through the disapproval of men who had killed for her and for others like her. She was not to be swayed. Rather die hungry than be tainted by the murder of your own people, was one of her lines that I do remember. She was a little emotive that day but I think she came across well, certainly as determined and courageous.

As she was being led away she looked back at me. It was the first time she did that. She looked back and met my eyes for what seemed like a minute but was probably just a second.

That was, I believe, the strongest opposition I encountered to the idea. That, and the screams of the victims and their families.

We did not call them victims. We called them martyrs. A word from another time. One who believes in sacrifice and sacrifices himself to save others.

A week later I chanced upon her in the street. I was walking one way on one side of the street, she was walking the other way on the other side.

She saw me too. I actually held up my hand to wave without realising it.

She seemed to begin to respond and then thought better of it. It was a year later when finally I kissed her. A year later when she came round to the idea. At least, came round enough not to fight anymore.

I think of Tora and listen to the crickets – a sound I haven’t heard for years. It takes a long time to fall asleep.

When I wake I check that the raft is secure. I leave most of the equipment tied down on it. I take only some twine, my knife, my notes and a container for water. I don’t want to be weighed down. I take the stone too. It is one of the smaller ones but this is weight enough.

I tap Andalus on the shoulder. He stands up straight away, takes the food I give him and sets off in exactly the right direction, walking and eating at the same time. I forget that he too knows this country. I follow a few paces behind.

He cannot keep it up though and after an hour or two we have resumed our normal position of me in front, turning round every hundred paces or so waiting for him to catch up.

The next day in the early morning the mountains ahead of us catch the sun. I can see a green valley leading up to the summit of one of the mountains. This is the pass. In this light everything is clear. I feel I can touch the mountain, though it is yet miles away. I breathe the cold dry air. I can also feel the heat of the sun beginning to warm the landscape, as if I were a rock basking in the rays, as if I were the grass, the leaves, singing in the wind.

This pass is the only way across the mountains. I have to hope that we don’t meet anyone coming the other way.

I have been scanning the horizon for people all the time. My eyesight is still keen and I have not seen anyone. I wonder though. I wonder if we have been seen already and the watchers take care to remain out of sight. Last night I pictured them just beyond the circle of light made by the campfire. They watched expressionless as we ate and slept.

We walk through the day watching the mountains grow ever larger.

We make camp at the base of the pass. We eat well again that night and lie down under the stars. The country we are in has changed so much in ten years. What else will have changed? I think of my reception.

Will I get a chance to say what I want, to tell them why I’m here, why I’m back, before a knife in my back stops my tongue, before an arrow pierces my throat?

I take a branch from the fire and walk around our camp. I hold the branch above my head. It illuminates bushes, sand, trees, but no people.

I extinguish it and stand for a while in the cool air. I am in complete darkness watching Andalus through the fire. Just his head appears through the flames and the smoke. Slowly my eyes grow accustomed to the dark. The night opens before me.

It is further to the summit than it seems. At mid-morning we leave the trees behind and walk, following the natural contours of the slope, criss-crossing the side of it. The way up is defined by a sheer drop to our left and by scree to our right. The sight of the peak brings energy surging to my legs. Within minutes though, my lungs are bursting and I can think of nothing but where to place my feet and how to slow my breathing. I stop, realising Andalus has disappeared. I shiver as a breeze comes over the peak. I stare down the path, close my eyes, open them. I see him again. He is struggling. I wait.

I should not push him too hard. If he were to die, to disappear, I would have no excuse. I wait till his breathing has slowed then offer him some water. He drinks the whole thing in one go. I do not stop him. I say gently, ‘We will go more slowly. You are not made for this. I would not want you to die before we reach the settlement.’ He looks at me when I say that. He appears to have half a smile, as if he suspects the double meaning of my words. It is an expression I remember from earlier days.

It is afternoon by the time we reach the summit. We round an outcrop and there it is. A vast plain stretches away beneath us. It is coloured variously, yellow, pink, blue, white, as far as I can see. Wildflowers softening the landscape, giving the air, it seems, a delicate perfume.

I am amazed. I have never seen flowers like this. But the flowers are not all I can see. There in the distance, so far away you cannot focus directly on it is a plume of smoke and a smudge on the horizon. This is it. This is the settlement I left all those years ago. I stare at it for ages. Andalus comes up and I can sense him watching me. I turn to him briefly and point to the smudge. He looks blankly at it and goes to sit on a rock.

I am surprised we have not come across any people. Though we are still probably two days’ march away, I would expect there to be scouts, patrols. I would expect farmers and foragers. I would expect to see signs of nomads, the people who choose not to live within the security of the settlement, though these could have been eliminated in the intervening years. Even in my day there were not many left. Yet we have seen nothing. Nothing and no one. I wonder again if they have seen us. Perhaps they have been camping at the top of this mountain, waiting, looking out at the two figures approaching slowly across the plain. Perhaps now they are hiding behind the next rock, waiting to fall on us.

We descend to the valley floor where we make camp. I sleep little in the warm night. I fancy I can smell the people. Wood smoke, charred meat, sewers, the smell of water seeping through sunbaked earth in sluices that I helped dig. I fancy too I can hear them: voices, breathing, laughter even. It is like I’m back on the island.

The next day we walk towards the point on the horizon where I saw the settlement. We walk through fields of flowers.

But this is not paradise. This is what we fought over, lands like this. We fought and buried our dead under the ground of fields like these. Face upward, naked and open to the earth. Perhaps we thought this was a way of bringing the earth back. There are rumours we were worshippers of nature once. Perhaps the earth is in our blood after all, our veins running with soil like an hourglass.