One contains a couple of crabs and I remove these carefully.

Andalus is sitting on the floor when I get back to the cave. ‘Who are you?’ I ask. He does not speak. I walk up to him. He has his back to me. I whisper, ‘Who are you?’ I bend down and whisper even more softly in his ear, ‘I can guess, if that’s the way you want to play it. I can guess your name.’ He does not move. He still appears not to recognise me. I step away and walk round to face him. I hold up the fish. ‘Do you know what to do with these?’ I have not yet gutted them. ‘You can nod or shake your head. You do not have to talk.’ He does not move. ‘I will give you a knife. You place the point here,’ I show him where I mean, ‘and draw the blade downwards like this. You must do this so we can eat.’ I realise I am talking to him as if to a child.

I place the fish on the ground, take his hand and wrap his fingers round the knife handle. He grips it tightly but makes no move to take the fish. I notice his knuckles grow whiter. I step away from him. I am not afraid. Though he is bigger than I am, he is slow and weak and as a former soldier I am used to hand-to-hand combat. I am in fact intrigued to see what he will do. But he makes no effort to get up and after a minute loosens his grip. The knife slips to the floor. As he drops it the blade slices one of his fingers. A drop of blood falls onto the fish.

‘Hold it up,’ I say. ‘It will stop soon enough.’ He obeys. As I sit in the entrance to the cave gutting the fish I am aware he does not lower it.

He looks as if he is frozen mid-sentence emphasising a point. I smile to myself.

Tora’s mother was sixty-eight when she died. It is a good age. She kept working until the end, maintaining a small garden adjacent to the city walls. One day she did not get out of bed. When Tora found her later that evening she was barely able to move or talk. It was a death sentence. Her garden was taken over, she said her goodbyes and Tora moved on. There was little time to grieve.

I knew her mother quite well. I assigned her the garden, which she loved. It was a tiny patch but was managed efficiently and everyone had to do something. She grew potatoes, squash and had a small orange tree. She would sit out of the sun under the tree at the end of the day talking to her neighbours, her fellow gardeners. I would pass by on occasion and exchange pleasantries. I suspect she did not like me very much. She was always polite, given I had procured this work for her, I was seeing her daughter and I was Marshal, but we never progressed beyond conversations about her vegetables and the weather. We never spoke about Tora.

I miss her more than some of the others, it must be said. I think of her often. She is a symbol of what I might have become. I would have enjoyed retiring, spending my afternoons in the sun, tending my vegetable patch and thinking of the past only to reminisce with acquaintances. It is the sun I miss most, falling asleep in the late afternoon to the sound of bees in the orange blossoms. An idyll I was denied. Still, I could have chosen worse places to be exiled. It has been a struggle here but with hard work and careful planning I have made a go of it. Sent away as a disgraced leader and now, ten years later, once again I have shown them how to survive in a world where survival might not seem possible at first. But they are not here to see that.

Over the meal at night I fix him in my gaze, which he does not return. Again he eats hungrily, quickly. It reminds me of how we all used to be. We all ate quickly out of necessity. I remember him eating like that before. I watched him over a meal. He did not look up once, only when he had finished every last scrap. He even licked his fingers, which I found distasteful.

‘Tomorrow you will come with me to the forest,’ I say. ‘You can help me bring back some wood.’ I do not think he will be of much use but I’m sure by now he can walk properly and he has to start getting his strength back if he is to earn his keep.

In the morning after I’ve returned from the beach and we’ve finished breakfast I throw him the coat I found. He grabs it. I’m certain now it belonged to him. He fingers the cloth, the brass buttons, his lips open slightly as if in surprise. He looks like a boy. ‘Put it on,’ I say. ‘It is yours, is it not? The coat of a General.’ I do not put this as a question. He shows no reaction. Instead he removes my coat, stands up and puts the other on. It fits perfectly. He adjusts the collar and straightens his back.

I watch with interest; he is like a soldier preparing for battle.

‘Come.’ I say, ‘We’re going to fetch wood,’ and set off down the hill. He follows me but leaves a distance of around ten paces. He has recovered some of his strength but still shuffles along as if each step is a great effort. I listen to his steps in the mud, the soft sucking sound they make. Every time I stop to wait for him the noise stops too. He never approaches closer than the ten paces.

In the forest, without a word I throw him the bag I use for wood, which he catches, and I unhook the axe from my belt. He walks round me in a circle, watching me all the time. He comes to stand in front of me. He’s on a little mound, the bag over his shoulder, his head held high, the coat like blood against his pale skin. As I chop down the tree and trim the branches he simply stands there, watching.

When I get out of breath I stop, bending over with my hands on my knees. I say, ‘Your turn,’ and hold out the axe. ‘You can take over for a bit. I am tired.’ I straighten up and walk towards him, holding out the axe, blade first. He drops the bag and shuffles away from me, holding up his arms slightly. His feet make furrows in the pine needles. I stop.

‘What are you doing?’ I am curt. ‘What are you doing?’ I repeat. ‘Do you think I’m going to hurt you? Do you not think I would have done something by now if I was going to?’ He says nothing. ‘I rescued you, I have fed you, clothed you, why would I kill you now?’ I have raised my voice. It sounds strange in the silence. I think I can hear an echo.

I wave the axe in exasperation and turn back to the tree. He cowers, crouched down, his hands still over his head. Maybe I expect too much too soon.

The rain falls again now. I chop the tree into logs at a slow but steady pace. I can keep my breathing under control and still make good progress. Water drips from the end of my nose. I can also feel it running down my back. Steam rises from my body. The scent of wet pine chips fills the air. Andalus sits crouched under a tree, sheltering from the rain. He seems calmer now. In fact he might be asleep. From panic to sleep in a matter of minutes. I do not understand this person.

I wish he would talk.

Andalus used to talk all the time. In fact I often wished he spoke less.

We had different negotiating styles. He was all bluster, all promises, all camaraderie. This, however, overlay stubbornness and a determination to get his way. He came across as a fool but was far from it. He was a tough opponent and I came to respect him greatly. By the end of it, the time of the signing of the accord and the last official contact between the two groups, we formed something of a friendship. True, it was based on grudging respect on both sides and not on any deep emotional bond but by the end I began to know the man behind the talk, the man who, like me, cared deeply for his people, cared deeply enough to stop the war, at any cost.

There was a moment in which he let his guard down. He sat across the table from me, his head in his hands. Our aides had left the room.

He did not move for ages. I thought he was asleep and was just about to get up from the table when he said to me, ‘What have we done, Bran?’ His voice was quivering. For a second I did not know what to say. ‘At what price?’ he went on. ‘At what price does a thing become a luxury we should not have?’