I sneak a quick glance at the photos of Wilf and Arnaldo and give them a smile. I go back to stirring my risotto.
The kids and I are sitting with Stefano and Luisa at the table on the patio. Theo is standing on the lawn, poking at the coals of the barbecue. A recording ofCarmenis playing through the window, the smell of citronella surrounds us, and the view over the valley seems more beautiful than ever.
I tell everyone to tuck into the starters, which I’ve placed in the center of the table. On offer are thearanciniballs with a marinara sauce, aninsalata tricoloreArchie and I made, and a selection of hams I picked up from the delicatessen in Camaiore. Plus, there’s a choice of breads I bought from the bakery, knowing Callum is eating more than ever now he’s training every day.
Stefano makes a lip-smacking noise. “Youraranciniare very good, Adam. If I do not know you, I say you are Italian!”
“Thank you,” I reply.“Grazie.”
I take Theo over a plate of food so he can eat while tending the barbecue.
“Superb,” he says. “Just like you.”
He gives a little growl and a giggle escapes me.
Once I’m sitting down again, Luisa updates us on the kittens’ progress. The kids ask plenty of questions and arrange to visit them tomorrow. The conversation turns to the dig and Luisa tells us the team has recently found a jug handle, an iron nail, and a little bone she thinks was probably worn as a pendant.
“Is it from a dead body?” asks Archie, saucer-eyed.
“We don’t know,” answers Luisa. “It may be human; it may be from an animal. We need to examine it.”
Archie forces a wholearanciniball into his mouth.
“And what about that piece of pottery?” I say, helping myself to some mozzarella from thetricolore. “Did Vito find out what it is?”
“Itisa fragment of basin,” Luisa replies. “And it dates back to the second half of the twelfth century.”
“Amazing,” says Theo.
“And itisfrom Tunisia,” adds Luisa, holding a forkful of ham in the air.
“What’s Tunisia?” asks Archie.
“One of our builders is from there,” says Callum, wiping some breadcrumbs from his vintage Stone Roses T-shirt. “It’s a country in North Africa.”
“Very good, Cal,” says Theo.
Callum smiles and loads his plate with ham.
Mabel is sitting upright, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing an attention-grabbing raspberry-colored T-shirt I’ve never seen before. “But our builder will have caught a plane,” comments Mabel. “How would a basin have got from there to here in those days?”
Luisa reminds us of the trade route. “The Via Francigena mainly connected Anglo-Saxon Europe with Latin Europe, but it was also accessed by countries much farther away. So it was important for the exchange of linen from Flanders and silks and spices from the East.”
“That’s fascinating.” Theo starts lifting lamb skewers onto the barbecue. Over his shoulder he says to the kids, “Remember in those days people didn’t travel as much, so they wouldn’t haveknown about different countries. Imagine what it must have been like discovering them for the first time.”
“I wonder what kind of person brought that basin here,” I say. “I wonder what they thought of this place.”
Theo turns to face us, a pair of tongs in his hand. “What do you think, gang?”
“I think it was a soldier who came to fight in a battle,” squeaks Archie. “And he killed loads of people and that bone’s from one of the dead bodies.”
“I think it was a rich businessman who sold things in Italy and took all the money back to Tunisia,” Callum suggests. “I think he lived in this mint palace in the desert and had, like, a hundred wives.”
Theo and I exchange a smirk at the last detail.
“I think it was a warrior queen who was kicked out of her country because all the men were scared of her,” pipes Mabel. “And she came here and became best friends with the queen who lived in the castle. They made a pact to look after each other and help each other out.”
“Those are all outstanding guesses,” says Theo.
