‘Ciao!’ he said, raising his glass in tipsy fellowship.

‘Ciao!’ Luke answered, coming to sit at the table beside him. ‘I was just realising that I’m lost.’

‘New here?’

‘Just arrived today.’

‘Well, now you’re here, you should stay. Nice place. Nice people.’

Luke signalled to a waiter, who brought two fresh glasses and a full bottle, accepted Luke’s money and departed.

‘Very nice people,’ the boy repeated.

‘I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ Luke said, suddenly conscience-stricken. ‘I think you’ve already had enough.’

‘If the wine is good, there’s no such thing as enough.’ He filled both glasses. ‘Soon I shall have had too much, and it still won’t be enough.’ A thought struck him. ‘I’m a very wise man. At least, I sound like one.’

‘Well, I guess it makes a kind of sense,’ Luke agreed, tasting the wine and finding it good. ‘I’m Luke, by the way.’

The young man frowned. ‘Luke? Lucio?’

‘Sure, Lucio if you want.’

‘I’m Charlie.’

It was Luke’s turn to frown. An Italian called Charlie?

‘You mean Carlo?’ he asked at last.

‘No, Charlie. It’s short for Charlemagne.’ The boy added confidentially, ‘I don’t tell many people that, only my very best friends.’

‘Thank you,’ Luke said, accepting the honour with a grin. ‘So tell your friend why you were named after the Emperor Charlemagne.’

‘Because I’m descended from him, of course.’

‘But he lived twelve hundred years ago. How can you be sure?’

Charlie looked surprised. ‘My mother told me.’

‘And you believe everything your mother tells you?’

‘What Mamma says, you’d better believe, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Yes, mine’s that way too,’ Luke said, grinning.