“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Lupus asked, remaining discreetly near the door.
“Stay, I have no secrets from my soldiers.”
He opened the iron box and, as he suspected, it was empty. There were a few copper bronze coins, some talismans, all memories of his childhood games. In a bag, he found the wooden disk his grandfather used to toss and turn between his thumbs, when he was recounting the story of their family, the origin of the world and bedtime fables.
He wondered if Alice would have understood and appreciated those small objects, if she would have been able to grasp their sentimental value or if, on the contrary, she would have dismissed them as trivial junk.
He moved a small bundle of canvas, worn and graying, to take a box containing what, alas, turned out to be a silver b
