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“We’d better get going,” said Remi

“I heard that,” sai

d Sel for news”

Early the next , Sam and Remi dressed in tourist clothes: shorts, T-shirts, and athletic shoes, with their sun visors and sunglasses In another fivefor the Mincio River

An old, level towpath bordered the river and made it a favorite ride for bicyclists Sa the paved path with dozens of others, ad the beauty of the city and the equally beautiful Lo hills in theeach bank of the river There were houses that es and old vineyards with vines strung on poles and overhead wires They stopped at a pleasant spot beneath the trees along the river and ate their picnic lunch

They reached Lago Superiore, the first of the lakes, at one-thirty p its southern shore into the center of Mantua They found a sidewalk café where they could rest and have espressos and pastries in view of the second lake, Lago di Mezzo, then rode over the Via Lagnasco bridge to SS 482, the Via Ostiglia

“Eight lorious I don’t feel tired at all”

“It occurred tothe river downstrea to you?”

“Yes That we’ll be pedaling uphill all the way back to Peschiera del Garda,” Remi said “Or we’ll have to find another way”

After an hour of easy pedaling, they could see the destination The Po ran west to east and ider than the Mincio On both sides of the Mincio were cultivated vegetable and grain fields as far as they could see, except for the field at its confluence, which had been plowed but not yet planted The trees were all along the riverbeds

Sam and Remi dismounted froood place not to be noticed,” said Re on this side Albrecht said to stay on the west side of the Mincio, north of the Po All we need to find now is a fifteen-hundred-year-old campsite”

“Give me a minute to check the GPS” After a minute, Sam said, “We’re on it They would have watered their horses along the riverbed And if I were a noood care of my horses” He turned away from the river to face the field “Fifty to a hundred thousand Hun warriorsnear two hundred thousand horses It’s hard to iine what that must have looked like The line of horsesboth rivers for a couple of miles”

Reainst the trunk, stepped on the bike’s lower bar, then the seat, and pulled herself up to the tree’s first large branch She reached up to the second branch for a handhold and then stood

“What do you see?” asked Sam

“Frohest part of the field is right over there” She pointed a hundred yards inland to a section of the field that was slightly elevated