"Thank you, Major, sir," he said. And to Maccomo: "Thank you, sir. I'll do my very best for you, sir."

Maccomo's eyes narrowed. He suspected Charlie of something, and Charlie could tell. But he didn't know what Maccomo suspected him of - and nor, if truth be told, did Maccomo know. And actually - Charlie suspected Maccomo too, and he didn't know what of either. So between them was an air of unexplained fear and mistrust: not the best air to have around when starting a new job or taking on a new helper. But funnily enough each of them resolved to deal with it the same way; in fact almost exactly the same sentence went through both their heads: "I don't know what's going on with this character, so I'm just going to keep an eye on him and see what happens."

As a boss, Maccomo was extremely civil. For the first three days, Charlie's only work was to fetch water, carry straw and sweep, and Maccomo always asked him politely to do these chores, and thanked him. His voice was silky and soft: "Thank you, Sharlie," he said.

There were six Lions. There was the young one whom Charlie had already met; and three Lionesses, one very yellow, one silvery, and one bronze-coloured, all three calm and silent. There was a younger girl, not much more than a cub, who was restless and bounced around, climbing on her mother's yellow back and nibbling her ears. The leader of the group was an older male with a magnificent mane who sat in silence in his own cage at the back of the cabin, ignoring everyone and everything. The adults were all too quiet and still. As he moved quietly around the cabin, cleaning and tidying under Maccomo's stern dark eyes, Charlie worried about these poor beasts, stuck in the dark, at sea, when they should be bounding around the plains of Africa, leaping and hunting, or basking under trees among grasses as golden as themselves.

Each morning Charlie went for his pre-breakfast acrobatics session with Sigi. Sigi taught him how to balance, and how to make himself larger or smaller with his breath and his muscles. "If anyone ever ties you up," he said, "make your muscles tense and big, and fill your chest and belly with air. Then when you relax and breathe out, the ropes will be looser around you…"

After breakfast the Lions were taken down to the Ring to exercise and practice. Charlie went with them.

"Pull this handle," said Maccomo to Charlie, gesturing to a shiny, well-used brass puller attached to the cabin wall. As Charlie did so, the bars between the cages lifted, and in the back wall of the middle one a doorway appeared, which led to a companionway going down into the heart of the ship. Maccomo watched as the Lions quietly and obediently ambled down the companionway. He pulled the handle again and the door closed behind the Lions, and the cage walls fell back into place. He took a large brass key that was hanging from his belt, and locked the handle into place.

"Come," said Maccomo, with his insincere smile. Charlie followed him out onto the deck, down the main stairs, through a hallway lined with mirrors and a doorway hung with crimson, white and gold striped curtains, and out into - the most amazing chamber he had ever seen. It was round, as high as three storeys, with seats in circles round the edges and galleries of seating rising up round the sides. The roof was like a tent, crimson and white and gold, swooping up to a high point in the middle from which hung a glorious chandelier, rippling and tinkling with dangling glass prisms and crystals. The seats in the first galleries were of crimson velvet, with gold curved legs; others were long benches of wood. In one or two special boxes among the galleries Charlie could see what looked like thrones, surrounded by crimson velvet curtains held back by golden cherubs. And in the middle was the circus Ring, clean and open and promising, forty-two feet wide, sprinkled all over with clean fresh sawdust. There was a faint and particular circus smell: of animal, sawdust, greasepaint and the faint leftover aroma of audience - beer and perfume and fish and chips.

Charlie gasped at the size and beauty of it. How could this be on board a ship? He almost laughed, it was so lovely - like all the best bits of an old-fashioned cinema, a theatre and a circus tent rolled into one.

It you were a boy whose parents - clever scientists - had been stolen by a villainous lad from your neighbourhood in London, on behalf of you're not sure who, but almost certainly because they have invented a cure for asthma, you might be happy to think that these Lions and this king were on your side. If you and the Lions had run away from a Floating Circus and a nasty, mysterious Lion-trainer, you might take the chance to relax for a moment, knowing that neither he nor the villainous lad - who has anyway been savaged by one of the Lions - could make it through the snow to get you.

If the Oldest Lions said to you, ‘We are warm and dry, and we have eaten, and we are together. Someone else is going to mend the train that will roar us through this mysterious dangerous weather to the place where your parents are, closer to our home. But now - now we are safe' - if he said that, you might feel warm and cheered up and happy.

This is exactly how Charlie Ashanti felt. Charlie felt as close to safe as he had felt in weeks. The beautiful Lions were lying in a pile around him: the three Lionesses resting after their chase, the Oldest Lion calmly triumphant at their escape, Elsina the young girl Lion still weak from their adventures on the train's roof but so excited to be out in the real world, and the Young Lion, Charlie's friend, fast asleep with his head in Charlie's lap. Next door was King Boris in his glamorous carriage, promising help when they reached Venice. Rafi Sadler and Maccomo the Liontrainer were safely stuck in Paris, and the snow was covering the train like a huge snuggly duvet.

‘Now,' Charlie said to himself, ‘is the time to sleep and eat and relax, so we will be fit and strong for the troubles ahead.' Because without a doubt, there were going to be troubles ahead.