‘It finds me with cruel vigour,’ Prazek said in a growl. ‘Chased by chills and stiffened leather, chafed of thigh and carbuncled of joint.’ He then pulled off his worn glove and reached into his mouth. A moment’s effort and he pulled free a shred of old meat. ‘This, too.’

‘Simple maladies,’ Dathenar easily replied. ‘The complaints of peasants.’

Prazek pulled the glove back on. ‘Well, peasantry defines itself in that miserable self-regard, and now I find myself a purveyor of mud and unheralding skies, no different from said peasant in my squinty eye and cheeky tic, and were my feet upon the ground, why, I’d shuffle one or both, to nudge along my slow thoughts.’

‘Simpler times,’ Dathenar agreed. ‘Musings on the weather can fill a skull with clouds, enough to reduce every horizon. It’s well you shuffle a foot or two, if only to lay claim to the ground upon which you stand.’

‘The threadbare fool knows well that stony soil beneath him,’ Prazek retorted. ‘And so too observes the passing of armies in column, the tidings of smoke above the trees and flotsam in the stream. He raises a damp finger to gauge every new wayward sigh of the wind, too. Then bends once again to shoulder the wrapped bundle of firewood, and sniffs at the smell of plain cooking adrift on the breeze. His wife has paced her cage all day, wearing ruts in the cabin’s floor.’

‘No certainty that pacing,’ Dathenar said. ‘Why, she might be sharpening stakes or, deadlier still, whittling. She might be tending a babe in a crib and humming country hymns to pastoral idyll.’

‘Ha! In tending that babe, Dathenar, she notes the wooden bars of the tiny cage, and then perchance glances up to see the same writ large about her. Yes, she might indeed be sharpening stakes.’

‘But her husband’s an honest man. See his battered hands and blunted finger nubs, the old scars of youthful zeal and the limp from when he miscalculatedly addressed one knee with a hatchet. Oh, those were wild times back then, hi ho! And in such demeanour, why, his idle thoughts hum a somnolent buzz, kept in beat by his plodding boots on the muddy track.’

‘You paint a generous picture, Dathenar. But come the summer a company rides up to gather in the wretched fool. They shove a spear into his hands and wave flags, be they dark or light, crowned or crown-hungry. They take the wife, too, if no crib proffers necessity.’

‘Out marching in column, Prazek.’

‘Reduced to simple thoughts pertaining to weather, aches, and the season’s gentle turn. At least until arrives the moment of terror-strewn mayhem, spears all a-clatter.’

Dathenar grunted, frowning. ‘But wait! Where are the glittering heroes waving their swords in the air? What of the stirring speeches such as to awaken the zeal of mind-wandering farmers and herders? See them stand in that ragged row—’

‘Feet shuffling.’