Lom grabbed his chest as though he’d been shot in the heart, pretended to choke, let his eyes roll back in his head, and then collapsed onto the soft earth. It was quite the performance, though Gorrison wouldn’t give him any satisfaction by saying so.

“Hilarious. Git up, ye pathetic pile o’ bones an’ flesh.”

Lom didn’t move.

“I said, git up, ye horny toad!” Gorrison offered a sharp kick to his friend’s ribs to drive his point home. He didn’t so much as flinch. “What the…” He bent down to inspect his friend’s still body. Lom’s hand shot out so fast there was no avoiding it, fingers coiling around his collar and dragging him face first into the mud.

He came up spluttering to a laughing Lom, who took a quick gulp of the bottle he’d liberated from Gorrison’s hand as he’d fallen. “Ye’re a right bastard, ye know that? Don’ know why I’m friends with ye. ’Ere I am in my darkest hour o’ need, an’ yer playin’ tricks an’ carrousin’ with the gods know who.”

“Sorry, can’t tell ye this time.”

“Why not?”

“Too scandalous.” He said it with a sniff and then took another swig of Gorrison’s moonshine.

“Tell me or I swear to the gods I’ll never speak to ye agin.”

“Fine. It was the priest’s daughter,” Lom blurted out.

Any annoyance Gorrison was feeling toward his friend vanished. “Yer shittin’ me? Cheliese Monterose? Was she blind drunk? Blindfolded? Did someone dare her?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I charmed her with a bit o’ poetry.”

“Ye don’ even know how to read!”

“Don’ mean I can’t create my own romantic verse. ‘Roses are red, ale is gold, yer beauty’s like the sun, don’ ever git cold.’”

“Ruttin’ brilliant, mate. Ye should write that one down. ’Cept ye don’ know how to write!”

“Neither do ye!”

“Also never said I know how to create me own, how did ye put it? Oh aye, ‘romantic verse’.” Gorrison snorted.

“Have yer laugh, but it worked, didn’t it?”

“So ye say.”

“Ye callin’ me a liar?”

“Mebbe.”

“Least me wife didn’t run off with a traveling merchant named Biggy Bigsalot!”

“That wasn’t his name! An’ at least I have a wife!”

“Not anymore!”

Gorrison had had enough. He charged, crashing into Lom’s midsection, foul-smelling ale splashing over them both. He had the advantage of surprise, but that was quickly lost as his friend twisted away, rolling him over. They tumbled and sprawled in the dirt for a while, neither of them really into the fight, which was a nightly tradition, one they were both getting tired of. If someone had been watching, they would’ve been easy enough to spot in the moonslight on the surface of the fallow field.

But no one cared about men as insignificant as they were.