“Ah. What a stroke of luck. I was just thinking about you.”

Scharley looked warlike and dashing. He was wearing a mail shirt over a leather jerkin, an iron bevor around his neck, and his forearms were protected by vambraces. At his left hip he had a falchion, at his right a dagger, and a six-sided mace shoved into a wide belt. He hadn’t shaved for several days and when he embraced Reynevan his cheek was as prickly as a hedgehog.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said, moving Reynevan away to arm’s length. “And do you know what I’ve been thinking? That beyond reasonable doubt you’ll turn out to be a thorough pillock. That having only just recovered from your illness, you will abandon the peaceful and snug apothecary’s shop at the House at the Archangel, where I left you. That like an utter fool you’ll mount a horse and come here. When did you actually rise from your bed?”

“A week after Shrovetide.”

“Then you’re still convalescing. You ought to rest, slowly regain full strength and not join a war. A war where in your state you’re as lost as a fart in a hurricane. You still haven’t recovered, laddie. Jutta’s death almost killed you and Samson’s death almost finished you off. It was hard for me, too, though my hide’s much tougher. But you… Why did you come here? To recruit me to exact revenge on Grellenort?”

“Revenge won’t bring back Jutta. I leave her to God.”

“So why are you here? To fight for the cause? For a new, better world? To die for it? Or for the cause to finish up with dysentery in a field hospital? Is that what you want?”

“Not any longer,” said Reynevan, lowering his head. “At first I did. But then I cooled down. I pondered a few things. I came here, joining the expedition, for one reason: to bid you farewell. To greet you, embrace you and thank you for everything. For the last time. Scharley, I’m leaving.”

The penitent didn’t answer. And didn’t give the impression of being surprised. Rather he looked like he had been expecting a declaration of that kind.

“I’ve had enough,” said Reynevan, breaking the silence. “Quite enough. Do you know what Samson said to me, back then, in February, outside the walls of Cheb? When he decided to leave us and return to Marketa? He used the words of the prophet Isaiah. We expected light, but behold the darkness; the rays shine, but yet we walk in the gloom.

“For the last two months I’ve been thinking about his words. Realising that they apply to me. That like a blind man I’m feeling for a wall and seemingly groping my way along. That I stumble at noon as though at night. That it’s as though I were deceased.