He salutes the man, and the man halloos back, waving a mallet at him. Above the man’s hut is a swirl of grey and green pigeons. They fly in one loose body, darkening the sky. And then all at once, without warning, like they were only one being gathering its parts about itself, they shrink and fold themselves into a single file, and, with a sound of fluttering, alight on the adjacent roof all at once, becoming silent.

As William approaches the man clears some small items from the anvil into a basket behind him, and then brushes down the anvil with the back of his hand.

‘God bless you, be you farrier or blacksmith,’ William says to him. ‘I am William of Roscrea and I am but passing through this fine town of yours. I am glad to see a man who sets store by his work, and who does bring to bear on his labour an intensity befitting of a man. I was by yon fountain when I heard a noise that I thought was a thousand teeth clacking, and in my curiosity I came to visit the sound, and I am very happy to see it is but a blacksmith.’

At his close proximity William can see the man is a blackened wreck, entirely naked beneath his thick, leather apron. Behind this man are many horseshoes that hang on nails, and beside his bare feet is a large, closed basket made of willow and beside that again is a long, tall jug. There is a strange yellow dust about the anvil, too small and fine for the man to have cleared with the back of his hand.

‘Well met, lithe and tall traveller,’ the man says. ‘My name is Colca, a farrier, and as you can see I am a very mighty man, blessed with arms like reams of saplings strung together in a supple catapult, ready to spring an injury on any man who does question me rudely.’

The man strikes a quick pose, tautening his sinewy arms, his crossed fists close to his ears. His face, hands and shoulders have been permanently blackened from the hot metals and fires he works with, but through the blackness streaking rivulets of sweat surge from the man’s crown, leaving misshapen grey imprints in their wake.

‘Now you have witnessed my finesse,’ Colca continues, ‘do you wish me to make you a horseshoe? Or perhaps even four, which is the habitual quantity, though I have oft met Meath men, a careful if salacious breed, who do like to take a fifth and keep it under their caps as they ride, lest accident befall them and a shoe, shoddily set, comes undone. But I assure you when I shoe a horse it has a certain sticking quality, a certain lasting impact as though it had verily become a part of the animal.’