‘Consider this one thing, sir,’ he says, directing himself to de Flunkl. ‘I have carried off several properties, their surrounding lands included, successfully in the newfound role that I have been blessed with, and come to much more naturally, I add, than has been proposed here. Ye are not the first to stumble upon this town with this venture; that is all I ask you to consider, before you make any rash judgements.’

‘Produce the papers of these corpses,’ Harold says.

‘We will remove the shrouds and match the documentation with the rotting facial features contained within,’ William concurs. ‘That is all that will be considered.’

De Flunkl is thoughtful. He bites his nails, looking down.

‘No,’ de Flunkl says, his voice fluttering like a pigeon’s wings. ‘Show me also the papers for the properties you have carried off.’

The man’s face relaxes in relief. ‘Of course, my lord.’

He moves behind the desk and starts searching in the packed cubbyholes, his hands trembling, glancing towards the shrouds occasionally. Harold Tuite raises himself off his knees, draws his hand from the sack and there, in his right hand, is a hunting knife.

‘You would do business with a pretender,’ William says to de Flunkl. ‘I do not serve you.’

‘I will only respect the paperwork relating to the dead,’ Harold says, his voice booming in the low-ceilinged room, and then he points the knife at de Flunkl. ‘I also no longer serve this man, and I never respected him.’

‘So, de Flunkl,’ William says. ‘I suspected you wouldn’t mind bartering with a scoundrel; that the implementation of your venture preceded your morals, of which you have none. Such unnatural schemes I have already gone along with, for the cost of my damnation, and I am little better than you for going along with it so far as I have done. You would usurp anything, all natural law, for your glory and the swelling of your properties, but there is one thing this suffering damsel reported to me that I did not tell you.’

De Flunkl looks at him, defiant, though still trembling.