The young man has become completely retarded in the last while, but no one but Harold Tuite minds or even notices as he does not display the marks of infection. The boy is wide-eyed, shocked by everything, and has lost his cap. Harold Tuite, a big bear of a man, gruff, bearded, lumbering, is a natural father, and soon he takes Saint John’s hand and drags him on, promising him rest soon.

Harold glances back once, expecting to see the child running after them, but only catches a peek of a young fox trotting through tall grass, darting its slender face between reeds, its focussed green eyes beautiful amongst the danker green of the grass.

Fat, swollen robins flutter out of their path or hop to safety in their threes and fours. Several butterflies are resting, wings folded, on blades of grass, and they do not allow themselves to be disturbed by the retinue’s procession. Bees seem to pray around the flowers of furze before fornicating with the stamens nestled amidst the petals. The heady smells are strong in their throats and their heads as the men gulp in air with the strain of their exertions. The horses are shaking their heads too much, flecking slavers of clear saliva across their faces. Saint John seems to grow more confused, slow and limping with every step.

‘I wonder if the Gaels are coming for us. I would welcome their assault as I would release, and I would not even raise a finger against them,’ Harold says, becoming more hot-tempered as the day’s heat rises.

He has been dragging Saint John and the sack for a long time and his hands are clammy and his arms are becoming sore.

‘You are unbearable,’ de Flunkl shouts, turning his head back. ‘I hate you and I rue the day I took you on. It was only four days ago, but it feels like you have plagued me for all eternity. If you speak again I will cut out your tongue.’

‘Do what you will,’ Harold shouts to him. ‘I defy you. You are a lost lad with more pounds in his purse than in his own weight. Your skin never stops shivering. You are like some demon. Your flesh is like that heaving cape of rats we were welcomed with. There is so much fear in your soul that it escapes through your skin, because you know you would be dead without us to carry your things, to set your fires and tuck you in at night. Saint John has been attacked by a strange sickness of the soul, and if you relieve me you lose him, too. And then you only have William, and he is no lover of yours.’

De Flunkl looks back at William, challenging him to defend him. William sighs and decides to settle on a more formal tone.