‘As projectiles, their use is, I would venture, limited,’ de Flunkl says.

‘There is much squeaking,’ Harold Tuite says. ‘Should we shoot back?’

The Gaels are now spitting on the rats, or licking their backs, before they throw them down.

‘Not yet,’ de Flunkl says.

‘Maybe they’re considered to be bad luck,’ William of Roscrea suggests from behind the tree, his head peeking out.

The youngest Gael has a rat attached to his nose and he starts screaming, slapping it away, and the other Gaels are chuckling, along with Saint John, who drools mushroomy spit out the gap in his teeth and down his chin. He leans his head back in mirth and yells with laughter.

‘Maybe,’ Harold says, shrugging, ‘they are good luck.’

And then, three or four rats later, it is over. One of the Gaels shouts something at William. Then they run, laughing like children, back into the woods, and they are gone.

‘I am informed that they will see us again,’ William says.

‘They will not catch us unprepared next time,’ de Flunkl says.

‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Harold says. ‘We will be as alone then as we are now.’

Possibly seventeen rats were catapulted down at them, most pups, or fat, pregnant dams; only two or three making direct hits on the retinue. One pup is dead on the ground, accidentally squashed under Saint John of Barrow’s clumsy boot, its guts squeezed out of its sides. He bends over, scoops it into his cap, says a brief prayer over it and tosses it into the thick darkness of the woods.

‘This is why I am not worried about the McMurroughs’ incursions into our lands,’ de Flunkl says, shaking his head. ‘Their brains cannot produce the aim necessary to penetrate a mere woman, never mind a town.’

‘Should we, albeit, be wary of continuing?’ William says.

‘No, let us go on into Nobber. I want to be there by midday.’

De Flunkl begins walking, and has taken a few steps before he realises the others are not following him.

‘What is this?’ he asks, looking back, wiping fresh sweat off his forehead. ‘The glimmerings of mutiny? Or the summit of cowardice?’

‘We are not on a worthy venture,’ Harold Tuite says. ‘The worthiness of our venture has not been expounded, and has yet to be. Those rats were divinely sent to remind us that we are not on a good path, and have very recently become sinners. This is the road to hell.’

Harold points at the clumps of grass at his feet.

‘This is not a road and Gaels cannot send divine emissaries,’ de Flunkl laughs, leaning off a cherry blossom tree that shakes its soft petals down on him. ‘You are a sinner for even giving voice to that thought.’