‘Not only that,’ said the lisping one, and something in his voice made Jarre tremble. ‘For you ought to know, poor wanderer, that in truth we, being in urgent need, were looking out for a wench. Well, night’s just around the corner, no one else is coming now, so beggars can’t be choosers. Grab ‘im, boys!’

‘I have a knife,’ yelled Jarre. ‘I’m warning you!’

He had a knife indeed. He’d swiped it from the temple kitchen the day before his flight and hidden it in his bundle. But he didn’t reach for it. He was paralysed–and terrified–by the realisation that it was pointless and that nothing would help him.

‘I have a knife!’

‘Well, prithee,’ sneered the lisping one, approaching. ‘He has a knife. Who’d have thought it?’

Jarre couldn’t run away. Terror turned his legs into two posts stuck into the ground. Adrenaline seized him by the throat like a noose.

‘Hi there!’ a third character suddenly shouted, in a young and strangely familiar voice. ‘I think I know him! Yes, yes, I know him! Let him be, I say, he’s a pal! Jarre? Do you recognise me? I’m Melfi! Hey, Jarre? Do you recognise me?’

‘Yes… I do…’ Jarre fought against the hideous, overwhelming, previously unfamiliar sensation with all his strength. Only when he felt a pain in his hip, which had smashed against a timber of the bridge, did he understand what the sensation was.

The sensation of losing consciousness.

‘Oh, this is a surprise,’ said Melfi. ‘Why, a fluke among flukes! Why, coming across a fellow-countryman. A pal from Ellander. A mate! Eh, Jarre?’

Jarre swallowed a bite of the hard, rubbery piece of fatback that his strange company had given him and ate a bit of roasted turnip. He didn’t reply, but only nodded towards the whole group of six surrounding the campfire.

‘And which way are you going, Jarre?’

‘To Vizima.’

‘Ha! We’re heading to Vizima too! Why, a fluke among flukes! What, Milton? Remember Milton, Jarre?’