‘New recruits?’ yelled the sergeant. ‘From the conscription office? Papers! Why the fuck are you standing one behind the other? March on the spot! Don’t fucking stand there! Left turn! About-turn, right-fucking-turn! Quick march! About-fucking-turn! Listen and remember. First-of-fucking-all, get to the quartermaster! Get your kit! Mail shirt, boots, pike, helmet and sword, for fuck’s sake! Then to the drill ground! Be ready for the fucking muster, at dusk! Quiiiick maaarch!’

‘Just a minute.’ Jarre looked around hesitantly. ‘Because I think I have a different posting—’

‘Whaaaaaaaat?’

‘I beg your pardon, officer, sir.’ Jarre blushed. ‘I only want to prevent a possible error… For the commissioner clearly… He distinctly spoke of a posting to the pee-eff-eye, so I—’

‘You’re at home, my lad,’ snorted the sergeant, somewhat disarmed by the ‘officer’. ‘This is your posting. Welcome to the Poor Fucking Infantry.’

‘And why,’ repeated Rocco Hildebrandt, ‘and for what reason, are we to pay you gentlemen tax? We’ve already paid everything we were supposed to.’

‘Blow this, look at ‘im, the smart-arsed halfling.’ Pike, sprawled on the saddle of a stolen horse, grinned at his comrades. ‘He’s already paid! And he thinks that’s all. Really, ‘e’s the spitting image of that turkey what were thinking about Sunday. But they chopped ‘is ‘ead off on Saturday!’

Okultich, Klaproth, Milton and Ograbek cackled in unison. The joke was excellent, after all. And the amusement promised to be even more excellent.

Rocco noticed the revolting, clammy gazes of the marauders, and looked back. On the threshold of his cottage stood Incarvilia Hildebrandt, his wife, and Aloë and Yasmin, his two daughters.

Pike and his company looked at the hobbit girls, smiling lecherously. Yes, assuredly, the amusement promised to be first-class.

Impatientia Vanderbeck, Hildebrandt’s niece, normally called by the pet name ‘Impi’, approached the hedge on the other side of the highway. She was a very pretty girl. The bandits’ smiles became even more lecherous and revolting.

‘Well, shorty,’ Pike hurried him, ‘hand over the penny to the royal army, give us your vittles, give us your horses, and lead the cows from the cowshed. We aren’t going to stand here till sundown. We must get round a few more villages today.’