“—joy at seeing you,” the penitent wouldn’t be interrupted, “also inspired some minor corrections to my plans, about which I’d like to inform you. After your most recent exploits, particularly the adventure with Hayn of Czirne, the displays at the Ziębice joust and spilling the beans to Buko about the tax collector, I vowed that when we get to Hungary, I’d take you to the bridge over the Danube and kick your arse so hard you’d end up in the river. Today, overjoyed and moved, I am changing my plans. At least for the moment. I say, innkeeper! Ale! Look lively!”

They had to wait, as the innkeeper was in no particular hurry. Initially he was misled by Scharley’s air and firm voice, but couldn’t help noticing that earlier, when ordering soup, the guests had frantically totted up their resources, digging out coins from the bottoms of their pouches and deep in their pockets. The tavern in the arcades opposite the town hall was by no means busy, but the innkeeper had a high enough opinion of himself not to react with undue haste to the shouts of any old layabouts.

Reynevan sipped his beer, staring at the ragged children messing around in the yellow puddle between the pillory and the well.

“Children are the future of the nation,” said Scharley, catching his eye. “Our future. And it doesn’t look too promising. Firstly, it’s thin. Secondly, it stinks repulsively.”

“Indeed,” Samson admitted. “But something can be done. Instead of carping, it can be taken care of. Washed. Fed. Educated. And the future is assured.”

“But who do you think should take care of it?”

“Not me.” The giant shrugged. “It’s nothing to do with me. I have no future in this world anyway.”

“Indeed. I’d forgotten.” Scharley tossed the hunk of bread he had dipped in the last of the soup to a dog hanging around nearby. The dog was so emaciated, it was bent in a bow. And it didn’t chew the bread, but gulped it down like Jonah’s whale.

“I wonder,” Reynevan pondered, “if that cur has ever seen a bone?”

“Only if it’s ever broken a leg,” said the penitent with a shrug. “But, as Samson rightly says, it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t have a future here, either, and even if I did, it promises to be shittier than the future of those urchins and that mongrel. Right now, the land of the Magyars feels further away than Ultima Thule. This momentary idyll in the form of sleepy little Frankenstein, ale, bean soup and bread won’t delude me. Any moment, Reynevan will meet some maid and it’ll be business as usual. We’ll have to run away again and finally end up hunkered down somewhere in the wilds. Or in some dreadful company.”