‘Must?’ Windsor Imbra yelled. ‘Bollocks! I’m itching to show you that it doesn’t need to at all! For I shall leave here and ride away, without looking back. Then you can spill your own blood! The very thought of supplying this rabble with amusement sickens me!’

‘Let him go.’ A character with a very low hairline in a horsehide jerkin emerged from the crowd. ‘If it sickens him, let him go. It doesn’t sicken me. They said whoever does for the she-rat takes the reward. I volunteer to enter the arena.’

‘Not likely!’ one of Imbra’s soldiers, a short but wiry and well-built man, suddenly yelled. He had thick, unkempt and matted hair. ‘We was first! Wasn’t we, boys?’

‘Yeah!’ chimed in a second, a scrawny one with a pointed beard. ‘We have priority! And don’t let your sense of honour get the better of you, Windsor! What of it if the rabble is watching? Falka’s in the pit, suffice to hold out a hand and take her. And let the peasantry goggle, we don’t give a damn!’

‘And we’re ready to get something out of it too!’ snickered a third, dressed in a doublet of vivid amaranth. ‘Let’s make sport of it, am I right, Mr Houvenaghel? Let’s make a contest of it! As long as a reward’s on offer!’

Houvenaghel grinned and nodded, proudly and majestically jiggling his pendulous cheeks.

‘Well then,’ asked the one with the goatee curiously, ‘are there any wagers?’

‘As of now,’ the merchant laughed, ‘no one has wagered on the result! As of now it’s three to one, since none of you dares enter the enclosure.’

‘Huuuh!’ Horsehide yelled. ‘I dare! I’m minded!’

‘Out of the way, I said!’ Matted Hair roared back. ‘We was first and we have first crack. Come on, what are we waiting for?’

‘How many can go in at one time?’ Amaranth tightened his belt. ‘Or is only one at a time allowed?’

‘You whoresons!’ Quite unexpectedly, the pastel mayor suddenly roared in a powerful voice utterly incongruent with his build. ‘Perhaps ten of you want to take on the one of her? On horseback, perhaps? Riding chariots, perhaps? Perhaps you want to borrow a catapult from the armoury in order to hurl boulders at the wench from afar? Eh?’

‘Very well, very well,’ Bonhart interrupted, after swiftly consulting with Houvenaghel. ‘Let it be sport, but let there be entertainment too. We’ll say two at a time. You may enter in pairs.’

‘But the reward,’ Houvenaghel warned, ‘will not be doubled! If it’s two, you’ll have to share.’

‘In pairs? Two at a time?’ Matted Hair flung his cape from his shoulders. ‘Are you ashamed, boys? She’s just a wench!’ He spat on the ground. ‘Stand back. I’ll go myself and take her down. Big deal!’

‘I want Falka alive!’ protested Windsor Imbra. ‘A pox on your fights and duels! I won’t go along with Bonhart’s circus, I want the wench! Alive! You two go in, you and Stavro. And haul her out of there.’