Quillifer

CHAPTER FIVE

even days later, I sat at a table at the Men and Mayds Tavern by the waterfront in Amberstone, and scratched with a quill on a piece of paper.

To the Worthy and Esteemed Mercer Kevin Spellman, from his schoolfriend, the unproven ambassador Quillifer, Greetings:

The Embassy Royal stayeth a third night in Amberstone, as Master Gribbins hath not yet received the worship and acclaim of every single inhabitant thereof. There will be another banquet tonight, in the guild hall, & a breakfast tomorrow at the expense of the Worshipfull Guild of Apothecaries, & because the splendor & gravity of the Embassy knoweth no limit, Master Gribbins will wax full of rhetoric & windy addresses, all of which will be placed in his mouth by his suffering secretary, who feeds the Ambassador’s vanity with bonbons verbal, as ladies feed their spaniels. Surely no more ridiculous progress has been seen in the nation, at least since the Fool Pretender marched to his execution, while thinking he marched to his throne.

The logomania of the apothecary is met by the silence of Lord Utterback, who endures the prattle all the hours of the day & utters barely a syllable in response. His lassitude is remarkable to behold, and sometimes I wonder if he is simply an imbecile. (Do you like “logomania?” I made it up.)

I suppose you will have heard of the death of good King Stilwell in Bretlynton Head, of a sudden illness on his progress to Howel. We encountered the messenger three days ago, riding post to Ethlebight. The gods rest our King, sith the Pilgrim will not care.

The King had crossed the sea before the corsairs attacked Ethlebight, and our embassy would not have caught him even if we had ridden the fastest horses in the kingdom. But the rider told us the princesses are still in Selford, and will remain there until our new Queen Berlauda is enthroned on Coronation Hill. As monarchs often mark their accession by acts of generosity, I hope we may move her majesty to render aid to our city, at least if we arrive before our backsides are shaken to bits by the coast road.

It is the worst road in the kingdom, I am told. Anyone moving east or west along the coast would take the faster journey by sea, so the road exists only for the convenience of those who live along it, & their labor, or their sense of duty, is insufficient to keep it in repair. The great carriage of the Embassy Royal heaved itself along the road like a bull seal wallowing on a beach, lurching from rock to rut to pothole, & every toss & roll & pitch rattled my teeth & shivered my brains. After the first day I shifted my aching backside to the lighter baggage coach, which travels with more ease.

The coast road does not always run within sight of the coast, but when it did, I saw the corsairs’ dark chebecs on the sea, cruising for new captures. I wondered if they were laying ambushes along the road, and whether I might actually need to use my ridiculous sword.

More likely my legs. I have run from the reivers once, and I could do it again.

Because the astrologer had insisted on the Embassy leaving in the afternoon rather than morning, we didn’t reach the first posting inn until after midnight, & found the gates locked against corsairs. Eventually the landlord was roused, & the gates unlocked. There was no food. The Immodest Apothecary informed me I was not entitled to a bed, & so I rolled myself into my overcoat on a bench in the bathhouse, which at least was clean.

On the second day of our long, wrenching journey we climbed a series of stony hills and came out above a lovely bay called Gannet Cove. D’you know it? The water is deep, & protected from southeast storms by a pine-fletched peninsula, & from the west by a skerry crowned with a perfect hemisphere of darting sea birds. There is a village of fisher-folk there, but when they saw the chebecs of the reivers offshore, they fled above the cliffs behind the beach & built themselves drystone shelters, like the shepherd people do. Gannet Cove would make a fine port if those cliffs did not cut it off from the commerce of the country, & if there were a broad river like the Ostra or the Saelle to bring in the produce of the hinterland. But because the cliffs wall them off from commerce, the fishers live in driftwood huts & marry their cousins.

That night the Great Embassy got to the posting inn after dark, but there was some kind of village meeting going on, & the place was full, & the spits charged with meat. The August Personage was distressed that he shared the dining room with common folk so ignorant they knew not to worship him, & he wanted manchet-loaves of white flour instead of the cheat & raveled bread served by the landlord. (Milord Utterback, as if he were a Person & not an Eminence, ate the cheat with what an objective eye might have deemed pleasure.)

I was not deemed worthy of sharing a table with the Personage, but making friends with a serving-girl, Lucy of the bright eyes & scarlet hair, I had the better meal, to-wit, a fine pottage of onions, peas, and carrots, with bits of bacon and firm whitefish; and after, a roast quail, followed by a joint of venison which I carved myself, and lastly a cheese. Plus a jack of spiced wine that had grown steamy by the hearth. That great-gutted luxurious gastrologist the Emperor Philippus had no better, I vow, for all his bustards stuffed with ortolans. (Do you like “gastrologist?” I just made it up.)

Again I was not allowed a bed, but told to sleep in the stable with the other servants; but my new friend Lucy had a little cottage nearby, and there we kept warm all night long, with a little help from the mulled wine. I arrived at breakfast happy & refreshed, but the two Ambassadors had spent a v. uncomfortable night, having less pleasing bed partners than I—they came downstairs fleabit & lousy. I was very pleased not to share their carriage and their scratching, & I felt v. righteous in that pleasure.

The next three days’ journey to Amberstone was a wearisome repetition: the wretchedness of the road, the poverty of the inhabitants, the dreariness of the company + clouds & rain to snuff out all remaining joy. No Lucy appeared to assuage my boredom, & no beds, with or without vermin. Yet straw in the stables has its simple country virtues, & is warm enough I believe.

And now we will spend our third night in the city, guests of Count Older, cousin-german of my lord Utterback. I sleep beneath the eaves, in neither the best nor the worst bed I have enjoyed this journey. The Ambassadors spoke with the Lord Warden in hopes that he would send some of his soldiers to help secure Ethlebight & the New Castle, & I believe progress has been made there, so our travel has not been a complete waste. And the grand abbot said he would send monks!—so you will not be without your philosophical comforts, be ye ever so poor and hungry.

The Ambassadors are also taking a great many baths & being deloused generally. I and the monks shall pray for their success.

Now that we have reached the city, I have abandoned the coaches and bought a horse. It is a chestnut gelding & is agèd but not completely dilapidated, or so the dealer informs me. It is a palfrey & on the little ride I took yesterday ambles with a v. easy gait. Its name is Toast, after its favorite food.

I had hoped we might be able to sail from here to Selford, but the Aekoi blockade extends even this far. Captures have been made within sight of the town, one so close that the forts fired their great guns, but managed not to hit anything. But I see Irresistible, a great high-charged galleon, is being fitted out in the town, a private vessel owned by the Marquess of Stayne. It has four masts, with demicannon on the lower deck, culverins on the upper, & an array of sakers, minions, falconets, and such other mankillers on the castles fore and aft. Soon it shall be “busked and boun,” as the saying is, & I cannot imagine the corsairs could stand against it, even their whole fleet together, so long as there was enough wind to keep steerage-way & prevent the chebecs from rowing up under the stern to rake her.

There are also some royal vessels being brought out of ordinary, & they should cross their yards within the week. So possibly it will be the reivers who are blockaded on Cow Island, so may it please the gods.

But I have forgot to tell you the good news! Your ship Meteor hath come into Amberstone, laden with olives, figs, pickled fish, & pipes of wine from Varcellos! I know you were worried that the corsairs would take her, but she came in just before the chebecs appeared off the port, & is quite safe. You may rejoice, & may this be the restoration of your fortune.

There is now discord among the Ambassadors concerning our next step: should we continue along the coast road four or five days to Newton Linn, & there hope for a boat to take us the three days’ journey to Selford, or should we go overland direct for Selford by way of Mavors’ Road, which is the shorter way but goeth over the Toppings, which is said to be “all hill and no broad,” & will be difficult for the big carriage to traverse & take at least twelve days. I spoke for Newton Linn & the sea-route, and my lord Utterback agreed in his barely audible way; but the Personage has not yet given up his vision of a grand entrance into Selford, with all falling on their awestruck knees at the sight of a coach worthy of a god, & so I fear it we will be swaying up and down hills ere long. But what care I?—I will be on my honest palfrey! The coach may sink into a bog for aught I care, and the Personage with it.

You do not mind that I look at other women, I hope. I desire to be honorable in my conduct toward women, and part of that honorable conduct is to speak frankly.

My dalliances are harmless, and indeed are more the matter of comedy than of romance. As you shall discover in due course.

I looked up from my letter at the sound of shoes clacking on the paving stones of the quay, and saw a dark-haired, striking young woman walking along with a basket of turnips slung over her shoulder. The brilliant leafy greens bobbed behind her head like a soldier’s plume. Her eyes met mine, and held them pleasantly for a moment, and then the woman looked away and kept on walking. I felt it unjust that a young woman of such pleasing aspect should be obliged to shoulder her own turnips, and gathered my writing material between cardboard covers with the intention of carrying the turnips on her behalf—and then I saw, pacing along behind, Lord Utterback.

Utterback was dressed as befit his station, in brilliant blues and yellows, with swags and purfles, pinks and braid, and a doublet slashed to reveal the satin shirt beneath. A brass-hilted rapier glowed at his side, and he wore a tall hat with a plume and a diamond pin. I had become used to the plainer clothing Utterback wore on the journey, and seeing him in his role as lord caught me a little by surprise.

But Utterback was not reveling in his status, or strutting in his finery, but frowning down at the pavement with his hands folded behind his back, beneath a cape trimmed with black crow feathers.

Utterback paused, as if working at a thought that had just occurred to him, and then looked up with an air of faint surprise, as if he only now realized where he stood. Then he saw me, and gave a start of recognition.

I approached and put on my respectful-courtier face. “My lord.”

Utterback blinked. “Do you bear a message for me?”

“No, my lord. I was at the tavern, writing a letter, when I saw you walk past.”

Lord Utterback seemed to consider this for longer than the information deserved, but then asked a question which showed his mind was far from the quay, letters, or taverns.

“Goodman Quillifer, do you agree with Eidrich the Pilgrim that human purpose is to be found only in the mind’s acceptance of Necessity?”

I, more than a little surprised, took a moment to compose my answer. “I think perhaps that depends strongly on the definition of Necessity—and, I suppose, its opposite.”

“Some do call that opposite Freedom.”

“My lord,” said I, “I should find it hard to despise Freedom.”

“Walk with me,” said Utterback. I fell into step with him, and the count’s son returned to the troublesome matter of doctrine.

“The Compassionate Pilgrim said that Freedom was an illusion. That the first motion brought the world into being, and that this creation itself created more motion, and yet more motion, until in time that motion created us, and created also our compulsions and desires, and created as well the world about us with its people, and their appetites and so on, and that to win free of all this is impossible.”

“And yet,” said I, “should I stoop to pick up a rock, and throw the rock into the water, the rock then flies into the water. The rock has no will in the matter, but it seems to obey my will, as do my arm and hand.”

Utterback stopped in mid-stride, took my arm, and brought me close. His level brown eyes gazed into mine from mere inches away.

“Do you desire women?” he asked.

At this surprising intimacy, I found unwanted speculation flew through my mind on agitated wings. I resisted the urge to take a step away.

“I do, my lord,” I said.

“So do I,” said Utterback, to my relief. “Yet do we desire women through choice, or by Necessity, compelled by our natures? And do we somehow achieve Freedom by enslaving the desires that are natural to us?”

I adopted my innocent-choirboy face. “For myself,” I said, “I follow the Pilgrim’s advice, and act in accord with the dictates of Nature.”

Utterback smiled and released my arm. He continued his progress down the quay, and I again fell into step beside him. My mind whirled with the strangeness of it all. Utterback had spoken scarcely a dozen sentences to me on this entire journey, and now it seemed that he wished to debate philosophy. Were these the sorts of questions that occupied Lord Utterback’s thoughts on the long journey? Was philosophy how he endured Gribbins’s company?

“Necessity made me a lord,” Utterback said. “It is due to no special virtue of mine that I am my father’s son. But are lords themselves a Necessity? And it is Necessity that I behave as a lord behaves?”

I began cautiously. “Do you not have more Freedom than most men? You have wealth, you have access at court, you have liegemen and noble kinsmen to support you, you have your privileges . . .”

“And yet in some ways I have less Freedom than most men. I will marry a woman of my father’s choosing. I may go to court, but only to labor on my father’s behalf. If I go to war, it will be because my father sends me, or brings me to war with him. I will enlist in the cause of other nobles, as my father chooses, and conspire against cliques of nobles who oppose him. Even my friends and enemies are chosen for me.”

“It is no disgrace to obey your father’s will. All custom commends it. And of course you will inherit, and then need obey no will but your own.”

“Ah, but then it will be worse!” Utterback offered a laugh. “I myself will be creating these allies and enemies. I myself will be conspiring for power, marrying my children for advantage, trying to send my enemies to prison or to the hangman.”

“I cannot believe those are your only choices,” said I.

“Then we return to my question. Is it Necessity that great lords behave as great lords behave?”

Utterback had come to the end of the quay, where a great wooden jetty sagged on ancient pilings. The great galleon Irresistible moored there, its forecastle and steeply pitched poop shadowing the pier, its gangplanks filled with men bringing aboard stores.

“Hast seen Stayne’s ship?” Utterback asked.

“I was just writing of it to my friend. I should think it might drive the corsairs from our shores all on its own.”

“If it fights the corsairs at all.”

I was surprised. “What else should it do?”

Utterback fingered his dark pointed beard and narrowed his eyes as he looked down the quay. “Irresistible returned a fortnight ago from a voyage to the north, with a cargo of lumber, pitch, and turpentine. Eight days ago, a rider arrived from the marquess ordering the ship to prepare for war. Most of the great guns had been struck into the hold to make room for cargo, so these were brought up to fill the ports—sixty-two guns on three decks. Powder, shot, and other supplies are brought aboard, and they are recruiting a fighting crew—over six hundred men. Stayne himself is expected within the week, to sail aboard her.”

I had been calculating ever since I heard that eight days. “Where is Lord Stayne’s seat?”

“Allingham. Over the Toppings, then four or five days’ journey northwest.”

“So,” I said slowly, “he ordered the ship made ready for war before he could have known of the attack on Ethlebight.”

A smile twitched across Utterback’s lips. “Just so.”

“Could he have foreknown that the reivers were coming?”

Utterback gave a shrug. “I doubt they would have sent him notice of their intentions.”

“He could have employed a scryer, perhaps?”

“And told him to scry the whole wide ocean on the chance that a fleet of corsairs might be bound for our shores for the first time in over a generation? I think Stayne, in his highland home, is not so concerned with the safety of the coasts.”

“So, he intends to attack someone,” I said. “But who? We are at peace.”

“Perhaps we should ponder what a great nobleman might consider Necessity.”

I duly pondered, and was able to reach no conclusion. I spoke cautiously. “You have not described a noble’s behavior in flattering terms. You have said that the great nobles form cliques that conspire against one another, and I believe history supports this—but I don’t recall history supporting a naval attack from one clique against another, at least not in peacetime.”

Utterback’s answer was quick. “And is Duisland at peace?”

“Not with the corsairs.”

“But within its own borders?”

I hesitated. “The King is dead,” I said.

“Stilwell is dead. Leaving behind?”

“The two princesses.” A startling idea gripped me. “Do the princesses war with one another?”

“There’s more in the world than the two princesses, Goodman Quillifer.” Utterback raised a slinkskin-clad hand and began to count off the gloved fingers. “The princesses. Young Queen Laurel. Three former Queens, all still alive, and all with their noble relatives and their affinity. There are three or four bastard daughters; I know not how many, but they do not matter because their families do not matter. Then there is the bastard son, Clayborne, raised at court, whose mother is Countess of Tern confirmed in her own right, and who has but lately married the Duke of Andrian and all his land and wealth in Bonille. Clayborne is popular at court—a pleasing young man, quick of wit, handsome and charming, and resembling his father in many ways, save that he is lazy. He has always denied any ambition, but there are many who say he would make a good King. The princesses have been raised by their mothers, in exile from court, and are not well-known, and are not popular.”

The tally of this list had taken all fingers of both hands. I looked at the gloved hands for a moment. “You imply that Clayborne may try to seize the throne?”

“He may, or may be pushed into rebellion by his mother, who was deprived of a throne by that inconvenient first husband of hers, who would not oblige her with a divorce even when the King himself asked it of him. My Lady of Tern has deeply felt the lack of a throne ever since.”

My eyes turned again to the high-charged galleon waiting at the wharf. “So, Lord Stayne readies for a civil war. On which side?”

“He is a friend of the Countess, and a sometime ally of the duke. A companion in the bastard’s revels. I know nothing of his relationship with our new Queen, if he has one.”

I contemplated barrels of supplies rising in a net, and floating over the galleon’s hold at the end of a yardarm. “If Stayne wished to pledge his loyalty to Queen Berlauda,” I pointed out, “he needn’t ride all this way to board a warship; he could ride from his home to Selford in three or four days. And neither would he sail if Clayborne were anywhere that could be reached by road.”

“A telling point,” Utterback said. “I had not considered that. The bastard must be in Bonille, or abroad.”

“Have you spoken to the Lord Lieutenant? He could close the port and prevent Stayne from leaving.”

Utterback waved a hand. “Of what party is the Lord Lieutenant? I know not—Stayne might be permitted to sail free, while I am tossed in a dungeon.” He frowned. “Would that I knew my father’s mind. He is well disposed to Clayborne, I know, and has been one of his mother’s lovers, but I cannot say whether any such sentimental attachment will lead him to rebellion.” He looked again at the galleon. “Would he wish me to go aboard with Stayne, I wonder?”

“What,” I pondered, “would a great nobleman consider Necessity?”

“Hah.” Utterback was darkly amused. “The secretary grows impudent, to turn his master’s words against him.”

“The master grows careless,” returned I, “to speak of rebellion before the secretary.” I stepped closer to Utterback, and spoke into his ear. “We know nothing of this matter, whether there be rebellion or no, because the corsairs blockade us here, and keep the news from sailing to us. Let us then take horse and ride to Newton Linn—I cannot imagine the Aekoi will have sailed so far north, and there will be tidings waiting us.”

Utterback gave him a look. “Are you so reckless? Or so determined on adventure, that you would venture rebellion?”

“I have already lost all,” I said. “Family, fortune, prospects. One prince is as good as another, so they be generous to their followers.”

Utterback regarded me closely. “Have you the stomach for more than one Ethlebight? For if we have a civil war, plundered cities will be common as spots on a leopard.”

I felt my stomach turn over. I could find no words. Utterback put a hand on my shoulder.

“Nor am I so bloodthirsty,” he said in comfort. “Nor am I.” He sighed, and turned to walk heavily down the quay. I joined him.

“The Pilgrim offers as his philosophy,” Utterback said, “that a dispassionate submission to the dictates of Necessity is the first of all virtues. And so I shall resign myself to fate, and continue this sad, useless embassy until Necessity compels me to another course.” He shrugged, and looked over his shoulder at me. “Thus shall I be a dutiful son, or failing that a dutiful subject, or if both objects fail, the dutiful citizen of a dungeon, as fortune wills.”

“As my lord wishes,” said I. “Though the humble secretary wishes to remind his master that there are still courses of action that have not been considered.”

“Ay. I could join a monastery!” Utterback grinned, and made a mocking bow with a swirl of his feathered cape. “The master thanks the secretary, and will release him to finish his letter, though he also hopes the secretary will be discreet regarding the substance of this conversation.”

I bowed. “Of course, my lord. The secretary knows better than to argue the merits of rebellion in a message that anyone could open.”

But even without a description of my conversation with Utterback, I had a very long postscript to add to my letter to Kevin.

I could describe Clayborne’s possible rebellion as a rumor I had heard on the docks, and suggest that the Irresistible might be intended for fighting the war, and not the corsairs after all. If any of this were true, no help would come to Ethlebight this winter, and precious little in the way of sympathy.

I was beginning to realize how little the country cared about my city, and how small its concerns were against the intrigues of the great powers of the land.

* * *

The Embassy Royal set out at midmorning, after the long breakfast at the Guild of Apothecaries. Clouds opaqued the sky, and by afternoon the cold rain pelted down.

I had brought a long overcoat that, like the rest of my clothes, I had looted from an abandoned house. It was a thick cheviot tweed, very warm, and had a cape that I could pull over my head as a hood. I remained reasonably comfortable, but still I wished I’d bought oilskins. The rains continued on and off all day, and made the journey miserable.

My new chestnut, Toast, with his palfrey’s gait, floated with ease over the road, and would have delighted me had the weather been more reasonable. I bribed Toast with his favorite food and consoled myself with the thought that I no longer had to put up with the lurching carriage, even at the cost of being wet and cold.

I am not a natural rider, and after the first day I was near-hobbled with pain But as the journey continued, the pain faded, and I believed that the animal and I were forging an understanding, one based on bribery if nothing else.

Mavors’ Road was in better condition than the coast road, but the weather made it more trying. And for five days the coach lumbered through wet weather, its big wheels throwing up sheets of water as it careened through ponds, lagoons, and fords. It bogged down frequently and had to be shoved and worked and coaxed out of the mud. Then the road began to ascend the Toppings, one after another of steep-sided hills crowned with hardwood forests. Here the road was in poor repair, and sometimes washed out. Creeks and rivers ran between the hills, and though some were bridged, most had to be forded, and the water was high and the crossings difficult. Old castles loomed above the track, most of them deliberately torn open so they wouldn’t become the haunts of bandits. The towns were small and mean, and the inns mean and wretched. Soon, Gribbins and Utterback were scratching again, and I rejoiced on my clean bed of straw.

No messengers came galloping down the road, shouting out news of war, rebellion, or the death of kings.

Sometimes the hills were so steep that the passengers had to leave the great carriage and walk in the downpour, which vexed Gribbins greatly. His high, peevish voice carried far along the road, and I was happy to trot ahead to where the only sounds were birdsong and the clop of Toast’s hooves echoing off the surrounding trees.

On the third day in the Toppings the weather broke, and thick golden sunbeams swept like pillars of light across the green country, while mist scudded between the leafy, brilliant crowns of the hills. The ridges ahead did not seem as tall as the ridges behind, and I felt my heart lift as I sensed that soon we might win free of the Toppings and descend into the lush country that fed the River Saelle.

Late in the morning the road descended into a long coomb, with a clear, lively stream running alongside the track, and willows overhanging the water. The leaves were just beginning to turn, and in the bright sun gleamed gold and scarlet flashes along the stream’s green banksides.

I rode a few hundred yards ahead of the Embassy, enjoying Toast’s easy glide over the ill-maintained road, and taking pleasure in the rich abundance of life in the coomb, the birds singing in their trees, the river’s laughter as it scurried over stones.

The road made a curve, and I pulled up short at the ancient willow that had fallen across the track, and an instant later saw that the tree had not fallen in its own time, but been sawn. I realized that the birds had fallen silent, and I scented a faint trace of smoke in the air—not woodsmoke, but smoke with the slight taste of brimstone, like that of a slow-match.

My heart began to thunder like a kettledrum, and I sawed Toast’s head around and banged my heels on the chestnut’s sides. The elderly horse paused for a moment of astonishment at this unprecedented treatment, then jolted into belated action as I kept kicking him. Soon, Toast was flying down the track at something like a canter, while I waved an arm and shouted.

“Ambush! Bandits! Ambush!”

On the grand carriage, the three footmen, coachman, and postilion stared at me with identical expressions of imbecilic surprise. My blood turned cold as I realized that the Embassy Royal was essentially defenseless—the three footmen were armed with blunderbusses, but the rains had doused their slow-matches days before, and they hadn’t been relit. Instead of terrifying weapons of close-range combat, the firelocks were now little more than awkward clubs.

Shots cracked out, white gunsmoke plumes gushing from the green bank above the road, and what seemed a host of wild men rose from concealment and dashed down onto the track, hot on my heels. The ambuscade had been laid just at the fallen tree, and because of my warning the attackers now had to sprint to the coach instead of finding it right in their net, but they were no less dangerous for having to run a hundred yards. I cast a glance over my shoulder and saw there were about a dozen, all armed with swords, pikes, or pollaxes.

Calculations sped through my mind, and they all led to the same sad conclusion: the Embassy was about to be waylaid and robbed, its delegates perhaps beaten or killed. I, with my little sword and superannuated gelding, could not affect the issue one way or another, and it was therefore only sensible that I preserve my life.

Someone, after all, still had to carry the Embassy’s message to the capital.

Toast raced past the great carriage at an accelerating canter. The baggage coach, with its servants, was only now slowing down, its driver standing on his box to peer in bewildered curiosity at the fast-unfolding disaster ahead of him. I left the baggage coach behind, and for a moment my heart lifted at the sight of a clear road ahead—and then a man stepped onto the path to block my way.

He was an old, white-bearded character in a flat-crowned hat. He seemed to be wearing a faded blanket over his shoulders; and a pair of heavy boots, like buckets, engulfed his skinny legs. He carried a spear in his gaunt, thick-knuckled hands.

I reasoned that if the bandit was going to stand in the road like that, it was my clear duty to ride him down. So, I dropped my head behind the gelding’s neck and kicked the horse into greater effort.

The old man stepped forward, waving his spear up and down like a flyswatter, and shouted, “Hai! Hai! Hai!”

Toast, confronted with this scarecrow apparition, found himself burdened with a number of choices. Apparently, he decided to contemplate his own advanced age, and the kicks and shouts and unearned abuse he had suffered from me in the last few moments, and the lack of toast evident in this unfolding scenario . . . and in an act of stubborn insurrection decided no longer to play a part in the action. The horse stopped dead in the middle of the track.

The world revolved about me as I catapulted forward over the horse’s neck to land on my back in the middle of the road, the wind completely knocked out of me, I could only gasp for breath as the elderly bandit approached on his huge boots and brandished the spearpoint at my neck.

“Will you yield?” said the toothless mouth. “Or shall I slice out your tripes?”

Unable to breathe or speak, I mutely threw my hands out to the side, and gave myself up as a captive.