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Flemish, but they likely have lost most of their Flemishness. All plaguers speak the same language, and it is not French.
    I become aware of the riders shortly after passing Sudbury. Two of them. They are a half mile from me, but they ride swiftly. I consider veering off into the countryside, but I am certain they have seen me already. If a man can watch a horse run away for two days in the flat East Anglian plains, how long can he watch a cow?
    “Maybe they’re friends,” I say to Abigail. She farts.
    I nod and place one arm over the cannon so it is partially hidden.
    The men reach me and slow their horses. One wears a rusted chain-mail tunic, the other a leather jerkin. Both are armed. They fall in step with Abigail, one on each side, and laugh. Abigail twitches her ears. I shift uneasily on her back and try to gather as much dignity as I can. I could not find a long enough rope to make Abigail’s halter, but I stumbled upon an old maypole with a long pink ribbon dangling from it. That ribbon is Abigail’s reins. I am certain it is not helping my knightly bearing.
    I nod to each of them. “It is good to see other healthy men in East Anglia.” I hope I am still healthy.
     “Oi, Stephan.” The man in the chain mail ignores me and calls to his companion on my left. “What would you call a knight that rides a cow?”
    Stephan gives me a long look. “An udder failure,” he says.
    The two men laugh again. I keep my eyes on the road ahead. I have enough strife with the afflicted. Must I have it from the unafflicted as well?
    “Unless he comes from Jerusalem, Henric,” Stephan says. “In which case I would call him a Mooooor.”
    Henric bends over in the saddle as he laughs. “A Mooooor!” he says, catching his breath. “A Mooooor!”
    I remove two flints from a pouch at my belt and hold them in one hand as I rummage through my shoulder sack. Stephan smirks at me.
    “Moors are from Spain and Africa,” I say.
    Henric finally addresses me. “Stephan’s got a gift with words,” he says.
    I nod my head but do not meet the man’s gaze.
    “My father was a punster,” Stephan says. “I wasn’t any good at ’em till he died. Just as we dropped him into his grave, his way with words passed on to me.” I can see him smiling up at me from the corner of my eye. “You could say it was a gift from the Lowered.”
    Henric bursts into a fit of laughter again. “Gift…gift from the Lowered! Ain’t ’e just the funniest man you ever ’eard?” He doubles over with laughter again and punches Abigail in the side. “Gift from the Lowered!”
    I turn my head toward him and draw a firing cord out from the shoulder sack. “If you strike my cow again,” I say, “I will grind you into grain and feed you to her.”
    Henric seems to think this is as funny as Stephan’s puns. He hoots with laughter, then mimics me. “If you strike my cow again…hooooooo!”
    I place the firing cord in my lap. “I’m glad I could provide some entertainment,” I say. “Godspeed to both of you.” I kick my heels into Abigail’s side and she accelerates to a slightly faster walk. It is not what I was hoping for.
    Henric wipes at his eyes, then grows sober. He takes hold of Abigail’s pink reins and halts his horse. “I’m afraid you need to get off the heifer now, Sir.”
    I begin striking the two flints together, creating a shower of sparks in my lap.
    “You deaf, cow-knight?” Henric says. He draws a short sword. “I said get off.”
    “What’s that he’s doing?” Stephan asks. “You lighting yourself on fire?”
    “No,” I say.
    Henric lets go of Abigail’s reins and draws his horse away from me. “What are you doing?”
     “I’m lighting a firing cord,” I say. The cord catches and begins to smolder. I put the flints away.
    “What’s a firing cord?” he asks.
    “It is a length of hemp that has been soaked and rolled in flammable powders.” I draw my gun from the shoulder sack and aim it at Henric. “It is