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nevertheless condemned to fight.
    That is why I am preparing for my own private little battle. With my luck, he has no saddle, but that is the least of my worries. Until night comes, I will have to keep the others on tenterhooks, let them imagine that I have turned up here to demand something.
    Easy. So benevolent are human beings, they are always prepared to think the worst of others.

MAURI
    He does not ask me, he does not even order me. He merely looks at me sideways, meaning: unharness the horse, take it to the stable, give it feed. This is the way I have been treated all these years. In another family, there would at least be a bit of respect for one’s own flesh and blood, poor or not.
    Henrik, for his part, does not even deign to see me. Even so, I am not complaining. All in all it is a stroke of luck that he happens to be here. If I had had the wits to ask for anything, that is exactly what I would have asked for. In fact, he came to mind as I was standing in front of the Town Hall, waiting for Erik. I was watching the better folk of the town pass by, idle gentlemen with young ladies on their arms, felt hats on their heads and silver-topped walking sticks in their hands. One never knows, I mused. And then it struck me that if I could get them both here, I would. I am not so concerned about the Old Mistress, for she is the only one in this family who has ever shown me any goodwill.
    I do not include the Farmhand in the family. If he belonged to it, I probably would not have needed to go to all this trouble.
    I have finished in the stable. I walk across the yard without seeing anyone and rap my knuckles on the door of the Farmhand’s hut. I stand there for a while before he appears, looking suspicious and shading his eyes with his hand as it were a bright summer day. On seeing me, he grunts, relieved, and turns to go in without further ado. I knock the snow off my boots, follow him in and sit down on the bench. The main room is lit by the flicker of the range. A pot on the fire lets out a dark, luxurious aroma.
    ‘You celebrating?’ I ask.
    ‘I was planning on saving it for Christmas,’ the Farmhand replies. ‘I didn’t know this day would come first.’
    ‘Must be chicory in there.’
    ‘Nothing in there but the real thing. Roasted it myself and ground it just now.’
    ‘You know how to live, all right. Like a lord.’
    ‘You can have a cup. Just don’t put it about that we live like pigs in clover round here. Or should I say like emperors. Or kings.’
    He pours some of the black beverage into two cups. I warm my fingers with it, take a sniff, sip the coffee carefully. I say, ‘What’ll happen? Will they just go for each other, you think?’
    The Farmhand’s face is in shadow, but I sense his meek expression. ‘Suppose you’d have nothing against that.’
    ‘Can’t say I would.’
    ‘Just don’t get accidentally caught up between them.’
    ‘Even if I did, neither of them’d notice me.’
    The Farmhand gives my words some thought and says, ‘Maybe so. Long time ago I met a blind man. He said he still went on seeing what he’d last taken in with his sighted eyes. Pity the last thing he saw was a powder keg exploding.’
    ‘You’re saying they’ve each got a powder keg?’
    ‘They’re bound to have other things, too. But a keg for sure.’
    I would love to tell him. I really would. I could almost certainly trust him; he has his notion of honour. But then there is the Old Mistress. The Farmhand might be obliged to tell her and then the brothers would find out, too, and my big moment would be spoilt. I would have let it all slip through my fingers, everything I have been gathering in my fist, artfully and for so long.
    So I will not tell him yet.
    ‘I’ve been wanting to ask something,’ the Farmhand says.
    ‘Ask away.’
    ‘I was thinking of asking if anything particular happened in the war.’
    A cold iron stabs my insides. ‘Particular? All sorts of particular things were bound to