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“Dunno. Bet you plait them.”

“Fuck off.”

“Pube-plait boy.”

“I’m not asking you again. Leave.”

Leofric grew truculent. “Or what?”

“I’ll garrote you with my pube plait.”

Leofric tilted his head back and let out a high-pitched giggle.

Mordaunt, losing patience with the proceedings, hitched up Leofric’s trousers, grasped him by the shoulders, and steered him towards the door. “Go home.”

“Pube plait,” whinnied Leofric.

“To the waystone, and I never want to hear about your pubic hair again,” said Mordaunt, wrestling him towards the door.

Leofric let out a soul-rending wail about his uneven balls.

There was silence, broken by the occasional thump of Leofric running into furniture, as Mordaunt pushed him out. Finally, there was the slam of a door and the slide and click of several dead bolts.

Mordaunt reentered the room, exasperation wafting off him. He opened the wardrobe, at the bottom of which lay Aurienne, in absolute bits, trying to recover from a fit of silent laughter.

Mordaunt reached a hand down to help her to her feet. The movement was brusque; the grasp was gentler. Aurienne regained her feet, wiped at her eyes, and found her usual seriousness. More or less.

How tragic that she wouldn’t be able to share this story with Élodie and Cath.

“That was—” began Aurienne.

“Let’s never speak of it again,” said Mordaunt. He looked irritated to the extreme. There was a flush of embarrassment across his cheekbones.

“Your friend is—”

“Not a friend,” said Mordaunt.

“Who is he?”

“Leofric. He’s only got one brain cell, and he uses it to not shit on his own head.”

“He seemed nice—”

“He’s an imbecile with a perfect instinct for chaos. Impossible to say whether he’s the harbinger or the cause. I hate him.”

“You know, his pubic hairwasunusually straight,” said Aurienne. “Rigid, like.”

“I don’t care about Leofric’s pubic hair.”

“He could take out someone’s eye.”

Mordaunt shut the wardrobe behind Aurienne with a snap. With an air of immense suffering, he asked, “Must we belabour this subject?”

Aurienne belaboured. “Is his deofol a porcupine?”

“I see we’re going for the low-hanging fruit.”

“Only one of them was low,” said Aurienne. “Isit a porcupine?”