The two men faced each other, weapons drawn, no more than two metres apart. Dark clouds of every dull shade from deep grey to near black laboured across the darkening sky, eager to give up their cold, wet charge. A damp, icy wind flicked idly at the few leaves still stubbornly clinging to the almost bare branches of the miserable looking trees that bordered the hilltop. The younger of the two men noticed the grey flecks in the other's beard as the wind tugged at them.

"I'm here to teach you a lesson you'll not soon forget, you clever young bastard", greybeard said, in a flat, matter of fact manner, completely without the slightest trace of malice. His tone seemed more in keeping with a friendly chat about the dire late autumnal weather, and the imminent rain.

"Bastard indeed I am", replied the young man, equally casually. "But let's pass a few moments discussing whores, more particularly, who should be named the biggest, the one you slithered out of or the one you married".

If the young man had intended to enrage grey beard, then he was entirely successful. With a roar, the older man charged. The young man was caught out somewhat by grey beard's turn of speed, and only just managed to parry his thrust away with his shield. As greybeard's momentum took him past the youngster, he received a short, stabbing blow to the back of his head from the youngster's sword hilt, which tilted his helmet over his left eye at a comical angle. As he tried to check his speed his boots lost purchase on the greasy, grassy surface of the hilltop, and he slipped and fell backwards, landing with a clatter of bodyarmour, and a loud "oooouf".

This amused the young man no end. "When you said you'd teach me a lesson I'd not forget you sad old shit little did I think tumbling and clownery would be on the agenda".

Greybeard sat his helmet back square on his head. He tapped his sword on his shield in acknowledgement of the young man's clever manoeuvre, nodding his head slowly as he did so.

"Very good, boy, very good indeed. It seems that you've spent less time entertaining the servant girls and more time practising swordsmanship than I reckoned on!"

"Quite so", the young man replied, "and once I've moved you one step nearer a burial urn, I have a meeting arranged with a comely young thing in a warm barn, so if you'll be so good as to let leg-biter here have a nibble of your tired old horse-flesh, I'll be on my way."