De Omnibus Dubitandum Est!

Both had deep and rich thick leather coats wrapped about their boiled egg legs, ham toes and buttery lips, each made as best a comfortable position as was possible; such was the depth of their coats, each could have tented himself quiet snugly for the night. Yet each sat cross legged upon the dry earth as the wind bit and snatched at every conceivable fissure or non tight place about their person. The night was bitter, it had been so for a long time, the occasional snow fall was ferocious it had a point to prove. The two men had chosen a small nook beside a frozen river, above them a large black slab of stone penetrated out into the bitter winter sky, a few dried out frozen brambles lay on the ground like black guard dogs, whose owner died reclining in his easy chair, pipe in mouth, leaving the fire to burn out; such being the dogs loyalty, they remain to starve and freeze too weary to moan to sad to live. An owl perched itself on a near by branch, sending a sudden downpour of accumulated snow crashing into the foliage below, a wolf howled far away in the mountains. The two men, neatly covered head to toe in black leather, with chill ghostly vapour leaving their mouths, their faces hidden even from the yellow fire light, cut a ghoulish pair an old peasant in a rickety horse drawn cart trundled by, envying the fire but not the company, he scratched his beard and ate some dry salted meat. A small but neat fire cackled and snatched upwards toward the stars, releasing dark embers to twist and flicker away into the vanishing night.

-Sir before I judge your soup, I feel honour bound to introduce myself, I am the renowned swordsman Vigilius Haufniensis!

-It is well you introduced yourself before judging my soup, for being a stranger and not familiar with my ways, you would have no means at all of knowing that I am irked by two things in this life; one being an itchy ear, the other negative comments concerning my soup, which being my dead mothers recipe I defend with a vicious greed. Yet since you have begun this discourse in the fashion best described as polite, I shall follow suit I am the scourge of Vienna, the infamous rapist of Oslo, in short I am he Hilarious Bookbinder!

-It is good that I know your name before I comment upon your soup, for had I known it was thee that I had met upon the unfriendly road, I should surely have declined and died in a field someplace nearby left for crows and squirrels to make a meal of. For only by this fire and this soup am I here to tell my tales! Let that little trifle not impede what I now sense to be a most un common yet fortuitous happen stance!

-It is well you regard my reputation with distaste, for not knowing me, which you do not, I have renounced all my raping and scourging ways and have taken on the life of a devout religious hermit! Thus all men who glory my past sins have been put to death at my hand, all my old associates in sin have been throttled by these very hands which now turn the pages of my bible, this divine wrath hath no allies in retribution! Good then, it is well you speak truthfully and denounce my blackguard ways of old!

-Truly this is a rare thing, for it is good that you inform me of that which I had no recourse to know, being that I upon losing my dear wife some months past, swore to the God that I should not sit and break bread with an unrighteous man and if I were to so break my solemn oath I assured the Lord I would drown myself upon the spot, it is good we have eaten bread and you speak as you do!

-It is well that you know of my prior afflictions as regard morality, it is well that you deter from committing suicide, for I have vowed never to see a man take his own life, for such darkness have I brought upon the world I have sworn upon my ever lasting damned soul that no man should die before my very eyes ever again; notwithstanding negative remarks regarding my mothers soup, one must have limits!

- It is good we find each other this wintry night so well atuned to each others idiosyncrasies yet not all at all long acquainted! It is also good you speak of limits, for your countenance is that of a wise man to me now, I have sailed on vast vessels, I have killed moors and mocked the men of France, I have had duals with ten earls, twelve barons, two kings, a horse and my own sister, why you ask, you do well to ask! For I abhor three things in this world, a women with limits, wet socks and a man without limits! I am suffering much hardship because of those three tenets of action, but I regret not a thing!

-It is good you do not wallow openly in self piety, for the night is bleak here in this wildness of anti-civilisation, I myself have existed upon the bosom of torment since birth, I have suckled disaster with greedy aplomb. I feel you are a keeper of good council, thus let it be known to you, I was not always a successful rapist, once I was the Abbot of a wealthy English shire, there I had much and wanted for nothing; such was my standing people would beg me to kiss their infants as I passed, flowers would grow more colourful, cows would drip milk as never before, bees would make swifter their work, whole herds of sheep would kneel and pray for my soul, that is until that which I may not utter occurred, thus men who think themselves hard done to incur my swift vengeance for indeed I have lost more than a thousand men! What think you of the soup?

-The soup is too warm!

-It is fine, eat it!

-No, it is too warm!

-Nay, the air is so cold it makes the soup seem hotter than it actually is!

-Really?

-It can be no other way!

The owl hooted!