“This is a good place to camp,” Knud said.

Truth be told, it was an okay place to camp at best, but some stitches and a night’s rest were far from enough for the stab wound Sir Barten left him with. Not to mention now that there was no adrenaline and no alcohol in his system the numerous small cuts over his torso made moving painfully annoying.

Finnegan’s brows furrowed as he looked over the trees beside the main road Knud was pointing at.

“A bit further in, you mean?” the boy asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Knud said. “Safer that way.”

In Knud’s experience it was mostly to avoid enemy patrols, marching armies, or scavengers, but even down south sleeping close enough to the road to be seen could have unpleasant consequences. Waking up to the sound of passing caravans, at the very least. Still, Knud hoped they wouldn’t venture too deep in. He just wanted to lay down and sleep. Sooner rather than later.

They went in far enough to not be seen from the road. The spot they picked still wasn’t good — flat surface flanked by trees everywhere, but who was really going to ambush them? This wasn’t the north. They’d be fine. So Knud told himself, at least, and Finnegan and Maeve didn’t say anything. Didn’t know better, perhaps.

“Finn,” Knud said. “I’ll call you Finn, okay? Finnegan is too long.”

“Yes, of course,” Finn said. “You saved my life, you can call me whatever you want.”

The three of them had been travelling together the whole day, but they hadn’t really talked much. Knud was too busy keeping it together through the pain, Maeve was being Maeve, and Finn was probably too shy to initiate a conversation.

“Hey Finn,” Knud said. “Do you have parents?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I mean, are they alive?”

Finn’s gaze hit the ground. “I don’t know.”

“Were you separated?”

“Of sorts.” Finn cleared his throat, then looked deeper into the woods, searching for something. “We should make a fire, yes? I’ll gather kindling.”

Was Knud being too insensitive? He looked to Maeve and shrugged. She shook her head.

Knud growled to himself. Two years in the south and he still wasn’t good at it.

“Don’t get lost,” he called to Finn as the boy disappeared into the dark.

“I won’t,” Finn replied.

Knud set to digging a small hole for the fire.

“Do you still want to see?” Maeve asked.

“See what?”

“What you asked for earlier,” she said. “The Gods.”

The goat’s eyes flashed in Knud’s mind, sending creeps down his spine. He looked Maeve in the eye. “Do I?”

“You do not,” she said simply, her voice cold as the bite of winter.

Knud awkwardly returned his attention to the hole he was digging. “Right then,” he said. “Very important for a family to get along, right? Right, right. I do not. So you said, so it is.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder, startling him a bit. It was the bandaged hand, the one she used to bind their union. Knud placed his own bandaged hand on hers — the second part of that night’s promise, intertwining their fates. For better or worse.

“It’s normal to be afraid,” Maeve whispered. “The Gods are so much more than we can comprehend.”

And now the two of them were bound together in the eyes of the Gods. Whatever Knud and Maeve’s path was, it was too late to turn back now.

Branches rustled a few meters from them.

“Did you find enough, Finn?” Knud asked. “That was mighty quick.”

A figure in the cover of darkness approached. Someone lithe. Shorter than Finn.

“Pardon my intrusion,” a woman said with a soft accent Knud hadn’t heard before.

She stepped closer. Enough for the bits of moonlight to reveal her features. She was young, no more than twenty, blonde and graceful. Knud recognized her, even though she wasn’t wearing the green dress he’d previously seen her in.

“You?” he said. “Does Sir Barten know you’re here?”

The corners of her mouth twitched up for a moment in the faintest smile Knud had seen. “He does not,” she said. “Though in the venom of his defeat he likely assumes correct.”

It was the young lady Sir Barten was speaking with yesternight. She’d donned more practical clothes this time — a white silk shirt with a leather vest on top and equally fine looking leather pants, all of which hugged by an inconspicuous fur travelling cloak.

“To, ah,” Knud glanced at Maeve, who simply looked back. “What do we owe the... what’s the word? Honor? Pleasure?”

“Either works,” the lady said. She bowed, and as she did the moonlight reflected from her piercing blue eyes for a moment. Knud hadn’t noticed the striking color of them until now. “The pleasure and the honor are all mine.”

Knud rubbed his shaven scalp. “I’m confused now. Was this in the contract too?”

“Not at all,” the lady said. “I sought you out of my own volition in the hopes we can assist each other.”

“Assist? Like what?”

“Cojung,” the lady said. “He is in possession of information integral to my agenda.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him. He was on a ship and I need to know where that ship sailed.”

“As part of your... agenda?”

“It’s nothing foul, I assure you,” she said. “I merely wish to go home.”

“Where’s home?”

“That’s what I hope to find out.”

“Wait.” Knud’s mind set to work.

She wants to go home, but doesn’t know where that is, he thought. This Cojung person knows where some ship has been, thus might know where her home is. This means...

“Were you kidnapped?” Knud asked. “On that ship?”

The lady frowned a little. “You know what you need to,” she said. “Will you let me travel with you?”

“Well — “

“Of course,” Finnegan said from the side, a bunch of branches and dry bush bits in his hands. “This is horrible. Of course we’ll help make it right.”

“Sure, but they’re probably looking for her,” Knud said. “And besides, Cojung is a bandit leader. A noble lady won’t be safe with us.”

“I am of noble heritage,” the lady said. “But I am also capable.”

“Eeh...” How did one express doubt without offending people in the south again?

“None of you noticed me following you,” the lady said. “And none of you noticed me approaching. Surely that’s enough to warrant at least giving me a chance.”

“Sure, but...” Knud looked to Maeve for support.

“Could be your goat,” she said.

Could it? Knud remembered the terrible cold of the shade. The goat’s unsuspecting eyes. The void that remained.

It could be. This place might be the shade she was lost in and her home the bright and sunny place where she belonged.

“Could be,” Knud muttered. “Fine.”

“You have my gratitude,” the lady said.

“I just hope you don’t bring too much trouble,” Knud said. “What with Sir Barten looking for you and all.”

“I doubt that will be a problem,” she said. “Sir Barten is a noble and influential, but not that much. Not outside the Barony O’cuana.”

“We’ll see,” Knud said.

“What’s your name, my lady?” Finnegan asked.

“Ah, but of course,” the lady replied. “Where are my manners? I’m Yinna.”

“That’s a weird name here in the south, isn’t it?” Knud said. “It’s not northern either.”

“We are in the north, Knud,” Finn said.

“The north of the Empire, sure,” Knud said. “I come from beyond the sea, so this is south to me.”

“Regardless,” Yinna said. “It is not of these lands, but where I come from it’s not uncommon.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Finn said. “Where do you come from?”

“A place... not here. I don’t know where it is in relation to anything I’ve seen on your maps,” Yinna said. “We call my home the Hollow. The name is a religious thing. It will take long to explain and isn’t important.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Finnegan said.

“I appreciate that.”

At least the two of them are getting along, Knud thought. Gods, what a fucking mess.

“You can chat all you want tomorrow on the road,” Knud said. “Let’s get a fire going and sleep. My everything hurts.”

###

The next morning Knud’s everything still hurt. They had no tents or even bedrolls, so they slept on the ground like some animals. Knud had done that plenty in the past, up north. It wasn’t as cold here, but it was still awful.

They had no money either, come to think of it. Knud had a gold piece and that was it between the three of them. Yinna he wasn’t sure about. They also had no weapons, which was more than a bit problematic when it came to dispatching a bandit leader. But before that became an issue they still faced at least four days of travel on foot before they left the Baron’s lands, and while Knud could hunt, he needed some weapon for it.

He poked Maeve with a finger to wake her up. Her eyes opened slowly, blinking at the morning sun.

“What?” she said.

“Do you have a knife?”

She yawned. “I have a sickle.”

“Worst case I can use that, I suppose.”

Knud groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. His wound still gave him hell. He walked to the huddled figure of Finnegan and poked him awake.

“Hm?”

Finn’s eyes opened a bit. Then wide. He jumped to his feet, breathing heavily, his eyes searching for something. He calmed down as his eyes focused on Knud.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just... scared me a bit. That’s all.”

“Right. Do you have a knife or any other weapon on you?”

Knud traced Finn’s gaze to his scrappy clothes. Prison clothes, most likely, as he was to be executed. Why would they let him keep his stuff if he’s going to die?

“No,” Finn said. “I have nothing on me.”

“Right,” Knud said. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright.”

Knud hurried past him to where Yinna was gathering herself from the ground, awoken by the commotion.

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“Morning,” Knud said. “I, uh...” Noble ladies didn’t run around with weapons, but he could ask her for money, perhaps? “Do you have any coin on you? For, like, food and stuff, right?”

Yinna reached in her cloak and handed Knud a dagger, hilt first.

“Will this do?”

Knud took it carefully, as if a noble’s knife was any different than a normal knife, and looked it over. It was sharp. Knud could sharpen some sticks into spears and hunt small game with it, then use the knife to clean it up and they could use it for food.

“What’s this thing on the hilt?” Knud asked. There was some design he didn’t recognize. It wasn’t northern, that much was clear.

Yinna shrugged. “It’s local make and not on my request,” she said. “I don’t know, but on a guess it was meant to be pretty.”

“Something to do with the Nine, maybe,” Knud guessed. “They’re very serious about their gods here.”

Finnegan peeked at the dagger from Knud’s side. “No,” he said. “It’s something else, but I haven’t seen it either.”

Knud stuffed it in his boot. “A knife is a knife,” he said. “Get a fire going, I’ll bring some food.”

###

It took Knud a few hours to return with two rabbits and a deer. Must be few or no hunters in this area for such an easy hunt, he thought. All the better for Knud. Finnegan helped him clean the animals and gather the meat while Yinna roasted it over the fire. Meanwhile, Maeve had taken some drug and sat beside a nearby tree meditating or some shit.

Alas, none of them had salt, so the meat would spoil in a few days, but at least until then they wouldn’t have to worry about food. Before hitting the road they wrapped the meat they hadn’t used in Knud’s shirt — it was tattered and bloody anyway, and they were going south so he could probably survive bare chested without freezing to death.

The next four days passed quite easily. Much too easy for Knud’s liking. Not that he rathered fight off bandits in the dead of night with his bare fists and a couple of women under his care, assuming Finnegan was any good in a fight, but they were sent to deal with bandits who supposedly terrorized this part of the Barony, and yet, nothing. The last couple of days at least they should have noticed something. Heard complaints at the very least.

Before long they passed the border and were about a kilometer into Barony Criennzk in a town called Leppen, exhausted, dirty, and with one gold between the four of them.

It was dusk, so they headed straight for the first tavern they saw — the Chubby Piglet. Inside were more patrons than Knud expected. Easily over ten, spread over four tables, drinking and chatting happily. As if their roads weren’t terrorized by bandits.

“I don’t like this,” Knud whispered to Maeve.

She scanned the place. “What bothers you?”

“It’s too... normal, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me,” a passing maid said to Knud. She left two mugs on a nearby table and approached the group. “Can you put on something?”

The brown haired lass was quite good looking. A bit young and it showed, but definitely of childbearing age, which, all things considered, was old enough. Knud scratched his balls as he watched her. He’d be all over her — he wanted to — but he was a married man now.

Gods damn it.

“Sir?” she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’re disturbing our patrons.”

Nobody but her paid any attention to Knud, or anyone else in his group, the stray looks at his wife and Yinna aside, but he wasn’t going to argue with the lass.

“Uh, I don’t have a spare shirt.”

The lass crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Well if you weren’t this big we could’ve perhaps offered something,” she said. “If you hurry you can catch Susie before she closes for the day. She’ll have something.”

“Who?”

“The local tailor.” The lass’ eyes wandered to Knud’s brown bandages. “Should probably see the doc as well. Those bandages look old.”

“Right.” Knud pulled from his pocket the few silver coins he had, making up one gold, and the doll Maeve made in his liking using his hair. He’d forgotten about it. He gave Maeve the coin. “Get us two rooms and some food. Ale too. I’ll earn more tomorrow.”

She returned half the coins to him. “For the shirt and bandages,” she said.

“Ah, yeah.”

Knud turned to leave, but before he did he told Finnegan in a low tone: “Take care of the ladies, yeah?”

“Of course.”

It took Knud a few minutes to ask around and eventually find his way to the tailor. She was a pleasant, middle aged lady who was finishing up some embroidery before closing. Knud parted with a silver for a simple green shirt his size and asked for directions to the doctor, then left Susie to her business.

The doctor’s shack was unimpressive. Small, wooden, barred windows with broken glass, and dangerously tilted to one side.

Knud knocked. “Hello? I’m looking for the doctor.”

The door opened immediately. Inside was a short, shrivelled man, his hair greasy and with a bald spot at the top, a small moustache and tiny circular glasses.

“Yes, yes. Come in.”

He spoke fast, as if the faster he spoke the faster Knud would move. Being fair, the low squeaky tone coupled with his hasty words did make Knud a bit jumpy, so he rushed into the shack. The place was less of a mess inside, though only a little less. There was a cauldron of bubbling stew of some sort in the distance, another empty cauldron to the side, vials, pastes, a number of pestles in varying sizes, and dried or drying herbs hanging everywhere. A bit to the side was a chair and a table, mostly filled with some of the aforementioned stuff, but there was some space in the middle, presumably for eating, and a small bed next to the table.

“Sorry for the late visit,” Knud said, eyes still taking in the madness of the shack’s interior.

“What time is it? What time is it?”

“Uh, I don’t know exactly. Past sundown. Is everything alright?”

“No!” the doctor said as he wobbled to the cauldron and began stirring the contents. “Why are you here if it is? Speak up, speak up!”

Knud rushed further into the shack just beside the doctor. “Fuck, old man. Why so tense? You’re getting me nervous here.”

“Yes, yes. Sorry, I do that. It’s true. My apologies. What’s your problem? Speak it! Your problem?”

“What? My problem? I don’t know, old man, you’re — “

“Yes you do. Speak it. Speak it!”

“I’m... fucking married and I don’t know how. There’s a Gods damned fucking goat I need to save and I don’t know who it is, what I need to save it from or how. I don’t know what to do, this is too confusing! Not to mention I signed some dumb fucking contract to kill a bandit leader when I fucking fled my homeland to avoid giving into the madness of fighting, yet here I am fucking at it again with a bunch of strangers I’m tied to. That’s my fucking problem.”

The old man blinked from behind his tiny glasses a few times in the following silence.

“It’s the bandages, isn’t it?” he asked.

Knud looked at the dirty bandages as if he’d just noticed them. “Oh, you mean that problem. Uh, yes, I need you to change them.”

“Easy enough!”

The doctor went to his bed and pulled a sack from underneath. He ruffled inside and produced some medical alcohol and a gauze to clean the wound as well as clean bandages. It took only a few minutes for the whole thing.

“Before I go,” Knud said. “Have you heard anything about the bandit I’m looking for? His name is Cojung.”

“You’re looking for Cojung? Yeah, I know him. Of him, actually. He’s no bandit though, he’s some mercenary or something. Haven’t met him, but I have it on good ear he’s a decent man, if weird.”

“Weird how?”

The doctor shrugged. “Never met him.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“Nope!”

“Alright, well. I’ll leave you to your soup.”

“Five copper!”

“Right, right.”

Knud handed the man his coins and stepped out into the rain.

“Fuck me but rain comes suddenly here,” he muttered to himself. “Not a cloud in the sky a moment ago, and now this downpour.”

What an odd little man the doctor was. Had some useful information, though. If this Cojung was terrorizing the Barony O’cuana and he was a mercenary, that meant someone hired him to do it. Not that it mattered, anyway. Knud’s contract was to eliminate Cojung — that and nothing else.

Now that Knud’s bandages were changed he put on the shirt before entering the Chubby Piglet. Inside Maeve was easy to spot with her wild hair. Knud made his way to the table, pulled an empty chair and sat beside his wife.

“Did you do it?”

She nodded. “Food and ale are coming. With the two rooms, it cost all five silvers.”

“Damn, we’re down to three and a half.”

Knud sighed. Taking care of so many people was going to be difficult if he was the only one earning. His gaze wandered off to the maid’s booty as she serviced another table.

Fucking married life.

“Hey Maeve,” Knud said. “Do you think tonight we can — “

Finnegan started tapping audibly on the table. It wasn’t at Knud, however. The boy was watching one of the other tables. There was a dirty girl dressed in what used to be a fancy dress, now mud smeared, wet, and torn in places. Her black hair was stuck to her face and neck, and her eyes searched every corner with fear akin to that of townsfolk when Knud’s party raided their homes up north. Back during his dark days.

Some lad from another table pulled a chair and sat next to her. She didn’t know him, the way she looked at him. He started talking with a bastard smile to him. He was young, with short hair and black stubble to his face. A fuckboy, Knud’s shipmates from Straadhil port called them. Whatever the girl’s problem, he wasn’t going to help her, but he could take her mind off of it for a night.

His presence agitated Finnegan further. He made to stand, but Knud held him down with his big hand.

“Not our problem,” Knud said. “Only bad things come from meddling in other people’s business.”

“What about me?” Finnegan said. “Why’d you help me then?”

“I told you already,” Knud said. “And I got stabbed, exiled, and tied to a fucking contract for it. We don’t need more problems.”

“So just leave her?”

“She has company already.”

“I don’t trust him,” Finn said. “I’ve seen people like him. Bad people.”

“So what?” Knud said. “You’ll go there and do what exactly?”

“I don’t know. Offer to help.”

“How? Give her money? Clothes?” Knud raised a questioning eyebrow. “You can’t offer anything. Fuckboy over there can at least buy her a meal.”

Finnegan deflated, so Knud removed his hand.

“There you go!” the maid said as she brought sausages with eggs and a mug of ale for everyone. “Enjoy.”

Knud smiled at her. Wanted to say something, too, but he was a married man now, so he didn’t.

“Thanks,” Finn said and Yinna echoed him.

“Fuckboy,” Finnegan muttered to himself, but Knud picked it up. The boy poked his eggs a bit, then forked one of his two sausages and reluctantly took a bite.

“Don’t worry about her,” Knud said. “Sometimes a fuckboy, or girl, is exactly what people need.” He glanced over at the young maid again.

Finn sighed, shaking his head. “I suppose.”

###

The group ate their food and drank their booze mostly in silence, then split into two. Finnegan wasn’t happy he had to share a room with a lady because, as he put it, it’s indecent, but he couldn’t pay for his own room so he compromised sleeping on the floor instead. The other room was for Knud and Maeve.

“Hey Maeve,” Knud said on the way. “Wanna fuck?”

She smirked. “As husband and wife do.”

Knud grinned. Married life seemed like a drag so far, but with a hot wife it did have its perks as well. He opened the door to their room, and as he walked in took off his shirt, still wet from the rain.

“Evening, my good man,” a familiar voice greeted him from inside.

It was the cloud-haired, mostly toothless, old-but-maybe-not warden from the Baron’s jail.

Knud and Maeve exchanged confused looks. She closed the door behind them.

“How’d you get here?” Knud asked.

The warden — Wolten, as Knud recalled — snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“What?”

“He weaves,” Maeve said.

Wolten’s eyebrows went up. “You know?”

“Can either of you fucking explain?” Knud demanded.

“I am the good Baron O’cuana’s wizard, Knud,” Wolten said. “And I do strongly recommend not signing contracts with your blood in the future, hmm?”

Something clicked inside Knud. A ping of anger. “Wasn’t much of a choice at the time, was it?”

Wolten chuckled. “Indeed.”

“The fuck you doing here?” Knud asked. “Is it the girl?”

“The girl?”

“Sir Barten’s lady,” Knud said. “You can have her, she’s next door to your left as you go out.”

“Yinna? No, that wench is Sir Barten’s problem alone,” Wolten said. “My purpose here is merely to check up on you. Make sure you’re sticking to the demands of the contract.”

“Yeah, about that,” Knud said. “Cojung is a mercenary, not a bandit. Still want him dead?”

“Very much so, but there’s one caveat,” Wolten said. “Do not speak with him.”

“What? Why, don’t you want to know who hired him?”

Wolten grinned a toothless smile. “Do as you’re told, Knud.”

Knud growled. “Don’t like that attitude, old man.”

“Good,” Wolten said. “Channel that anger and unleash it upon Cojung. We’ll speak again after.”

With that Wolten walked out the room under the intense stare of Knud. Once him and Maeve were alone, she stepped behind him, on her toes so she could reach better, and started massaging his shoulders.

“This wizard is a dangerous man,” she said. “But fret not. The Gods walk in our steps.”

Knud looked at the no longer bandaged slice mark on his hand. Took the hair doll from his pocket. This him, the married man on a quest, was getting too close to his old self. The man he hoped dead and buried.

He wasn’t ready to burn the doll. He returned it to his pocket and told Maeve:

“Stuff the pipe and take off your clothes. Tomorrow’s gonna be fucked, I need to relax.”

She ran her delicate hand over the growing hair on his scalp. “You should shave your head every morning,” she said. “Your tattoos howl with the Wolf.”

His tattoos. No, his old self’s tattoos. He traced them with two fingers.

“Maybe,” he said. “I have a feeling we’ll need him.”

Maeve was already halfway through stuffing some dry plants in the pipe. “Leave the beard. Where we’re about to go no man should.”

Knud rubbed the stubble on his jaw. Old him had a long beard, too. Did he tell Maeve about it or had she heard the tales?

“What do you mean?” he asked as she used the tinderbox to light the pipe and dragged a lungful of smoke. “What are you not telling me?”

Maeve exhaled a series of rings, her eyes lingering on them. “I can see the foretells in coincidences. The guiding hand in tall tales. The horror in the weave.” She dragged again, this time releasing it in a single puff. “I have the Touch. I know things.” The green of her eyes pierced his for a long moment. In them Knud saw... fear? “The Gods speak to me.”

Knud scratched the back of his head. This wasn’t much of an answer, but he reckoned Maeve herself didn’t know better. She appeared daft at times, truth be told. She handed him the pipe and untied a lace on the side of her chest garment. Knud dragged the sweet smoke as he watched her undress, increasingly aroused.

Tonight, Knud decided, I’m done with problems. Tomorrow is another day’s worries.

Whatever Maeve had stuffed in the pipe was good. Some three drags in and his muscles were lax like a limp dick. His dick, on the other hand...

His wife had already fully undressed by the time he started fiddling with his pants with one hand, the other one holding the pipe. He had the stupidest grin on his face, but he didn’t care. Maeve also smiled as she sat on the bed, eyes locked on him.

Someone screamed. It was muffled and distant, coming from one of the other rooms. A girl. Both Knud and Maeve’s heads snapped in the direction. There was another scream.

Other people’s problems...

Knud’s pants dropped on the floor.

One more scream sounded. Then a bone-rattling thunder. The door of the room next to theirs opened. Someone ran down the corridor.

“Fuck,” Knud exclaimed. He tossed the pipe to Maeve and pulled his pants up. “It’s Finn!”

Maeve lunged forward, reaching for the pipe. She fumbled with it for a second at the edge of the bed, then sprawled face first on the floor. A decent husband would’ve helped his wife, perhaps, but she was okay while Finnegan was about to do something stupid, so Knud rushed out of the room and followed the footsteps, tying his pants as he ran.

Another thunder cracked. It couldn’t have landed far with how loud it was.

“Finn!” Knud called. “Not our problem!”

Knud took a left turn at the end of the corridor and saw Finn enter a room a bit further.

Knud was big, but he was also fast. In only a few seconds he was already at the door moments before a group of onlookers with night lanterns circled the entrance to see what the commotion was about. The first thing Knud saw inside was Finnegan, who’d only made it a few steps in, his eyes wide and mouth gaping. The lanterns didn’t provide much light so it was difficult to see what had happened inside, but there was a smoking lump on the floor and a girl sobbing a few steps away.

Lightning lit the room. It was only a flash, but enough to cause gasps behind Knud. He saw it too. Huddled beside the bed and hugging her knees was the girl in tattered clothes from earlier — hair ruffled, eyes full of tears, and face covered in blood and red bits. In front of her, laying on the ground, was the fuckboy — teeth clenched, muscles taut, skin red and steaming, eye sockets empty, and body unmoving.

As if struck by lightning so strong his eyes popped.

Immediately after the lightning followed the thunder. It landed just outside the window.

The noise made Knud’s ears ring and the group behind him jump.

The girl finally took notice of them. She looked between the lantern illuminated faces of strangers, stopping on the closest — Finnegan’s.

She spoke, her weak voice breaking up: “It wasn’t... wasn’t me,” she said. “I don’t know... what happened.”