The first one is an ambidextrous military historian, whose specialty is siege techniques of the Middle Ages. The second one has psychic leanings, a complex past, and a good reason for never eating pigs. The third one is a business wheeler and dealer with gambling tendencies. Then we return to the present to find out what happens next. But on top of that, there are awful things.
Life contains awful things.
By the time you've reached a certain age, you notice. It includes both tragedy and comedy, and the play of language, and Memory, the mother of all nine Muses, and, above all, the experience of getting your socks knocked off. It was a favourite word of the poet William Blake, and it's in the full sense of his use of it that I invoke it now. I thank you.