The shattered pieces of his mind hastily endeavored to piece themselves back together, forming some dim insistence that what he'd seen had been Mr and Mrs Sterling in a very private moment between two wedded adults. Never mind that he'd never met or been aware of the latter. In fact Mr Wilson had once pointedly said that Mr Sterling was a bachelor. And never mind that this was suddenly a world in which people called Mrs Sterling could be sturdy and bearded, never mind that. And never mind that these mental puzzle pieces just weren't piecing together at all, just pressing together feebly, desperately, trying to form a picture that just refused to be formed.

Never mind that!

The once amicable and quippy gentleman now seemed seven foot tall as he advanced on Bragi. From the dirt, the boy scrambled another few inches backwards (Galahad huffed his disquiet), only to wince as he realised he'd badly grazed both his palms in the fall, and sharp fragments of straw were intermingling with the blood. He didn't care though; it was nothing compared to the dangerous fury emanating from the sorcerer's devil-green eyes.

"Jeg vil gerne undskylde", he breathed another apology, and quickly translated; "all-all my apologies, sir. It was Galahad, we- we were out for a ride and — his shoe — he's l-limping, and... I saw the lights on, I thought a stable hand might... but the th-the wind blew the door open, I would never... I would never just..." to his horror, a hint of a tear prickled at the corner of his eye. "I can't believe what I've done, I'm the biggest ratbag imaginable."