This is a novel solid, well written, taking place within a company to dull stirrings of Europe. We are there on the borders of Austro-Hungarian Empire, far from centralized power. A-buttressed arches feudalism on the past, in an unlikely place of valleys, forests, refuges ... and a linguistic and ethnic diversity which only requires a catalyst to collide violently. Roman bushy, sometimes slow, with gross animated characters by pride or hatred. Characters unlovable it is true, as the author lets us imagine ourselves. Greater emphasis is placed against by the places, landscapes, homes, social castes, a plot altogether commonplace in the daily hunter / hunted and vice versa, but described to the extreme in all its facets. Long novel, which the author ends up rather awkwardly. I would have liked that the winners and losers are returning, leaving open to everyone's imagination the fate of the count, the serfs, the "bandits" ....