"I used to do honour. A long time ago," Aquila tells us, darkly. "But when an empire falls, what good is its code?"

Two scenes from Thomas Cole's painting Destruction give us a glimpse of the empire falling -- a bridge so full of bodies dead, alive, and fighting alike that it can't help but pile over, and then masses of bodies on stairs, in front of which a Roman warrior lies, impaled by an arrow, in front of the head of a statue. Carnage. Absolute ruin and carnage at the end.

"So," Aquila returns, smiling, "You are meat in a pan and I refuse to be your fire." The Green Knight does not react to this before Aquila continues, "Let me show you another way."