“I will be in the barn!” he screeched, voice far more shrill than he had intended. He dragged it down with difficulty. “I must prepare, if we are to have visitors tomorrow. Come, Day!”

“I’ll just finish this.” She had quickly grown accustomed to their visitor, and was busy buttering three slices of bread at once.

“Ah… yes… I see.” He stood twitching for a moment, but there was nothing he could achieve by staying but further embarrassment. He stalked towards the door.

“You need your coat?” asked Day.

“I will be more than warm enough!”

It was only when he was through the door of the farmhouse and into the darkness, the wind sighing chill across the wheat and straight through his shirt, that he realised he would not be warm enough by any stretch of the imagination. It was too late to return without looking entirely the fool, and that he steadfastly refused to do.

“Not me.” He cursed most bitterly as he picked his way across the darkened farmyard, wrapping his arms around himself and already beginning to shiver. He had allowed some Gurkish charlatan to unnerve him with simple parlour tricks. “Bandaged bitch.” Well, they would all see. “Oh yes.” He had got the better of the nurses at the orphanage, in the end, for all the whippings. “We’ll see who whips who now.” He peered over his shoulder to make sure he was unobserved. “Magic!” he sneered. “I’ll show you a trick or—”

“Eeee!” His boot squelched, slid, and he went over on his back in a patch of mud. “Bah! Damn it to your bastard arse!” So much for heroic efforts, and new beginnings too.

The Traitor

Shivers reckoned it was an hour or two short of dawn. The rain had slacked right off but water still drip-dripped from the new leaves, pattering in the dirt. The air was weighty with chill damp. A swollen stream gurgled near the track, smothering the muddy falls of his horse’s hooves. He knew he was close, could see the faintest ruddy campfire glow at the edges of the slick tree-trunks.

Dark times are the best for dark business, Black Dow always used to say, and he should’ve known.

Shivers nudged his horse through the wet night, hoping some drunk sentry didn’t get nervous and serve him up an arrow through the guts. One of those might hurt less than having your eye burned out, but it was nought to look forward to. Luckily, he saw the first guard before the guard saw him, pressed up against a tree, spear resting on his shoulder. He had an oilskin draped right over his head, couldn’t have seen a thing, even if he’d been awake.

“Oy!” The man jerked round, dropped his spear in the muck. Shivers grinned as he watched him fumbling for it in the dark, arms crossed loose on his saddle-bow. “You want to give me a challenge, or shall I just head on and leave you to it?”