‘Will you say nothing now?’ she asked. ‘Not even a curse or two?’

‘How fits shame, lieutenant?’

To that query she made no reply, but quickly dismounted, and then moved to crouch beside him. At last he could see her face.

She was studying him curiously. ‘We captured Lord Rend. My troop now delivers him to Hunn Raal. I will grant Ilgast this – he did not flee us, and looks to accept his fate as just punishment for failing on this day.’

‘Today,’ agreed Havaral, ‘marks a day of failures.’

‘Well, let me give you this. You’ll not scorn my pity, I hope. I see you at last. Old and useless, with every pleasure long behind you now. This hardly seems a fitting end, does it? Alone, with only me to caress your eyes. So, at the very least, I choose to offer you a gift. But first, I see you covered in blood and guts – where is your wound? Do you feel much pain, or has that faded?’

‘I feel nothing, lieutenant.’

‘That’s good then.’ She laughed. ‘Here I was going on and on, too unmindful by far.’

‘I’ll take the sharp point of your gift now, Sevegg, and deem it the sweetest kiss.’

Sevegg frowned briefly, as if struggling to understand the meaning of his invitation. Then she shook her head. ‘No, I cannot do that. I’ll let you bleed out instead.’

‘This is your first field of battle, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Her frown deepened. ‘Everyone has a first.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s true. I will concede your innocence here, then.’

The furrows of her brow beneath the helm’s rim faded, and, smiling, she said, ‘That’s generous of you. I think now we could have been friends. I could well have looked on you as a father.’

‘A father to you, Sevegg Issgin? Now you curse me in earnest.’

She bore that well and nodded, looking off to one side for a moment before returning her attention to him. ‘So there’s still some fire in you. Not a daughter, then. We’ll imagine the lover instead. More blessed then my gift.’ She reached down and grasped the wrist of his left hand, tugging off the gauntlet. ‘Here, old man, one last time, a soft pleasure.’ And she moved his hand up under her leather breastplate. ‘You can squeeze if you’ve the strength.’

He met her eyes, feeling the swell of her tit cupped by his calloused palm. And then he laughed.

Confusion clouded her face, and at that moment, as he brought up his other hand and drove the knife it held up under her rib cage, using all his strength to pierce the leather, and felt it slide home to take her heart – at that moment, he looked hard at her face, seeing no one but a stranger. And this pleased him even more than the surprise he saw in that visage.