‘The barracks! You’re supposed to have stayed. Why didn’t you just . . . Oh, never mind.’ She waved for silence. ‘Listen to me. We’ve only a minute. What I’m going to say and do, I’m doing to save your life. Understand?’

Standing so close, he caught the dusky hint of her scent – perfume of some unknown flower? Foreign spices? Incense? She was half-Napan, someone had once said: half as dark. He blinked, swallowed. Here he was, an old warhorse long out to pasture, yet flaring its nostrils at a passing mare.

‘Saving my life? Corinn, I’m hitting the sack and a bottle of Kanese red. That is, unless you’ve something else in mind . . .’

Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘You damned idiot. I’m trying to save your worthless hide.’ She raised a fist, opened it palm up. A small badge lay there on the pale lined flesh, metal painted and enamelled in the sigil of a stone arch over a field of flames. The badge of the Bridgeburners, the very regiment of the man downstairs, once of the Third Army. An army that Dassem, with Temper at his side, had led in Falar and the Seven Cities.

All he could think was: so it is the smell of smoke that surrounds her. A dusky scent that took on a lethal edge in the face of that small badge. ‘Aw, no,’ he groaned, ‘Hood, no. Why? What do you want?’

Footsteps sounded from the hall. Corinn leaned close. ‘I want you to do as I say because I know who you are. I recognized you. I was at Y’Ghatan. I saw the Sword broken. I know.’ She took his arm, her hand warm and hard through his shirt. ‘Stand aside tonight and it will remain our secret. Just . . . stand aside.’

The door swung open behind him. He turned. The man with the burn scars stood in the hall, two of the men he’d sat with behind him, crossbows levelled. The man eyed Corinn who answered his gaze with a short nod. ‘He’s unarmed,’ she told them.

All Temper could think of were her words: I know who you are. Did that mean she’d been sent? Been watching him? He was stunned, as if everything he’d hidden from this last year now crashed upon him like an undermined wall.

The man’s gaze was deceptively bland. ‘My name is Ash,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Sergeant Ash. You, on the other hand, are my prisoner.’

They sat him at a rear booth beside Coop, opposite Trenech and old Faro Balkat. The old man appeared asleep, sagging against the wall, eyes staring sightlessly. A drop of saliva hung from purple-stained lips. Oddly, Trenech was gently propping him up with one huge hand. Temper glared at Coop, who appeared more confused than worried, then turned to watch Ash. He claimed to be a sergeant but was probably an officer. In the centre of the room he conferred with Corinn and a few others.