He groped behind the travel chest again and pulled out another bundle, head-sized. Holding it up in one hand, he peeled aside the soft leather. A helmet stared back at him. It was of blackened steel with a mail coif hanging like tattered lace all around, and an articulated lobster-tail neck guard. The T-shaped vision slit and closing cheek guards fixed on him like a ghost from the past: the severed head of his alter-ego. His breath caught; for so long he’d dared not even look at it. He found his armoured gauntlets still stuffed into the padded space within. The stink of sweat, oil, and, he supposed, blood, was prominent. He could almost hear the clash and wails of battle. He shook his head free of the clinging wisps of memory and tucked the helm under an arm. Picking up the oil-lamp, he snorted at the quilted muslin shirt and leather vest he wore. He’d look like a blundering fool strutting around in his bare padded shirt, armed to the teeth and crowned with a helmet!

Downstairs Coop lay moaning, a wet cloth covering his face. Seal crouched at the hearth of mortared stone, feeding a growing fire. A black pot steeped over the flames.

‘What kind of poison you boiling up?’ Temper dropped the helmet onto the table.

Seal turned. His gaze shifted from Temper’s weapons to the helmet on the table. His answer died on his lips. Still eyeing it, he shook himself. ‘Just some barley soup. I’m hungry.’

Temper felt his own eyes drawn the same direction. The helmet looked like a grisly trophy. He cleared his throat. ‘Ah, Seal, you wouldn’t happen to have any armour around, would you?’

Poking the embers, Seal snorted. ‘You’re not actually heading out there again, are you?’

Temper bristled. ‘Yes.’

‘Whatever it is, it can’t be that important, Temp.’

’I don’t even know if it is. But I’ve got to find out.’

Seal raised an arm, pointed to an iron-bound chest against the far wall.. ‘My great-uncle’s. From the Grist-Khemst border wars. Long time ago. All I’ve got.’

Temper unlatched and opened the chest. Togg’s teeth,’ he breathed. Inside was a jumble of bundles, sacks, bits and remnants of armour: swatches of mail, grieves, boiled-leather vambraces set with steel rings. From amongst this tangle he lifted a cuirass and skirtings that looked long enough to hang to his knees. It consisted of a front and back with shoulder and side strapping, and coarse scaled sleeves. A leather underpad, almost as thick as his thumb and softened by years of use, supported a layered and patched hodgepodge of mail, bone swathing, studs and horizontal steel, ribbed down the front and back. Interlocking iron rings were sewn from the waist down and over the slit leather skirting. He hefted it, whistling. Whoever humped this over a battlefield must’ve been a bull of a man.

Temper examined the straps. ‘Hadn’t they heard of using the point up there?’

‘It was all hack-and-slash in the north back then.’