‘How long have I been out?’

‘Over a ten-night,’ Nella said, fetching a bowl and dipping a linen cloth into it. ‘Goat’s milk. Take a few drops, then stop,’ she ordered. His eyes dropped to the lump strapped to her chest and he saw a shock of black hair as she leaned over him. It gave out a whimper.

‘What’s that?’ he asked as he grabbed the linen from her.

‘Your son,’ she snapped.

He blinked at that, abruptly remembering that she had been heavy with child the last time he’d seen her, back on Panos. He slurped a mouthful from the linen, then took the bowl and drank it down.

Nella tutted at him.

‘She’s right – slow down,’ Jayr said to him reprovingly.

‘My son,’ Lykos said, feeling a grin split his face. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Rodas.’

Lykos reached over, pulled the linen sheet back and stroked his thumb across the child’s cheek. ‘Well met, Rodas,’ he said, patting him on the head. That didn’t go down too well, the boy’s face wrinkling as he sucked in a breath and wailed.

‘He’s not a hound,’ Nella said, slapping Lykos’ hand away.

‘He needs to be strong,’ Lykos said as he stood. ‘My sword? My knives?’ The world felt as if it was moving, more so than he would expect from a ship’s cabin, but he refused to lie still a moment longer.

‘Report,’ he ordered as he pulled on a linen shirt and a leather vest, wincing at the jolts of complaint from the wound in his back.

Alazon spoke to him of all that had happened since the uprising in the arena. He had taken control while Lykos was incapacitated, a decision which Lykos approved of. Apparently a bloody battle had raged on the meadows and streets of Jerolin for half a day. The steady influx of Vin Thalun from ships moored on the lake and others arriving by river had turned it. Since then the Vin Thalun had been going door to door, searching, burning, executing. The uprising had not spread, in large part due to the fact that many of the eagle-guard of Jerolin had stayed allied with the Vin Thalun. Fidele had been wed to Lykos, after all, so with her missing – kidnapped, Alazon had announced, by a madman and murderer – Lykos was to all purposes her representative until she was found. Slowly the unrest had died down and a semblance of peace had been restored, at least within Jerolin and the surrounding vicinity. Meanwhile Alazon had sent hunting parties out after any survivors of the uprising.

‘What of the Old Wolf and Fidele? I want his head, and I want her back.’

‘Got someone you might want to talk to about that.’

Lykos leaned against a timber frame in the shipyard that stood on the lakeshore before Jerolin’s dark walls, resting for a moment as the sun beat down upon him.