‘Well,’ Corban said, sniffing, ‘I did not think I would start the day with tears.’ He smiled as he rubbed at his eyes.

‘Me neither,’ Brina said, wiping her own eyes. ‘Now come on, best get you dressed; we haven’t got all day.’

‘Dressed?’

‘Aye. Farrell’s brought you a nice shiny new shirt, Coralen’s sharpened and polished your wolven claws, I even got my stitching needle out.’

They helped him dress for war.

Farrell smiled when Corban put his arms and head into the shirt of mail.

‘It’s lighter than the one I’ve been training in,’ Corban said as he rolled his shoulders, ‘and it fits better. Much better.’

‘Laith helped me,’ Farrell confessed. ‘She’s an amazing smith.’ He patted Corban on the back, staggering him as Brina slipped his arm-ring over the shirt-sleeve, Farrell squeezing it tight around Corban’s upper arm. A leather bracer was buckled around his right forearm, sewn with strips of iron, then Gar unfolded a black surcoat, an emblem upon its front. A white star with four points, like the north star.

‘Brina made this for you,’ Gar said.

‘In case you forget you’re the Bright Star, which I wouldn’t put past you,’ Brina muttered.

How can she manage to call me the Bright Star of prophecy and insult me with the same breath?

Corban just looked at them as Gar slipped it over his head and Cywen buckled his belt around it, adjusting his sheathed sword. ‘I remember me and Mam making that scabbard, and we wound the leather on your sword hilt,’ she said.

‘Aye, you did.’ Corban felt a lump in his throat stopping any more words coming out.

‘Da made your sword,’ Cywen continued, ‘and your torc.’ Brina slipped that around Corban’s neck, the two wolven-head ends a comforting weight.

Coralen lifted his left hand, slipped the wolven-claw gauntlet on and buckled it tight. ‘Don’t try and scratch your chin with this hand,’ she said as she adjusted the buckles over the mail shirt-sleeve, ‘I’ve sharpened your claws. Think they’d cut iron right now.’

She slipped his wolven cloak about his shoulders, fastening the brooch and pausing to look in his eyes, smiling at him.

‘We made you this, as well,’ Dath said, slipping out of the doorway and grunting as he lifted something in the hall. He came back in carrying a shield, iron-rimmed, painted with black pitch, the same white star upon its centre as was upon his surcoat.

‘I know you rarely use a shield,’ Gar said, ‘but you’ve trained hard with one in the weapons court, and it’s better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it.’

‘That sounds like something Brina would say,’ Dath commented.