‘With me,’ Craw hissed in Calder’s ear, then took him under the armpit and marched him off.

Tenways and his boys found their way back to their seats, grumbling, the yellow-haired lad giving Beck a hard look as he went. Time was Beck would’ve given him one back, maybe even a hard word or two to go with it. After the day he’d had he just looked away quick as he could, heart thumping in his ears.

‘Shame. I was enjoying that.’ Whirrun of Bligh pulled his hood back and scrubbed at his flattened hair with his fingernails. ‘What is your name, anyway?’

‘Beck.’ He thought he’d best leave it at just that. ‘Is every day with you lot like this?’

‘No, no, no, lad. Not every day.’ And Whirrun’s pointed face broke into a mad grin. ‘Only a precious few.’

*

Craw had always had rooted suspicions that one day Calder would land him in some right shit, and it seemed this was the day. He marched him down the hillside away from the Heroes, through the cutting wind, gripping him tight by the elbow. He’d spent a good twenty years trying to keep his enemies to a strict few. One afternoon as Dow’s Second and they were sprouting up like saplings in a wet spring, and Brodd Tenways was one he could have very well done without. That man was as ugly inside as out and had a bastard of a memory for slights.

‘What the hell was that?’ He dragged Calder to a halt a good way from fires or prying ears. ‘You could’ve got us all killed!’

‘Scale’s dead. That’s what that was. Because that rotting fucker did nothing, Scale’s dead.’

‘Aye.’ Craw felt himself softening. Stood there for a moment while the wind lashed the long grass against his calves. ‘I’m sorry for that. But adding more corpses ain’t going to help matters. ’Specially not mine.’ He stuck a hand on his ribs, heart thumping away behind ’em. ‘By the dead, I think I might die just o’ the excitement.’

‘I’m going to kill him.’ Calder scowled up towards the fire, and he did seem to have a purpose in him Craw hadn’t seen before. Something that made him put a warning hand on Calder’s chest and gently steer him back.

‘Keep it for tomorrow. Save it for the Union.’

‘Why? My enemies are here. Tenways sat there while Scale died. Sat there and laughed.’

‘And you’re angry because he sat there, or because you did?’ He put his other hand down on Calder’s shoulder. ‘I loved your father, in the end. I love you, like the son I never had. But why the hell is it the pair o’ you always had to take on every fight you were offered? There’ll always be more. I’ll stand by you if I can, you know I will, but there’s other things to think about than just—’

‘Yes, yes.’ Calder slapped Craw’s hands away. ‘Keeping your crew alive, and not sticking your neck out, and doing the right thing, even when it’s the wrong thing—’