Felnigg blathered on. ‘So very sorry. No excuse for it. I was in a terrible rush with an order from the lord marshal. No excuse, of course.’ He grabbed Gorst by the arm, leaning close enough to blast him with a strong odour of spirits. ‘You must understand, I would never have … never, had I known he was your servant … of course I would never have done any such thing!’

But you did, you chinless satchel of shit, and now you will pay. There must be a reckoning, and it will be now. Must be now. Definitely, positively, absolutely bloody now. ‘I must ask—’

‘Please say you’ll drink with me!’ And Felnigg thrust the overfull glass into Gorst’s hand, wine slopping onto his fingers. ‘A cheer for Colonel Gorst! The last hero in his Majesty’s army!’ The other officers hurried to raise their own glasses, all grinning, one thumping at the table with his free hand and making the silverware jingle.

Gorst found he was sipping at the glass. And he was smiling. Worse yet, he was not even having to force himself. He was enjoying their adulation.

I slaughtered men today who had done me not the slightest grain of harm. No more than fifteen of them. And here I stand with a man who whipped one of my only friends. What horrors should I visit upon him? Why, to smile, and slurp up his cheap wine, and the congratulations of pandering strangers too, what else? What will I tell Younger? That he need not worry about his pain and humiliation because his tormentor warmly approved of my murderous rampage? The king’s last hero? I want to be fucking sick. He became acutely aware that he was still clutching his sheathed long steel in one white knuckled fist. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to hide it behind his leg. I want to vomit up my own liver.

‘It’s certainly a hell of a story the way Felnigg tells it,’ one of the officers was droning while he rearranged his cards. ‘I daresay it’s the second bravest thing I’ve heard about today.’

‘Risking his Majesty’s rations hardly counts,’ someone frothed, to more drunken laughter.

‘I was speaking of the lord marshal’s daughter, in fact. I do prefer a heroine to a hero, they look much better in the paintings.’

Gorst frowned. ‘Finree dan Kroy? I thought she was at her father’s headquarters?’

‘You didn’t hear?’ asked Felnigg, giving him another dose of foul breath. ‘The damndest thing! She was with Meed at the inn when the Northmen butchered him and his whole staff. Right there, in the room! She was taken prisoner, but she talked her way free, and negotiated the release of sixty wounded men besides! What do you make of that! More wine?’

Gorst did not know what to make of it, except that he felt suddenly hot and dizzy. He ignored the proffered bottle, turned without another word and pushed through the tent flap into the chill night air. The guard he had thrown was outside, making a futile effort to brush himself clean. He gave an accusing look and Gorst glanced guiltily away, unable to summon the courage even to apologise—