Jalenhorm gave a sad little smile, and he reached out, and tapped at Gorst’s dented shoulder-plate with his fist. ‘Your concern for my safety really is touching, Bremer. But I’m afraid I cannot do it. I cannot do it any more than you can.’

‘No.’ Gorst frowned up towards the hill, a black mass against the stained sky. ‘A shame.’

Calder squinted through his father’s eyeglass. Beyond the circle of light cast by all the lamps, the fields faded into shifting blackness. Down towards the Old Bridge he could pick out spots of brightness, perhaps the odd glint of metal, but not much more. ‘Do you think they’re ready?’

‘I can see horses,’ said Pale-as-Snow. ‘A lot of horses.’

‘You can? I can’t see a bloody thing.’

‘They’re there.’

‘You think they’re watching?’

‘I reckon they are.’

‘Mitterick watching?’

‘I would be.’

Calder squinted up at the sky, starting to show grey between the fast-moving clouds. Only the most committed optimist could’ve called it dawn, and he wasn’t one. ‘Guess it’s time, then.’

He took one more swig from the flask, rubbed at his aching bladder, then passed it over to Pale-as-Snow and clambered up the stack of crates, blinking into the lamplight, conspicuous as a shooting star. He took a look over his shoulder at the ranks of men ranged behind him, dark shapes in front of the long wall. He didn’t really understand them, or like them, and they felt the same about him, but they had one powerful thing in common. They’d all basked in his father’s glory. They’d been great men because of who they served. Because they’d sat at the big table in Skarling’s Hall, in the places of honour. They’d all fallen a long way when Calder’s father died. It looked like none of them could stand to fall any further, which was a relief, since a Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field.

He was very much aware of all those eyes on him as he unlaced. The eyes of a couple of thousand of his boys behind, and a fair few of Tenways’ too, and the eyes of a few thousand Union cavalry ahead, he hoped, General Mitterick among them, ready to pop his skull with anger.

Nothing. Try to relax or try to push? Bloody typical, that would be, all this effort and he found he couldn’t go. To make matters worse the wind was keen and it was freezing the end of his prick. The man holding up the flag on his left, a grizzled old Carl with a great scar right across one cheek, was watching his efforts with a slightly puzzled expression.

‘Can you not look?’ snapped Calder.

‘Sorry, Chief.’ And he cleared his throat and almost daintily averted his eyes.

Maybe it was being called Chief that got him over the hump. Calder felt that hint of pain down in his bladder, and he grinned, let it build, let his head drop back, looked up at the bruised sky.