‘That a fact?’ Dow tried to smile himself, but it looked more like a scowl. Calder might be a beaten man, but that was just the point. Having a beaten man fling shit at him was souring his day of victory.

‘Haven’t you got the bones to face me, man to man?’

‘Show me a man and we’ll see.’

‘I was man enough for Tenways’ daughter.’ Calder got a flutter of laughter of his own. ‘But what?’ And he nodded up to Shivers. ‘You get harder men to do your black work now, do you, Black Dow? Lost your taste for it? Come on! Fight me! The circle!’

Dow had no real reason to say yes. He’d nothing to win. But sometimes it’s more about how it looks than how it is. Calder was famous as the biggest coward and piss-poorest fighter in any given company. Dow’s name was all built on being the very opposite. This was a challenge to everything he was, in front of all the great men of the North. He couldn’t turn it down. Dow saw it, and he slouched back in Skarling’s Chair like a man who’d argued with his wife over whose turn it was to muck out the pigpen, and lost.

‘All right. You want it the hard way you can have it the fucking hard way. Tomorrow at dawn. And no pissing about spinning the shield and choosing weapons. Me and you. A sword each. To the death.’ He angrily waved his hand. ‘Take this bastard somewhere I don’t have to look at him smirk.’

Calder gasped as Shivers jerked him to his feet, twisted him around and marched him off. The crowd closed in behind them. Songs started up again, and laughter, and bragging, and all the business of victory and success. His imminent doom was a distraction hardly worth stopping the party for.

‘I thought I told you to run.’ Craw’s familiar voice in his ear, the old man pushing through the press beside him.

Calder snorted. ‘I thought I told you not to say anything. Seems neither of us can do as we’re told.’

‘I’m sorry it had to be this way.’

‘It didn’t have to be this way.’

He saw Craw’s grimace etched by firelight. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry this is what I chose, then.’

‘Don’t be. You’re a straight edge, everyone knows it. And let’s face the facts, I’ve been hurtling towards the grave ever since my father died. Just a surprise it’s taken me this long to hit mud. Who knows, though?’ he called as Shivers dragged him between two of the Heroes, giving Craw one last smirk over his shoulder. ‘Maybe I’ll beat Dow in the circle!’

He could tell from Craw’s sorry face he didn’t think it likely. Neither did Calder, if he was honest for once. The very reasons for the success of his little plan were also its awful shortcomings. Calder was the biggest coward and piss-poorest fighter in any given company. Black Dow was the very opposite. They hadn’t earned their reputations by accident.