‘A very great improvement.’ The curly-headed servant had a pouty smile as he whisked Bayaz’ plate away and replaced it with a clean one. Probably much the same as Calder’s habitual smirk, but he enjoyed seeing it on another man about as much as he might have enjoyed seeing another man fuck his wife. The servant whipped the cover from a dish with a flourish.

‘Ah, the meat, the meat!’ Bayaz watched the knife flash and flicker as wafer slices were carved with blinding skill. ‘Fish is all very well, but dinner hasn’t really started until you’re served something that bleeds.’ The servant added vegetables with the dexterity of a conjuror, then turned his smirk on Calder.

There was something oddly, irritatingly familiar about him. Like a name at the tip of Calder’s tongue. Had he seen him visit his father once, in a fine cloak? Or at Ironhead’s fire with a Carl’s helmet on? Or at the shoulder of Stranger-Come-Knocking, with paint on his face and splinters of bone through his ear? ‘Meat, sir?’

‘No,’ whispered Calder. All he could think of was all the meat in the pits just a few strides away.

‘You really should try it!’ said Bayaz. ‘Go on, give him some! And help the prince, Yoru, he has an injured right hand.’

The servant doled meat onto Calder’s plate, bloody gravy gleaming in the gloom, then began to cut it up at frightening speed, making Calder flinch with each sweep of the knife.

Across the table, the Magus was already happily chewing. ‘I must admit, I did not entirely enjoy the tenor of our last conversation. It reminded me somewhat of your father.’ Bayaz paused as if expecting a response, but Calder had none to give. ‘That is meant as a very small compliment and a very large warning. For many years your father and I had … an understanding.’

‘Some good it did him.’

The wizard’s brows went up. ‘How short your family’s memory! Indeed it did! Gifts he had of me, and all manner of help and wise counsel and oh, how he thrived! From piss-pot chieftain to King of the Northmen! Forged a nation where there were only squabbling peasants and pigshit before!’ The edge of Bayaz’ knife screeched against the plate and his voice sharpened with it. ‘But he became arrogant in his glory, and forgot the debts he owed, and sent his puffed-up sons to make demands of me. Demands,’ hissed the Magus, eyes glittering in the shadows of their sockets. ‘Of me.’

Calder’s throat felt uncomfortably tight as Bayaz sat back. ‘Bethod turned his back on our friendship, and his allies fell away, and all his great achievements withered, and he died in blood and was buried in an unmarked grave. There is a lesson there. Had your father paid his debts, perhaps he would be King of the Northmen still. I have high hopes you will learn from his mistake, and remember what you owe.’

‘I’ve taken nothing from you.’