‘Oy!’ Flood lurched out of the crowd, dragging his bad leg behind him. ‘Enough o’ that!’ Beck slowly let his fist drop, mightily glad of the interruption if he was honest. ‘Good to see you’ve some fire in you, but there’ll be plenty of fight to go round with the Southerners, don’t you worry about that. We got marching to do on the morrow, and you’ll march better without smashed mouths.’ Flood held his big fist up between Beck and Reft, grey hairs on the back, knuckles scuffed from a hundred old scrapes. ‘And that’s what you’ll be getting ’less you behave yourselves, understand?’

‘Aye, Chief,’ growled Beck, giving Reft the eye though his heart was going so hard in his ears he thought it might pop ’em right off.

‘Aye, ’course,’ said Reft, letting his coat fall closed.

‘First thing a fighter has to learn is when not to fight. Now get up there, the pair o’ you.’

Beck realised the row of lads had melted away in front of him and there was just a stretch of trampled mud between him and a table, an awning of dripping canvas over it to keep the rain off. An old greybeard sat there waiting for him, and looking somewhat sour about it. He’d lost an arm, coat-sleeve folded up and stitched across his chest. In the other hand he’d got a pen. Seemed they were taking each man’s name and marking it down in a big book. New ways of doing things, with writing and what have you. Beck didn’t reckon his father would’ve cared much for that, and neither did he. What was the purpose to fighting the Southerners if you took their ways yourselves? He trudged up through the slop, frowning.

‘Name?’

‘My name?’

‘Who the bloody hell else’s?’

‘Beck.’

The greybeard scratched it on his paper. ‘From?’

‘A farm just up the valley there.’

‘Age?’

‘Seventeen year.’

The man frowned up at him. ‘And a big one too. You’re a few summers late, lad. Where you been at?’

‘Helping my mother on the farm.’ Someone behind snorted and Beck whipped around to give him a proper glare. Brait’s sorry little grin wilted, and he looked down at his knackered shoes. ‘She’s two little ’uns to care for, so I stayed to help her. That’s man’s work too.’

‘Guess you’re here now, anyway.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Your father’s name?’

‘Shama Heartless.’

His head jerked right back up at that. ‘Don’t poke me, lad!’

‘I won’t, old man. Shama Heartless was my father. This here is his sword.’ And Beck drew it, metal hissing, the weight in his hand putting heart right back in him, and stood it point-down on the table.

The one-armed old man looked it up and down for a moment, gold glinting with the sunset, mirror-brightness of good steel. ‘Well, there’s a turn-up. Let’s hope you’re forged from the same iron as your father.’

‘I am.’

‘Reckon we’ll see. Here’s your first staple, lad.’ And he pressed a tiny silver coin into Beck’s palm and took up his pen again. ‘Next man.’