A black-haired boy stood at the brink, framed by the view, scarred mouth fixed in a frown, arm up high, sword out straight, sinewy shoulders shining with sweat. He didn’t move a hair. Not a quiver. Like a boy carved from wood. Clover got the sense he’d been there, still, for a very long time.

“I know this lad,” he murmured, though you might’ve called him a young man, now. “Black Calder had him around. Who is he?”

“It is not so much who he is that interests me,” said Bayaz, “as who he might become.”

“Shaping the future, eh?”

“Precisely so.” There were a few training posts set up about the little yard, and Bayaz rubbed thoughtfully at the deep blade-gnawing on the nearest one. “To my unpractised eye, he seems a more than passing swordsman already.”

“I’ve seen him spar and never saw more promise at the business. The dead know I could use the work, but I’m not sure how much I’ve got to teach him.”

“Oh, I think you know far more than you pretend to. I need him to learn not only how to use the sword, but when. I want you to teach him the warrior’s lessons that his half-brother refused to learn. This is Jonas Clover!”

The lad slowly lowered the sword, and shook out his shoulders, and wiped sweat from his brow, and flicked it away, and finally looked over. “I remember.”

“I have brought him here to teach you sword-work.”

The lad didn’t laugh, at least. Just gave Clover a long look with those pale eyes, like he was the master and Clover the pupil he was thinking of taking on.

“I will leave the two of you to get acquainted.” Bayaz leaned close and gave Clover’s shoulder a parting pat. “Dinner in an hour.”

They stood there, in silence, for a while, and the wind came up from the valley and stirred the grass in the cracks between the stones. Then Clover planted his hands on his hips and grinned out towards the lake. “Quite the view. I could look at that all day.”

The lad didn’t speak.

Clover wandered to the wall of the library, so ancient and lichen-covered that it looked to be one with the mountainside, put his back to it and slid down till his arse hit the ground. “What should I call you?”

The lad shrugged.

“You’ve got a scarred lip,” said Clover, settling himself back against the old stones, warm from a day in the sun. “I could call you shit-mouth. How about that?”

The lad shrugged again.

“I’m not really going to call you shit-mouth. That was a test.”

“Did I pass?”

“You did.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s why.”

The lad frowned down at him, sword hanging from his hand.

“You look puzzled,” said Clover.

“A warrior hits first,” said the lad, like they were words he’d learned by heart. “Hits hardest. A warrior has his sword always in his hand.”

Clover slowly nodded. “I can think of plenty of warriors who’d agree. Great fighters. Famous names. Shama Heartless, you ever hear o’ him?”