Laurence stiffened. He could not resent insults he had earned, he had sacrificed the right to defend himself against traitor, but coward was a slap he could not gladly swallow. But he could not make the challenge. He had caused enough harm. He could not—would not, do more. He closed his mouth on the bitterness in the back of his throat, and did not turn to look the man in the face, though he now stood so close his liquored breath came hot and strongly over Laurence's shoulder.

‘Call him a coward, when you would've sat and done nothing,’ Reynolds flung back. He shook off Laurence's hand, or tried. ‘I suppose your dragon would enjoy you being happy to see ten thousand of them put down, poisoned or good as, like dogs—’

‘One at least ought to be poisoned,’ the other man said, and Laurence let go of Reynolds, turned, and knocked the officer down.

The man was drunk and unsteady, and as he went down pulled the table and the bottle over with him. Cheap liquor bubbled out over the ground as it rolled away. For a moment no one spoke, and then chairs went back across the tent, as if nothing more had been wanted than a pretext.

The quarrel at once devolved into a confusing melee, with no sides. Laurence even saw two men from the same table wrestling in a corner. But a few men singled him out, one a captain he knew by face from Dover, if not immediately by name. He had fresh streaks of black dragon-blood on his clothing. His name was Geoffrey Windle, Laurence remembered incongruously, as they grappled, just before Windle struck him full on the jaw.

The impact rocked him back on his heels; his teeth snapped together, and he felt the startling pain of a bitten cheek. Gripping a tent-pole for purchase, Laurence managed to seize a chair and pull it around between them as Windle lunged at him again; the man tripped over it and went into the pole with his full weight, which was considerable: he had some three stone over Laurence. The canvas roof above them sagged precipitously.

Two more men came at Laurence, faces ugly with anger. They caught him by the arms and rushed him against the nearest table. They were drunk enough to be belligerent, but not enough to be clumsy. He still wore his buckled shoes and laddered stockings, and lacked good purchase on the ground, and the weight of his boots to kick out with. They pinned him down, and one of them held out a blade, a dull eating-knife, still slick with grease from his dinner. Laurence set his heel down against the surface of the table and heaved, managing to get his shoulders loose for a moment, twisting away from the short furious stabbing, so the blade only tore into his ragged coat.