There was a thumping at the door and he froze, the blood suddenly pounding in his head and very much not in his cock. Nothing like the threat of sudden death for killing a romantic mood. The thumping came again, making the heavy door rattle. They broke apart, flushed and fussing with their clothes. More like a pair of child lovers caught by their parents than a man and woman five years married. So much for his dreams of being king. He didn’t even command the lock on his own door.

‘The damn bolt’s on your side isn’t it?’ he snapped.

Metal scraped and the door creaked open. A man stood in the archway, shaggy head almost touching the keystone. The ruined side of his face was turned forwards, a mass of scar running from near the corner of his mouth, through his eyebrow and across his forehead, the dead metal ball in his blind socket glinting. If any trace of romance had been lingering in the corners, or in Calder’s trousers, that eye and that scar were its grisly end. He felt Seff stiffen and, since she was a long stretch braver than he was, her fear did nothing for his own. Caul Shivers was about the worst omen a man could see. Folk called him Black Dow’s dog, but never to his burned-out face. The man the Protector of the North sent to do his blackest work.

‘Dow wants you.’ If the sight of Shivers’ face had only got some hero half way horrified, his voice would have done the rest of the job. A broken whisper that made every word sound like it hurt.

‘Why?’ asked Calder, keeping his own voice sunny as a summer morning in spite of his hammering heart. ‘Can’t he beat the Union without me?’

Shivers didn’t laugh. He didn’t frown. He stood there, in the doorway, a silent slab of menace.

Calder tried his best at a carefree shrug. ‘Well, I suppose everyone serves someone. What about my wife?’

Shivers’ good eye flicked across to Seff. If he’d looked with leering lust, or sneering disgust, Calder would’ve been happier. But Shivers looked at a pregnant woman like a butcher at a carcass, only a job to be done. ‘Dow wants her to stay and stand hostage. Make sure everyone behaves. She’ll be safe.’