The Heroes

dirt, but it was the Protector of the North, no doubt. He looked almost as if he was smiling, one arm flung out to welcome Calder, like an old friend, to the land of the dead. Back to the mud indeed. So quickly it can happen. Lord of all to meat in a hole.
    Tears crept down Calder’s hot face, glistened in the torchlight as they pattered into the pit, making fresh streaks through the grime on Black Dow’s cold cheek. Death in the circle would’ve been a disappointment. How much worse was this? Tossed in a nameless hole, unmarked by those that loved or even those that hated him.
    He was blubbing like a baby, sore ribs heaving, the pit and the corpses glistening through the salt water.
    When would they do it? Surely, now, here it came. A breeze wafted up, chilling the tears on his face. He let his head drop back, squeezing his eyes shut, wincing, grunting, as if he could feel the knife sliding into his back. As if the metal was already in him. When would they do it? Surely now …
    The wind dropped away, and he thought he heard clinking. Voices from behind him, from the direction of the house. He stood for a while longer, making a racking sob with every breath.
    ‘Fish to start,’ someone said.
    ‘Excellent.’
    Trembling, cringing, every movement a terrifying effort, Calder slowly turned.
    Deep and Shallow had vanished, their torch flickering abandoned at the edge of the pit. Beyond the ramshackle fence, under the ramshackle porch, the old table had been covered with a cloth and set for dinner. A man was unpacking dishes from a large basket. Another sat in one of the chairs. Calder wiped his eyes on the back of his wildly trembling hand, not sure whether to believe the evidence of his senses. The man in the chair was the First of the Magi.
    Bayaz smiled over. ‘Why, Prince Calder!’ As if they’d run into each other by accident in the market. ‘Pray join me!’
    Calder wiped snot from his top lip, still expecting a knife to dart from the darkness. Then ever so slowly, his knees wobbling so much he could hear them flapping against the inside of his wet trousers, he picked his way back through the gap in the fence and over to the porch.
    The servant righted the fallen chair, dusted it off and held his open palm towards it. Calder sagged into it, numb, eyes still gently leaking by themselves, and watched Bayaz fork a piece of fish into his mouth and slowly, deliberately, thoroughly chew, and swallow.
    ‘So. The Whiteflow shall remain the northern boundary of Angland.’
    Calder sat for a moment, aware of a faint snorting at the back of his nose with every quick breath but unable to stop it. Then he blinked, and finally nodded.
    ‘The land between the Whiteflow and the Cusk, including the city of Uffrith, shall come under the governorship of the Dogman. It shall become a protectorate of the Union, with six representatives on the Open Council.’
    Calder nodded again.
    ‘The rest of the North as far as the Crinna is yours.’ Bayaz popped the last piece of fish into his mouth and waved his fork around. ‘Beyond the Crinna it belongs to Stranger-Come-Knocking.’
    Yesterday’s Calder might’ve snapped out some defiant jibe, but all he could think of now was how very lucky he felt not to be gushing blood into the mud, and how very much he wanted to carry on not gushing blood. ‘Yes,’ he croaked.
    ‘You don’t need time to … chew it over?’
    Eternity in a pit full of corpses, perhaps? ‘No,’ whispered Calder.
    ‘Pardon me?’
    Calder took a shuddering breath. ‘No.’
    ‘Well.’ Bayaz dabbed his mouth with a cloth, and looked up. ‘This is much better.’
    ‘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 onanother 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