He'd woken to a grey morning. Fog hung low to the ground like clumps of cotton, and the air had a cool, damp quality to it, coating the skin like a film of sweat after a nightmare. And of late - of nightmares - Harold had plenty. He resented the reminder.

With tired eyes and a throbbing headache, Harold watched the figure in the mist approaching his house through his kitchen window. He held his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and willed the hangover to leave him, but his head would not forgive last night's indulgences so readily.

A demanding rapping at the door announced that his visitor had found his way through the early morning's murk. Harold flinched at the noise, but this was a visitor he could not simply turn away. 

It was the court's official. Harold had been forewarned of his arrival the night before, though much too late to put the cork back in the bottle, or so he told himself. A prim and wiry man with a fine moustache stood at the door, unsmiling. His name was Kirn Atam; Harold had worked with him in the past, on official and not-so-official royal business.

"Harold," Kirn said.

"Hello, Kirn," Harold replied. "I expected you might be coming."

Kirn raised an eyebrow. Harold, wearing naught but a long and grimy bedshirt, did not look prepared to entertain guests. 

"Then you probably know why I'm here," Kirn replied, plucking a small envelope from the breast pocket of his immaculate uniform. The envelope bore the royal seal, the outline of a jackal's feral sneer stamped into a button of blood-red wax.

Harold took the envelope without reply. He had suspected this day would come, though not quite so soon. If Kirn was at his door, it was serious. Harold had expected some fallout from his role in the recent execution, but now it seemed more likely this was to be a summons to appear before the high magistrate; the beginning of an investigation.

Kirn was looking at him like a bug under a lens. Studying his reaction as he processed this information. For a man so utterly devoid of emotion, Harold always thought it curious that Kirn took such an interest in the feelings of others. 

"Thank you, Kirn. If that will be all...?"

Kirn straightened, nodded and, turning on his heel, stepped back out into the mist. Harold closed the door and looked at the envelope in his hand.

"Blasted witch," he muttered, bitterly. Though she was now surely rotting deep down in the salted earth, she continued to torment him. Her legacy, the decimation of his hitherto untouchable reputation. 

Harold returned to his kitchen and watched the silhouette of Kirn fade away. It was still early. "But not too late for another drink," Harold whispered to himself, tossing the letter aside, delaying reading it 'til the next hangover.