At the dockside I was pleasantly surprised to find the North wasn't all hairy men in animal skins. There was also hairy women in animal skins.

Those were great big angry men with sharp swords actually wanting to cut pieces off me. It’s not until you’ve seen a red gaping wound and all the complex little bits inside a man all broken up and sliced open, and known that they weren’t ever getting back together again, and vomited your last two meals over the rocks . . . it’s not until then that you understand the business of swords properly and, if you’re a sensible man you vow to have nothing to do with it ever again.