His hand was already loosely closed on the hilt of his bodkin. He rolled slightly onto his side and drew it from its sheath as the hand grew more bold and insinuated itself into his clothing. Then he spun about on his hip and brought the knife up where it could be seen.

“Och, m’lud,” the beggar who’d been trying to roll him pleaded, filthy hands up and fingers spread wide, “there ain’t nothin’ needful in that.”

“Glad to hear it,” Malden said. “Find elsewhere to bed down, or someone less wary to plunder.”

The beggar nodded heartily and scurried away. Malden went back to sleep.

When he woke, before he opened his eyes, he reached around behind him and touched the sack of gold at his back. Still there.

He let himself smile broadly and luxuriate in the feeling. A fortune, and though it would be gone shortly, by spending it he would earn the right to replace it.

Today, he thought, will be the best of my life.

Then he opened his eyes. In the morning light the space under the bridge lost much of its charm. It was strewn with refuse and furry with gray, stunted weeds that never got enough sun. The penniless men who lived there lingered long in their slumber, brains still addled by the night’s freight of cheap drink. All but one, who had a fire going—it looked like it was made of old table legs—and a pot made from a pikeman’s rusty helmet. Whatever stew he was cooking up to break his fast smelled evil and looked worse, so when he offered to share it, Malden politely declined.

Exiting his erstwhile lair, he crawled out on one of the supports of the bridge and then clambered up and over its rail. A drover with a load of dressed stone bound for the palace gazed at him askance, but Malden had never yet been hurt by a nasty look. He fell in with the crowd of people heading down into the Golden Slope—servants and tradesmen and carters of sweetmeats and fuel, honest men up early to get to their work and earn another day’s wage.

Malden did not sneer at them, for he pitied them some. They would slave and toil for decades until their backs gave out and their beards grew long, and it would profit them little. They would die as they had lived, beholden to masters who cared not a jot for their welfare. Whereas he himself, who had been spurned by their society as not good enough—well, he had only to drop off his earned fortune, to pour it out dramatically across Cutbill’s desk—and then, and then!