“Another,” Malden said, and slapped his money on the bar. He was starting to feel the liquor in his veins. It wasn’t helping.

For distraction, he turned and studied the low-lifes in the barroom. Most of the patrons were honest enough folk—laborers in leather aprons, covered in flour or candle wax or soot from some forge. They talked loudly to each other and laughed lustily and stamped their feet when they made some jest or swore an oath. In the back of the room, near the hearth, a card game was in progress. The players looked like the kind of desperate bravos who would cut each others’ throats over a mislaid wager. They were playing in earnest, though, and were almost silent as they took turns laying down their trumps. The game they were playing was unknown to Malden, so he wandered over to observe. One of the players, a mangy fellow with an unkempt beard and a smear of dirt on his forehead, looked up and growled, but the others insisted he play his hand, and he ignored Malden after that.

The game, it turned out, could not be simpler. The cards were thin pieces of paper with hand-drawn pips on one side and nothing on their backs. They were numbered from one to ten. Each player had a hand of five cards, drawn at random from the deck. He would throw coins into the center of the table based on how high his cards ran, and the others were required to match his wager or forfeit the hand. Then the player would lay down his cards to show the table what he had. If none of the others could beat it, he took all the money. Everyone who had played would draw a new card and the cycle would begin again with the betting.

One of the players had the king’s share of the coins before him. Clearly the cards had been running his way. From the way the others glared at him, they must have been wondering how he got so lucky. He did not bother to look their way, instead pausing in his play only to drink from his cup. Bizarrely enough, he had a hollow reed stuck in his tankard, and when he wished to drink would place his lips around its end and suck up ale like water through a hosepipe.

“Are ye playing, lad, or gawkin’? ’Cause there’s a tax for gawkin’,” the lucky player said. The others guffawed, but Malden’s mouth fell open. He had been paying attention to the cards and not the faces of the players, or he would have recognized the man sooner.

“Kemper?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

A ripple of anger went around the table as each player in turn stared wide-eyed at the lucky man.