When Abu laid them out along the tabletop and Mock reached down to turn them palmside up, all the people in the little room came and stood around him in a circle. And when the prince looked up timidly into their faces, he was surprised to see no malice in their eyes, only a kind of wistful melancholy. But he could feel the tension of their interest slip around him like a net as Mock pulled back his fingers. He had not washed for days, and for days he had slept in his clothes in places like this tavern. But still, the dirt upon his palm was as insubstantial as a dirty cloud with the shining sun behind it. The people stared at him.

“What are you . . . doing here?” asked Jason Mock, finally, after a long silence. He had jerked his hand away, as if the sacred flesh could burn him. Abu could barely hear him when he spoke.

“I wanted something to drink.”

“That’s true enough,” said the landlady. “He’s drunk enough to float a boat. He should thank me for diluting it. I should charge him extra for not killing him.”

The edge of this speech cut through the net around him, and Abu could feel the tension loosen as people started to whisper and talk. But Mock still stared at him, and Abu thought he could see some weary fire of hatred kindle in his eye, though he spoke as softly as before: “You’re a . . . spy, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“And all the time I was just talking,” continued the thief. “All that talk about the gallows, you must have thought: That’s closer than he guesses. But a man can say a thing, and know it to be true, and still not believe it. By God, what wouldn’t I give to die in bed, in a real bed.”

“I’m not a spy,” insisted Abu, but the thief talked without listening, as if to himself.

“Starbridge,” he said. “Starbridge. Are we really such a threat to you, that you have to search us out and find us here? Is there something in this room you think is too good for us to have?”

“You have nothing to f-f-fear from me,” said Abu. “I’m—I’m on your side.”

“Our side.” With movements as soft and melancholy as his voice, Mock pulled a pistol from his belt, cocked it, and primed the charge.

“My God, Jason,” hissed the landlady. “Not here . . .” But then she was quiet when the thief turned to scowl at her and show his teeth. Nobody spoke, but the circle widened around Abu to give the man room to fire.

Abu dropped his eyes and looked down at the table and the silver coin still lying there. He picked it up and rubbed it drunkenly between his fingers, wondering whether he would hear the noise first or feel the shock. He thought: The palmist said I was to die by fire. A fraud. Or perhaps not, he thought, because someone was shouting in the street outside the window, and someone hammered on the door. “Open up!” someone shouted. “Open. In the bishop’s name!” A man was beating on the door, and not just with his fist, but with a stick or something, the sound was so loud.