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coins tinkling into the gutter.
    “That seems excessive,” said Jezal under his breath.
    “Well.” Bayaz watched down his nose. “These sort of things happen all the time. Are you telling me you’ve never seen a beggar moved along before?”
    Jezal had, of course, often, and never raised an eyebrow. Beggars could not simply be left to clutter up the streets, after all. And yet for some reason the process was making him uncomfortable. The unfortunate waif kicked and cried, and the guardsman dragged her another stride on her back with entirely unnecessary violence, clearly enjoying himself. It was not so much the act itself that Jezal objected to, as that they would do it in front of him without a thought for his feelings. It rendered him somehow complicit.
    “That is a disgrace,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
    Bayaz shrugged. “If it bothers you that much, why not do something about it?”
    The watchman chose that moment to seize the girl by her scruffy hair and give her a sharp blow with his stick, and she squealed and fell, her arms over her head. Jezal felt his face twist. In a moment he had shoved through the crowd and dealt the man a resounding boot to his backside, sending him sprawling in the gutter. One of his companions came forward with his stick out, but stumbled back a moment later. Jezal realised he had his steels drawn, the polished blades glinting in the shadows beside the building.
    The audience gasped and edged back. Jezal blinked. He had not intended the business to go anything like this far. Damn Bayaz and his idiotic advice. But there was nothing for it now but to carry it through. He assumed his most fearless and arrogant expression.
    “One step further and I’ll stick you like the swine you are.” He looked from one of the watchmen to the other. “Well? Do any of you care to test me?” He earnestly hoped that none of them did, but he need not have worried. They were predictably cowardly in the face of determined resistance, and loitered just out of range of his steels.
    “No one deals with the watch like that. We’ll find you, you can depend on—”
    “Finding me will present no difficulty. My name is Captain Luthar, of the King’s Own. I am resident in the Agriont. You cannot miss it. It is the fortress that dominates the city!” And he jabbed up the street with his long steel, making one of the watchmen stumble away in fear. “I will receive you at your convenience and you can explain to my patron, Lord Marshal Varuz, your disgraceful behaviour towards this woman, a citizen of the Union guilty of no greater crime than being poor!”
    A ludicrously overblown speech, of course. Jezal found himself almost flushing with embarrassment at that last part. He had always despised poor people, and he was far from sure his opinions had fundamentally changed, but he got carried away halfway through and had no choice but to finish with a flourish.
    Still, his words had their effect on the city watch. The three men backed away, for some reason grinning as if the whole business had gone just as they planned, leaving Jezal to the unwanted approval of the crowd.
    “Well done, lad!”
    “Good thing someone’s got some guts.”
    “What did he say his name was?”
    “Captain Luthar!” roared Bayaz suddenly, causing Jezal to jerk round halfway through sheathing his steels. “Captain Jezal dan Luthar, the winner of last year’s Contest, just now returned from his adventures in the west! Luthar, the name!”
    “Luthar, did he say?”
    “The one who won the Contest?”
    “That’s him! I saw him beat Gorst!”
    The whole crowd were staring, wide-eyed and respectful. One of them reached out, as though to touch the hem of his coat, and Jezal stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the beggar-girl who had been the cause of the whole fiasco.
    “Thank you,” she gushed, in an ugly commoner’s accent rendered still less appealing by her bloody mouth. “Oh, thank you, sir.”
    “It was