30 - King's Gold Read Online Free PDF

rampage, in God’s name, just some foolish hotheads – apprentices, clerks and the like. There may have been some bad apples in among them, but most were simple, harmless folk who saw that with the King gone, the city was theirs for a while. Well, Alured would exert what authority he could – alone, if need be.
    He came across small groups as he did his rounds. For the most part they were content to make way for him. Only a few hundred yards from Cornhulle he met three lads, and sent them packing. Then there were two more boys gawping at a fire, who cleared off quickly enough, and finally he saw a mob of twelve, rampaging along one of the streets that led south from Cornhulle itself, all of them drunk and full of the courage that comes from ale. Observing them from the protection of a doorway, Alured soon identified the two troublemakers amongst them, and nodded grimly to himself. Christ alive, not one of them was more than eighteen years. If he couldn’t cow lads of that sort of age, he didn’t deserve to see his fiftieth birthday.
    The two ringleaders were hurling missiles at the windows of a large house, and when Alured could see it clearly through the smoke of a bonfire that raged somewhere nearby, he recognised it as the Bardis’ place.
    He himself didn’t care for bankers. To his mind, they were a shameful bunch, lining their pockets at the expense of decent men who laboured long hours, afraid to get their own hands dirty. Still, they were not lawbreakers, so far as he knew, and he was an officer of the law.
    When the two had flung their stones, and had set to prising cobbles from the road as missiles, Alured stepped out from the doorway. Wearing an amiable smile, he nodded at the youths about him until he reached the two ringleaders. Once a little behind and between them both, he moved his staff in his hands, holding it half-staff, and struck both men smartly on the back of the head: one-two, right first, then left. The two collapsed like pole-axed cattle.
    ‘You’ve had your fun, boys. Now bugger off,’ he said, facing the others.
    There was one on the left who scowled belligerently and took a half-pace forward. ‘What’d you wanna do that for? They’re only lads. You shouldn’t have hit them!’
    From the others there came some expressions of agreement, but as yet no one else moved forward. Alured was tempted to take up a defensive stance, but instead he set his staff on the ground and leaned on it. ‘They may only be boys, but if you don’t clear off, and take this heap of garbage with you, I’ll break your pate too. Understand me?’
    ‘Your mother was a whore, and your father—’
    The fellow choked off as the staff’s tip struck his Adam’s apple. It was not a hard blow, not enough to break his neck, but it was firm enough to make him fall back, clutching at his throat, and now Alured held the staff like a lance, quarter-staff, the tip waving gently from side to side.
    ‘Lads, I’ve been to war. I’ve killed. You don’t scare me, because I’ve got a staff, and you can’t reach me without I hurt you. Now pick up these three dog turds and go home. If anyone else tries something stupid, I’ll stick this pole right up your arse!’
    As he had thought, the three on the ground were the leaders; the nine remaining were the sheep who followed. There were some muttered oaths, and more comments on his parentage, but he stood by with his affable smile fixed to his face and waited. Soon they had gone. Alured watched them leave with satisfaction. He felt he’d handled them well.
    There was another shout from up at Cornhulle, and then screams and cries for help. Gripping his horn in one hand, his staff in the other, Alured pelted up the road towards the noise.
    This was no gang of drunken youths. As he reached Cornhulle, Alured saw a large group over near a big fire outside St Mary Woolchurch, and in the opposite direction there were a few men gathered together too. He recognised two of the men in