How it opens
Seven years of soldiering on the continent had brought you home thin, sunburned, and rich in nothing but scars.
You had crossed London Bridge that morning with your sword pawned and your hopes unpawned, bound at last for Kent.
Gate GuardBack, you Offal Court vermin, or I'll teach you what the palace does with beggars.
Choose
Push through and put your shoulder between the boy and the rail.
Stay back and watch, being a stranger with no standing.
Call out that the guard has made his point twice over.