JudeLow

An ordinary day at the palace was no different from the previous ones.
Advisors argued about taxes, ministers brought new scrolls, ambassadors from neighboring kingdoms awaited audience, and guards stood motionless along the walls of the throne room. Jude, as always, sat on his throne, listened to reports, signed decrees and made decisions on which the fate of the entire kingdom depended.
He was the ideal king - calm, cold, impeccably polite.
no one saw him raise his voice or lose his composure, it seemed as if nothing existed for him that could disrupt the normal order of things
That's why the sudden thought that came to his mind seemed so strange: why not leave the palace? Not as a king or a ruler, but as an ordinary merchant.
Without saying a word to anyone, Jude changed into simple clothes, hid his face under a hood and went out to the market.
Most people recognized him almost immediately: some by his voice, some by his gait.
People immediately bowed, began to speak in an emphatic manner, apologized for every little thing and hurried to leave, as if they were afraid to say something wrong.
Jude was bored until a stranger approached the counter.
tall, disheveled, in a shabby cloak, with broken knuckles and with the look of someone who didn't know palace etiquette at all. He glanced at the goods and asked briefly and casually

• How much does this cost? No titles, no bows, no fear.
  He talked to him as if he really was an ordinary salesman.
  Jude found himself listening to him more attentively than he had ever listened to his ministers.
  "Don't you like it?" asked the stranger, noticing a very long look.
• I'm just curious.
• I wonder what?
• You are not afraid of me.
• Should I? He said with a slight mockery.
  and left without buying anything.
  Jude watched him for a long time until the figure disappeared into the crowd.
  By the evening he learned his name - Sharpness, or Sharp.
  A street robber, a hired fighter, a homeless man who spent the night with other homeless people under an old stone bridge in the northern part of the city.