Vox Meditantis

What would you do if you won the lottery?

Tuesday, 28th January, 1246

Hush. Do not drag your feet in the mud, boy. The frost captures the sound of a heavy step and carries it for miles, straight to the ears of the Sheriff’s men.

Do you hear that? Listen. That iron tongue licking the cold air. St. Mary’s bell, tolling Vespers. It sounds like a judge’s gavel, does it not? Clang. Clang. Guilt. Guilt. But we are not guilty, you and I. No, we are necessary. We are the grease in the axle of this rusted kingdom. Keep the pack hidden under your cloak; if they see the dies, if they see the hammers, we loose our hands. Or worse. They take the parts that make a man, and leave him to bleed in the snow.

Look at me. Why do you look at me as if the fever has taken my wits? I am perfectly lucid. The humours are balanced, despite the cold.

Give me the coin. The one we struck last night in the cellar. Look at it in the moonlight. Look at King Henry’s nose. It is sharper than the man himself could ever boast! The eyes – see the precision? The moneyers at the Royal Mint in Canterbury, they are butchers. Drunkards striking silver with a shaking hand, leaving the cross off-centre, clipping the edges before it even leaves the tower. They insult the silver. But I? I honour it. I mix the alloy, yes – a little copper, a little tin to make the sterling sing – but my strike is true. I am a better craftsman than any fat-fingered official eating the King’s bread. It is my pride, and perhaps my sin, that I improve upon the Crown’s own work. Is it a crime to be excellent? Is it a sin to make a thing beautiful, even if it is a lie?

Keep moving. The road to Oxford is long, and the mud tries to swallow us.

I have thought, often, whilst the hammer falls – clack, clack, clack – about the Wheel. Dame Fortune’s Wheel. She spins it, and the pauper rises while the prince falls. It is a capricious thing. But imagine, boy… imagine if the Wheel stopped turning just for me. Imagine if I stumbled not upon a muddy track, but into a Roman hoard. A cavern of pure, unadulterated silver. Mountains of it. Enough to shame the Exchequer.

What would a lesser man do? He would buy a title. He would drape himself in velvet and eat swan until his belly burst. He would build walls to keep his neighbours out.

But not I. I know the weight of an empty purse. I know the hollow sound of a stomach growling in the dark.

If I held that fortune, I would not hoard it. I would set up the anvil in the town square! I would strike pennies from dawn until the stars wheeled overhead. I would be the great equaliser, the hand of earthly justice. I would walk into the darkest alleys of London, where the children sleep in straw like rats, and I would fill their hands. A penny for the leper, a penny for the whore, a penny for the widow who sells her hair for bread. I would treat them all with the same cold, hard fairness. No favour to the lord, no slight to the serf. I would flood the markets until bread was free and the King’s tax collectors wept because every man, woman, and dog had a pocket full of silver!

I would break the economy of this wretched isle just to see the smiles on their faces. That is true fairness, is it not? To ensure that no man is higher than another, because all are standing on a floor of silver.

Ah! The bell again. Louder now. Or perhaps it is just the blood rushing in my ears. My head burns, boy. The fire is behind my eyes.

Did you see a shadow move by the hedgerow?

We must not stop. If they catch me, they will say I am a thief. They will say I am a counterfeit. They will not understand that I was trying to fix the world, one false coin at a time. I am not a criminal. I am a correction. I am the balance.

Quickly now. The wind is changing, and I smell the sulphur of the devil’s own luck on our heels. Cover the tools. Walk soft. The King owns the day, but the night… the night is ours to forge.

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Bob Lynn | © 2026 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.