With a sudden movement, he yanked the purse from the stranger’s belt and shoved him away in the same motion, sending the older man sprawling.
He heard the clink of coins as the mouth of the purse flew open in his hurry and spewed gold across the cold stone of the alleyway.
There was no time to count how much he’d lost in his haste. The betrayal was hot in him, flaming like a leaping fire, and he knew he had to flee. There was a roaring in his ears but there was no sound in the alley other than his harsh breath and the muffled groan of the stranger on the ground.
They had met only a few moments before, had shared a drink at the fountain and learned they were both heading to the merchant quarter. A wealthy mark, the young man had thought.
“Wait! Stop!”
The shout caught up to him, but it wouldn’t have held him for an instant except for what came afterwards.
“I have more! Let me give it to you!” The young man’s feet nimbly caught him in his flight and brought him up short. He was poised to spring away, but felt trapped by the stunning idea.
What kind of man offers gold to a thief?
The young man had been in the city of Anakar for three years. His ribs were standing out in his skin under a ragged vest. His feet were bare and rough. The sand that had been in his hair when he came to the city had long since shaken loose. With it, all illusion of adventure.
All he had left, in fact, was stubborn pride. He would make something of himself. He would not go back to the oasis in the desert where he had been born. He would earn and grow and expand.
The appeal of the stranger’s words was an appeal to this part of him. Gold was earning and growing and expanding. And so, more gold was good. When he could get it.
He padded back towards the stranger, wishing for some sort of weapon, a defense. But the dustlords employed street hawks, and the street hawks kept careful watch over the back alleys and the conning pools. Anyone too dangerous ended up… chastised. Viciously.
And it only took one slip up to ask for punishment. The dustlords didn’t want the caliph’s patrolling soldiers to return in force, after all.
Besides, the young man had no stomach to wield a knife. He hesitated a dozen feet away, well out of reach.
The stranger had not risen from the ground. In fact, the young man realized he was on his hands and knees scrounging the scattered coins from among the trash.
He felt a flicker of guilt, a familiar emotion.
“Do not run,” the stranger said, fingernails scraping in the dust. He spoke with the accent of the far northern continent, the land of dark forests and snowy peaks. The young man had thought he must be a trader, belt pouch plump with coins after a successful voyage. But the stranger’s soft voice had weight, like a practiced orator. Or a priest. “Please.”
The word please grabbed the young man, a courtesy that crushed down on him. He shoved it away. “What do you have for me?” His voice was an uncomfortable rasp, not used to asking.
“I will give you my coin,” the man said, metal clicking against metal in his gathering hands. “And my wealth also. If you will just listen. Please.”
The thief hesitated. But there was gold to be had from this fool. If fool he was. What other sort of man could this be? “Speak. How can you give me your wealth?”
“In wise words, that you can turn into just actions.”
The young man narrowed his eyes. Definitely a priest. But the promise of coins held him. “Sermonize, then,” he challenged, counting the clink-clink of coins as they piled up. “Share your word wealth, O Wise One.”
The Northman nodded to himself. “I see you don’t yet appreciate the power of ideas. That is your first folly.”
The young man frowned and spat sullenly into the dust. But he said nothing in his own defense.
Snatching up the last of the coins, the older man closed his fist around them. They scraped cruelly together, and he said, “The poor man sees gold and thinks of the food that will feed him and his, the roof that will cover him, the tools he might purchase.”
He turned toward the thief, and poured the dusty stream of clinking metal from one palm to the other.
The young man watched hungrily.
“The rich man,” the Northman continued, “looks at gold and thinks of the horse he may buy, and the silks, and the delicious vintage of fine wine for his wife or mistress. Or perhaps he thinks of the gold his gold may yet earn.”
The young man wondered how a silk shirt would feel across his own sunburnt shoulders, or wine down his parched throat.
“The wealthy man, however…” The stranger’s voice was resonant with conviction. “The wealthy man looks at gold and thinks of giving. He imagines how he might amplify his impact, and how he might spread the bounty. By giving his best to the world, the wealthy man receives the best the world has to give him in return. And he is glad. Thus, anyone may be wealthy, though their belly is empty.”
The young man shifted in discomfort at the heartfelt words. He had thought he was speaking to a fool, but clearly he was dealing with a madman.
The stranger rose to one knee, and held out his open hands, full of gold.
The young man fled.
He left Anakar at dawn.
He would no longer be a thief.
Generosity is a selfless investment that will every time return to the giver, and will likely have an impact you cannot imagine.