The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [144]
“Poetic,” Robert said.
“In the little cup of the world I lived in,” Neil went on, “things were pretty simple. I knew who I fought for, I knew why. Then I came here, and things became confusing. As I traveled farther into the world, they became more confusing yet.”
Robert smiled indulgently. “Confusing how? Did you lose your sense of right and wrong?”
Neil returned the smile. “I grew up fighting, and mostly I fought Weihand raiders. They were bad people because they attacked my people. They were bad people because they fought for Hansa, people who once kept my people in bondage and would do it again if they could. And yet looking back on it, most of the men I killed were probably not that different from me. They probably died believing their cause was just, hoping their fathers would look from beyond the world and be proud of them.”
“Yes, I see,” Robert said. “You may not know this, but there is a philosophy of considerable weight built on that same premise. It is not a philosophy suited to the weak-minded, however, because it suggests—as, in fact, you just suggested—that there is really no such thing as good or evil, that most people do what they think is right. It’s just the lack of agreement on what is right that leads us to believe in good and evil.”
He leaned forward almost eagerly.
“You traveled great distances, Sir Neil. Leagues. But one can also travel, so to speak, in time, through the study of history. Consider the argument that sits before us now; I am vilified for trying to strengthen our bonds of friendship with Hansa and thus avert a war we can ill afford. My detractors point out that by doing so I create conditions that might allow a Reiksbaurg to take the throne a few years hence.
“Now, why should that be considered wrong? Because Hansa is evil? Because they desire control of this kingdom? And yet my family, the Dares, wrested Crotheny from Hansa in a bloody conflict. My great-great-grandfather murdered the Reiksbaurg emperor in the Hall of Doves. Who was good and who was evil then? It’s a meaningless question, don’t you think?”
“I’m not as learned as you,” Neil acknowledged. “I know little about history, even less about philosophy. I am a knight, after all, and my job is to do as I am told. I have killed many men I might have liked if we had met under other circumstances, because they weren’t—as you say—evil. We were merely serving masters at cross-purposes. In some cases, it wasn’t even that. To do my duty, I had to stay alive, and to stay alive sometimes means killing others.
“As you say, most people in this world are just trying to do the best they can, protect the ones they love and the life they know, live up to their duties and obligations.”
“All perfectly reasonable.”
“Yes,” Neil continued. “And so when I meet real evil, it stands out all the more, like a tall black tree in a field of green heather.”
Robert’s eyes fluttered, and then he chuckled. “So after all that, you still believe there are genuinely evil men. You somehow possess the ability to read their hearts and see that they aren’t like most people, who think they are doing the right thing.”
“Let me put it another way,” Neil said.
“Oh, please do.”
“Do you know the island of Leen?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“There’s no reason you should. It’s not much more than a rock, really, though a rock with a thousand small valleys and crevices. There are wolves there, but they keep to the heights. They don’t come down to where people dwell.
“In my fifteenth year I was on Leen for most of a summer, part of a Lierish garrison. And that year a wolf did come down—a big one. At first it only killed kids and ewes, but soon enough it started in on children, and then grown women and men. It didn’t eat what it killed, mind you; it just mauled them and left them to die. Now, there might have been any number of reasons for it doing that; maybe its mother died, along with its brothers and sisters, and it grew up outside the pack, a loner hated by its own kind. Maybe