Chapters (76)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- PART II
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART III
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- PART IV
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- PART V
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART VI
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- INTERLUDE
- PART VII
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- PART VIII
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
“Responsibility.” Guy raised an eyebrow. “That’s a fake thing, we made it up. Us humans. We created the word so we wouldn’t sound so selfish all the time. Honor, piety, responsibility. They sound wonderful and we tell our children about them so they’ll behave. I’m no different. I told my children about them, as well. I’m a damned proud hypocrite. Yours is still too young, yes?”
“Very much so.”
“He’ll grow up to respect them, thanks to you, and he should. As should your other children.”
“We only have the one daughter.”
“For now. You’ll have more. Trust me, have many more.” Guy pictured his two sons, Henry and John, young and happy as they’d once been, and tried not to think about how old Henry would have been now. He bit it off and continued. “It’s good for them to respect those words when they’re children, but later in life they’ll realize they’re all brands of the same selfishness.”
“Selfishness?”
“Absolutely. Don’t make a face. Selfishness is what keeps every man alive. It’s why we don’t sit still and starve. It’s why we’re here, right now. Am I wrong?”
Devon appeared to be at a loss. “But I’m tired, and I hurt. Wouldn’t it be selfish of me to give up and go to sleep?”
“It would be. So why are we still trying?”
This time he answered quickly, and it rang of honesty. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
It was an improvement, if unimaginative. Guy had to teach the boy better. His men were the future of the Nottingham Guard, and it was his job to make that future a bright one.
“Right and wrong are arbitrary. They’re just words we use to describe actions that either help us or hurt us. In the Sheriff’s Guard, we try to maintain order, so we say interfering with us is wrong. We decide capturing one of our members is wrong, to protect ourselves. We believe England is safer and better off when its people are protected, when its laws are absolute and not open to reinterpretation by every fool lord with an inflated sense of importance. Because such a country protects us, which makes our endgame selfish, no?”
Devon chewed on that answer, but did not accept it. “I don’t see how wanting the country to be safer is selfish. It helps ourselves, yes, but it also helps so many others. Selfishness serves only one person. Order and laws, these benefit us all. Why call them selfish?”
Guy smiled, and dared to hope that the damned little gerold might actually be worth his own weight.