“Because I’m not an idiot.” Now he stood, curiously taller than before. “I am well aware of the brigands in the Sherwood, I know precisely what they have taken from the king, and I know that I have a foot at the end of each of my legs. I hope you did not travel this far to tell me things of which I already have intimate knowledge.”

“I have not,” William bit back, refusing to be patronized. “I have come because I have friends in the war who don’t have a sword to fight with. And as I traveled home to fix this problem, the man who stole these very swords assaulted me in the forest! You’ll forgive me if I find the solution to this problem glaringly obvious!”

“Glaringly obvious,” de Lacy repeated the words, rolling them in his mouth as if he were tasting the wine. “My apologies, but I don’t see it. You want me to … what, go out and … go out and get them?”

William stared back. “In as many words, yes.”

“Let’s explore that, shall we? We have a displaced group of peasants living in the forest, who on occasion steal some warbound supplies for their own use. What is the appropriate response?”

It was almost shocking that William had to put this into words, so he used short ones, and carefully. “You stop them.”

“Ah,” de Lacy seemed to love the answer, “Captain Gisbourne thinks the same thing, that we ought to kill them all. And William, would that appease the king?”

“If you stop the thieving, you restore the supply chain, and the army is fed.”

“Yet it is not my duty to feed the army,” de Lacy countered, “it is my duty to enforce justice. Would this be justice, to kill these outcasts?” His fingers graced a book on a shelf—a Bible, by William’s guess. “‘You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Lex talionis. Do you consider this to be a fair enough principle?”

Another time, with less at stake, William would have relished the discussion. Instead he aimed for simplicity. “In many circumstances, yes.”

De Lacy tapped the edge of the book. “Then by what right would we take their lives? They haven’t killed anyone, and I have no intention of making them feel they should! By justice, what we should do is take back what they’ve stolen. But by all rational means, we stole it first with these ridiculous taxes! They did not start this. We did. Or rather, King Richard did! I’d say we’re lucky they haven’t killed anyone yet—they would certainly be in their right mind to do so.”

William wasn’t sure what to say. “You make apathy sound like a virtue.”

“Apathy?” One bushy eyebrow jolted upward. “You haven’t been listening.”