I had known he felt this way, yet I felt shocked. From childhood I had been taught to think of Compact as the first ethical code of civilized men.
“Stop and think,” he said. “Do you realize that we are a part of a great galactic civilization? The days when any single planet could live in isolation is over forever. Swords and shields belong to that day and must be abandoned with it. Do you realize what an anachronism we are?”
“No, I don’t realize that, sir. I don’t know that much about any world but this one.”
“And not too much even about this one, it seems. Let me ask you this, Lew, when did you learn the use of weapons?”
“At seven or eight, more or less.” I had always been proud that I need fear no swordsman in the Domains—or out of them.
“I, too,” said the old man. “And when I came to rule in my father’s high seat, I took it for granted that I would have bodyguards following me everywhere but my marriage-bed! Halfway through my life I realized I was living inside a dead past, gone for centuries. I sent my bodyguards home to their farms, except for a few old men who had no other skills and no livelihood. I let them walk around looking important more for their own usefulness than mine, and yet I sit here, untroubled and free in my own house, my rule unquestioned.”
I felt horrified. “At the mercy of any malcontent—”
He shrugged. “I am here, alive and well. By and large, those who give allegiance to Aldaran want me here. If they did not, I would persuade them peacefully or step aside and let them try to rule better. Do you honestly believe Hastur keeps authority over the Domains only because he has a bigger and better bodyguard than his rivals?”
“Of course not. I never heard him seriously challenged.”
“So. My people too are content with my rule, I need no private army to enforce it.”
“But still… some malcontent, some madman—”
“Some slip on a broken stair, some lightning-bolt, some misstep by a frightened or half-broken horse, some blunder by my cook with a deadly mushroom for a wholesome one … Lew, every man alive is divided from death by that narrow a line. That’s as true at your age as mine. If I put down rebellion with armed men, does it prove me the better man, or only the man who can pay the better swordsmen or build the bigger weapons? The long reign of Compact has meant only that every man is expected to settle his affairs with his sword instead of his brains or the rightness of his cause.”
“Just the same, it has kept peace in the Domains for generations.”
“Flummery!” the old man said rudely. “You have peace in the Domains because, by and large, most of you down there are content to obey Comyn law and no longer put every little matter to the sword. Your celebrated Castle Guard is a police force keeping drunks off the streets! I’m not insulting it, I think that’s what it should be. When did you last draw your sword in earnest, son?”
I had to stop and think. “Four years ago bandits in the Kilghard hills broke into Armida, stealing horses. We chased them back across the hills and hanged a few of them.”
“When did you last fight a duel?”
“Why, never.”
“And you last drew your sword against common horse-thieves. No rebellions, wars, invasions from nonhumans?”
“Not in my time.” I began to see what he was driving at.
“Then,” he said, “why risk law-abiding men, good men and loyal, against horse-thieves, bandits, rabble who have no right to the protection given men of honor? Why not develop really effective protection against the lawless and let your sons learn something more useful than the arts of the sword? I am a peaceful man and Beltran will, I think, have no reason to force himself on my people by armed force. The law in the Hellers states that no man given to breach of the peace may own any weapon, even a sword, and there are laws about how long a pocketknife he may carry. As for the men who keep my laws, they are welcome to any weapon they can get. An honest man is less threat to our world with a Terran’s nerve-blaster than a lawless one with my cook’s paring knife or a stonemason’s hammer. I don’t believe in matching good honest men against rogues, both armed with the same weapons. When I left off fairy tales I left off believing that an honest man must always be a better swordsman than a horse-thief or a bandit. The Compact, which allows unlimited handweapons and training in their use to good men and criminals alike, has simply meant that honest men must struggle day and night to make themselves stronger than brutes.”