“If he’d lived, he would have killed at least as many people,” said Squire Jan, hotly. “Maybe more.”

Bors shook his head. “You can’t know that. You can’t argue probabilities like that, not with human life. There’s no way to know.”

“Look at his record–“

“Besides, it’s a facetious argument. You can’t be judged for what someone else does, only what you do –“

“Or fail to do!”

“Or fail to do, sure… if you can do something justly and honorably. If you can’t, what have you gained by doing anything? What do all those deaths mean?”

“We removed a dictator! A murderer of innocents, a torturer of his own people?”

“And became what in the process? How many uninvolved people have we killed, how many soldiers tortured?”

The argument went on, endlessly, as it had to, while the clouds went by overhead. The day was bright and beautiful, and Bors dramatic in his crisp white coat, red shirt blazing underneath. Jan next to him was nothing, a gray mist over the meadows. Off in the distance twelve maidens clustered on the edge of a stone tower, dresses blown into wings around them; cried out to the knights; leaped. Twelve deaths, and still the argument went on.