“Any man who calls himself simple opens himself to suspicion, in my view,” George said. “If someone else calls him simple, simple he may be. If he calls himself simple, simple he is not, for if he were, he would not see that there was any other possibility.”

“Hmm.” After thinking about it for a little while, Hesmucet took off his gray felt hat and scratched his head. “That’s a little too… unsimple for me.”

“Is it? You’ll forgive me, sir, but I have my doubts about that,” Doubting George said. He hadn’t got his nickname by accident; from everything Hesmucet could see, he had his doubts about everything. After a moment, he went on, “And things generally aren’t quite so clear as you make them out to be, if you’ll be kind enough to forgive me that as well.”

“No, eh?” Now Hesmucet bristled. He didn’t care to be told he was, or even might be, mistaken about anything. “How not?”

“Well, sir, if you reckon blonds worthless for anything but serfdom, how is it that you have some thousands of them serving in the various regiments of your army?”

“They aren’t all good soldiers, by any means.” Having taken a position, Hesmucet was not a man to retreat from it even in the face of long odds.

“No doubt you’re right, sir.” For a moment, Lieutenant General George sounded like the northern noble he was: most dangerous when most polite. “But then, would you say all the ordinary Detinans fighting for King Avram are good soldiers?”

“Only a fool would say all of them are, and I hope I’m not that particular kind of fool,” Hesmucet replied. “I will say, though, that more Detinans make good soldiers than is true for the blonds. We’re warriors in the blood, and they’re not.” He stuck out his chin and defied Doubting George to disagree with him.

And Doubting George didn’t-not, at least, in so many words.