Mordred #4

You ask me about my moral code with the assumption that I have one. For my part, I consider the things to be inconveniences at best and a quick road to the grave at worst. I have heard it said, from no less renowned lips than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, that since that long ago day when I was two and twenty I have not done a single good deed. Far be it from me to disagree or argue with such a man, as you already know of my devotion to the church, however I might better to amend it to “I have not done a single good deed, which would otherwise not be to my benefit and would either harm me or my own prospects.” See? Not so hard a thing to understand. I don’t bother myself with antiquated rules of knighthood and good behavior any more than any one else here, seeing as I have, for all purposes, been removed from them from my birth. I take what I will and I kill when it suits me. As for the rest, I have no particular taste for them. 

I should, I suppose, dislike doing some sort of harm to my brothers or their sons. I do not find their company entirely adverse to me and I would be troubled to be deprived of it. I also would be...troubled, I suppose, if I were put into a position where I had to kill a child in order to gain the throne. 

It would be more work for me, you see. It is hardly as if I have moral qualms about it. 

I see no reason for pointless cruelty in general, especially where it otherwise might be used to buy goodwill. Take the people of Camelot, for instance. When I take my father’s throne, I might be tempted to inflict every form of despotism upon them, to break them as thoroughly as one would an unruly nag, but what good would that accomplish? None. Far better to buy their goodwill so that, when my father returns-and the stubborn, proud fool will return, he knows how to do little else, he will be the invader, not me. Dangle the promise of peace, possibly throw in some material comforts, and they’ll follow me to Hell. Panem et circenses. If history says anything, it is nothing if not that mindless cruelty rarely gives any profit. As for mindful cruelty-But, of course, I am getting far too ahead of myself.