The trouble with swords, my mother always used to say, is that soon enough, everyone wants one.

Some are drawn by adolescent allure, others by dreams of heroism or avarice. But crucially, there’s a tipping point, beyond which you’d be a fool not to carry a blade. In a trustless society, she always said, the trusting man is prey.

I learned early in life that my mother and I didn’t always agree.

It takes courage, you see, to to believe that those around you don’t wish to harm you; sometimes they’re just clinging to their capability to inflict violence on the humanity who ebb and flow around them as a child clings to a favourite blanket.

And when they betray that trust, it takes a firm foundation, a shifting of weight and application of force, to leave both them and their precious sword in the swirling dust of a summer’s afternoon.