There once was an old and wise King who was distressed by the bands of vagrants and robbers looting and killing in his kingdom. He sent out a call for heroes, promising the reward of a tenth of his dominion and the hand in marriage of his eldest daughter to the man who succeeded in bringing the crime rate down to the lowest level in recorded history.
A succession of brave men took up his quest and set off into the hills and valleys to discover that an indubitable will and years of training were rarely enough to counter the disadvantage of being outnumbered ten to one.
So the flow of applicants slowed to a trickle as experience weeded out the more reckless young men or taught them that banditry might be a more profitable career path than bandit hunting. Finally an old hero, long retired with a pock-marked face and aching limbs stepped forward to take up the challenge. The wits of the court laughed at his rusty armour and continued with the vital activity of moving their movable assets into better policed territories.
However, the oldest hero had one advantage over his predecessors. He knew where the history books were kept (specifically those containing the Royal Treasurer's crime statistics). He walked into the Palace library and lit a match.
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