Our world doesn’t give lot of oportunities in that respect: there had been -and still are- situations similar to the one you describe. But one thing is what the nobility thinks in that respect and a different one the opinion of the peasantry. During our Middle Ages, commons could afford tithes, poverty, famine… but when coming across the levies and the droit de seigneur, then problems started: a desert was an hero, the one who could avoid his destiny. He was usually prosecuted -desertion was a crime, of course- and people helped him as the most honorable man. Lot of heroic stories and tales about the outlaws start with the desertion of the main character from an unfair war. Even from the Crusades, and deserting from the Crusades meant loose your soul without redemption.
I know, it is a fantastic world, and people wanted to fight for their king. But… People in that village were not recluited, they weren’t asked. If people understood fighting and dying for their king the most honorable thing… why were levies neccesary? There are all those little details what surprise me.
Don’t say his son that his mother was abducted to became the sexual toy of a crew “in need of companionship” -that was what he seemed to think- maybe was not the bravest thing ever, but I think it could be considered a white lie.
Deserting Baelfire makes him a coward, I agree. But I was thinking about the spinner, before the Dark One ^^