The bandits are terrified of how quickly he dispatches them, especially after the fool he appeared to be, only moments ago. It takes him a couple of tries, but eventually he gets an answer that's satisfactory; they'd turned to banditry in the wake of the war; the economy had been destroyed, farms had been burnt, and there wasn't any work going around, especially for young men with no families, and old army equipment. As for the year, it had been about a year and a half since the wizard Draiss was avenging had been killed; enough time for the worst impacts of the war to end, but not enough time for any sort of actual recovery.