The Folding Knife

by K.J. Parker

Mostly, as far as Basso could gather, he bred and raced horses—a harmless enough occupation, and there was always the chance he’d fall off and break his neck.

“The foundation of any good marriage is a shared passion. Olybrias hates you passionately. I suppose that makes him and me ideally suited.

Basso's sister is savage.

Basso sent for his sons. They came in looking nervous, as if they were trying to figure out which of their misdemeanours had been detected.

Cinio looked at him. “You really want an effective Opposition?” “Of course not,” Basso said. “What I’d like is for everybody who disagrees with me about anything to get eaten by wild dogs. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in politics.”

Melsuntha (her name was longer than that; you had to break a bit off if you were to stand any chance of saying it) turned out all right.

“Do something, even if it’s pointless. The phantom of achievement, swathed in the illusion of activity.”

The politician's credo.

The Twenty-Second Law of Bassianus Severus, more usually referred to as the Enfranchisement Act, scraped through the House like, as Basso put it, a fat dog squeezing through railings.

“You listen,” Melsuntha said, “but more the way a spy listens, to gather useful information that you can hold against the speaker. You eavesdrop on your own conversations.”

Basso's wife knows him.