How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It (The Siege #2)

by K.J. Parker

But (he explained to me, when I objected) what the people want is something that looks at first sight like real life, but which actually turns out to be a fairy tale with virtue triumphant, evil utterly vanquished, a positive, uplifting message, a gutsy, kick-ass female lead and, if at all possible, unicorns.

Curious thing about this man’s city. All the really horrible bits of it have absolutely charming names.

But when the emergency government deposed the last emperor, sidelined the House and set up direct elections – I don’t suppose they deliberately set out to make my life hell. The unfortunate consequences to me personally probably never crossed their minds; which makes it worse somehow, in my opinion.

Act 2 is always a grind. With the exception of Acts 1 and 3, it’s the hardest part of your standard three-act play.

I can imagine what you’re thinking – not telepathy, just a process of logical deduction. For a start, you’re reading this, so you can read, so obviously you’re educated, therefore you belong to the better sort – and I know you people like the back of my hand.

He gave me a book to read: a history of the siege, it said on the spine, which wasn’t strictly accurate, since it only went down to where the colonel of engineers (Nicephorus’ old boss) got killed. It was quite hard going but I struggled through it.

Worrying just makes things worse, I always say, specially if there’s nothing constructive you can do to improve matters.

and some genius suggested increasing rates of pay as a way of solving the manpower crisis, and, guess what, it worked.

One man’s opinion is another man’s prejudice is another man’s bigotry. Have opinions, by all means, but keep the nasty things to yourself.

I think what Faustinus liked best was the fighting, which is what I’d expect from someone who hasn’t been in a fight since he was seven years old.

When Andronicus the Great became the first emperor, back in the year dot, he had the senators dragged in front of him in chains, the way you do, and one of them, head of the oldest and proudest of the hundred and sixteen, told him he was nobody, human garbage, didn’t even know who his own father was. Quite true, Andronicus said. But my family begins with me; yours ends with you. Then, to show his magnanimity, he spared all their lives, and fifteen years later they had him stabbed to death in his bath; moral, don’t neglect an opportunity to get rid of your enemy for the sake of a great one-liner.

What, after all, is belief but knowing something without actually being able to prove

“I’ve just saved all our lives and solved a major social problem, and that’s all you can say. Purple sounds silly.” “Well, it does.”

ninety-two out of every hundred things done by any government will turn out to be counterproductive and just plain stupid, but you can take checks and balances too far.

I’ve never for one moment doubted that he loved me; and really and truly, what more can you ask than that?

I remember looking down and thinking, hello, there appears to be a small tree growing out of my thigh; and then I noticed the blood soaking through the divitision (hard to spot blood against a purple background, but it caught the light and sparkled).

(The world is full of idiots, and always has been. But sometimes I wonder why such a disproportionate quantity of them end up running other people’s lives.)

Applause takes different forms, depending on context. In the theatre, people laugh, clap, cheer, throw flowers. In war, your enemy expresses his appreciation for a particularly clever move on your part by doing his best to rip your throat out. His way of showing affection, I guess.

A manager once told me, you can have your hero butcher entire nations in a messenger’s report, but for God’s sake don’t have him hit a woman or a child on stage. You’d lose all sympathy.

“With respect, that’s not true. He met with Colonel Orhan several times.”

If we’re going to be stupid about this, let’s be stupid in style.

Everything changes, see above. Nothing changes more often, more rapidly or more radically than the past. Yesterday’s heroes are today’s villains. Yesterday’s eternal truths are today’s exploded myths. Yesterday’s right is today’s wrong, yesterday’s good is today’s evil. And tomorrow it’ll all be one hundred and eighty degrees different, on that you can rely.

“Chances are,” said the new colonel of engineers, a fifteen-year veteran who’d got the job because everyone better qualified was now dead, “it’s just a blind, and he’ll be putting his main effort into the old workings.

“Get up,” she screamed at me. No, I thought. What’s the point of being emperor if I can’t indulge myself in the occasional luxury, such as breathing?

Moral: it’s amazing what people will stand for, if the government tell them to.

It was a pretty paradox – let’s save the City by taking it apart stone by stone and burying it in the ground – but paradox is the gatehouse of truth, in my opinion. I have no idea what that means, by the way, but I bet you it means something.

“It’s the only way I could be sure of getting away,” I told Hodda. “Send the entire City on ahead.”