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

by K.J. Parker

I remember him as a big, round man with bushy white hair. It gushed up from the front of his shirt, scrambled up his face like ivy and exploded in a luxurious tangle on top of his head.

(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.)