It was rules that made the Imperium weak, at least insofar as they trumped a more natural human sense of courage and daring. Any sin could be justified by some law or other, some cold-hearted regulation that sanctified a retreat or trench collapse or battlefront withdrawal. In Spinoza’s case, she could no doubt appeal to any number of precedents for what she had done in Courvain. Perhaps the entire place would have been destroyed if she had fought on. At least it would have been a fighting destruction, though, with men and women on their feet at the end, not choking on their own blood and
...more
