Purple and Black by K.J. Parker

by that earlier undertaking, and I'm not bound by this, either. Idealism is like spots and wanking; it's a phase you go through, and then you grow out of it. But he just looked at me and shook his head. It's me you're talking to, he said. I know you better than that.
    And you know what, Nico? He was right.
    God, we were pompous in those days; and cocky, and very, very ignorant. We'd read a few books, thought we'd understood them, thought we could see so much more clearly than our stupid parents and grandparents and a million generations before them. Like the kid who wanted to be an explorer, so he set off from home and after half an hour he came to a place he'd never been to before; so he said to himself, I've discovered a new country. But.
    They trained me in logic, rhetoric, analytical thinking and adversarial disputation. Somewhere there's a bit of paper with a seal at the bottom that says I'm fully qualified in the above; so it's hardly surprising I can win arguments, even against myself. I can win this argument any day of the week. But that doesn't mean a bloody thing. If I close my eyes and ask myself, were we right or not, and I only give myself one heartbeat to answer, the answer's got to be yes, we were right. We were stupid kids, but we were right.
    You should've seen the smug look on Gorgias' face, Nico. I hat look.
    It hasn't been easy. The main thing was to play for time. Gorgias has been raising money for the cause (I'm sorry, but I can't tell you where from) and building an army. The little piddly raids and bits and pieces he's done so far are really just training exercises, though they served a more important purpose; to get you to send me an army of my own. It was a bit of a blow when I found that Lamachus came with it. Gorgias (he learned it all from the Book, would you believe; you and I read it too, but he understood it. I always knew he was the clever one) played it quite well, I think. He let Lamachus have his victories, to get his blood up, make him feel good. Then he and I laid the trap; or rather, we let Lamachus lay the trap, and we tweaked it a bit. All I had to do was transfer one lieutenant (one of our people) to command the company that should've backed Lamachus up, but didn't. I regret that. I regret all the dead, on both sides. My trick with the barrels of wire was actually genuine—I didn't even tell Gorgias what I was doing until afterwards, because it had to be perfect or it wouldn't have been convincing. And you were convinced, Nico, and that was all that mattered.
    It's a comedy, isn't it? In order to eradicate the evil of the misuse of power, I've been misusing power like few people in the history of the world. Wicked of me, but it's got to be done. Of course, I couldn't have done it without your help. You gave me everything I needed. I now have a field army large enough to march on the Gity. I have supplies, equipment, the very best; my troops are the only regulars in Imperial service who have boots that are younger than they are. Thanks to your generous funding for the wall project, I have the money to pay them, plus a HS 500 incentive payment (I think that's what your father used to call it)—in other words, I've bought them, in the traditional manner. Five hundred down, another thousand each when we've won the Empire. You were kind enough to send me the best troops in the army. Even if any of the steelnecks are minded to fight for you, which I'm inclined to doubt after your really quite savage attacks on their pay and privileges, with my army and Gorgias' forces, we can take them all, one at a time or all together. Please therefore accept this as my formal declaration of war. Sorry, Nico.
    But, of course, we don't have to do that. Absolutely no need. All it'd take would be for you to walk into the Senate, issue the dissolution decree and the rest of it—disband the army, provincial autonomy, dismantling the monolithic corporations—and not a drop of blood need be shed. You'd have