“Trust, like money, needed a guarantee to back it.”

“The Hierarchic Qualm: The sword kills. But the arm moves the sword. Is the arm to blame for murder? No. The mind moves the arm. Is the mind to blame? No. The mind has sworn an oath to duty, and that duty moves the mind, as written by the Throne. So it is that a servant of the Throne is blameless.”

“It’s hard to find good stories now.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes.” She was warm with the wine, with the shape of the plan she’d begun to form, and could not keep the merriment from her voice, the joy of reaching out into the world and altering it. “There will be a price.”

“Money is only one kind of power. Faith is power, too. Love is power. Slaughter and madness are both roads to power. Certainly, symbols are power – you wear one wherever you go, that purse you carry. And you wear others when you decide to dress yourself, how to look at men and women, how to carry your body and direct your gaze. And all these symbols can raise people to labour or war.”

“Trust, like money, needed a guarantee to back it.”

“With the discipline of the body comes discipline of the soul.”