Everything is a tool, if well understood.
A man who knows only the hammer is helpless when the nail must be drawn from the plank. And so it is with rulers: the one who thinks the same answer will serve for every question is destined to shatter himself against the first immovable wall he meets.
Words will never strike as hard as the sword, and swords will never cut as cleanly as words.
Alpheo, who could summon a thousand and five hundred blades with a gesture, knew that truth well enough, each ready to die in his name. That power is real, but it is not infinite nor omnipotent.
The monarch who answers every doubt with steel will find himself remembered not as a sovereign, but as a brute too dangerous to be bargained with, and will be of course treated as the mad dog he Is and put down as such.
Alpheo did not want to die like a dog.
He studied the faces of the nobles and envoys gathered before him,each wearing a masks of pride , or fear , or anger.
