> As a practical matter, travellers along the King's highways were rarely
> challenged during the "good old days" of the House of Sartar...
> Those days, however, are now gone. Euglyptus the Fat declared some
> foreign legal-goobly-gook regarding the roads that everyone ignored.
> Raiders routinely plundered strangers on the roads and clan chiefs would
> often demand outrageous bribes from passing merchants.
I'm reminded of a quote from a John James novel (partly misremembered, no doubt):
"Time was when a royal virgin carrying a golden dish could travel the length of this road with only a dozen men for bodyguard..."
Yep, I like the "Good Old Days" vs. nowadays approach to this. It's one Anglo-Saxon authors were familiar with: the measure of a strong King is that you can travel safely through his lands because none of his people will *dare* interfere with you. The Lunars, by dividing Sartarite tribes ("those who are not against us, are with us"), prevent this degree of security -- everyone knows Temertain is too weak to invoke his purported royal powers, and the folk who are raiding the roads are *already* confronting the armed might of the Empire.
Cheers, Nick
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