The Shadow of Cincinnatus Read Online Free PDF

He’d promised himself ten years as emperor, no more. But the task was already looking to take longer than his entire lifespan.
    “You’ll need to start looking among the managers,” Tiffany said. She gave him a mischievous smile. “Did you really think that we aristocrats did all the work ourselves?”
    Marius eyed her, suspiciously. “I wondered how you managed to work while hosting endless parties,” he said.
    Tiffany made a face. “ I never went to parties,” she said. She cleared her throat, loudly. “I believe that most of the High Families had their own crop of managers. They would be loyal to their patrons, of course, but they also have a great deal of practical experience. And, now that their patrons are gone, most of them will be looking for something else to do. You could round them up and put them to work.”
    “I see,” Marius said. “Are they trustworthy?”
    “They’ll be loyal to their own families, now,” Tiffany said. “You could make sure their families remain safe and they’ll be loyal.”
    Or keep them as hostages , Marius thought. Once, it would have revolted him to even consider such measures. Now, it struck him as something necessary. Raistlin was right, in a way. He definitely wasn’t the person he’d been.
    He looked up at his wife. “Do you want the task of finding them?”
    “Not if I can avoid it,” Tiffany said. She sighed. “But do I assume correctly that I don’t have a choice?”
    “I’d prefer to leave it in your hands,” Marius confirmed. “I don’t know how far I trust Tully.”
    “You can trust him to put his own interests first,” Tiffany told him. “But you can also trust him not to think outside the box.”
    Marius stroked his head. “And then we have the problem of sorting out the rules and regulations,” he added. “I’ve got a meeting this evening to discuss it...boring, boring, boring...”
    “But necessary,” Tiffany said, firmly. “The Grand Senate screwed up the rules and regulations to ensure they remained on top. Undoing those will be the first step forward towards true economic recovery.”
    Marius cursed under his breath. He’d never really thought of the Federation as flimsy, not since the Inheritance Wars had ensured that no planet thought it could declare independence and leave the Federation. Even Admiral Justinian and the other warlords hadn’t managed to crack the towering edifice. But it was rotten to the core, he knew now, and only sheer luck had kept it intact for so long. If he failed to handle the economic question as delicately as possible, the Federation would collapse into rubble. And then a whole new series of wars would begin.
    “Fine,” he said, as he rose to his feet. He would have liked to spend the rest of the day in bed with her, but there was far too much to do. They’d had more time together on his flagship! “I’ll expect you to sit in on the meeting. And the professor.”
    “Understood,” Tiffany said. She stood as he walked towards the shower. “Do you want company in there?”
    * * *
    Marius was still smiling as he walked into yet another meeting room, this one decorated in blue and green wallpaper. Judging from the handful of portraits on the walls, showing earlier presidents of the Federation, it was meant to reassure rather than intimidate. It made a change from the office he was starting to think of as his throne room.
    “Be seated,” he said, as he sat down at the head of the table. He’d chosen to shun formality almost as soon as he’d made himself emperor. “What do you have for me?”
    “We tried to review all of the rules and regulations that were considered to be in force prior to the Second Battle of Earth,” Larimore Hammond said. The portly man had been a legal expert at the Luna Academy before Professor Kratman had recommended him for the task of rewriting the Federation’s regulations. “Most of them are starkly contradictory and all of them are impossible to follow, without