(Simon Basrid KCS PL, painted c. 1744)
Forty-four years had passed since Simon Basrid turned over his officer reds to take upon the highest office in his country. Statecraft was an unclean profession then, staffed by mercenaries and mudlarkers, the sort of opportunistic bunch that came and went with the weather. Around him was the crumbling infrastructure of an orphaned red city still reeling from its great war, with dozens of plots both foreign and national to undo what weak bonds that kept the state together.
It was the miserable sort of condition where exiles, sorce