‘A foot for the neck is nine factors of the regulation’

There are numerous who say that the art of diplomacy can be an intricate and complex dance between two informed partners, determined by an elaborate set of elegant and unwritten rules. There are certainly others who maintain that it is only a matter of who carries the biggest stay. Like whenever a large, seriously fortified and armoured empire makes a faintly menacing request of a much smaller, infinitely even more cowardly neighbour. It would be churlish, if not extremely dangerous, never to comply – particularly if all they need can be a wizard, and they don’t specify whether competence can be an issue…