The wizard was a fine and loyal aide, the closest thing the guildmaster had to a friend.
Maybe what has changed is we no longer expect a loyal aide to admit even the obvious.
Though never a great strategist or commander, he remained a loyal aide to Washington throughout the war.
As time passes, loyal aides trail away, leaving third-stringers in their place.
"I know he's had a good day," one loyal aide observed, "when he doesn't chew me out" at the end of it.
Then one or the other does something that is interpreted, at least by loyal aides, as yet another violation of the pledge.
All this ecstasy causes one of Salome's loyal aides to kill himself.
The final weeks actually saw the return to City Hall of several former loyal aides.
Nor did they like the idea of a king carrying on with the wife of a loyal aide.
He says he encountered opposition from some of the president's most loyal aides.