Penelope's Secrets

Flashback 200 years

The Arrangement...

On the second morning of the battle for the nameless hill, the mood in the base camp was angry frustration. Word had slowly filtered up the chain of command that things were not progressing smoothly. Word had swiftly come down the chain of command, that a visitation from on high was imminent.

The governor's equerry Glotrix had ridden in straight from a meeting with the governor. The regional court had reconvened in the local provincial capital, in anticipation of the defeat of the rebel slaves. That journey had taken three days. Hoping to find his nephew already victorious, he was more than a little agitated to find that matters had not yet progressed to their logical conclusion. He was feeling a little saddle sore, and the excellent red wine he was drinking now, could not stop his mind racing ahead to the embarassment which could soon overtake events unless operations were speedily concluded.

"As you see, uncle, we have destroyed most of the rebel scum, and we are simply engaged in tidying up operations."

His nephew, Spirax, was the only surviving adult male in his family, his father having died of taking too young a second wife. Glotrix liked things which were smooth and predictable. The boy had been to the best military schools. He was not a bright boy and had no imagination. All things considered, he was the perfect heir to the old politician and widower. The old man brushed aside the thoughts of what he would have said to anyone else in this position and decided that honesty was the best course of action.

"Yes, I'm sure that's probably so. But think about how it might appear to others, who might be more politically motivated. When I arrived here, I expected to see an army in the middle of a victory celebration. Instead, I see half an army camped at the bottom of the hill, while the other half appears to be dead, and spread all over it. Instead of seeing the head of that Spartak slime on a spear by your tent side, I learn that he's still at large, without a scratch, taunting you to come and get him. I'm afraid it doesn't look good. You haven't even managed to bury most of your dead."

"They don't observe our flag of truce. When we send our soldiers up there to collect the wounded, we find they've all been killed. They stone our stretcher bearers, and even kill them. They've no sense of honour."

"That's precisely the point. If they had any honour, they wouldn't be runaway slaves in the first place. It's because they have no honour, no code of decency, that they are so dangerous. If these ideas spread..."

"There are only four of them left. They won't escape."

"No, I agree, but we can't afford to wait much longer. What you've accomplished here, is a great thing. This Spartak rabble defeated two armies, before you got here. Now you're on the verge of victory, you can't take the risk of throwing that away."

Spirax sighed, "they were tired when we found them, but despite that they've killed ten of my men for every one of theirs. I'm not sure if we can call that a great victory."

Glotrix put his arm around his nephew's shoulder. "I'm glad I came. I think I can help you. Look, I'm not a soldier. I'm just an administrator, but let me tell you that the view from the capital, and I mean the governor himself, is great relief that the contagion of this vile slave revolt has been contained. A week ago, the court was fleeing for its life. If the docks at the port hadn't been destroyed they would have left Scythia by now. And you are the one who stopped it. That's the important thing to remember."

"It's still not over."

"I can see that. But if we finish it quickly, noone will ever think of criticising this little setback. You'll be the hero of the age. The saviour of our civilization. We just have to exterminate those four rebels, before they get away and start up again, or before word gets out..."

"You mean word gets out that four men held back an army?"

"Yes. It wouldn't look good. But noone will care, if we can end things quickly."

"I've tried every tactic I know. But they just don't fight fair."

"They were gladiators. They only rule they know is how to be the last man standing alive, when everyone around them is dead. Man for man, they can outfight anyone in your army. And there is another thing. The governor has a file on this Spartak. His background, before he went into the games, is let me say, rather unusual..."

"He is scum, and I wish him dead and cursed for eternity. But he has been a brilliant tactician ever since the uprising began. Even I have to acknowledge that."

"Yes, and that part of the problem didn't come from being a gladiator. Oh yes, he learned how to use a sword..."

"Two swords..."

"Yes, well, I'm sure even the governor probably bet on him at some time, before he turned renegade. But there is a file on him. I heard some rumours, but you know how these fighters like to create myths about their past, when they become famous. Nobody likes to admit they started out as the son of a thief or a beggar. So they come up with some tale about a romantic past, to give their fans something more interesting to think about."

"I didn't know anything about his past. There are a lot of different tales. I assumed they were all untrue and probably hiding a boring humble origin."

"No, well, it's not common knowledge. We did spread a lot of other tales, once he became famous. A lot of nonsense of course. That he started as a pirate. A bastard from a rich family. Had murdered his wife. All sorts of things in fact."

"Yes, I heard some of those, and even one story that he was originally an alien from outside the Empire. Or that he used magic charms which protected him from iron blades, until that fighter with the bamboo spears got shredded to pieces. All a lot of rubbish really. It didn't really matter at the time, because they were all fanciful tales. It was the thousand kills that made him important."

"It's surprising how these stories get about."

"So how do these stories help?"

"You have to keep this a secret, but we invented most of them. In fact we usually do that when a gladiator becomes famous. It's a kind of insurance policy we have. For example, if one of them starts out as a groom, we don't want to publicise that. Before you know it, all the stables in the country would close down, because every stable boy would start to fancy himself as a gladiatorus. So we dilute the strength of any particular background with disinformation. It also helps to create the mystique."

"I didn't know that."

"No reason why you should. We live in a very ordered society. The games are important because they create a little excitement. But this is the first time in many generations that they have got out of hand."

"It's happened before? I didn't know that."

"That's why history is a subject reserved for the administrators."

"I thought it was because it was boring."

"We try to ensure that history turns out to be as boring as possible. That's the mark of a successful administration. I hope that when I come to retire, even this little episode will be, shall we say, diminished..."

"Uncle, I have to admit that I don't know what to do. If I carry on with my present tactics, the only thing which would stop the rest of my army rotting on that hill would be if Spartak decided to run away. And that would put us right back to the start..."

"The governor and I discussed the possibility of using different tactics. Of course that was before your imminent victory... However, some aspects of those plans might still work. The key thing is to understand how the mind of your enemy works, and to use that information against him. The first thing we need to do is to send most of your army home. Tell them you've won."

"But..."

"It won't make much difference, and it will buy us a few more days of time. Conventional soldiering won't work here. You're fighting gladiators and slaves. We still have a number of loyal gladiators which were imprisoned at the start of the uprising."

"Loyal? How can you be sure that a gladiator is loyal to anything?"

Glotrix smiled. "They didn't go off and join Spartak even when it looked like he was winning. That could be loyalty, or social conditioning, or because we know who their relations are. The outcome is the same. We have access to about a hundred of these gladiators which we can use against the remaining revels."

"How will a hundred gladiators work better than a thousand soldiers?"

"You said yourself that they fight differently. Also we will give them an incentive. Not just money, if they kill Spartak, but also their freedom."

"Doesn't that create a dangerous precedent? They'll all be asking for their freedom next, which is the same problem we have now."

"You're still thinking like a soldier. Sometimes in order to smooth out the ripples in history you have to think differently, even if you're a dull old administrator. What I had in mind was that most of your army will disperse, go home and tell their friends and families that the rebel war is won and over. After our tame gladiators have done what's necessary for them to do, perhaps motivated partly by the thought of the freedom they will get after, or the alternative for their families if they don't cooperate... Anyway, after Spartak is out of the way we'll arrange a little celebration. I'll have some wine and food shipped in from my estates nearby. Noone else needs to know too much about the details."

"Why are you so confident that Spartak won't just slip away before they arrive?"

"We'll have to arrange some sort of messages which say, they've changed their minds, seen the error of their ways and have decided to join the rebels. I think he'll wait to see them, even if he doesn't believe it, just in case it's true"

"And then, afterwards, when he's dead do we give them their gold, and their freedom?"

"Oh yes. That's the best thing to do. We'll give them their freedom for life, and their celebration party. It would be best to spare no expense in that area. Let them eat their fill and get them as drunk as possible."

"And then we let them all go?"

"I'm a law maker, not a lawyer. But it seems to me that freedom for life is not exactly the same as eternal life. And one dead gladiator, with their throat cut in the middle of the night looks pretty much the the same as another. You won't have to explain a few more days of mopping up operations if the rebel army was met by reinforcements just when everyone thought it was all over. You'll be a hero."

"You'll have to teach me more about this history. It sounds like it might be useful ..."