Penelope's Secrets

Foreword:-
To whom it may concern...

As the good bishop says in his book - maybe I understand a bit more about the background to what happened - because I knew many of the people involved. Most of them are dead now, and can't answer back. You'll have to accept what I say about any "motivations" involved. If you think I've exaggerated the negative side of anyone's character, just be glad you weren't there yourself. The good ones may have been better. But the bad ones were a lot worse.

I just wanted to write about what happened, and to leave a record of our times. But I'm no historian. I came to history late in life, and I'm too old to learn the art of doing it properly. I'm also not much of a writer, and I'm sorry if this is becoming glaringly obvious. Hopefully it will get better as it goes along, and I gain more experience.

I don't know at this stage what I'm going to write or even if it will ever get finished. I certainly don't expect this to be published in my lifetime. That's not my reason for writing at all. But if I live long enough - I would like to give you a picture of what it was like to be in our society when Penelope was head of the great house of Scythia. Rare enough for such a great family's head to be a woman. Rarer still for that woman to be accounted one of the strongest figures of her time. If you think you already know the story, then I have to say that what you'll read in the following pages will probably surprise you.

I suppose that history should really be written as a collection facts, with dates and evidence, and references. So scholars in future generations can have raw material which they can sift through and analyse for internal consistency. I'm not going to do any of these things. If there are dates, they're from memory. Some of them may be wrong. But it's the best I can remember. Very few of these facts have been written down before. If there was any evidence to support what I say - the means to recover it are not within my power. Apart from me, everyone who may have seen the evidence or experienced it is probably dead, or too deeply implicated to be trusted as an impartial witness.

From the few books I have read, it appears that history is usually written by the side which has won its most recent disputes. The Etruscans are silent. The Trojans live on as heroic fantasy in the stories of their Greek destroyers. The American Indian learned writing only centuries after most of them were already dust. But when Caesar writes, or Shakespeare rhymes, or Churchill stirs his memories of world war, these can always be read with the confidence of knowing that we hear the story of the enemy from the side that has won.

That's not to say the stories they wrote are invalid. On the contrary, being written so close to the events they describe and in many cases by active participants, they give a feel for the actualities which is much stronger than any mere list of dates and facts. But how I envy their simple "truths" which from this distance of time seem so reassuring and believable. And how I envy their "winning"!

The lies in history are bad enough, but they usually don't affect the living. Evil men who died a long time ago can't hurt you. But the lies that we are taught as "truth" by our mothers, and would pass on to the next generation in the same way, are more cankerous than the worst disease which can be spawned by nature or man.

Gentle Reader, I think I should disclose my vested interest and possible bias at this early stage, before we go any further. Although I have tried hard to be accurate, fair and honest, you should be aware that the history you are about to read is not likely to be regarded as any version of "truth" by the side that was victorious in our local disturbances. It will not be taught in any universities. It will not be stored in any libraries.

To put it simply. My side lost. The other side won.

Although it's hard for me to imagine, anyone not hearing of these great events, even if they are the lies of the enemy, it is possible that between me writing these words and you reading them, that many years may have passed and that no-one has heard of these events. If you are reading still, please be patient. My schools of history were the hard facts of my life. My skills in telling a story if I have any, were learned at the dinner table.

I would be the happiest man alive if their lies were the truth, and if my own history were the pack of lies, but unfortunately that's not how things actually happened. I warn you now, that some unpleasant revelations about human nature will be described in what follows. You may prefer to regard this as a work of fiction if it makes you feel more comfortable...