Liner Notes for Party Entertainment

 

Liner Notes for Party Entertainment

Oh yeah, it’s an old-fashioned Roman orgy! Very old-fashioned in fact, food, drinks, music and dancers, a magician and some violence. Things get interrupted before anyone has sex though. It’s possible there might be someone bold enough to proposition Mischa Mankiller, or drunk enough at least. That would be a slightly different story.

Private gladiator fights are illegal, possibly blasphemous, though it’s more political. A gladiatorial contest open to the public shows open-handed patriotic spirit, giving things for the city at large, encouraging the ritual life of society. A private one is a secret entertainment, something to reward people, or bribe. Of course nobles know exactly how far they can push the law.

There’s probably a law against magic too, but everyone’s forgotten about that one in the past two generation of conquest and bringing strange sorceries into the city. They’ve forgotten why the law was made in the first place.

Anyway some politics, this is two notable figures publicly declaring an alliance within the city, and with a faction of a foreign power. The fix is in, the people here are already onside. This is a little treat for them, they’ve done the work of getting the political and military coalition together. Next of course the actual work; sending an army across worlds to put Stadtmaster Ogliganos on the throne of his countrymen. Do they groan under tyranny, or are they a free and prosperous people? None of that matters I’m afraid. Mora is going to send the regiments in, despite the seas, the weather, the shatterhawks.

One thing about being a gladiator is you don’t get to choose who you fight – or whether you fight. Arminin reacts to having a choice in a sensible way. This isn’t a fight he’s been engaged for, so he won’t do it. Mischa isn’t like that. She knows she will never retire from being a gladiator, she is bound for death. The world of men will not allow her freedom. So why not fight? Why not aim for glory?

And by taking the choice she makes a rival. She gains influence. Maybe she will get to choose an opponent.