The official from the Registry did manage to escape from the palace grounds with nothing worse than a minor flesh wound. But it was a close thing; and, the guards who witnessed the events all agreed, was saved only by his pursuer’s quite evident state of pregnancy.
* * *
When Helga stalked back on to the balcony, she returned the sword to Lortz. Then, glared at the crowd in general. Then, at Adrian.
To the first, she said nothing. Words would have been, indeed, superfluous.
To Adrian, hissed: “Go ahead. Say anything about the responsibilities of pregnant women.”
Adrian, confirming again Demansk’s judgement of his successor, maintained the silence of a sage.
For once, Arsule agreed with her tyrant husband. “Well, at least he’s not crazy.”
Afterword
How It All Came About
by David Drake
Many years ago I wrote plot outlines for what became The General series. I used the career of the 6th century a.d. Byzantine general Belisarius as the template for my hero, Raj Whitehall, but I gave him the support of a supercomputer and a purpose greater than that of satisfying the megalomania of his master Justinian. Steve Stirling very ably turned the four outlines into five fat novels.
Jim Baen liked the result (so did I and so have quite a number of readers) and suggested I plot a series of single-shot spin-offs utilizing other historical templates. I did so, though I’m afraid with less success. The Green Planet was probably a bad idea (no, it wasn’t my idea but I acquiesced); it’s unlikely ever to be turned into a novel. The Chosen, based on what I considered the reality of Steve’s Draka universe, had unexpected practical problems. The result is a good book, but getting to that point wasn’t a process either Steve or I would willingly undergo again.
That left two first-rate outlines, one based on an Ancient Egyptian model and the other on the fall of the Roman Republic. The latter was particularly complex; Steve, Jim, and I agreed that it should be split into two novels (as had happened with the third outline of the Belisarius series) to make up for my failure with The Green Planet.
Unfortunately there were more glitches. Steve ran into physical problems. The first half of the outline, published as The Reformer, was a lot shorter than anybody had expected, and Steve then decided he wouldn’t be able to finish the series on a practical timeline. Eric Flint cheerfully stepped in (well, he was more cheerful about the situation than I was) and took up the slack.
The Tyrant is therefore the sequel to The Reformer. Eric had a very difficult task in integrating the existing novel with his own, in addition to following the remaining half of the outline and creating a self-standing novel at the same time. I’m extremely pleased with the way he handled it. Those of you who read both halves will be interested in the way two different, able writers have handled the same material.
The material itself is a subject that I’ve pondered for all my adult life. The collapse of the Roman Republic looks simple when you simply follow a schematic of the events: Marius and Sulla, victorious generals, fought for leadership of the state. Sulla won, returned the government to what he considered its ideal form, and died. Reckless adventurers, in particular Cataline (who was put down by the heroic efforts of Cicero), attempted to gain power by force but for a time were prevented.
Then Caesar and Pompey, successful generals in the mold of Marius and Sulla, fought for the throne—first through gangs of thugs in the city, then with armies across the entire empire and beyond. Caesar won, and despite his immediate assassination, his victory had doomed the Republic and even the semblance of democracy in Rome.
As I said—simple. And almost entirely untrue.
In large measure the simplicity is what makes it false. Marius and Sulla were only two actors in an enormously complex struggle which involved many parties within the Roman polity and even more outside it. The rights of the elites of the Italian states (the Socii, allies), foreign enemies who used resentment of Roman rule to gain support within the outlying provinces (Mithridates VI was the most prominent but by no means the only example), local resistance movements aided by one or another Roman party (Sertorius and others), piracy on a scale unequaled by illegal enterprise until the appearance of modern drug cartels, and a massive slave revolt were all major factors.