The Price of the Purple

[Pelasgia]

"The royal purple is the noblest burial shroud."
-Empress Despoina (statue inscription in the Great Palace)​

Propontis, Pelasgia
16/02/2022, 10:00

"The system goes into effect at the end of the month," said Thrasyvoulos Krevatas, standing almost as if in attention. "Your Imperial Majesty's Minister of Internal Affairs assures me that its implementation will be smooth." Krevatas fixed his tie, though it was perfect; he was quite different in this instance from the confident, bombastic image he normally put on display in Parliament, or while otherwise acting as Prime Minister.

"The implementation," responded a voice from the other end of the room, "was never at issue. That is a technical matter." Krevatas turned and faced the author of the remarks--the pale, slightly short figure of Anaxandros Kalamaras, Director General of the Krypteia and H.I.M. Superintendent General of State sat at the opposite end of the table, between Megas Doux Theodore Laskaris, the Emperor's cousin and Grand Admiral, and the Lord Privy Seal, Karolos Platanias. "The issue is purely political. We do not need the civil society groups, the NGOs, the opposition, the media--all that lot--to cause trouble. It tends to put our... international partners on edge."

Crown Prince Eumenes addressed the Prime Minister, who was once again fixing his tie. "The Supreme Court's recent decision raised a few eyebrows--in Beira and San Jose, but eyebrows nonetheless. The civil libertarians at home were more than willing to go along, as was the opposition. And that was merely about recognising a few marriages performed overseas. What do you think a generalised electronic surveillance system at home will cause? Can the Throne rely upon you to keep the opposition in check?"

"I can assure you that that is one of my primary tasks," Krevatas replied with faux confidence, "and I am taking it very seriously."

"That is your only task," replied Emperor Attalus. An already tall man (especially for a Pelasgian), he practically towered over the Premier from atop his elevated seat in the Privy Council chamber. "As Our Prime Minister, you are tasked with managing public sentiment and keeping the parliamentary system under control and compliant, to ensure that they are on board with Our policy. Is that clear?" The Emperor stared Krevatas in the eyes.

Krevatas averted his gaze and bowed at once. "Yes, of course, Your Imperial Majesty."

Kalamaras handed a memo to an aide, who passed it to Krevatas. "My subordinates have prepared a list of important opposition figures exposed by this latest political confrontation. I want them dealt with as instructed."

"All-Pelasgian Association for Minority Rights, the Members of Parliament for..." said Krevatas, reading the list out loud. "With all due respect, does a protest that small warrant such a heavy-handed response? It was a few hundred marchers at most in a country of eighty million, and a couple of angry speeches in Parliament."

"The protest was small, but the sentiment it expressed had half the opposition and several civil society groups singing in unison," explained Kalamaras. "This sets a dangerous precedent. I recommend dismantling those NGOs as foreign agents or illegal associations violating tax and other laws; and I opine that those opposition figures who didn't fall in line with those within their parties on our payroll should be sidelined and expelled."

"We adopt your recommendations," said the Emperor.

Krevatas bowed. "It will be dealt with."

"Good," said Emperor Attalus. "Now, you wished to discuss Gallo-Germania?"

"Yes, sire," Krevatas answered. "It seems that the countries there are getting increasingly concerned at Scanlaw's missile development--and it's unclear whether their President's failure to control Scanlaw's own vassals is a ploy or a real sign of weakness."

"Barbarians," remarked the Megas Doux. "We've had the Akritas System* since the 1950s, and yet we've never had to deal with such tomfoolery, because we've kept it low-key. But give the Germanics a missile, and it's like handing a teenager a gun--they have to try it!"

"Be that as it may, Your Grace, our natural gas pipelines still target the region. If tensions continue to rise, we could contact the Germanics about offering them an alternative source of heating and energy to the Tarusans."

"Our foreign policy has long favoured Tarusa," said the the Lord Privy Seal, Karolos Platanias, who was also the Empire's most senior diplomat. "Need I remind you, Prime Minister, that the House of Laskaris-Notaras has known at least one Tarusan Empress Consort, and they are a fellow Orthodox monarchy."

The Prime Minister nodded. "That is true, but, with all due respect, business is business."

"To a bourgeois, perhaps," the Crown Prince intervened. "States place their interest above business. I understand that the Chamber of Commerce is pushing you on this front, but there's a reason that our oil and gas industries are primarily state-owned."

"We will examine the matter and come to a conclusion as need be," the Emperor announced. "For now, let the northerners freeze a little, if it accelerates their departure from Bourdignie. We want the liberal powers on our side of the Thaumatic securely contained. Once that is done, then we can look at making some money. The State cannot afford to sacrifice its fundamental interests for the purposes of business. We're in the Old World--where rulers still rule, rather than capitalists."

Krevatas bowed slightly less deeply this time--his back was starting to hurt. "Of course, Your Imperial Majesty."

Footnotes
*The Akritas System, also known by the uniform start of its broadcasts ("Titan, Titan, Titan") as the "Titan System", is Pelasgia's semi-automated, long-range strategic weapons notification system, which gives directions to Pelasgian strategic assets carrying or handling WMDs using encrypted messages on shortwave radio. Named after the medieval system of part-time local farmer-soldier forces on the Empire's border regions, the System was conceived due repeated international crisis in the Basilisk Sea in the 1950s.​

 

[Pelasgia]

Isle of Megali Xera, Western Archipelago Province, Pelasgia
18/02/2022 | 12:00

"Because he did not comply with official instructions." Ioane Kaia had never forgotten the words that had taken him from his family and put him on this desolate, barren rock. This rock, where the sun boiled the lifeless rocks in the summer and the sea pummeled the rocky beaches in the winter; where the only life where ten thousand men crumpled inside an unheated, poorly ventilated prison built of fire-brick by their own labour; where even the lowliest of animal life refused to settle. "Because he did not comply with official instructions, he is subject to immediate penal relocation to the Naval Fortress of Megali Xera, in Western Archipelago Province, until further notice."

One minute, he was playing with his daughter, happy to have finally spent a week at home after ten years in prison for "offences against public order and national unity"; the next, he was being led away by those infamous men of the Krypteia, "His Imperial Majesty's Own Secret Service", for having made a comment publicly criticizing the government's minority assimilation policies in the local coffee shop. The Pelasgians authorities had not even afforded him the decency of trying him under his native name. "Ioannes Kagias" would be his name, in so far as the Imperial State was concerned. So, Ioannes Kagias, "Giannis the Zalian" to the other inmates, had been deported to the arid isle of Megali Xera, in the vicinity of the island of Hagios Georgios, to live out the rest of his days for his offences against the Empire's public unity.

So he did, cracking rocks all day, every day, under the heat of the burning Pelasgian sun, before retiring to a cold, unsanitary prison not fit to serve as a kernel for feral dogs. This day was no exception--or it wouldn't have been, had Kagias not heard the steps of an officer behind him. He knew it had to be an officer, for only they were granted the privilege of sturdy boots with metal heels--the prisoners had to make do with worn-out shoes, whose holes let the sharp rocks on the ground injure their feet.

"Ioannes Kagias," the man said in an imperious tone.

Kagias turned to face him. "Who's asking?"

The man smiled sardonically. He had pale skin--meaning he had to be from northern Pelasgia--and dark eyes and hair--which narrowed it down to the Pelagonia, the core of the original Pelasgian settlement of Himyar. Judging by the man's accent and look of superiority, Kagias was willing to bet that he was dealing with a Propontine.

"Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kosmades," the Pelasgian answered, pointing to the eagle on his peaked cap. "His Imperial Majesty's Own Secret Service."

He was definitely a Propontine--and as for his being with the Krypteia, the man's greyish green uniform was all the indication that Kagias needed as to the his interlocutor's affiliation. "What do you want, Lt. Colonel?"

Kosmades turned to the pair of armed guards accompanying him, both dressed in the grey fatigues of the Imperial Pelasgian Coast Guard's Naval Police Division, and dismissed them. "I want to talk to you about some of your old contacts during your time with the Zalian separatists. The Throne, you see, is in need of your services."

Kagias groaned like an enraged dog. He raised his pickaxe and approached the Pelasgian, towering over him until his shadow almost covered Kosmades. "Why should I help the Throne? Why should I not kill you right now?"

"You could," Kosmades answered, unphased. "But, between you and me, I doubt that you would want to do that."

"And why's that?" Kagias asked.

"Because I'm the only man who can get you off this island, which you so deeply hate," Kosmades explained. "The only man who can get you to see your family again. How old must your daughter, Maria, be now? Nineteen? Twenty?"

Kagias dropped his pickaxe. "What do you want to know?"

Kagias smiled again. "I would like to ask you about your connections with two groups: the All-Pelasgian Democratic Students' League; and the international smuggling and arms-selling branches of the Archipelagian Mafia."

"And if I answer you, you'll get me off the island, back home?" Kagias demanded.

Kosmades nodded. "I'll get you off the island right now. If your answers are satisfactory and helpful, you won't have to return." He gestured southward, in the direction of the island's small airfield. "Come. You can try to refresh your memory on the ride to the mainland."​