THEY ARE BUT LOYAL
Author's Note: Ok. First, wow, it's been a long time since I posted here. Over a year. I feel bad about that. Good news, I have a few stories in the works for those more interested in fandoms like Mission Impossible, and Hawaii Five-0, and Avengers... Bad news, small things like this, and Masters research, well, they keep getting in the way.
But I'll get there!
In the meantime, I watched Spartacus: (various subtitles). In fact, I watched Vengeance in a single day. Yep, all 10 eps. And I could not get that last episode out of my head. I think it was just breathtakingly awesome, and I had to write some words about the multitude of emotions that swept across those manly, sexy faces every few minutes. So was born this little introspection from Gannicus.
Spoilers for the second half of season 2... Or season 3, depends how you see the prequel... let's just go with Vengeance. Spoilers for second half of Vengeance. Possibly for other things, but I wrote it quick, and I keep getting distracted by half naked men.
Man, Spartacus is awesome.
Anyways, here you go.
Disclaimer: I do not own Spartacus, either the sexy man (well, men, so sad about Andy Whitfield!) or the fantastic show! And the title is from Episode 6, I think, which Spartacus says to Gannicus.
THEY ARE BUT LOYAL
He doesn't believe in the rebellion.
Then again, there are few things Gannicus truly believes in. Wine, whores and the coin to secure them. The glory of the arena. The honour in brotherhood. But he does not believe the rebellion can succeed over hundreds of years of Roman tradition and strength.
He tells himself he should leave. Disappear beyond the reach of Rome, win some coin and enjoy a hopefully long life. He won't find that here, amongst this pitiful excuse of a rebellion, stealing and hunting barely enough to get by, struggling to arm every man and woman. He is likely to die here, amongst this desperate cacophony of pride and arguments. He tells himself he should leave.
And yet he stays.
He stays, because he still seeks to rise in the eyes of the man he has called brother, Doctore, Oenomaus. He stays because he seeks repentance. A foreign notion to a man who only seeks whores and glory.
He stays, and he watches. He drags Illythia back to the temple, hoping to save Oenomaus the death upon the cross, and when Spartacus fails to kill her and exact his retribution, he stays, hoping to save Oenomaus yet. For brotherhood, for honour, and for Melitta. It's the smallest thing he owes her, and him.
He stays, when Spartacus releases the praetor's bitch, and he watches. The man, he thinks, is a fool, seeking a different kind of glory, a name spoken with fear throughout the entire Republic, a recognition beyond the arena.
Gannicus has spent his entire life believing there is no such thing.
A man who, granted, equals him in a fight. Perhaps the only man who could have given him his own glorious death in the arena. If he hadn't burned the arena down.
And that small fact, that Spartacus, a Thracian turncoat in a previous life and under a forgotten name, could provide that glorious death if they are ever able to return to the arena, well, maybe that plays a small part in the reason he stays.
So he watches; watches it all with a shrewdness born of years living free, when there was no security in brotherhood, and the ludus. When he didn't have those walls to protect him, and all he had was his wits and his sword. He watches them all, Spartacus, Oenomaus, Crixus, the men from east of the Rhine, and watches how they fight and quarrel and would try to kill each other given half a reason, and he wonders how they haven't destroyed themselves already.
When Spartacus asks him to join him on his night attack on the temple, Gannicus just smirks. He knows the result before it happens, knows Agron, and Meera, and Naevia, and even Oenomaus will fall before the three Champions of Capua. Knows that if he truly wanted to, he could breach the walls and kill them all before a call is sound.
It is only as he breaches the wall seconds after Spartacus that he realises that the Thracian knows it too.
And later it strikes him that maybe he has misjudged the man, when Agron returns with drink and lifted spirits, and Spartacus commands them to work out their differences in the only way men like them understand. In blood and fists.
The feeling grows when he realises that Spartacus knows everything he needs to know about his men; who they like, who they disagree with, who they would kill in another life. When he doesn't turn to the end of a whip to make his freed slaves – his people – fall into single purpose. And as he walks away from the fight with Crixus and Agron, he notices the small smile on the man's face, and gets his first sight of the man who turned Crixus from blood thirsty, glory seeking gladiator to loyal second.
Crixus, who has changed beyond what the years should have wrought. Who turned against the house that freed him from the mines and hard labour and made him a warrior. Crixus, who could stand to be below no man. Who listened only to those who could make him a more efficient killer. A better killer. And maybe Spartacus hasn't made Crixus a better killer, but he has made him – does he dare to think it – better?
The thoughts flee when the temple is attacked, and they are forced up the mountain, heady victory fleeing before the sobering need to retreat, and Gannicus supposes that the fool he thought Spartacus to be would have attacked Glaber's overwhelming numbers.
The selfish man he had thought Spartacus to be would have sought only revenge. Would have led them to death. But he is neither fool, nor selfish, and if he had been either, then he would not have continued worrying over how to get his people out of this situation and off the mountain.
Yet even in his half-hearted and masked apology, of reminding the man that he was bold tactician and not reckless fool, Gannicus does not understand. He could believe that Crixus would follow a bold tactician and an ideal. He has trouble believing Oenomaus would, especially an ideal as foolish as this, but then, perhaps the man was simply continuing to care for the men he had trained.
It wasn't until later that he truly understands
As Ashur stands before them, and the men and women of the House of Batiatus look upon him with only hate. When he gives an offer to men who do not understand the hurt this Syrian has given. When he gives an offer to men starving and thirsty and desperate for an end.
When Ashur gives the offer, even before Oenomaus demands the cost, Gannicus looks around, searching the eyes of the men and women around him, knowing exactly what the price of the bargain will be.
He feels fear swell in his own heart at Ashur's confirmation, and Nemetes' words, feels the anxiety matched on the face of Crixus as he looks at Spartacus' fallen brow and sad eyes. And he watches, as he has done since joining this rebellion, waiting for them to accept the Syrian's offer. Knows, beyond doubt, that they will betray Spartacus in order to save their own lives.
The men of the House of Batiatus, legends before their feet tasted freedom, killers of hundreds between them, dare the rest of the rabble to make a move.
Only he is wrong. Nemetes speaks of dying free, masking his loyalty behind the ideal. And then… then Gannicus understands the depths of the changes this Thracian has made in his gladiators, slaves, foreign warriors. Maybe he does not understand how, but he understands that these men believe not only in freedom. They believe, truly believe, that Spartacus will be the one to bring it to them.
The disbelieving smile that creeps across his face is bittersweet.
It is more than strategy and the luck Spartacus claimed. It is more than the lure of continued freedom. This gladiator, this Thracian has sparked something in them. As Gannicus looks between Crixus, Oenomaus, Agron, and even between the sword in his hand, he realises. It is more than freedom. It is more even than courage. It is loyalty. A loyalty so fierce that the loyalty once given to the House of Batiatus pales in comparison.
And so he stays, and continues watching, as Spartacus leads them to both glory and death, to Oenomaus lying on the ground before him, spirit departing to see Melitta in the afterlife. He could have run then, his reasons for staying departing with his brother's life. And yet he returns to the temple, in time to see Spartacus kill the praetor and claim victory, unsure why he was not running for the edge of Rome's reach.
He stays, and pays his respects to a man he had never called brother in the arena but would gladly do so in life nonetheless. He stays, even as Spartacus lays claim to the lives of Rome's legions. Gannicus feels his back straighten, felt his heart swell, even as he hears the lie.
And he understands.
He will not follow the rebellion. But he will follow the man.