Nano advance and visit to Sparta

$ cat nano/Inaros_advancing_20051117.txt | perl wc.pl
W: 58045 (MP: 232.18, PP: 116.09), %: 48.3708333333333

All right, 2,236 more words, which make a NaNo-total of 17,884; still well behind, but advancing at good pace...

I have found a "nice" twist to the "Spartan Operation":

I have introduced a young Persian soldier, called Bagâbigna. This is an actual Old Persian name, according to my sources, he was a Persian, father of Hydarnes (who was actually called Vindarna --this is actually a hard one to catch, from Persian to Greek), who was a Persian ally of Darius.

Thus, re-using to name for my own purposes, we have:

Bagabuxsha -> Megabyzos
Vindarna -> Hydarnes
Bagâbigna -> Megabazos (dubious, I'd bet for Megabizos, and the turn from iota to alpha is unexplained)

A way to get out of here is to explain this in the novel (I'd love to actually see the greek original, really!) is that Bagâbigna is trying to disguise himself from being too Persian, and therefore said his name wrong on purpose, and this was understood by the greeks as Megabazos... Weak, I know, but for the time being, my best bet... I'll have to revise this in the PHR anyway...

And now back to writing!

Kallisti