Harry Turtledove - Alternate Generals

I took her statement as a jest. Unless—well, no, her Latin was impeccable, she meant what she said.

She went on, in a low vibrant voice, “He left you half his property. The other half I hold in trust for my daughter, heir to the rule of the Iceni.”

I glanced at the assembled warriors. But they couldn’t understand what she was saying, no wonder they didn’t seem unsettled by it.

“We’ll hold a feast tonight, in your honor,” concluded Boudica.

“My men will show you and your men to your own house.”

I realized I was standing there with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Ah—thank you. We’d like a bath, after the long road….”

She smiled so broadly crescent lines cleft her cheeks.

“I’ll have the servants bring you basins of water.”

“Thank you,” I said again, as though I were the client.

Boudica turned and went out through the curtain.

Beyond it stood a brown-bearded man wearing a white robe and a collar of gold. Her head tilted toward his and she spoke. The curtain fell.

I made a neat about-face and strode back down the length of the building. My task here, I thought, wasn’t going to be as simple as I’d first assumed. If Boudica’s jewelry were any indication, the Iceni had more than a few trinkets worthy of Nero’s coffers. And delivering such an accounting would certainly grease my path to advancement.

The old man put down the scroll. Someone was shouting in the street, and a wheeled vehicle rattled by, but the house itself was silent.

His belly hurt. He considered calling for his wife to rub his back, but no, she’d be in her garden, gathering the herbs for this afternoon’s banquet. She’d prepare his porridge and soft meats with her own hands, as she usually did, but beneath her keen eye the cooks would make ready a sumptuous meal for a very special guest.

Already a spicy odor hung in the air, but his appetite had deserted him long ago.

“Rufus!” the old man called in his reedy voice.

The servant materialized in the doorway.

“Let me know the moment my son arrives.”

“Yes, master.” The servant vanished again. A good man, Rufus. Marcus had left instructions in his will that he be freed….

Not that the instructions in a will were always followed, were they? With a groan he picked up the scroll again.

Warriors and their women sat down together at the feast, ranged in a circle around a blazing fire in the center of the great hall. Servants passed meats, breads, herbs, and a Falemian wine as fine as any my father ever served at his table in Roma. I’d heard that the chief god of the Britons was Mercury, the patron of merchants. I began to see why.

Through the smoky gloom I caught again and again the gleam of gold, elect rum and gilded bronze. Everyone wore ornaments, brooches, necklaces—outside I’d seen even their splendid horses adorned with metalwork.

Every ornament was designed in the living lines of plants, of horses’ tails, of serpents. Our own utilitarian items seemed dull and flat.

Tonight Boudica’s brooch held a cloak of green silk stitched with sinuous designs in gold thread. It rustled faintly as she motioned me to sit beside her and her daughters. They were lissome, red-headed girls of about fifteen and twelve, introduced as Brighid and Maeve.

When I asked if Prasutagus had arranged marriages for them before his death the girls looked faintly shocked, but Boudica smiled.

She herself was perhaps five and thirty, past her youth but not beyond remarriage. I expected every tribal monarch across Britannia was vying for her hand. Even half the wealth of the Iceni would be a prize.

Every now and then one of the warriors hurled some boast at me, which Boudica translated, erring on the side of courtesy, I imagine. She made no move to reprove the mens’ boisterousness. Her rule was probably only courtesy to their king’s widow, I thought. She had no real power.

The white-robed man sat behind us. More than once I felt his eyes on the back of my neck, but every time I looked around his bearded face was bland. At last I asked Boudica who he was, thinking he was perhaps her brother and guardian.

“He is Lovemios,” she replied.

“My advisor.”

The man himself nodded, with an amused smile identical to Boudica’s. I’d never before found myself the butt of such a subtle joke. Was Lovernios a druid who’d escaped Suetonius’s nets? Between my ignorance of the Iceni’s customs and the delectable wine I was no doubt playing quite the fool. I made a note to pay closer attention.

The fire burned down and the faces of the Iceni grew red as Boudica’s hair. But their taunts and the occasional gnawed bone were aimed more at each other than at my men, who sat to one side watching the scuffles as they’d watch a gladiatorial combat.

Boudica exchanged a look with Lovemios. He slipped out. Another man entered, raised an instrument like a lyre, and began to sing.

“It’s the story of a boar hunt,” Boudica murmured, her breath piquant with wine and herbs.

“He’ll sing of bulls and horses and the deeds of our ancestors.”

As a follower of Mithras, I understood the bull, and nodded.

The girls rose from their seats.

“Good night. Tribune,” said Brighid gravely, and little Maeve blushed and said, “Good night.”

“Young ladies,” I returned with a slight bow.

Boudica stood up, draping her cloak about her shoulders.

“Come with me. Tribune, and I’ll show you one of our temples.”

“Very good. Lady.” I managed to stand without stumbling. The cool night air, even with its hint of manure, tasted delicious after the close, smoky hall. I expected Boudica to bring me to a building, but no, we walked down into a dell in the side of the embankment. Above us a sentry stood outlined against the star-strewn sky, a glint of gold at his neck.

In the bottom of the dell burned a fire, illuminating a tree so large all I could see of it were a few limbs curving toward the earth and rising again. A semicircle of gold was embedded in one thick limb. Above the fire a small bronze cauldron hung from a tripod, steaming gently.

Nearby a spring issued from a rock grotto and rippled away into the darkness.

With one twist of her hands Boudica removed her tore.

It must have been almost pure gold to bend so easily.

She held it up, so that it shone red-gold in the firelight.

Then she threw it into the water. I started forward, appalled and confused in equal measure. But it was gone.

She laughed.

“Gold belongs to the gods. They send it to us, we work it into shapes which honor them, and then we give it back.”

“Oh.” I could hear Catus’s voice quizzing me—how many springs and wells contained gold offerings? Where did the gold come from?

“This is the shrine of Andrasta, my patron goddess,” Boudica went on.

“Victoria in your tongue.”

“Minerva,” I translated.

“Not necessarily.” She pulled what I now saw was a golden sickle from the tree, and from a branch cut a bunch of small white berries. She sprinkled them into the cauldron.

“Mistletoe, which grows on the sacred oak.

Vervain, henbane with its purple flowers, the early fruit of the elder.”

The odor filled my head, flowers and herbs both sweet and bitter.

“And what accounting will you give to Catus?” she asked.

I wondered if she intended to offer me a bribe.

“The truth.”

“Well then, Tribune Marcus, the truth is that my late husband left his property to your emperor hoping to buy respect. But respect can’t be bought.”

“Why not? I know freed slaves who’ve made themselves into successful merchants and become quite respectable.”

“Wealth makes one respectable, does it? But our wealth is our freedom. And that’s what we would keep.” She swept the sickle through the liquid in the cauldron, throwing several drops onto my forearm. My flesh burned. Instinctively I lifted my arm to my lips. The hot liquid scalded my tongue. First a foul taste, and then a honeyed one, swelled into my mouth and nose. Boudica smiled.