Harry Turtledove - Alternate Generals

The wind whispered in the branches of the tree. The water laughed. The embers of the fire made a rosy glow among the shadows. In the distance men shouted and sang. Boudica was murmuring something in her own tongue, something which tickled the edges of my mind.

She unbraided her hair. It flowed thick and golden red down her back.

She, too, was a druid, a priestess, a magician…. I felt myself shrinking, smaller and smaller, until I squatted on the grass looking up at her. My long ears twitched.

My paws were velvet soft. I was a hare, lolloping about the dell. And she was a gray hound, running after me like a swirl of smoke. I bounded across the grass and she was on me, her teeth closing on my puff of a tail.

I dived into the spring. The chill made me shiver. I was a fish, sleek and cold, looking up through the surface of the water at the distorted shapes of fire and tree. And she was an otter, her smooth body knifing through the water, so that whichever way I darted she was on me.

I launched myself upward, into the air, wings beating, beak open to draw in more breath. Into the tree I flew.

The budding leaves brushed my face. And she was a hawk, gliding among the branches with swift, sure strokes, talons striking feathers from my tail.

I fell to the ground a tiny grain of wheat and lay immobile, gazing at the tree, the fire, the water, the sky.

She came toward me, a black hen pecking and clawing.

She grasped me in her beak. I cracked open, seed and chaff, and scattered into the night. Scattered into the morning, and the golden sun rising in Boudica’s blue eyes.

Her cloak billowed into hills, valleys, mountains, groves.

Mistletoe sparkled like dewdrops among the branches of mighty oaks. The turf rang to the beat of horses’ hooves and then parted, revealing the white chalk beneath, making figures of gods and men which not only lay across the land but which were the land itself.

The brooch on the cloak became an embroidery of wells, streams, and rivers lacing sky to earth, land to sea, a green glass sea swelling and falling to the slow spirals of sun and moon. Roads were golden threads stitching together grove and field, hill and shore, strung with temples like fine beadwork. Hibernia in the far west was sewn to Britannia was sewn to Gaul and on into the east, Galatia, Sarmatia … The fine golden embroidery ripped, cut by the iron weapons of Roma, weapons sharp and greedy not for gods but for gold.

Boudica’s hands gathered me up. I blinked, returned to my body. She was not sharp and hard as a hen’s beak, but warm, soft, moist, a fully-fleshed woman leaning over me, her hair a gleaming curtain around us. My mouth was filled by the taste of honey.

Her draught had addled my wits. It had opened my eyes. It had not sabotaged my capabilities. I’d known only courtesans, and to be made free of a highborn woman, Briton or no, was both intimidating and stimulating….

She made free with me, not playing the wanton for my pleasure so much as she expected my pleasure to please her. Which it did, if I do say so myself.

I woke from the dream, from the vision, in Boudica’s bed. I was knocking my fists against my forehead, trying to awaken my wits, when the door of the house opened and Boudica entered. Her hair was tidily braided. She wore a simple woven cloak.

“Good morning.”

“What did you do to me?” I demanded.

“I laid a geas upon you. A fate. To know the truth and to speak it.”

“I would do that in any event. Truth and honor go hand in hand.”

“Do they?” She picked up my tunic from the floor, shook it out, and handed it to me.

“Is truth golden? Or is gold truth?”

“Gold is gold.” I dressed, glancing warily over my shoulder.

“Then you’d better get on with counting that gold which is yours,” she said, and shooed me out the door.

I walked back to the house she’d assigned to me, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. If the warriors found out what had happened they’d slay me on the spot. They took insult easily, these men, and what greater insult could I hand them than to make free with one of their women?

Even worse, with one of their priestesses? I remembered a straying vestal virgin and her lover buried alive, and shuddered.

Not one warrior paid me any attention at all, even though a couple of Boudica’s serving women glanced at me and giggled. I ducked into my house and saw my pack of tablets and pens. That was it. Boudica had sacrificed her honor in order to influence my accounting.

But my duty was to make an honest count… Wondering if yet again I was somehow playing the fool, I gathered up my supplies and set about my business.

The next five days passed from sunlight to soft rain to night and back again. It seemed as though I’d never before noticed the burgeoning of spring, the waxing of the moon, the intricate patterns of wind, water, and wood.

My men went hunting with Boudica’s warriors and acquitted themselves honorably, even as Ebro muttered about undisciplined Iceni hooligans. He drilled my small command every afternoon, to the amusement of Maeve and the younger children. But drill can be learned, while courage cannot; with proper training, I noted, the Iceni would make fine auxiliaries, serving the eagles as well as Ebro and his kind.

One afternoon wagons rolled up the ramp to the gate, bearing treasure from the northwest. Suetonius was campaigning in the northwest, I remembered, and made a note in my margins.

Lovernios worked with me, translating records cut on strips of wood. I had to trust he was giving me a fair accounting, but I didn’t catch him out once. They used writing only for the tallying of goods and stock, I learned.

When it came to the epics of beasts, gods, and heroes, Lovernios and the hard could recite for hours without faltering.

I finished my task. The night before I left, Boudica took me back to the sylvan temple below the embankment.

This was the first time we’d been alone together since I’d waked in her bed. I was both relieved and disappointed to see no fire and no cauldron beside the stream, only a charred circle in the grass. The golden sickle was gone.

But still the branches of the great tree creaked, and water droplets danced above the mossy rocks. Boudica removed a gold tore from her throat and fitted it around mine.

“You like gold, don’t you? Then try this for size.”

The tore was heavy, pulling my collarbones down, elongating my neck. All this time I’d seen her and the warriors wearing such ornaments, and I’d never realized just how uncomfortable they were.

She grasped the knobs at the ends of the coil and pressed them together, choking me.

“Gold belongs to the gods. It devotes us to the gods. They can take us at any time. The braided strands are the rope around the throat and the tree limb above. They’re the sword which separates head from body. Death takes only a moment, but the next life goes on forever. Do you love me?”

Startled, I opened my mouth to utter some flattery, but my lips and tongue said, “No.”

Laughing, she released the tore and teased my short, dark hair.

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to think our hour together was—personal. I only wanted to taste exotic meat. As you did.”

Fair enough, I thought, and was surprised at myself for thinking it.

“And this—geas?”

“You will know the truth and you will speak it. Whether that will be a blessing or a curse remains to be seen.”

I didn’t follow her meaning. I twisted the tore from my neck and held it out to her.

“No,” she said.

“Keep it. As a gift from Andrasta.”

Still puzzled, I looked one last time around the dell, and, concealing the tore in my cloak, returned to my tablets and my pens.