Harry Turtledove: Alternate Generals

Ebro and I sat against the massive trunk of an oak tree, a warrior nearby, and watched the destruction of Londinium. Even at such a distance our faces burned in the heat of the fires, and the screams of the tortured came clearly to our ears. A stream to the west of the city was dammed by severed heads. The waters of the mighty Tamesis were stained with blood. The smoke rose thick and black into the sky, so that the sun looked like an open sore.

I fingered the braided gold of the tore, wrapped around my upper arm beneath my cloak. Its weight kept me off balance, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

Two nights later Lovernios came to me again, told me the two legions were a day’s march away, and asked me for advice.

“They’re better trained and better disciplined,” I told him dully.

“But you outnumber them ten to one. Choose your field so as to give them little room to maneuver and you can defeat them.”

We discussed tactics and the disposition of troops until he at last turned to go.

“Thank you.”

“Lovernios,” I called.

“You tell me. How many other tribes have joined your war?”

“The Atrebates have refused to rise,” he answered, “as have the other tribes in the south. And Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes in the north, is still your ally.”

I didn’t need to drive home the point. I sat back down and prayed for an end, for any end.

Boudica met the legions on Watling Street, between the Roman fort at Manduessum and the British temple at Vernemeton, at a place where the road ran into a narrow defile. Her warriors seethed over the field, beyond counting. They were so confident of victory they brought their families, in wagons at the rear of the field.

The legions divided into three columns, flanked by cavalry and auxiliaries. From our perch on a rocky hillside Ebro spotted the cluster of standards. Beside them I recognized the compact body of Agricola, Suetonius’s most able lieutenant, striding up and down delivering a speech. The legions were in good hands. They would die with honor, and with them the Roman rule of Britannia. How Boudica would then deal with her own cousins, I couldn’t imagine.

She harangued her warriors, her daughters displayed at her side, no doubt pouring scorn on Roma and its men and calling for even more blood. Her voice had become hoarse and shrill, like a crow’s.

At last she released a hare from her cloak, which scurried away toward the Roman line. The Britons clashed their weapons and shouted taunts. I turned away, remembering the night I’d been a hare to Boudica’s hound. But that had been a long time ago, in my youth.

All day the battle raged. The Britons broke like waves against the Roman shore. But at last the sheer weight of numbers began to bottle the legions in the defile.

I was so enrapt I didn’t notice Ebro slip away. We had no guards—no warrior would have missed the battle to watch two such impotent prisoners—so I hurried after him across the bloody ground, past the contorted bodies of Roman and Briton alike.

Boudica leaned forward in her chariot, her hands upraised as though casting a spell. Her hair fell in red waves down her back. Her green cloak billowed behind her. Brighid’s hands were raised in imitation, her own hair flowing free. Behind them slumped Maeve, like a tired schoolgirl wanting nothing more than for the lesson to end.

Several warriors ran by, their long swords mottled with blood. And then I saw Ebro, with a long sword of his own—he’d found it on the field, no doubt. He ran at the chariot, brandishing his weapon, shouting in a deep voice I’d never before heard him use, “Death to the witch!

Death to the enemy of Roma!”

He struck at Boudica and her daughters, once, twice, three times, the sword flaring in the red light of the westering sun. Maeve screamed. Brighid gasped and fell against her mother. Clutching her breast, Boudica stared with cold, empty eyes at her attacker. Blood drowned her green cloak and its golden stitches. The startled horses jerked forward. I seized their bridles and stopped them.

Five Iceni warriors fell upon Ebro, cut him down, and kept on hacking long after he was dead. Then they turned to me.

“No,” said Boudica. She sank to her knees, clasping Brighid to her side. Maeve sat down with a thump behind them.

“Take me away, Marcus. Now.”

I led the horses and the chariot away, expecting a spear in my back at any moment. But as the rumor of Boudica’s wound swept the field the Britons were maddened. Some threw themselves on the Roman swords. Some threw down their weapons and fled. As I gained the hillside and the dappled shadow of an oak tree Agricola began to drive forward, pinning the Britons between the defile and their own wagons.

Boudica, Brighid, and Maeve huddled in the bottom of the chariot, the discolored cloak spread over them.

Ebro hadn’t seen the cloak become Britannia. He’d never tasted the liquid from the cauldron. All he knew was that Boudica had en spelled me to betray my duty, and it was his duty to deliver me. I sent Mithras a quick prayer for Ebro. I didn’t know which god to address for the women, as Andrasta seemed to have deserted them.

Brighid’s cheeks were chalk-white. She was dead, I realized. Maeve cried. In her bloodstained hand Boudica held a vial made of finest Roman glass. She caught the irony in my glance and tried to smile. But her smile was only a feeble grimace.

Behind me someone moved. I spun around. It was Lovernios.

“We are lost,” he said.

“You can still rally your warriors,” I told him.

“No. The queen’s body is our own. If she isn’t strong and sound, then neither are we.”

I’d heard of such a superstition. Had Ebro? That was something I’d never know. I turned back to her.

“Do you hate me?” Boudica asked.

My tongue said, “No. You did your duty, as I did mine.

A pity, that my ambition and your freedom couldn’t be coiled into the same pattern.”

“Duty makes as intricate a pattern as truth. Perhaps there’s a greater truth, that in time will receive us both.

I’ll know, in just a few moments.” With her teeth she pulled the stopper from the vial, spat it out, and drank.

I glanced up at Lovemios.

“Wolfsbane,” he said.

“Poison. You don’t think she’d let herself be taken by your people, do you?”

Boudica offered the vial to Maeve. The child shook her head.

“I don’t want to know, not yet.”

I realized by the strength other voice that she hadn’t been wounded. Ebro might not even have struck at her, but twice at Boudica. I leaped forward and pulled Maeve from the back of the chariot. She stiffened at my touch, but didn’t fight me as I wrapped her and her stubborn spark of life in my tattered cloak.

Boudica choked, gasped, and died. Maeve’s slender body shuddered with hers, and then was still. She turned to Lovemios.

“Here is my first and only order as queen of the Iceni. Take them away, and sink them in some deep pool, so that they’re lost forever to the sight of men.”

“And you?” Lovemios asked. One tear fell from his eye and traced a path into his beard.

“I’ll protect her,” I said. And that was the first thing I’d said in days that was clean and fresh.

Maeve and I sat together beneath the tree as Lovemios led the chariot and the bodies of the two queens into the green and gold afternoon. Neither of us spoke.

Boudica had made a magnificent gamble, worthy of a magnificent woman, and she had lost.

The legions marched over the demoralized Britons, until the bodies of men, women, children, animals lay sprawled as far as the eye could see. At last a centurion ran up the hillside, recognized my clothing and, despite the dark stubble on my face, my origins. He escorted us through the merciful shade of dusk to Agricola.