Celtic Ceili: Reflections
Verulamium, Venonae, Letocetum. The Romanized towns were strung out, beadlike, along the Roman road stretching northwest from Londinium that would one day be called Watling Street. One by one they were abandoned, the inhabitants fleeing for their lives with whatever they could carry, then picked over and burned to the ground by Boudicca's army as they chased Paulinus and the two legions he commanded. Some of those now homeless flocked to her banner: slaves, servants, Britons whose lives had not been "improved" under their Roman masters. Most scattered into the countryside, scrabbling for refuge among the farms and villages that had been supporting the towns. Some – Roman citizens and tradesmen who had been transplanted into Britain from elsewhere in the vast Roman Empire – lay low until the army had passed, then began trudging back towards the Channel and the continent, ready to return from whence they'd come. The Auxiliaries and small troops of soldiers which had been detached to guard and police those towns had been swept up by Paulinus on his way through scant days before, leaving them defenseless.
Thus, the two growing armies marched across the island of Britain towards Viroconium. Rhosyn, of course, did not take part in the sackings or the minor skirmishes engendered when they came across small reconnaissance parties or supply wagons bound for the Legions; she hadn't even bothered to replace the sword she'd left in the neck of the single man she'd killed. Instead, she sat on her pony, Peace, and watched from a distance, lost in contemplation of the strange fate that found a shop girl from the twenty-first century attempting to make history two thousand years before she was born.
She knew from her own reading, long before her adventure began (half of her pitiful single-short-shelf "library" comprised biographies of Boudicca; the other half other warrior queens in history) that even now Emperor Nero was sitting in Rome, beset and besieged on all sides, and seriously considering writing his conquest of Britain off as a lost cause and pulling his legions out in order to send them to other fronts closer to home. All the Britons had to do was simply hang on long enough, and cause enough debilitating damage and harassment, and they would win out by default. (Why, she suddenly wondered, wasn't she herself mentioned in those books on her shelf? She made a mental note to read them again when she returned – if she returned – to see if there were any coded hints to her presence.)
Her mind often wandered on those long marches to the other six copies of herself, wondering about the worlds they had come from. What were those worlds like? How were their lives different from her own? The fact that her own timeline had been split off earliest meant it had followed a completely different path for two long millennia. All of the others even spoke the same language, so remote from her own that she hadn't understood a word. What, she wondered, had happened in those other timelines? Had this Roman invasion, apparently successful in the alternate timeline, the root of all those others, really made that much of a difference?
Apparently so, she decided. The Britons in her world had learned the lessons of this one attempted invasion very well, and put them to good use again and again. Never again would an invader gain even this much of a toehold: building roads, cities, and installing governments. Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans – all of them would find slim pickings and a coastline bristling with defenders, and give up the idea in short order. Britain had never become a world power, but neither had she been left behind, isolated and insular, in the modern world. Boudicca and every ruler thereafter had sent countless wise and learned men and women abroad to learn everything they could about the world and the people in it, bringing back philosophies, inventions, knowledge, science, animals, food, goods of every kind – and especially methods of government and warfare, particularly defensive warfare. No one would ever colonize the British Isles – in fact, the Basque kingdom of Euskadi in northern Spain was the only other country in Europe to equal their long, unconquered history. The Britons had been dubbed a "nation of copycats" again and again, which bothered them not one bit; they were free, and from their island picked and chose the best of everything the world had to offer. But only the best; they also resisted the invasion of desert gods whose misogynist prophets stained their followers with iron patriarchy. In Rhosyn's time, Britain was the most peaceful and egalitarian society on Earth, having grafted choice bits of Eastern philosophies onto their native druidism.
History... she wondered again at the two men who had claimed to be time travelers from the future, Jack and Jared, and the version of herself who had evidently traveled with them. Had she faced situations like this before? What had she done? Probably something spectacular... The ease with which that other Rhosyn (Rose, she corrected herself, remembering the translation of her name that all the others bore) had taken command of the situation had sent streaks of envy down Rhosyn's back. More than anything else, she wanted to live up to that (guessed-at) example. She wanted to do something spectacular, something world changing. She wanted to make a difference.
And just as much, she wanted to go home. Her thighs and butt were saddle sore, she missed the warm, bright, comfy flat she shared with her Mum, she wondered what was going on in her favorite TV shows, she would kill for a pizza, let alone a hot cuppa, and her narrow twin bed piled high with bright comforters and pillows seemed more and more like her idea of heaven with each passing night spent miserably shifting around on the hard, cold ground. The only thing she didn't particularly miss, oddly, was her boyfriend, Ciaran, the good-for-nothing mechanic. (The mental image of Jared and her mirror image, so obviously half of each other's whole, paraded again before her eyes, making new streaks of envy. Will I ever find someone to love me like that?) And her job. Going to have to make some changes in that department when I get back. Back to school for one thing. I'm ready for it now.
A sudden commotion from ahead in the long line of marchers – she'd drifted quite a ways back in the crowd without noticing – brought her out of her reverie, and she strained to hear what was being shouted back down the line. What she heard sent waves of warring excitement and terror racing through her system, and she kicked Peace into a gallop past the shouting warriors. She had to find Boudicca NOW, and try to do that something spectacular.
The Legions they were chasing had stopped to make their stand at last.