Celtic Ceili: Triumph
Three months later, Rhosyn and Boudicca stood surrounded by their tired, grimy army on the cliffs overlooking the Channel, watching the last of the Roman Legions sail back to Gaul. It hadn't been an easy war, and several times they had nearly been snared into a pitched battle, but each time Boudicca had slipped away from the temptation, leading her people into the forest to continue their own battle, their way.
Paulinus had lost no troops that day on Watling Street, his own trap snapping shut on empty air as Boudicca, having shouted and exhorted her pitiful, ragged "army" – surely she had more soldiers than this scant number? – suddenly wheeled her chariot about and led them at a run back up the road, accompanied all the while by a woman with long, startling blonde hair (highly unusual for this part of the world) mounted on a white horse. His own Legions had wanted to chase after them, but he'd held them back, seeing right through his enemy's laughable attempt to lure him out of his preferred battlefield.
What followed had been an infuriating exercise in marching back and forth, trying to bring the Britons to battle, watching his own numbers slowly dwindle in nightly raids, hearing the rest grumble more and more vociferously as their supplies were cut off with the burning of Roman settlements throughout the bloody, mist-shrouded island. When he'd finally managed to order Postumus and the Second Legion up from the south, even their combined army hadn't managed to catch a single Briton in their gigantic pincer movement. Instead, not two days after the commanders met face-to-face at last, a messenger arrived from Rome with orders from Nero himself: withdraw. Britain was to be left to its own devices, too far away from the heart of the empire, and at much too high a price in men and money, to be deemed worth the effort. Paulinus had fallen into such a fury at this unspoken rebuke that he'd nearly had a stroke, his men fearing for his life – and their own. The normally even-tempered, fair-minded commander had ordered several men lashed severely for minor infractions, adding even more resentment to the pile, then at last had given the orders to turn back southeast. The Britons had continued harrying them until they were almost within sight of the headland, then drew back to let them board their ships in good order under their watchful gaze. Paulinus stood on the deck of the last ship, the last Roman to step off the beach, and watched the white cliffs fall behind until they vanished in the storm, the hated British weather gods sending them off with a final, fitting squall. He made no vows to return.
That night the entire coastline was lit up with a series of tremendous bonfires, the whole of southeast Britain rising up to celebrate the Romans' departure along with Boudicca's army. They brought out hidden stores of meat and mead, and toasted, sang, and danced far into the night. As word was sent out along the roads spiderwebbing the island, each man and woman reacted according to their lights, some in tears – some few lives had been improved – but most in celebration. Then they looked around, took stock, and began rebuilding. Some of the ideas the Romans had brought weren't bad, after all – warm stone floors heated by hypocausts, for one thing. Luxurious hot baths, for another.
^..^
Shortly after her arrival several months before, Rhosyn had removed the Time Jumper from her wrist and secured it in a small deerskin bag hanging around her neck. She hadn't taken it out once in all the time since. Now, screened from the celebrations going on all around her by some bushes, she carefully undid the knot and slipped the futuristic gizmo out.
Just as Jared had promised, the backlight had slipped from white to green. The timelines had split. She could go home.
"Order me up a pizza, Mum, I'm on my way!" she whispered, grinning through her tears. Then she slipped the Jumper back onto her arm, hiding it under her sleeve just below her elbow. She carefully pressed the button combination Jared had said was Recall, and stared at the date that came onto the display. The very day she'd been snatched on her way to work. Oh, Gaia, how long ago was that? It seemed like half a lifetime. (She only glanced at the other part of the display, presuming it was the location of her kidnapping in London, as he'd also promised.)
Then, carefully stepping out of the bushes as though she'd only been making a pit stop, Rhosyn began wandering from fire to fire, greeting the friends she had made, stopping to drink a toast, saying goodbye – though she didn't say it aloud. Finally, she came to the biggest fire of them all, where Boudicca, Fedelmid and Genofeva were singing and laughing. The girls had recovered their spirits over the summer, exorcising the demons of their nightmares with their swords, becoming warrior women in the image of their famous mother.
"Come, Rhosyn," Boudicca cried in her rough, gravelly voice when she spied her young friend. "Come drink a toast with me!" Standing, she reached into the small chest beside her and pulled out a magnificent, jeweled goblet, twin to the ones she and the girls were holding, the fourth of an obvious set. She filled it with mead from the skin nearby and handed it to Rhosyn. "To your health, little she-wolf. To all our health!"
"To Britain," Rhosyn replied, "and to you, my Queen." Lifting her goblet in tribute, she then drank deeply. I could really get to like this mead stuff. Smiling, she drank again, draining the cup, and then looked closely at it, admiring the filigreed etchings on the side. Suddenly her grin stretched, as she realized the design: roses. With tiny rubies in the center of each one.
"What is so funny, little she-wolf?" Boudicca asked, her words slightly slurred; she'd had more than a few cups of mead, herself.
"I'm stealing this cup, Boudicca. And there's nothing you can do about it."
The Queen laughed. "As you're part of my household, Rhosyn, it's not exactly stealing – " suddenly she stopped, instantly sober, as the words and the meaning behind them penetrated. "You're leaving?"
"Yes." Rhosyn nodded, regret making a halo of the firelight in her hair. "I've done what I came to do. And now it's time to go home." She turned to Genofeva, who had greeted her and made her feel at home the very first day. "I'm giving my pony to you. Take good care of her?"
Full of mead-fueled protest, both girls jumped up to hug Rhosyn, but she waved their pleas to stay to silence before turning back to their mother.
Boudicca's eyes were wide with wonder. "You never told me where you came from. The things you knew... and now you say you came here with a purpose. Did the gods truly send you to save us from the Romans?"
Caught flat-footed, Rhosyn spluttered softly, then shrugged, smiling. What could she say? How could she explain that she was from the far distant future, correcting timelines? Who was to say that didn't make her – and those who sent her – gods?
Boudicca shook her head, putting aside the question. Suddenly impulsive, she flung her arms around Rhosyn and pulled her in for a backbreaking hug. "I shall miss you terribly," she whispered.
Rhosyn hugged her back, hard, unable to reply for fear of breaking down completely. Then she dropped her arms and forced herself to step back. "Goodbye," she whispered.
"But how will you go without a horse?" Fedelmid wanted to know.
Rhosyn just laughed. Then she lifted her arm, shifted the jeweled cup to that hand, pushed up her sleeve, and punched the button, leaving the Iceni women staring openmouthed at the sudden hole in the air.
^..^
The cacophony of tooting horns and gunning engines hit Rhosyn's ears, almost deafening her after the incredible silence of the forest she'd gotten used to. Her eyes stung, and a single gasp started her coughing from the exhaust. Yup. She was back in London. How could she ever have thought this was clean air?
Looking wildly around, she realized with a start that she was back on Queen Boudicca Street, just a block away from where she'd been snatched. She took off at a run, ignoring the puzzled looks of passersby at her outlandish, primitive attire. Reaching the corner, she screeched to a halt, gaping ahead – there she was, her own self, blue jeans and hoodie, walking nonchalantly away. And there was the goon who had grabbed her – was grabbing her now, and punching the button on his Time Jumper even as her former self threw him to the sidewalk – and they both flashed out of existence.
Rhosyn gulped. It was real. She was back. The entire thing had really happened. She looked down at her hands, realizing that she still held the jeweled goblet. Yes, it had happened.
Suddenly she took off again, her feet moving before the thought that impelled them had really sunk into her consciousness. Three blocks ahead, two, one... there it was. She screeched to another halt, gaping up a the statue she'd passed every day for three years, glancing fondly up at her heroine. But it had changed from the last time she'd seen it.
Passersby swerved around the strangely dressed young woman, staring at her in consternation as she doubled up in slightly hysterical laughter, grinning like a maniac at the statue of the Warrior Queen Boudicca of the Iceni.
Standing proudly alone, one bronze hand holding aloft a sword, the other resting on the head of a she-wolf.