Chapter XXXVIII: All Roads to Rome

"Wait, hang on a second," Romani choked out. "Did you just say Queen Boudica? You're sending your son out to get Queen Boudica?"

Connla looked at his mother questioningly, but she just sternly ordered him, "Go."

He shrugged indifferently and left, and I followed him with a well-placed bug as he navigated his way back out to the courtyard, but I only half paid any attention to it, because his mother had just dropped a big bombshell.

"Yes," Aífe confirmed, as though saying it again would make any more sense than it had the first time. "Queen Boudica is fighting on the Gallian front of this conflict. Her help will be essential to ensuring you reach the capital city safely."

"I-I feel like there's several things wrong with that statement!" Romani protested.

"There are," I agreed. "Like why she'd be fighting for Rome instead of trying to rip it apart."

Unless that was part of the distortion in this Singularity. Could one of the things that had been thrown off course be the very rebellion that Boudica staged against the Empire? It seemed strange to think it, but if the divergence was early enough into the timeline, then maybe it was possible. Maybe.

If only the books I'd been studying up on had been better about offering clearer dates for things instead of focusing more on the minutiae of what had been done to who and why. Or done both. Both was better.

"Hello!" Rika's hand shot up. "Bumbling neophyte, here!"

"Senpai!" Mash sputtered.

Rika ignored her, tilting her head to one side. "What's the big deal about this Boudica lady fighting for Rome?"

"I-it's a very big deal!" Romani told her. "Rome — under Emperor Nero's orders, too — did lots and lots of terrible things to Queen Boudica and her family! Incredibly terrible things! Unspeakably!"

"They raped her," I told Rika bluntly, since Romani seemed to be trying to sugarcoat it. He blanched. "Her and her daughters, repeatedly, violently. Her husband was a king in Britain, and they were supposed to have an alliance with Rome. When her husband died, he left his kingdom in joint possession of both his daughters and Rome, and Rome decided that they were just going to take the whole thing, and damn the king's dying wishes."

"T-Taylor!" Romani scolded me.

"If they don't find it out from me, they'll find it out from someone else," I retorted mulishly.

"Still!"

"Afterwards, Queen Boudica raised a rebellion against Rome," Mash said quietly, picking up where I left off. "She razed every Roman settlement in her path through Britain, but she and her army were eventually defeated, and she died." Even quieter, Mash added, "It's estimated her forces killed eighty-thousand Roman citizens throughout their revolt, most of them civilians."

"She wanted revenge," Ritsuka mumbled.

"Talk about being indiscriminate, though…" said Rika, subdued. "Eighty-thousand people…"

I didn't know if I could really imagine myself killing eighty-thousand people in a rampage for revenge. Even at my pettiest and most wrathful, my darkest fantasies had been focused — precise. I may have come quite far from that girl in the bathroom, soaked through with soda and soft drinks, barely holding back a swarm of angry bugs, but I couldn't think I'd ever been capable of that much collateral damage, no matter the insult.

Romani sighed. "The politics adds more depth to the situation than that. Queen Boudica's personal pain may have been what motivated her, but the other tribes and kingdoms in Britain also had to deal with Roman exploitation around that time, too. Really high taxes, whole tribes being enslaved, all sorts of ugliness that usually gets glossed over in the history books. It wasn't just about one woman getting revenge for the suffering of her family."

Like that somehow made it better that eighty-thousand innocent people died. Then again, Hitler had blown that number straight out of the water, and the Slaughterhouse Nine had existed, so the sorts of evils people could commit against random strangers didn't really surprise me anymore.

"It might not even be relevant," Emiya added. He addressed Aífe. "We're assuming Boudica is a Servant, but can you confirm that she's not a human being instead?"

So I wasn't the only one who had that thought, then. Yeah, half of the trouble we might have with Boudica could be avoided if her rebellion hadn't even started yet because she was still alive and well. On the other hand, a living Boudica who was in the middle of her rebellion when the Singularity formed would be a whole lot bigger of a problem, but wouldn't have made sense if she was supposedly fighting on Rome's side.

"She is," Aífe confirmed. "The events you're speaking of have already transpired. The living Queen Boudica is already dead, her rebellion already crushed. The Queen Boudica fighting on the Gallian front is indeed a Servant, another of what you would call a stray."

Emiya chuckled darkly. "Summoned here to fight for the empire that killed her and tortured her family, less than a year after the wound was technically inflicted. I don't envy her."

Neither did I. But then, I'd put my demons behind me when the time came to fight Scion. They were just too petty in the face of the end of the world. It made sense to me that Servants summoned to the cause of saving the world could do the same, even if their pains were of a magnitude greater than mine had ever been.

Well, maybe that depended on the Heroic Spirit, too. I think I would have been more surprised if Mordred and King Arthur were fighting side by side, for example.

"The question of Queen Boudica's feelings is one that only she can answer," Aífe declared as though it were law. "However she feels, she has decided to lend her blade and her chariot to Rome for the sake of correcting history. Of that, you can be certain."

"Something like that is always certain," Emiya said ominously, "up until the moment you find a knife in your back."

"I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt," Ritsuka interjected. "We don't have any reason to distrust her, right?"

Emiya shrugged. "If that's the position you want to take. Although, Master, you'll forgive me, but I wouldn't be doing my job as your Servant if I didn't keep an eye on her, just in case."

"You'll do what you think is necessary, Emiya," Rika agreed solemnly. And then, as though to counteract that moment of seriousness, she continued, "Just make sure you're not watching Queen Booty too closely! I don't want you to get distracted!"

"S-Senpai!" Mash sputtered as Emiya choked on his own spit.

"Rika," her brother muttered, exasperated.

Romani and I both let out a sigh. Arash, on the other hand, chuckled.

"Don't worry, Rika," he said good-naturedly. "I'll keep an eye on Emiya, too, to make sure he doesn't get distracted by…Queen Booty's booty."

Ritsuka groaned as I grimaced, and Mash shot Arash a look of stunned betrayal. Emiya dropped his face into his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Rika, on the other hand, lit up like a Christmas tree. "I dunno," she said dubiously, although the smile still straining at the corners of her mouth betrayed her. "It might be too much booty for even you to handle, Arash. What if you get distracted, too?"

Arash lifted one hand up and pressed the other over his heart, like he was offering an oath. "I'll be like a monk, I swear. No distractions for me!"

Rika grinned.

Stop encouraging her, I sent Arash sternly.

Arash didn't even flinch; he just kept smiling like I hadn't said anything at all.

"It's a good thing Director Animusphere isn't here," Romani said. "She'd be chewing all of you out for that one."

Rightly so, in this case, I didn't say.

"Queen Boudica aside," I began, attempting to steer the conversation back on course, "are there any other Servants we should be aware of, going forward? Any other strays we can expect to find?"

Aífe, who had been watching the shenanigans with a sort of bemused smile, pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Not as such," she eventually said. "Spartacus generally accompanies Queen Boudica, but insofar as other Servants on the side of the proper Roman Empire are concerned, it's largely those two and the three of us here." She gestured to herself and Lancelot, plus the absent Connla. "If there are more allied to Emperor Nero, I have not been made aware of them."

"Spartacus?" Romani sputtered again. "H-hang on a second! Why is another Heroic Spirit who rebelled against Rome also fighting on its side!"

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

And maybe I didn't have as good a grasp on that as I thought I did a minute ago, if that still surprised me. Even if I understood the idea of putting aside old grudges for the sake of the greater good, it still felt like there should be at least one or two Servants that weren't that pragmatic. Were Heroic Spirits simply that much better people than the capes I'd fought beside on Gold Morning? Where was the factionalism that had fractured our forces then, the same self-centered way of thinking that had made my becoming Khepri necessary in the first place? Where were the infighting and the selfishness, the petty whims and revenge?

Maybe that was what it really meant to be a Heroic Spirit. That you were so exceptional that you weren't really human in the way regular people were.

Aífe shrugged. "His reasons are his own. If you can manage to interpret some form of intelligible response from him, then all the better for you."

"Th-that answer doesn't get better the more times you use it, you know!" said Romani.

Rika's hand rose again.

"Bumbling neophyte!" she chirped cheerfully.

I swallowed a groan. Note to self, one of the things we were going to have to try and squeeze in among all the other things I was teaching them between Singularities was lessons on major Heroic Spirits and relevant historical details.

"Spartacus was a gladiator," Mash answered her dutifully. "He led an uprising of Roman slaves against the Empire, achieved several decisive victories against the Roman legions, but was eventually defeated and died in battle."

"The fact he was a gladiator means he was also a slave," Romani added. "Undoubtedly, that had something to do with how successful he was at bringing his rebellion together. If he'd been a Roman general or something, it would have just been internal politics."

"So he has just as much reason to hate Rome as Queen Booty — I mean, Queen Boudica does," Ritsuka mused.

Rika sniggered at his slipup.

"If you'll forgive me for interrupting," Lancelot demurred, "we Servants are formed after our deaths. While it's true that we can't easily shake the feelings we had when we were alive, there is a certain perspective that comes with being a Servant. Perhaps that is why Spartacus fights for Rome, even though he rebelled against it."

"Or he's simply mad," Aífe chimed in. "He is a Berserker, after all."

Lancelot nodded and conceded the point. "That is also possible."

"A Berserker?" Romani grunted. "That's great. He's going to be impossible to negotiate with. We'll be lucky to understand a word that comes out of his mouth."

"Indeed," said Aífe, sounding very much amused.

Romani let out a long sigh. "I guess it's better than having him as an enemy from the beginning."

"Queen Boudica and Spartacus…"

Why them, exactly? Jeanne had been summoned as a counter to Jeanne Alter, Siegfried as a counter to Fafnir, Georgios as a general counter to the wyverns, Bradamante was a hero from French tradition, and even Marie Antoinette was at least French royalty, for all that I hadn't had the pleasure of actually meeting her.

But other than a tenuous connection to Rome — a hostile one, at that — and maybe a more general connection to this era, why had Queen Boudica and Spartacus been summoned to aid the empire they hated?

Maybe I would never know. And more importantly…

"Then if those two are on our side," I said, "what do the enemy's forces look like?"

"I told you, didn't I?" said Aífe. "A coalition of Roman emperors, with Romulus at the head."

"More specific than that," I clarified.

"Do you expect me to recognize them all by sight?" she asked, one eyebrow rising. "A Heroic Spirit who has ascended to the Throne of Heroes will gain insight into those heroes who came both before and after, this is true, but even so, very few are so prominent that they can be recognized by appearance alone. No Heroic Spirit could possibly mistake Excalibur for any other sword, but that doesn't mean that any but those who knew him would know King Arthur the instant they laid eyes on him."

"Even that is no guarantee," Lancelot added. "Any Knight of the Round Table could never mistake the king for anyone else, but there are those who would call Sir Gawain as King Arthur because he served as the king's stand-in during moments when Arthur had duties elsewhere."

Inconvenient, but I understood the point. It was easy to forget, sometimes, but back before the internet and readily available cameras, the only way to know what someone looked like without seeing them for yourself was to hear from other people about them. Even then, descriptions like that could be vague at the best of times, and that meant that what one person conjured up in their head could and would be vastly different from what another imagined. All of that didn't even have to look anything like the real person.

Sculptures and monuments helped. But even those couldn't capture everything, and some of them were made based upon secondhand accounts centuries after the actual person died. Jeanne was a good example, because the only contemporary depictions of her were doodles scribbled in the margins of court documents.

"So you don't know the identity of any of the enemy Servants?" Mash asked.

Aífe held up a pair of fingers. "Aside from Romulus? Only two, for certain. The United Empire's foothold in Gaul is currently being commanded by Julius Caesar. The other I can confirm is Caligula, who tends to act as a cudgel against targets of the United Empire's interest instead of an occupying force."

"Julius Caesar?" Romani groaned. "Et tu, Brute?"

"I don't know about any tutu brood-hays," said Rika, "but even I've heard of Julius Caesar."

"And that should tell you exactly how much trouble he could be for us," Romani said glumly. He turned to Aífe again. "I'm going to assume even you have trouble defeating him? He was summoned into Rome, and he's one of the most famous emperors in human history. It would probably be like trying to fight Napoleon in France."

At his absolute strongest, Romani meant.

"Whoever said any such thing?" Aífe asked coolly. "The United Empire has largely refrained from testing me — perhaps out of a well-developed sense of self-preservation. They've sent foot soldiers to try and gauge my defenses, but I've yet to meet any of their Servants in battle."

I blinked at her. "You mean you haven't actually fought any Servants since you were summoned?"

The bloodthirsty warrior who raised the contrarian hellion known as Connla was being so conservative that she hadn't even left to scratch the itch of her bloodlust? Had I misjudged her personality to that large a degree?

"I told you, I am the gatekeeper that guards Britain and Éire from this conflict." She crossed her arms. "Have you forgotten? I am a queen. Though the kingdom I ruled over has long since dissolved, my responsibility to my people has not diminished. I can't be to them as the marauding tyrant I was in life, leading great armies of my indomitable students into battle. I must instead be as the northern wind, a great and terrible force to bar their enemies' entry into their lands."

In other words, she wasn't willing to move an inch if it meant risking even one soldier from the United Empire crossing the English Channel. Convincing her to help us wasn't going to be as easy as it had been contracting with Siegfried.

I turned to Lancelot. "And you?"

He bowed his head. "My presence here also acts as a form of deterrent. While it is true that Queen Aífe is a formidable force equal to nearly any foe, even the mightiest of warriors may be overcome if the enemy brings sufficient numbers."

"So what you're saying is," said Romani, "you're here so that the United Empire can't just wear her down by ganging up on her all at once."

Lancelot nodded and slid a short, surreptitious glance at Mash, so short and sneaky that I wasn't sure anyone else had seen it. I wasn't sure what to make of it, except to add it to the tally of hints about the identity of the Heroic Spirit inside of Mash.

If I asked, he'd probably say something along the same lines as what King Arthur had in Fuyuki, about how that Heroic Spirit wanted Mash to earn his strength instead of having it handed to her from the beginning. Frustrating, but I didn't think I was capable of prying the secret out of him.

An Arthurian knight well-respected by both the king and Sir Lancelot… Damn it, but that list was still too huge.

"Neither can she be everywhere at once, and so I can also act where she cannot, should the enemy attempt to attack from multiple angles," Lancelot continued. "I will admit, the struggle of the people of Gaul is one I hate to watch from the sidelines, but I once turned my back on my king and the kingdom to which I swore my oaths. It seems the least I can do to repay that sin is to guard the lands that will one day be Camelot."

"So you guys are just gonna sit here twiddling your thumbs?" Rika demanded. "While those United Empire jerks are picking apart the rest of Rome?"

"Again, whoever said any such thing?" Aífe asked rhetorically. "My place has been here since my summoning, for the purposes of protecting Britain and Éire. I have not had the luxury to leave and act more directly. I have no Master to offer me support, nor enough strong allies to stand beside me on the battlefield. Unless that changes, I simply can't afford to leave."

The dots connected in my head, and I wanted to let out a long, frustrated groan. Of course. The only way Aífe would agree to join us was if we bested her in battle, the way we had Connla. What was it Connla had said? The ancient Celts had respected only those who fought well and accepted defeat only from those who conquered them utterly and decisively. If Aífe was the same way, then the only way she would help us was if she believed we were strong enough to be worthy of her respect.

Fine. It seemed like I wasn't going to be able to get out of this way of doing things, so even if it was following a pattern I'd been trying to break, winning over an ally by beating them to a pulp was still familiar enough ground to feel like old hat.

"And if we could offer you both?" I asked her.

Her eyes flicked to me, and the hints of a smile hid themselves at the corner of her lips.

"Can you?" she retorted. "You bested my son, Connla, that much is true, but I have yet to see your combat prowess for myself. Your Servants won victory only by destroying the meager toy I gave him to play with."

A meager toy, huh? Deliberately, I kept myself from looking at the wicked red spear that she had set down at some point and which sat upon its rounded butt, perfectly balanced and straight. She was a Rider, but I was willing to bet my prosthetic that the spear was one of her Noble Phantasms. Considering the associations in her legend, I was almost certain it was Gáe Bolg, the spear so lethal that its every use had resulted in death.

But even that sort of thing had to have its own weaknesses.

"We can," I told her confidently.

"You shouldn't underestimate us," Emiya agreed with a rumbling drawl and a characteristic smirk. "We're Servants of Chaldea. We wouldn't be here if we weren't heroes in our own right."

"It should make for a good warmup, at least," Arash added with a confident smile.

"W-wait, hang on a second!" Romani interjected. "This doesn't need to come down to a fight! We can work this out like civilized people, can't we? With words?"

Aífe's answering grin was filled with teeth and edges, like a shark's. It reminded me of Connla's. "Haven't you ever heard what the Romans say about us Celts? We're a savage, bloodthirsty people, impossible to tame. We solve our disputes with our fists and our spears, not words."

"I-is that really necessary?" Romani pleaded. "We're all on the same side here, aren't we? Beating each other up doesn't help anyone but the enemy!"

"Doctor Roman, please don't worry," said Mash. She stared back at Aífe with a strong, confident gaze, her grip on her shield firm. "If Queen Aífe wants to test our strength, then I won't disappoint her. For the sake of our mission, I can't afford to back down."

Romani turned to the twins. "Ritsuka, Rika, you're her Master —"

"Sorry, Doc," said Rika, grinning. "Looks like there's no way out of this one."

"We survived Orléans," said her brother. "We beat Jeanne Alter and Fafnir. We can do this."

Finally, Romani turned to me.

It wasn't what he wanted to hear, but I promised him, "I'll keep things from getting out of hand."

His expression crumbled, and he let out a long, defeated sigh. "You're not doing it right here, right now, right?" he asked Aífe. "The last thing anyone needs is for the castle to come down on all of your heads."

"No," Aífe agreed. "In fact, three on one sounds quite unfair to me, don't you think so? I think it would be better if the sides were a little more even."

Romani blanched and looked at Lancelot. "W-wait, you don't mean to bring him into it, do you? I-I think that's stacking the deck in the opposite direction! The greatest warriors of two different eras aren't anything to sneeze at!"

"I will maintain my vigil regardless," said Lancelot. "There's no purpose in my testing you."

Some of the tension in Romani's shoulders loosened. "Then who? A mother and son tag team?"

"And reward him for his earlier mischief? I think not," Aífe answered dryly. "No, I was thinking differently. After all, Queen Boudica is also the kind of hero who would test you before allowing you to fight beside her. Would it not be more convenient to do both at once?"

A breath hissed out of my nostrils. Was this her plan from the beginning? She'd already sent Connla out to get Queen Boudica, ostensibly to help us meet up with an ally, but she'd just admitted that Queen Boudica wouldn't have agreed to team up without testing us first herself. Had she had her eye on doing her own test of our strength since then, or was she working towards this from the moment we got here?

I think I underestimated her. This was no dull, mindless brute more interested in a good fight than anything else, this was an elegant, sophisticated queen who knew how to have her fun while still getting the job done. That she wore rough spun clothing and hardy leather belied the sharp, regal woman that hid behind that pretty face and striking eyes.

"Should we take this out to the courtyard, then?" I suggested calmly. "There should be plenty of space to fight out there. No roof to come down on us if we aren't careful."

Aífe smiled, a thing of cold hunger, and that ominous red spear seemed almost to hum as she seized it with one hand again, like it was vibrating in anticipation of the battle to come. Just as bloodthirsty as she was.

"Yes, the courtyard should work fine," she agreed pleasantly. "Connla should be returning with Queen Boudica shortly as well, provided they weren't waylaid."

"It's almost like you planned it this way," Emiya commented dryly.

Aífe neither confirmed nor denied it, and I might have been imagining it, but her smile seemed to grow just the slightest bit wider.

"I think I get what Emiya meant when he said she was scary," Rika mumbled.

"I wouldn't want to be her enemy," her brother replied.

Neither would I, I thought to myself. Jeanne Alter had been kind of simple and straightforward, for all that she was based upon a tactician as smart as the real Jeanne. Powerful, but a bit clumsy. No tricky stratagems, no win scenarios, or traps that blindsided us, just ambushes, surprise attacks, and extreme force. If we'd had Siegfried from the beginning, we could have finished her at La Charité and wrapped up the Orléans Singularity right near the start of it.

Aífe was proving clever and subtle, even though she came across as brash and impulsive. Even I hadn't seen the trap she just laid until the moment she was ready to spring it. If she had been the one with the Grail and we had to fight her to get it, well, this could have ended very badly.

"Then we'd better get going," I said aloud as though the twins hadn't spoken. "The sooner we can get this over with, the sooner we can get to Rome and start tackling this Singularity."

Aífe chuckled. "There's no need to rush. The United Empire won't be defeated in a day. For now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of fun, is there?"

Somehow, I didn't think her definition of fun and mine were all that similar.