Nevertheless, She Persisted

by Mindy Klasky

  He regarded her hand as one might a piece of moldy bread, then briefly clasped her fingers before reaching for the dice. He won the initial toss, and with a smug smile, made his first moves. The battle had commenced.

  The Battle of Watling Street was a bit of an oddity in that no one knew precisely where it had been fought. The governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, had been on campaign in North Wales when word reached him that Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, had allied with her neighbors the Trinovantes, determined to drive the invaders from their island. He had hurried down the Roman road that ran between Shropshire and London, later called Watling Street, and somewhere on its southern end the two armies, British and Roman, had met in a sanguinary engagement that, according to Cassius Dio’s account (which Jane didn’t believe for a moment) saw 230,000 Britons dead. Even Tacitus, whose account seemed the more reliable—his father-in-law had been present at the battle—put the British dead at eighty thousand.

  In the playing of the Game, however, historical outcomes did not matter. Opponents began with the same circumstances as the generals they represented, but after that, a re-fought battle might end in a very different way, dependent upon the players’ skills and the outcomes of attacks as decided by rolls of dice. That was why those like Mr. Paice-Storey—indifferent scholars but good strategists—could be good players.

  But Jane was certain that players who were both could be even better. And players who were not afraid to do the unexpected could seize great victories—

  “Iacto,” Mr. Paice-Storey said. “Impetus in transversum.”

  Jane looked up; he was preparing to launch a javelin attack from his center diagonally at a piece representing a force of her foot soldiers. A player could either attack or move each one of his pieces during one turn, if he so chose. He tossed four dice; the number shown, with a subtraction taken for distance and the armor and shielding of her piece would determine his attack’s effectiveness. If the attack was effective, a small black ball—a pila—would be placed in a hollow on the top of the piece he had attacked. Three pilae—three successful attacks—would remove the piece from play.

  The dice showed fifteen. Jane put a pila on her piece.

  Mr. Paice-Storey smiled smugly. “Perficio,” he said, announcing the end of his turn.

  Jane noted the movements he’d made with his other pieces, mostly shifting his cavalry one square to either side. He was starting conservatively, which made sense; though there were far fewer Roman forces than British, they were in a highly favorable position and he had little reason to move them. Suetonius Paulinus had situated his troops in a narrow, rocky gorge, backed by a forest and opening onto an open plain, while Boadicea’s, ill-equipped after an earlier Roman-forced disarmament, spread out before them. Behind were hundreds of wagons and thousands of non-combatants, there to watch the battle.

  Now it was her turn. Did she dare try her unconventional attack?

  Did she dare not try it?

  This wasn’t just about preserving Wetherby honor, as her brother had joked. It was about her honor, now, in the face of people like Mr. Baldock and Lord Radleigh and especially the dreadful young man seated across the map from her. It was about Aunt Aspasia’s honor, and the honor of those unnamed females whom Mr. Paice-Storey accused of having “ideas above their capabilities.” Well, she would show him what a female was capable of.

  She looked again at the map. Say, sixteen moves to get two units of foot soldiers to where they could do what they needed to…plus rearranging the field to move the wagons forward. Two extra moves, just in case, and then the final dice rolls to determine whether her plan would work…

  She took a deep breath, and reaching for a square of blue paper from a stack to one side of the map, said, “Decursus occultus in—umm…in vices duodeviginti. ”

  Mr. Paice-Storey snorted. “Oh, come now, Miss Wetherby—hidden attacks in your very first turn? Is this a battle or a Covent Garden melodrama?”

  Jane ignored him. To account for the stealthy actions that were often part of battles, players were allowed to write out, on squares of distinctive blue paper especially made for Hatton’s, secret moves along with the number of turns to be taken till the move would become known to their opponents, and the dice rolled to determine their success. She finished writing on the square of paper, folded it, wrote “18” on the top for the number of turns to be taken before it came into play, and tucked it under the edge of the map. Then she reached forward, moved a few pieces laterally and, almost as an afterthought, began to inch her wagons forward. “Perficio,” she said.

  Mr. Paice-Storey frowned. “That’s it?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  He snorted. “This will be a short game.”

  Quiet laughter rippled through the crowd around them. Jane didn’t respond, not even when, seven turns later, an older gentlemen who’d spent several seconds peering at her through a quizzing glass as his face grew progressively redder, stumped away muttering that she should be beaten for her presumption. The Game, she reminded herself. All that mattered right now was the Game.

  After her eleventh turn, she firmly quashed the excitement rising in her. She’d been slowly but steadily advancing her wagons toward the Roman line; Mr. Paice-Storey eyed them occasionally, but otherwise ignored them in favor of repeated attacks with his flanking cavalry and javelineers. Her forces took a beating…but her wagons would be in position when she needed them.

  But she couldn’t help a moment of indignation. Was he even trying? Was he so convinced of his superiority that he wasn’t using any of his vaunted strategic abilities? By her fifteenth turn, she was sure of it. He radiated almost palpable boredom, leaning back in his chair and once or twice even yawning openly as he continued to attack her forces. Jane carefully avoided meeting his eyes as she moved her wagons ever closer to the front and counter-attacked just frequently enough to occupy his attention.

  By her seventeenth turn, they were in position; she almost held her breath through his next turn. He attacked her forces again, raising one eyebrow at the damage inflicted by the rolls of the dice. “My dear Miss Wetherby,” he said, voice oozing sympathy. “You must be running out of pilae by now. Permit me to lend you some of mine.”

  More than one person behind her smothered a laugh. Jane grimly finished distributing the little tokens of destruction among her pieces. “Thank you, but I have enough.”

  He didn’t bother concealing his grin this time. “Perficio, then.”

  She nodded and, with a small silent prayer, reached for the folded blue paper tucked under the side of the map. Mr. Paice-Storey did her the honor of actually opening his eyes all the way. “Ah, yes, your decursus. I am all agog, madam.”

  She handed him the square of paper and reached for the cup of dice. “First roll, success of decursus occultus,” she said, her voice blessedly steady. “I believe a single die roll is all that’s required, based on the favorable weather conditions we rolled for at the start of the battle.”

  He was staring at the paper. “You’re joking.”

  “Joking? No, Mr. Paice-Storey, I am not.” She cast the die; a one, two, or three would give a negative answer, while a higher number would be affirmative.

  The ivory cube seemed to take forever to fall through the air from the cup and tumble to a resting position. Five black dots—five beautiful black dots—showed uppermost. “Decursus occultus successful,” she said calmly, though she knew her eyes were dancing. “The forest behind you is now aflame. British forces have ascended to the top of the gorge above you.”

  He stared down at the map, his mouth hanging open.

  “Wagons are now on fire,” she continued, putting a red pila on each of her wagon pieces. Then she moved more of her foot soldiers forward, directly behind the wagons. “Perficio,” she said.

  For a moment, he didn’t move. Nor was there a sound from the crowds around them. Then his eyes blazed. “Damme, you can’t do that!”

  Jane looked at him, head to
one side. Oh, this was good. “Why not? No rules of the Game have been contravened.”

  “Because it—it’s not how a woman fights!”

  For a moment she was at a loss for a response. Then one came to her, for some reason in Aunt Aspasia’s voice. “Whether that is so or not, sir, I cannot say,” she said. “I do know it is how a winner fights.”

  A sigh went through the spectators behind her, and then a murmur that quickly crescendoed so that Mr. Baldock was forced to shout, “Quiet! Quiet please for the other matches!” Not that it made much difference; Jane could see that half the players of other battles had abandoned their maps and were standing on their chairs, watching.

  Mr. Paice-Storey glared at the map, then up at her. Jane met his glare squarely, keeping her glee in check. Retreat was impossible with a burning forest behind him, and the wagons would continue to burn for five more turns, making a forward push equally difficult. His only chance now was to attack over the wagons with what javelins he had left, which gave him two turns to try to remove more of her forces—two turns only, because a Roman soldier carried only two javelins. And in the meanwhile, several companies of her British loomed at the top of the gorge, armed with those most implacable of weapons, heavy stones and gravity.

  “Your turn,” she said quietly after a minute had passed, then another. The room seemed to be holding its breath.

  Mr. Paice-Storey’s breath, on the other hand, came loudly and through his nose. Finally he stood, pushing his chair back so violently that it fell over.

  “Cedo, damn you!” he snarled. Giving his fallen chair a kick, he stalked from the room. A few seconds later, amid muffled protests from the doorman, the front door of the club was heard to slam. And then the room exploded.

  Jane, on the other hand, imploded. She stared at the empty place opposite her while spectators surged around her to get a better look at the battle map, exclaiming and chattering to each other. She heard snatches of everything from, “Poor form on Paice-Storey’s part, don’t you think?” to “It was a jape—Paice-Storey and Wetherby thought it up between them. Black said he overheard them talking about it the other night over brandy—” to “So unladylike! I can’t believe she did that!” It grew so loud that the one part of her that wasn’t bemused and numb feared that the marble busts around the room would be shaken from their plinths by it.

  But not one person said a word to her, nor even met her eyes. It was as if she weren’t actually there, as if an automaton had played and won the battle…until Aunt Aspasia emerged from the crowd. “Jane, my dear,” she said, holding out her hands. Her expression of pride seemed too great to be contained in just one small, round-cheeked face.

  And then Jane felt her own mouth expand in a smile as she stood up and took her aunt’s hands. “I did it,” she said. “I really did it!”

  “You did indeed—and with the forest strategy we discussed that time! I was on tenterhooks the entire time after you called the decursus occultus, wondering if that was what you were doing after the weather roll. It was a risk that paid handsomely!” She leaned forward and patted Jane’s cheek. “Jonathan will be so proud of you!”

  Jane glanced down at the map. “I see now why Jonathan didn’t think much of Mr. Paice-Storey,” she murmured.

  “The man must be a changeling. I came out with his mother, who is a surprisingly intelligent woman. And Claviston was a dear, from what I recall.” Aunt Aspasia shrugged. “I suppose one never knows—”

  “Ahem.”

  Jane turned. Lord Radleigh was there, wearing a pained sort of grimace that was probably meant to be a smile. “That was a…novel strategy, Jane.” He didn’t even look at Aunt Aspasia.

  “Er—thank you, sir.” She didn’t know if he meant it as a compliment or not, but there seemed little else to say.

  An uncomfortable silence crystallized around them. Then he gave her a short nod and turned on his heel.

  Aunt Aspasia tsked. “One of these days Radleigh’s going to find that his cravat has grown into his neck, he holds himself so stiffly.”

  Jane didn’t smile. “He said he was going to write to Papa.”

  “Which will accomplish what? The battle has been fought, and you won. Your father likely won’t even know what he’s talking about, and won’t care if he does. To him, the Game is just that—a game that at least doesn’t lead his sons into ruinous debt and perhaps exercises their minds a little.”

  And still no one around her spoke a word to her, though she could feel the furtive looks being cast her way. It was completely unlike the end of other battles she had watched here, where the players were borne off by their fellow club members for cakes and lemonade and good-natured ribbing. No one was offering to escort her and Aunt to the refreshment table set up in the members’ dining room—

  The crowd had begun to thin a little, and Jane caught sight of a face she knew, just a short distance away, staring at the table: Mr. Verrill, who had been so particular in his attentions of late and to whom she’d confessed her bluestocking tendencies. Ah, one person who would have a kind word for her! “Mr. Verrill!” she called, smiling and holding her hand out to him. “I did not know you would be here to—”

  But he did not seem to see her standing there. In fact, he was looking right through her. She withdrew her hand and ducked her head. “Aunt, may we leave?”

  Aunt Aspasia took her arm. “Of course, child.”

  Jane took one last glance at the table, with the map and the pieces still in place. Where was the square of blue paper on which she’d risked the battle? She would have liked it as a souvenir of the day, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  It was the same thing as they made their way back to the front hall: no one would meet her eyes, though she knew she was being stared at. Even the doorman, who’d greeted them so effusively on their arrival, barely deigned to look at Aunt Aspasia as she asked him to call for their carriage. Instead of waiting in the hall for it to arrive, Jane drew Aunt Aspasia outside to wait on the pavement.

  “Did you see Mr. Verrill?” she asked in a low voice.

  Aunt Aspasia sighed and nodded.

  “I didn’t think that—I wasn’t expecting…oh, Aunt Aspasia, was I wrong to play today?” she whispered. “Because it seems like I’ve destroyed myself socially.”

  Aunt Aspasia steered them a few paces down the street. Jane nearly resisted; here would be yet another strike against her, being seen in St. James’s in the daytime. But Aunt was wearing her thoughtful expression, and probably wouldn’t notice if she did.

  “Jane, my dear,” she said after a moment. “Tell me, how do you feel about having won that battle? Not what you think it’s done to you socially or any other nonsense—just how it made you feel.”

  Jane hesitated. “Good,” she finally said. “It made me feel good.”

  “Of course it did. You beat the fellow to flinders. Anything else?”

  Jane paused, trying to find the right words. “It…made me feel more alive, somehow. More like myself. Does that make any sense?”

  “It makes all the sense in the world. Now, how would you have felt if you’d decided not to take the chance to play today?”

  “I—I would probably have been kicking myself.”

  “There!” Aunt Aspasia gave her a radiant smile. “Now, listen carefully. You were being yourself today—the intelligent girl that it’s been my pleasure to help bring up. And that is what matters. Nothing you did in Hatton’s has caused any harm to anyone—apart from their vanity, perhaps—and it did you good, because now you know what you’re capable of. Gnothi seauton, my dear.”

  Jane smiled, though she had to blink her eyes several times. “Well, it appears I shall have plenty of time over the rest of the season to better know myself, since I doubt anyone else will want to.”

  Aunt Aspasia frowned. “Were you in love with that Verrill fellow?”

  Was she? “No, not really. But it was nice to feel…wanted.”

  “Now who is sporting a bruised vanit
y? No, Jane dear, good riddance to the man. He wanted a wife, not you. Consider today an exercise in winnowing out undesirable acquaintances who cannot appreciate your excellence.”

  This time, Jane’s smile felt more comfortable on her face. “Well, when you put it that way—”

  “It’s the only way to put it. This is your life, Jane. Just because you were born female does not have to mean that the die has been cast for you. You must be brave enough to cast it for yourself.”

  “Excuse me! Miss Wetherby?”

  Jane turned. A young woman had emerged from Hatton’s and was hurrying up the pavement to her, a bonnet as large and fashionable as hers flapping in the wind of her progress. As Jane saw the face under the bonnet’s deep brim, her heart plummeted: this was why Mr. Paice-Storey had seemed so familiar.

  “L-lady Alleyn,” she stuttered as the woman halted before her. They had met at a few parties in recent weeks, and Jane had liked her enormously. She was newly married to Lord Alleyn and had confessed to Jane that she was finding it hard to remember to respond to her new name and not to “Lady Anne.” Jane hadn’t known her former surname, but in light of the pronounced resemblance between her and Jane’s recent opponent, it appeared that she might just have publicly humiliated this charming woman’s brother. “How—how do you do?”

  “My dear Miss Wetherby—” Lady Alleyn seized her hands. “That was spectacular! I have never been so vastly entertained—and delighted—in my life!”

  “Wh- what?”

  “I have always wanted to see Edmund taken down a peg or three at the Game! Whenever I play him and it looks like I might win, he cheats most vilely or suddenly finds some reason to have to be elsewhere at once. But he couldn’t do that this time, could he?” She let go of Jane’s hands and clasped hers together. “Oh, I could positively hug you! I’m sorry I could not speak to you in Hatton’s, but the crowd was impossible and by the time I got anywhere close to the table to see the map, you had left. Tom got to see it long before I did, didn’t you, Tom?”