My father smiled when he told me.   I couldn't believe it! Yet he meant it. My father was not a jocular man. Now he was frowning that I did not rejoice.

How could he? I was important to him! I had grown up knowing how important I was to him, and not just to him but to our people, the Helvetians. My father was not just a village leader or a popular man. My father was Orgetorix, a principal chieftain among the Helvetians, a warrior who could summon in an instant ten thousand men to his side.  My father had other children, many of them, sons and daughters both. But I, Odelia, was his only legitimate child. Among our people that was a solemn and sacred distinction. I was my father’s only true heir.  

My father provided well for me that I might be a reflection of his power and status.   I never lacked for tunics, robes, jewels, sandals, whatever I fancied as long as it was not Roman.   Roman fabrics, he claimed, cast a net over the soul and enslaved us in their softness, as much a menace to our freedom as the swords of the Roman legions. So, as his daughter, I must set the example and shun Roman fabrics.   As his daughter, I was sometimes expected to wear a sword. He had one made for me, not heavy like his but slender, an indifferent blade for battle but the hilt and scabbard glittered with jewels and hung from a belt of gilded leather. I was to wear it when we appeared together.

My father often took me with him so that I might learn what it meant to be his one true heir. He had me tutored in the language of the Germans and the Gauls as well as in Latin, that I might understand the secret whisperings of our enemies. He allowed me to sit in the shadows of his council meetings and took me with him when the chieftains met.

For these past many months, my father took me to his secret meetings so we could piece together his dream.   That dream on which we worked together was to lead our people out of our mountain valley across the river into the rich lands of Gaul.         Until all was prepared, it must be a secret dream. If it were known, it could be thwarted.   My father, while powerful, was only one of several chieftains. He had more men than other chieftains. He had more wealth. But he was not their liege. Nor would some of them agree that we should leave the protection of our mountain valley. More would not agree that we should go forth into lands claimed by others.

   My father had explained to me, and I believed him, that his dream was for the good of our people, the only solution to our survival.   He explained that we had outgrown the narrow confines of our mountain valley, even though some did not see the truth of it. I believed him. I had helped him.   I had kept the secret.   Many were the meetings in hidden forest glens and many the secret pacts made there, and always I had gone with him. I had helped him plan and deceive and dissemble and elude. It was all a part of my obligation as my father's one true heir, my obligation to him and to our people, the Helvetians.

Mine was not an obligation that weighed heavily on me. The learning, the council meetings, the setting an example, the secret plans, I enjoyed all these things. My father no doubt would have preferred a son as his one true heir, but he never said so. Instead he ignored the fact that I was female and educated me as he would a son, except for battle skills. I was trained to some extent, but the training fell far short of what a warrior son would have learned. Other than that, it was as if he no longer saw me as a woman. Until today.

I suppose that was part of the shock. He had summoned me inside the house as the afternoon faded. I thought nothing of it. We usually discussed important matters in our own house, unattended by servants so that no one might overhear. In recent months our discussions had been more private than ever because they dealt with my father’s secret plans, plans that, were they known too soon, could endanger the both of us, as fruit picked too green will sicken him who eats of it.

My father stood by the hearth, tall, proud and bushy bearded. He took pride in that beard, thinking, as some men do, that it proclaimed his virility. His deerskin robe hung in soft folds from his shoulders, adorned with symbols of his own invention and clasped by triple bronze circles that he said were an ancient symbol of our people. His broadsword hung at his waist, symbol not only of his power as chieftain but a reminder to all that its blade had tasted the blood of Germans, Gauls and Romans and would always thirst for more.

He stood there, smiling, and he destroyed my every dream for the future. And he frowned to see I did not rejoice.

         “Don’t you see, Odelia? It is the last piece of the puzzle. The keystone around which all the other pieces fall in place. Once accomplished, we will no longer have to plan in secret, for no one will be able to obstruct us.   No one will want to.   So what I do is for our people's good. At the same time, what I do is for your good.   With this one last stroke I have achieved a most enjoyable future for you and an invaluable advantage for our people."

       I was not angry at my father, only saddened by the shards of my dreamings shattered by my father’s words. Saddened by the realization, even in the haze of my shock, that my father loved his dream more than he loved me. This, his “keystone” piece, this he had kept from me until now when he was poised on the brink of putting his plan into action.   I understood why. In his hidden heart he knew I would object.   So he had not told me until now, when everything was too far along for me to stop it or turn its course. He didn't want my opinion. He didn't want my happiness. He wanted his dream. He had convinced me that we shared this dream. However, he had not told me that I was to pave the way with my body.

Recently my father had in secret begun to order his people to abandon their homes and to gather in our city with their household goods and their livestock. One week there were several dozen new families. Within a month, several hundred.   Now thousands had gathered, ready to burst out of our narrow mountain kingdom. What had once been a riverbank city had become a mushroom field of tents and hasty huts. My father, in order to convince the unconvinced, had ordered torches set to some of the abandoned towns and houses and crops to prevent anyone’s returning there.

There was danger in this dream of my father’s. He had no authority to destroy the high mountains villages just because he had warriors there, nor move their families to the city. He had no authority to make agreements with the tribes of Gaul, especially not agreements that invited the wrath of Rome. The minute Helvetians set foot in Gaul, the Romans would send their legions to stop them, for Rome fancied adding Gaul to its own Empire, and Romans did not share. My father did not fear the Romans. He did not concern himself with the Romans. “Let them come! We will defeat them whenever they please!”

       We had once defeated the Consul Cassius from Rome and put his entire army under the yoke. Such a triumph had never been achieved before in our lands, not by the Germans and not by any of the tribes of Gauls. Only by us, the Helvetians. In that great battle, our one victory over the Romans, Divico had been a lead warrior. He had been speaking of it now for years. No matter that it was a triumph grown fragile with time, a victory so long ago that few remembered it and most had tired of hearing it. Divico prattled on, and my father listened to Divico’s prattle because my father wanted to believe we could defeat the Romans again. My father believed because it suited his ambition. He wanted his dream.

       It astonished me that my father's ambitions went unsuspected for so long. Other chieftains must have sought some ordinary explanation for what they could see was happening. They were for the most part men who would not look for secret, furtive schemes. We Helvetians were by nature a straightforward people. In battle we confronted. We attacked. We killed. It was simple. It was honest. We Helvetians had no need for convoluted secret schemes. But even honest, straightforward men cannot be deceived forever. Other chieftains had begun to hear rumors of the multitude of families gathering along the river. They had begun to suspect. They sent "visitors" to our city to bring back news.

       Too late! My father had already acted, had made his alliances, had sworn his promises to the Sequani and to the Aeduan in the lands across the river. Those promises were the foundation stones for his dream. But the keystone, my father had just told me with a smile on his face, was my marriage to Prince Dumnor, King of the Aeduans, hence called Dumnorix.

     "Then no one," said my father with a smile, "no one can destroy our dream."

       Our dream? I had no such dream. I don't know what hurt me more, that he would have kept this last piece of the plan from me or that he would marry me off to Dumnorix. Our language is not that of the Gauls. In their language, dumm does not mean what it means to us. In our language the name Dumnorix is cause to snicker and sneer. It suggests a stupid man, perhaps a goat-herder missing some teeth and some brains as well.

     Dumnorix, King of the Aeduans, however, was not a man to be ridiculed.   As warriors, no tribe of Gaul could match us. But of Gaul's many tribes, the Aeduans were one of the two most powerful. The Aeduans were wealthy. They enjoyed an abundance of crops and goods and gold. It was rumored that they had built great, robust hill forts that could not be breached. They once were under Roman sanction, which the Romans termed "allies" but meant "serfs."   Dumnorix' older brother had been king then, but the Aeduans, understanding full well the Roman meaning of "ally," had deposed him and elevated Dumnorix to the throne. The Aeduan lands began on the far side of the river that my father wished to cross. So it was with Dumnorix that my father dealt to secure for our people safe passage across those rich lands.

       Apparently Dumnorix was indeed, as his name suggested, a stupid man. The Aeduans could not match us in battle. Not even the ferocious German tribes had conquered us, although we warred with them almost every year. If Dumnorix thought our people would amble peaceably across his rich lands without taking from it whatever they needed or wanted, he was indeed a man to be ridiculed.  

       Or perhaps Dumnorix thought me a prize worth the risk.   If I were a foolish woman whose thoughts nestled on a soft couch of dreams, I might spin myself such a fantasy. It would be a pleasing one. He had seen me at a distance, as I had seen him. He was a handsome man, fair-haired, a clean-lined face, a warrior's build.  

       But I did not like his smile. It was so pleasant. It was the kind of smile that invited women to admire him and men to deceive him. A true leader of men cannot smile so pleasantly on the world. That much I had learned at my father's councils.

       Yet, as my father unveiled the final secret of his scheme, the image that arose from the shards of my dreams for the future was not Dumnorix and his pleasant smile. It was Ticus. I always thought I would marry Ticus.

       I had always known my father would choose my husband. It was a father's right. I had been content with that because I had always expected him to choose Ticus. As my father's sole heir, it was my duty to marry my father's foremost warrior. That was a duty that I would gladly have performed. I sometimes allowed myself to dream of the day that I, my father’s heir, would marry Ticus, my father’s invincible warrior. It was fated. I was sure my father knew I favored Ticus. Instead, my father sacrificed my dream in order to have his.

"You will leave tomorrow," my father went on since, in my astonishment, I had made no reply at all. "Tell no one, Odelia. You understand it is not yet time to tell anyone." He nodded at me. "We have done well, my daughter. We are almost ready. We will lead our people to a better life, out of this narrow valley that confines us like goats in a winter pen without land or crops enough."

       Or riches enough. Or glory enough. Did he think I did not understand the ambition that fueled his dream? He held out his hand for me to kiss.   As I took it and touched it with my lips, his other hand stroked my hair. "It is a good marriage, Odelia. When my plan has come to pass, you will be Queen of the Aeduans and my daughter still. You will lead an abundant life."

    My words would come out only in a whisper. "Yes, father."

       What else could I say? I was Odelia, daughter of Orgetorix, his one legitimate heir, whose significance existed only as a mirrored reflection of him and whose duty to her people existed because of him.   He knew I would obey, and he smiled at me. I bowed my head, a gesture he would take for assent and obedience. But it was not. I bowed my head so that I would not have to smile at him. With my head still bowed I left him standing there with his robes and his symbols and his sword.