Give Me Back My Legions!

by Harry Turtledove

  Arminius reined in. “I am Arminius, Sigimerus’ son,” he answered in army Latin. “Not only am I a Roman citizen—I am also a member of the Equestrian Order. I have come in answer to a summons from Publius Quinctilius Varus, the governor of Germany.” The chief thief among all you thieves, was how he translated that in his own mind.

  A minute’s worth of muffled talk followed. Whatever the sentries had expected, that wasn’t it. Arminius advanced no farther. Roman citizen or not, he would have been asking for trouble if he had. He knew how sentries’ minds worked. They were like dogs who carried spears. They had to decide for themselves whether he’d thrown them meat.

  When one of them showed himself, Arminius knew he’d won. “You are expected, son of Sigimerus,” the man said. Somebody might have expected him, but these fellows hadn’t—not right away, anyhow. The sentry went on, “One of us will escort you to the governor’s quarters. Come ahead.”

  “I thank you.” Arminius urged the horse toward the entranceway.

  Inside the fortified encampment, Roman soldiers went about their business. They seemed as much at home as they would have inside the Empire. As far as they were concerned, they were inside the Empire—they brought it with them wherever they went. Arminius’ hands gripped the reins till his knuckles whitened. The gall they had! The arrogance!

  A few Germans fetched and carried for the soldiers. Slaves? Servants? Hired men? It hardly mattered. They were traitors to their folk.

  A pretty woman stepped out of an officer’s tent. Her fair hair blew in the breeze. When she saw Arminius, she squeaked and drew back in a hurry. She wasn’t quite dead to shame, then. She didn’t want a fellow German to know she was giving herself to an invader.

  The legionary leading Arminius was blind to the byplay. “Here y’are,” he said. “You can tie your nag up in front of his tent.” The Roman also used army Latin. Equus was the formal word for horse. He said caballus instead. Arminius would have, too. And a German pony was a nag by Roman standards.

  Going into the tent didn’t mean Arminius got to see Quinctilius Varus right away. He hadn’t thought it would. The Roman governor might be busy with someone else. Even if he wasn’t, he would make Arminius wait anyhow, to impress on the German his own importance. The tent was big enough to be divided into several rooms by cloth partitions. The man perched scribbling on a stool near the entry flap had to be a secretary, not Varus himself.

  Because he was a prominent man’s secretary, he reflected his master’s glory. “And you are—?” he asked, though he had to know. By his tone, he seemed to expect the answer, Nothing but a sheep turd.

  Arminius might have tried to kill a German who sneered like that. But he knew how to play Roman games, too. “Arminius son of Sigimerus, a Roman citizen and a member of the Equestrian Order,” he replied, as he had to the sentries. “Who are you?”

  “Aristocles, pedisequus to the governor.” The secretary sounded prouder of being a slave than Arminius did of being his father’s son. No German, no matter how debased, would have done that. Arminius wouldn’t have known what to make of it if he hadn’t seen it before among Roman slaves. The pedisequus added, “The governor will see you soon.”

  “Good. Thank you.” Arminius swallowed his anger. You had to when you dealt with these folk. If you didn’t, you threw the game away before you even started playing.

  Aristocles went back to his scribbles. Arminius knew what writing was for, though he didn’t have his letters. He also knew Aristocles was subtly insulting him by working while he was there. And he had to keep standing while the slave sat. That was an insult, too.

  But then, as if by magic, another slave appeared with wine and bread and a bowl of olive oil for dipping. Arminius liked butter better. He didn’t say so—to the Romans, eating butter branded any man a savage. He and plenty of other German auxiliaries had heard the chaffing in Pannonia.

  Maybe this Aristocles was waiting for him to complain. The skinny little man would glance at him sidelong every so often. Arminius ate and drank with the best Roman manners he had. Maybe they weren’t perfect by the slave’s standards, but they proved good enough.

  Voices rose and fell in one of those back rooms. One of them had to belong to Varus. Arminius listened while pretending he was doing nothing of the kind. A German who’d never had anything to do with Romans would have cupped a hand behind his ear to hear better. So would a lot of legionaries. But Roman chieftains played the game by different rules. Having claimed the status of a Roman chieftain himself, Arminius had to show he knew those rules.

  The Romans were talking about keeping Mindenum supplied. They didn’t seem to see any problems. No, that wasn’t necessarily so: they didn’t want Arminius to hear about any problems they saw. They were bound to know he was waiting out here. They were bound to know he was listening to them, too, whether he showed it or not. He hid his curiosity. They hid the truth. Romans used silence and misdirection far more than Germans did.

  After a while, the voice Arminius guessed to be Varus’ said, “Well, that should about cover it, eh, Numonius?”

  “Yes, sir,” the other voice replied. “I’ll add to the patrols. Nobody will get away with anything—I promise you that.”

  “I wasn’t worried—I know how you take care of things,” the first voice said. “Now I’ve got to talk with that fellow who ran off with the girl.” The voice’s owner sighed, as if Arminius wasn’t worth bothering with.

  “I’m sure you’ll set things straight, sir,” Numonius said. Arminius fought not to gag. Roman underlings flattered those who ranked above them in ways the Germans found disgusting. So much of what the Romans spewed forth was obvious nonsense. If their superiors believed it, they had to be fools.

  But fools couldn’t have conquered so much of the world. Fools couldn’t have built up the army in which Arminius had served, the army that held this fortified encampment deep inside Germany. Which argued that high-ranking men couldn’t truly believe all the flattery they got. Why insist on it, then?

  The only answer he could find was that Romans didn’t think they were great unless others acclaimed them. A German knew what he was worth all by himself. A Roman needed somebody else to tell him what a splendid fellow he was. Then he would nod and smile—modestly, of course—and say, “Well, yes, so I am. How good of you to notice.”

  Numonius came out. He was short and skinny and bowlegged: he looked like a cavalry officer, in other words. The nod he gave Arminius was somewhere between matter-of-fact and friendly. “The governor told me he would see you in a little while,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Arminius replied. Admitting he’d overheard the conversation would have been rude, even if the Roman had to know he had. The rule among the Germans was much the same.

  Aristocles bustled into the back of the tent. He and Varus went back and forth in Greek. Arminius had learned a couple of curses in that language, but didn’t speak it. Then the pedisequus returned. “I have the honor of escorting you into the governor’s illustrious presence,” he told Arminius.

  “Good,” the German said. About time, he thought. Some of his folk would have come right out and said so. He might have himself, before he went off to Pannonia to learn Roman ways. Having learned them, he tried to use them to advantage.

  Publius Quinctilius Varus sat in a chair with a back, which proved him a very important personage indeed. He didn’t rise when Arminius came before him. Arminius stiffened to attention, as he would have to a senior Roman officer on campaign, and shot out his right arm with his fist clenched.

  Varus smiled. He waved Arminius to a stool. “So you’re the chap who’s too fond of his lady love, are you?” he said. Was he laughing at Arminius or with him? The German couldn’t tell. He often had trouble figuring out what Romans meant.

  Straight ahead, then. “No, sir. It wasn’t that. Segestes hurt my honor when he took her away from me and tried to give her to Tudrus.”

  “Tried to give… Yesss.” Varus stretched out t
he last word. He frowned at Arminius. “This Segestes says some hard things about you.”

  Arminius weighed the words—and the frown. Varus was about his father’s age, but a very different man. Sigimerus was tough and hard, like seasoned timber. Romans could be like that; Arminius had met plenty who were. Varus wasn’t. He didn’t seem like a fighting man to the German. The Romans had people who did nothing but gather supplies for their armies—quartermasters, they called them. The notion had never occurred to the Germans, but it worked. Maybe Varus was stamped from that mold.

  Or maybe he really was a fighting man no matter how he looked. With the Romans, you never could tell. Arminius had met one military tribune who acted more like a woman than a proper man had any business doing. But the fellow was a terror, a demon, on the battlefield.

  How to reply? With a smile and a shrug he used like a shield to hide what he was really thinking, Arminius said, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? If he can make me look bad, he doesn’t seem like a fool and a liar and an oathbreaker himself.”

  “This, uh, Thusnelda.” Varus pronounced the name badly. He put this in front of a lot of Germans’ names, as if they were things, not people. “She is happy with you?”

  “Yes, sir!” This time, Arminius didn’t hesitate at all.

  Quinctilius Varus noticed. He might not be a fighting man, but he wasn’t stupid. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes. “I see,” he said. “And you’re happy with her, too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.” How could Arminius explain it to the Roman? “I did not take her because I thought we would be happy, but I am glad we are.”

  The glint became a smile—a small smile, but a smile even so. “How old are you, Arminius?”

  Before the German answered, he had to count on his fingers. “I am twenty-four, sir. Why?”

  “Because you make me jealous,” Varus said. “It is so easy to be happy with a woman—almost any woman—when you’re twenty-four. When you’re thirty-four or forty-four or fifty-four…”He sighed.

  Arminius’ mother and father took each other for granted. They were content with each other, anyhow. Happy? He’d never wondered about it. He knew the Romans’ laws let them change wives—and, for that matter, husbands—almost as readily as they changed clothes. His folk did things differently. Maybe that meant German men and women had to make the best of each other.

  As for fifty-four… To twenty-four, fifty-four was a journey greater than the one from Germany to Pannonia and back again. Fifty-four was a journey greater than one from Germany to Rome itself and back again. Arminius could imagine going down to Rome. He’d seen Roman towns in Pannonia, and along the Rhine. He imagined the imperial capital as something like a bigger version of one of those, something like an outsized legionary encampment.

  He couldn’t imagine fifty-four at all. An old man, aching, with bad teeth and short wind? Varus didn’t seem as ancient as all that, but he was graying and balding. He’d seen better days, all right. At the height of his own strength, Arminius felt a sudden, startling sympathy—almost pity—for the Roman.

  He also knew what Varus had to be thinking. Varus wouldn’t want trouble from the Germans. A governor who wasn’t a soldier wouldn’t want anything but peace and quiet. If Arminius gave them to him…

  “I do not seek a blood feud with Segestes,” Arminius said. “This I swear, by my gods and yours. I have Thusnelda. She is enough. She satisfies my honor. I do not need to spike her father’s head to a tree.”

  Quinctilius Varus’ mouth twisted. Too late, Arminius realized he might have left off that last sentence. The Romans worshiped effete gods who drank blood, but not man’s blood. How strong could they be if they turned their backs on strong food?

  Then Varus chuckled, and then he smiled a broad smile. “You may be a Roman citizen, but some of your ways are still German,” he observed.

  “It is so,” Arminius said simply.

  “But you do pledge that this matter is over now, as far as you are concerned?” the Roman official persisted.

  “I said it. I meant it,” Arminius answered.

  Varus smiled again—wistfully. “No, you are not altogether a Roman. What we say and what we mean too often have little to do with each other. A pity, but the truth. When you say something, I believe I can rely on it.”

  “I am glad of that, sir,” Arminius said. And so he was. When he spoke to his own folk, he was indeed the soul of truth. When he spoke to Romans… He’d learned enough from the invaders to know how to turn their own arts against them. He could dissemble and never let on. He could, not to put too fine a point on it, lie. He could, and he did.

  “All right, then. Go home. Stay there quietly. Enjoy your woman, this, uh, Thusnelda.” No, Varus couldn’t come close to pronouncing the German name. He went on, “I will tell this Segestes that there is to be no feud. He will hearken to me.”

  He is your dog, Arminius thought. Again, what went through his mind didn’t show on his face. “It is good,” he said. “I thank you.”

  Varus waved that aside. “It’s all right, son,” he said, and paused thoughtfully. “Do you know, you remind me a little of my own son. You’re bigger, you’re fairer, but something about the way you hold your head…” He laughed. “Something about the way you hold back, too, so you don’t tell me off.”

  Arminius was alarmed, but only for a moment. This Roman hadn’t looked into his heart and seen his hatred for the Empire. No, Varus, an older man, had looked at a young man and seen one eager to be free from the restraints older men put on him. Varus didn’t need to be a wizard to do that. He only needed to be a man who remembered what being young was like.

  Sure enough, he went on, “Gaius is in Athens now, finishing up his education.” He paused again. “Come to think of it, you’ve had a bit of an education in Roman ways yourself, haven’t you? Not the same kind of education, but an education even so.”

  What kind of education was Gaius Quinctilius Varus getting in Athens? Arminius had no real notion. Carefully, he said, “I learned much in the Roman army.” I learned how dangerous you people really are.

  “I’ll bet you did,” Varus said, but he was still smiling, so he couldn’t suspect what lessons Arminius had drawn from his service. “Nothing like Roman discipline here in Germany now, is there?”

  “No, sir.” Arminius spoke nothing but the truth there. It worried him. Unless he caught the Romans by surprise, that discipline made them formidable foes. And how could he surprise them when they sent out scouts in all directions?

  “When you Germans gain discipline, I wouldn’t be surprised if you show the world a thing or two,” Varus said. “You need us to teach you what you should know.”

  “Your folk taught me a lot when I served.” Again, Arminius didn’t specify what he’d learned.

  The Roman governor of his homeland nodded to him. “Good. That’s good. Little by little, Germans will pick up Roman ways. That kind of thing has been happening for a while now on the other side of the Rhine. Some of the Gauls use Latin more than their own language, they really do. Some of them—may the gods strike me dead if I lie—some of them, I say, are even starting to write Latin poetry.”

  Arminius tried to imagine Germans writing Latin poetry. If ever anyone from his own folk undertook such a thing, Germany would be a very different place. It would also be a place he had no desire to see.

  Nodding again, Quinctilius Varus went on, “Well, I didn’t call you here to have you listen to me going on about how things wrill be a lifetime from now. As long as your woman is with you willingly, this complaint from Segestes can go by the board. But he is a citizen, and you are a citizen, and so it was up to me to get to the bottom of things. I trust you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Arminius said.

  “All right, then. You may go.” After another hesitation, Varus added, “I hope I see you again sometime.”

  “May it be so.” May I see you on your knees, begging for the mercy you’ll never find. But none
of that showed on Arminius’ face. He rose from the stool, bowed, and left the closed-off space that served as Varus’ office. He also left the enormous tent as fast as he could. ‘Never give somebody the chance to change his mind was another thing he’d learned from the Romans.

  He jumped onto his horse without needing a leg-up. He would rather have died than asked a favor from a passing legionary. He swung the animal’s head around and left the encampment at Mindenum by the gate through which he’d come in.

  “He’s just a boy,” Varus said in slightly surprised tones.

  “Rather a large and muscular boy, sir,” Aristocles replied.

  “Just a boy,” Varus repeated, as if the pedisequus hadn’t spoken. “A boy, besotted with one of those blond German girls.” He leered; he couldn’t help himself. German women always reminded him of Roman whores. In a mostly dark-haired land, those wigs made the whores stand out. And every time he saw or even thought about the naturally fair German wenches, he couldn’t keep lewd imaginings out of his mind.

  “So you are going to let him keep her?” his slave inquired.

  “Yes, of course I am. I’d have to start a war to take her away. I’m sure she’s no Helen, and I’m just as sure I’m no Agamemnon,” Varus said. “Unpleasant place to be in, you know—either I make this Arminius angry, or I do the same to that Segestes. Arminius has the girl, and she seems happy enough to be had. As long as she does, her father will just have to find something else to worry about.”

  “They’re all barbarians up here,” Aristocles said with a discreet shudder. “Will, uh, Segestes, be so offended you ruled against him that he’ll try to kill you without worrying about what will happen to him the next heartbeat?”

  “Pleasant thought.” Varus sent the pedisequus a sour stare. The worst of it was, he couldn’t even rebuke the Greekling, because it was a legitimate question. “I don’t think so,” Varus said after a moment. “For a German, Segestes seemed fairly civilized. Arminius struck me as more likely to imitate Achilles if I took the woman away—except he’d fight instead of sulking in his tent.”