Give Me Back My Legions!

by Harry Turtledove

  So there, Eggius thought. If Varus didn’t believe something, it didn’t behoove any of his officers to believe it. Which, most of the time, was all very well, but what if something Varus didn’t believe turned out to be true? Well, in that case we’ve got a problem.

  “I hear the fellow who accused this German has a family squabble with him,” Ceionius said in lofty tones.

  “Yeah, I heard that, too. So what?” Eggius said. “Suppose somebody ran off with jour daughter. Would you give him a big kiss? Or would you give him one where it’d do the most good?” He cupped his hands over his privates.

  “Well, of course I’d pay back an enemy as soon as I saw the chance,” the other officer replied. “But that’s the point. Because they’re enemies, we can’t trust anything the one barbarian says about the other.”

  “Segestes wouldn’t lie about something that big. Even in the wintertime, we’ve got people in Germany,” Lucius Eggius said. “We can get a pretty good notion of who’s trying to pull a fast one. Did the governor ask any of our people about that?”

  “Not so far as I know. He doesn’t think it’s necessary,” Ceionius said.

  Eggius’ sigh made fog spring forth from his mouth and nose.

  “Here’s hoping he knows what he’s thinking about.”

  Segestes clasped Masua’s hand when the younger German came back to his steading. “Welcome! Welcome, by the gods!” Segestes said. “Come in. Rest yourself. I hope your journey went well?”

  “I’m here again.” Masua’s voice was harsh and flat. A slave hurried up with a mug of beer. Masua nodded thanks, took it, and drained half of it at one long pull. After sucking foam out of his mustache, he said, “Varus wouldn’t believe me—wouldn’t believe you. And Arminius’ friends tried to waylay me on the way home, but I gave them the slip.” He spoke with somber pride.

  “Why wouldn’t the Roman believe you?” Segestes scratched his head, trying to fathom that. “Have evil spirits stolen his wits?”

  “He wouldn’t believe you about Thusnelda, either.” His sworn man got to the bottom of the mug (Roman work, bought from a trader coming out of Gaul) in a hurry. The slave looked at Segestes, who nodded. The slave took the mug from Masua and carried it away to refill it.

  “No, he wouldn’t.” The thought of Thusnelda lying in Arminius’ arms still filled Segestes with rage. He made himself push that rage aside, even though it was the heaviest burden he’d ever set himself against. “Not believing me there is one thing. If a man steals a woman, it’s a family affair. It is important to the people involved and to their friends. But if a man goes through Germany calling for a rising against the Romans… How can Varus not believe that?”

  “He does not believe Arminius would ever do such a wicked thing.” By the expression on Masua’s face, he might have been smelling bad meat. The slave came back with the freshened mug. Again, Masua drank eagerly. He might have been trying to get the taste of bad meat out of his mouth, too.

  “Ha!” Segestes said, a noise that was anything but the laugh it sounded like. “Arminius will do anything he thinks he can get away with. And we know what he thinks of Rome, and of Roman rule in Germany.”

  “We do, yes. This Quinctilius Varus, he will not see it.” Masua sounded disgusted, for which Segestes could hardly blame him.

  “Strange. He does not seem to be a stupid man,” Segestes said. “The Roman king, this Augustus whose face is on their coins, would not send a stupid man to do such an important job as this.”

  “He is stupid enough. Otherwise, he would hearken to you.” As a sworn man should be, Masua was loyal.

  Segestes scratched his chin. “Have you ever known a man who can-not tell red from green? There they are, plain as can be in your eyes, but they look the same to him.”

  Masua nodded. “Yes, a man on the next farm over was like that when I was growing up. His belly griped him all the time, because he would eat berries and apples before they got ripe. But for that, he was a fine fellow. He was bold in the fight—I remember that.”

  “Good for him,” Segestes said. A German who wasn’t bold in the fight wasn’t a man, not in the eyes of his tribesmen. The chieftain came back to the point at hand: “I think this is what’s wrong with Varus. When he looks at Arminius, he can’t see what is plain to everyone else.”

  “It could he so,” Masua said after some thought. “Arminius will gripe his belly it he isn’t careful, though or even if he is.”

  “Yes. He will.” Segestes remembered something else his retainer had said. “His men tried to ambush you?”

  “They did.” Masua’s big head went up and down. “One of them showed himself too soon, though. It was early morning, and foggy—maybe he thought I would not see him. But I did. and I went back to the steading where I’d passed the night. The men there are your friends they told me of another way east. Next morning, one of those men started up the path I’d taken the day before. He was near my size. about my coloring, and he had on a cloak much like mine. Meanwhile. I used the side way they showed me. The hope was that the ambushers would think the local man was me, and so it proved. I pray the gods let him get back to his steading safe.”

  “May it be so,” Segestes said, “Good to know I do still have friends here and there. With Arminius making such a racket. It’s hard to be sure these days.”

  “That he witch.” Masua scowled. “He has bespelled the Roman governor. I don’t know how, but he has.”

  “Oh, I know how.” Segestes sighed. The fire had died down to embers, and his breath smoked. “Arminius is young and handsome and bold. I seem old and grumpy by comparison. He can say he loves Thusnelda. Maybe he even does. But I think his course is a disaster tor Germany. That is why I tried to give the girl to Tudrus, who has belter sense.”

  “I would have done the same,” Masua said. “None of my girls is old enough to wed yet, though.”

  “I know. Wait till you see how lucky you will remember yourself as being,” Segestes said. “Women cause trouble. They can’t help it. It’s part of what they are.”

  “Oh, and men don’t? I have learned something,’ Masua said.

  The chieftain laughed, then sighed again and shook his head. “Arminius causes trouble—no doubt about that. Why would he not want to become part of Rome? Such foolishness! Without Rome, where would we get our wine? Our fine pottery? Our own potters make junk good enough to use, but not good enough to look at. Where would we get rich jewelry, or coins, or all kinds of other good things?”

  “You don’t need to tell me all this,” Masua said gently. “I already know.”

  “Yes, yes. Anyone with sense enough to cover a mustard seed would know,” Segestes said. “But that leaves Arminius out. And it leaves a lot of young Germans out. They don’t think of anything but fighting and killing.”

  “Fighting is good. Killing is good,” Masua said. “Of course, when you’re young you don’t think you might get killed instead. That’s not so good.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Segestes agreed, his voice dry. “If we rise up against the Romans, how many will get killed?”

  “Lots, chances are,” Masua said. “Wars are like that.”

  Segestes came over and kissed him first on the right cheek, then on the left. “You can see this. You are not a blockhead. I can see this, too. I hope I am not a blockhead.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Masua said quickly, as a sworn retainer should have done for his chieftain.

  “Well, I thank you for that,” Segestes said. “But Arminius can’t see this. He’s going here and there and everywhere, telling people we can drive out the Romans without breaking a sweat. What kind of blockhead is he? Those runty little dark bastards don’t fight the way we do, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fight.”

  “I have seen them do it,” the younger man replied. “You are right. They know how.”

  “Why does he think we can beat them so easily, then? Why?” Segestes said. “Even if we win a battle, they will just bring in mor
e soldiers. That is what they are doing in Pannonia. Their king, this fellow Augustus, is as stubborn a man as ever was born. He will not let go because he burns a finger. Isn’t it better to ride the way the horse is already going instead of trying to turn the stupid beast around?”

  “I think so,” Masua said.

  “I told you—you are no blockhead. And we have a lot to learn from the Romans, too. This whole business of writing…” Segestes regretfully spread his hands. “I wish I would have come to it when I was young enough to learn it. It seems to me a very large idea.”

  “It could be,” said Masua, who had no interest whatever in writing. “But I will tell you something else.” Segestes made a questioning noise. His retainer explained: “That Varus, he has a lot to learn from us.”

  Serving as an officer in the Roman auxiliaries made Arminius a sophisticated man in Germany. Command meant more among the Romans than it did with his own folk. In Germany, a chieftain had to persuade to lead. If his retainers didn’t like what he was doing, they wouldn’t follow him.

  A Roman officer who gave an order expected to be obeyed because of his rank. If the men under him said no, the Romans made them pay. Having authority like that made Arminius more persuasive, even if he couldn’t use it all. If you tried to give a German an order he didn’t fancy, he would up and tell you no. Either that or he would walk away and ignore you from then on. Arminius the German chieftain didn’t have the coercive tools Arminius the officer of auxiliaries had enjoyed.

  But he still spoke as if he expected to be obeyed. Because he did, he got more Germans to follow him than he would have if he’d begged for support the way a lot of would-be leaders did.

  “You sound like a man who knows what he wants to do,” was something he heard again and again.

  “I am a man who knows what he wants to do,” he would say whenever he heard that. “I want to throw the Romans out of our country. The more men who follow me, the better. But if I have to fight them by myself, I will.”

  He would do no such thing. Fighting the legions singlehanded was exactly the same as falling on his sword. It sounded bold, though. It sounded better than bold: it sounded heroic. And the more he said it, the more he repeated it, the less likely it became that he would have to follow through on it.

  The Romans had been pushing German customs in their direction a little at a time, so slowly that only old men noticed things weren’t done now as they had been in the days of their youth. Had the invaders kept on with that slow, steady pressure, they might have turned a lot of Germans into willing—even eager—imitators of their ways without the locals’ even noticing.

  But paying taxes the way Roman subjects did was not to the Germans’ liking. Arminius seized on that. “Who knows what this Varus will want from you next? Who knows what he will take from you next?” he asked, again and again. “You can’t trust him. You don’t dare trust him. If you give him a finger, he’ll take an arm. If you give him an arm, he’ll take all of you. Then you’ll be one more Roman slave.”

  He wanted to talk about Roman soldiers stealing German women.

  He wanted to, but soon found out he couldn’t. It would have been lovely if he could; to the Germans, every Roman alive was a natural-born lecher, a threat to their women’s virtue. Whenever Arminius tried that tack, though, a pro-Roman German would sing out, “What about Thusnelda?” A man who’d stolen a woman himself couldn’t very well accuse others of wanting to do the same thing.

  Oh, he could, but he got no profit from it if he did. And so Arminius, a practical man, soon stopped trying. He found plenty of other bad things to say about Varus and the Romans that didn’t leave him open to heckling. His own folk were glad enough to listen to him when he steered clear of talk about women.

  He’d just finished another harangue when a man he knew came up to him and spoke in a low voice: “Masua got away. We couldn’t nab him, and he’s been seen at Segestes’ steading. We’ll never get him there.”

  “Thunderweather!” Arminius said. “So he went and told lies to Varus and made it back, did he? That’s not good.”

  “Sorry.” The other German hung his head and spread his hands. “He’s a sneaky bastard—that must be why Segestes chose him to go to the Roman in the first place. He gave our friends the slip some kind of way. We still don’t know how. They thought they were going to catch him and give him what he deserved… but they didn’t.”

  “Too bad. Oh, too bad!” Arminius said. “Has anyone we know come back from Vetera? Have you heard whether Varus paid any attention to him?”

  “No, I haven’t,” his acquaintance answered. “The only way to find out will be how the Romans behave come spring.”

  “Yes.” Arminius drew out the word till it sounded uncommonly gloomy. He could picture Varus summoning him to Mindenum. He would have to go if the Roman governor called him. Not going would show mistrust, and would make Varus mistrust him if he didn’t already. But if Varus did already mistrust him… chains and the headsman’s axe might be waiting for him when he came to the legionary encampment.

  I am a Roman citizen, Arminius thought. If Varus does try to take my head, I can appeal to Augustus, the Romans’ king. That would put off the inevitable. But how likely was Augustus to spare a rebel chieftain’s life? If he was as canny as people said, he would want to nail Arminius’ head to a tree or do whatever the Romans did with their sacrificial victims.

  “You keep telling people Varus likes you,” the other German said. “If he does, he wouldn’t have listened to Masua.”

  “Yes.” Arminius stretched the word again. “If.” A foreigner’s fondness was liable to decide his fate, and his country’s. A slender twig to have to trust, but the only one he had.

  VII

  Quinctilius Varus got the feeling that he’d never properly appreciated spring before. That was what came of living his life around the Mediterranean. Winters were mild there, snows uncommon. Winter was the rainy season, the growing season, the season that led toward spring harvest.

  Not here. Not on the Rhine. Varus had seen more snow in one winter than in all his previous life. So he told himself, anyhow, though it might not have been strictly true. He was sure he’d never seen more snow, deeper snow, than the drifts that whitened field and forest around Vetera.

  And he’d, never seen a greater rebirth than the one that came when the -sun at last swung north and melted all the snow. The bare-branched trees enrobed themselves in greenery. Fresh new grass surged up through the dead, wispy, yellow stuff the snowdrifts had hidden.

  Butterflies, flying jewels, flitted from one magically sprouted flower to the next. Bees began to buzz. Flies and gnats and mosquitoes also came back to life, and were rather less welcome.

  With the insects came swarms of birds. Sparrows and carrion crows and a few others had stayed through the winter. But now the woods and fields were full of music. Swallows swooped. Thrushes hopped. Swifts darted. Robins sang. Varus appreciated them the more because he’d done without them for so long.

  Aristocles was less impressed. “If things weren’t so awful before, they wouldn’t seem so much better now,” the slave said darkly.

  “I’d rather look on the bright side of things,” Varus said.

  The pedisequus sniffed. “The bright side of things would be going back to Rome. Are we going to do that?” His woebegone expression answered the question without words. Then he used a few more: “No. We’re going into Germany.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Quinctilius Varus said. Even with the broad-leafed trees across the Rhine getting new foliage, the German forests looked dark and forbidding. Varus had never seen them look any other way. The bright side of things was hard to find. He did his best: “Maybe this year’s campaigns will bring the province under the yoke once for all.”

  “Gods grant it be so!” Aristocles exclaimed. “In that case, you can turn it over to somebody else and go back to Rome after all.”

  “Nothing I’d like better.” Varus lowered his vo
ice. “The company of soldiers begins to pall after a while.”

  “Bloody bores,” Aristocles muttered, which was just what his master was thinking. The pedisequus went on, “Is there any chance we could send the legions across the river to do what needs doing while we stay here ourselves? Vetera is bad, but I don’t suppose it’s impossible. Not next to Mindenum, anyhow.”

  Regretfully, Varus shook his head. “Augustus put me in charge of the three legions here. If I’m going to command them, I have to command them, if you know what I mean. And commanding means being seen to command.”

  “You have a strong sense of duty,” Aristocles said. Varus would have liked that better had the slave not contrived to make it sound more like reproach than praise.

  However much Varus wished he could, he couldn’t avoid the company of soldiers. Practically everyone in Vetera was a soldier or a retired soldier or someone who sold things to soldiers or someone who slept with soldiers. Some of the legionary officers seemed enthusiastic about the prospects for the coming campaigning season. “One more good push and we’ve got ‘em, I think,” Ceionius said at a supper of roast boar.

  “Here’s hoping,” Varus said. By now, he’d got used to drinking neat wine—or he thought he had, anyhow.

  “It’s still Germany. They’re still Germans,” Lucius Eggius said. “We’ve been banging heads with them for a long time, like a couple of aurochs in rutting season. How do we pull a miracle out of our helmet now?”

  “We have a fine new leader,” Ceionius said. “That’s how.”

  “You flatter me,” Varus said, which was bound to be true. Augustus’s courtiers were smoother at it than these provincial bumpkins. To keep from thinking about that, Varus added, “Aurochs are a disappointment.”

  “Not if you boil ‘em long enough,” Eggius said. “After a while, the meat will turn tender. You’ve got to be patient, though.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Varus said. “In the Gallic War, Caesar makes them out to be fearsome monsters. And they aren’t—they’re nothing but wild oxen with long horns.”