Harry Turtledove - Give me back my Legions!

“Living close by the sea, the Chauci have wetter winters than we do,” Sigimerus said.

Arminius shuddered. “One more reason to be glad we don’t belong to their tribe,” he said. “Some of the Romans told me it never rains in summer in their country, and hardly ever snows in winter.”

“No rain in the summer! How do they raise their crops?” his father asked.

“They plant in the fall and harvest in the spring,” Arminius said. “They do get rain in winter. It waters the grain.”

“I think those Romans were lying, the way they would if they said their trees grew with branches underground and roots in the air,” Sigimerus said. “They just wanted to see what you’d fall for.”

“I don’t know, Father,” Arminius said. “Pannonia plants in spring and reaps in the fall, the same as we do. The Romans kept talking about how funny that was.”

“Well, I wasn’t there,” Sigimerus said - a polite way of skirting an argument. His foot came down in mud. He pulled it out and scraped the muck off on some dying grass. “I wish I weren’t here, too.”

“If you know a better track that goes north, you should have told me about it,” Arminius said. This one snaked north and west along the edge of a bog. The reasonably hard ground was wide enough for three or four men abreast, no more.

Sigimerus pointed. “It does get a little better up ahead - just a couple of bowshots up ahead, as a matter of fact. The ground up there gets higher, and. . . . Are you listening to me, Arminius?” He raised his right hand, as if he were on the point of cuffing his son for not paying attention. But that was only old habit. Arminius was too big to cuff, even if he wasn’t listening.

And he wasn’t. He was looking at the higher ground Sigimerus had pointed out. By the way he was looking at it, he might have seen the Germans’ fierce gods feasting there.

Sigimerus stared. Try as he would, he couldn’t see or even imagine the gods there. Because he couldn’t, he went on grumbling: “When I was a young man, we respected our elders. We didn’t forget they were there.”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Arminius didn’t sound very sorry. “It’s just that -”

“What?” Sigimerus snapped.

“Now I know what to tell the Chauci,” Arminius said. Sigimerus spent the next two days trying to get him to explain what he meant. To the older man’s disgust, Arminius wouldn’t. His smile, though, was even broader and more self-satisfied than it had been when he brought Thusnelda home from Segestes’ house.

Quinctilius Varus had just sent away a German girl when Aristocles tapped on his door. Varus grumbled to himself; the pedisequus was pushing things by bothering him so soon. Couldn’t a man have some leisure to enjoy the afterglow? Had Varus been as young as the girl, he would have enjoyed another round. In his fifties, he’d have to wait a day or two - or three - no matter how many leeks and eggs and snails he ate. Not even oysters would help much, and they’d likely spoil by the time they got here from the coast.

And so, grouchily, he said, “What is it?”

“Please excuse me, sir,” Aristocles said as he came in, “but there’s someone here I think you’d better see.”

“Oh, really? Who?” Varus asked. The first person he thought of who might fit that bill was a messenger from Augustus. If the rebels in Pannonia had surrendered or been crushed, if Tiberius was on his way to finish the job in Germany . . . Varus wouldn’t be affronted. By the sweet gods! he thought. I could go home!

But a glance at his slave’s face told him the news wasn’t that good. Voice faintly apologetic, Aristocles answered, “The distinguished German gentleman named Segestes.”

Varus knew that, as far as Aristocles was concerned, there was no such thing as a distinguished German gentleman. He also knew Segestes was about the last person he wanted to see. “I don’t suppose you could tell him I’ve gone down to Italy to get the hair in my nose and ears trimmed?” he said.

Aristocles tossed his head. “I don’t think he’d be happy to hear something like that, sir. He did come all this way. . . . He talks as if he thinks he has important news.”

“The only trouble with that is, he always thinks he has important news, and he’s been wrong every time so far.” Quinctilius Varus heaved a sigh. “Oh, very well. You can’t really tell him to turn around and go on back to Germany. Take him to the small dining room and give him wine and whatever else he fancies. I’ll be along soon.”

“I’ll do that then, sir.” The pedisequus bobbed his head and hurried out of the bedchamber. With another sigh, Varus draped himself in his toga. Roman fashions weren’t made for winters like this. He understood why the Germans wore breeches under their cloaks. He wished he could himself, but what people would say if a Roman governor started aping the barbarians did not bear thinking on.

He did put on thick wool socks that rose almost to his knees. He could wear those without loss of dignity, and his wife’s female slaves had knitted him several pairs. Trousers would have covered more of him, but the socks were better than nothing. They did help keep his feet warm, anyhow.

When he walked into the small dining room, Segestes was drinking neat wine and eating figs candied in honey. The German jumped to his feet and clasped Varus’ hand. “Your Excellency!” he said in his gutturally accented Latin.

“Good day, Segestes. Always a pleasure to see you.” One thing long experience in Roman politics had done for Varus: he could lie with a straight face and a sincere voice. “What brings you to Vetera today?”

A Roman might have used polite evasions for a while. Segestes’ words were as blunt as his features: “About what you would expect. I bring you news of Arminius. It is not good news, not for anyone who cares about Rome and the Roman province of Germany.”

Quinctilius Varus poured wine for himself; the house slaves had thoughtfully left two cups on the table. “Well, tell me what it is.” He went on doing his best to sound friendly. But he felt he was going through the same thing more often than he wanted, as if he kept burping up fish that hadn’t been quite right to begin with.

“He has gone up to the north, to talk with the Chauci.” Segestes’ wintry eyes widened to show what a wicked deed that was.

“And why has he gone there?” Varus asked patiently. He wasn’t altogether sure Arminius had; he disliked taking Segestes’ word for anything. He kept quiet about that. If the German thought Varus reckoned him a liar, things might take an unpleasant turn.

“They dwell far from Mindenum, sir. The power of the legions is not much felt in their land. And they have been a strong, fierce tribe for many years. Why else would Arminius go to them but to seek their help in his fight against Rome?” By the way Segestes laid things out, he might have been a Greek geometer drawing in the dust with a stick to prove a theorem.

Suddenly and powerfully, Varus missed the warm sun of Athens, missed the bright sky, missed standing in the shade of an olive tree with gray-green leaves as a Greek geometer drew his figures and then erased them with his sandal. He missed everything the sun and the tree and the geometer stood for, too. He missed civilization.

He’d never dreamt his work would involve extending civilization to Germany. Dealing with this wolfish savage told how hard the job was and would be. And, as far as Varus could see, Segestes hadn’t proved his theorem now, any more than he had any other time he trotted it out.

“Did you hear Arminius speaking to these Chauci? Do you know for a fact what he said to them?” the Roman governor asked.

“Did I hear him? No.” Segestes shook his big head. Like so many Germans, he towered over Varus. Varus didn’t like it. His unwelcome guest went on, “But I know what he must have said.”

“How?” Varus demanded, perhaps more bluntly than he’d intended. The wine he’d poured himself was as neat as Segestes’. Unmixed wine kept you warm in the wintertime. It also mounted straight to your head.

“I will tell you how, sir.” Segestes might have drunk more than one cup himself. Bright red spots burned on his cheekbones. His teeth seemed uncommonly long and sharp as he continued, “I know because, if I stood before the Chauci blazing with hatred for Rome, it is what I would say.”

“Ah. There we have it.” Varus pounced. “Why do you claim Arminius blazes with hatred for Rome? You will have heard, I suppose, that he and his father guested with me at Mindenum this summer? They showed no hatred then.”

“Have you ever caught a duck with your hands?” Segestes asked.

“What on earth does that have to do with anything?” Varus asked irritably.

“You haven’t, then. I did not think so.” The German nodded to himself. “You sit by the riverbank. You sit very still, so you don’t scare the duck off right away. After a while, it grows easier at having you around. You toss crumbs of stale bread or whatever other food you have into the water. The duck swims closer and closer. It loves you now. You go on sitting still, but for when you feed it. And then, when it comes close enough, you grab it” - he lunged at Varus, who involuntarily stumbled back -”and you wring its neck!”

He could have wrung Varus’ neck had he wanted to. Both men knew it. It made them oddly complicit, there in the chilly little dining hall. With what dignity Varus could muster, he said, “I am no duck, nor is Arminius hunting me.”

“So you say,” Segestes replied. “If you kill Arminius and I am wrong, though, you do Rome no harm. But if you do not kill him, if you let the worthless swinehound live, and I am right, you do not just hurt yourself. You also hurt Rome. You may hurt Rome badly, for you do not grasp how ambitious Arminius is.”

Ambitio was a word to conjure with in Latin. Quinctilius Varus wondered whether Segestes knew. A man ambitious for himself rather than Rome was the greatest danger to the state. Ambitious men had brought down the Republic. Now Augustus, having gained all his ambitions, did his best to keep others from having any.

“Ask any man in any clan in any tribe in all of Germany,” Segestes went on. “If he knows my name, he will tell you I am Rome’s friend and ally. Ever since my beard began to grow, I have been on the Roman side. I have fought for Rome inside Germany. Arminius never has. He never will. He thinks you are a duck, sir. He throws stale bread on the water to make you swim closer. Will you let him grab you?”

He didn’t go for Varus’ throat again. From what Varus had seen of Germans that showed unusual restraint from Segestes. “Well, you may be right,” the Roman governor said after silence stretched.

In the Roman Empire, anyone with ears to hear would have understood that as Quiet down and go away. You’re boring my toes off. Segestes might be a Roman citizen, but he was no Roman sophisticate. “You wait. You look close. You . . . will see I am right.” He had to pause to remember how to form the future.

Varus just wanted him to leave. They’d played this scene too many times now. Did actors get sick of roles after performing them over and over? If they didn’t, why not?

Segestes poured himself more wine and drank it down. The red patches on his cheeks burned bigger and brighter. He reached for a candied fig, then pulled his hand back. When he looked at Varus again, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Ask you something, your Excellency?” he said, his speech slightly slurred.

“Of course,” Varus said, more cordially than he felt.

“You had Arminius as your guest for all that time at Mindenum,” the German chieftain said, which didn’t sound like a question to Varus.

He nodded anyway. “Yes. That’s right. He was there, he and his father both.” And if you don’t like it, too bad.

Segestes muttered to himself. Then, slowly, painfully, he brought out what was on his mind: “While Arminius was with you, did he speak of Thusnelda? Did he say she was well? Did he say she was happy?”

He loves her. He cares about her, Varus realized in surprise. He’d assumed Segestes resented Arminius for showing him up, not for stealing away someone who mattered to him. But the middle-aged chieftain wasn’t just posturing. He missed his daughter, and he worried about her.

Varus had to think back. Arminius hadn’t talked much about Thusnelda one way or the other. But what did that prove? Varus hadn’t talked much about Claudia Pulchra, either. He remembered speaking of his own son - of whom Arminius reminded him a little - but not of his wife.

He picked his words with care: “In all the time he was there, I never heard anything to make me doubt it. He is not a man who enjoys hurting someone and then laughing about it.”

Varus had hoped that would make Segestes feel better, but it didn’t seem to. The German heaved a sigh. “No, I suppose he is not that kind of beast,” he allowed. “That does not mean he is no beast. He takes what he wants and then, once he has it, he puts it on a shelf and forgets about it. Not so bad, if you talk about a fancy pot or a silver statuette. But if a girl sits on a shelf and gathers dust, it is cruel, not so?”

Plenty of girls gave their all to men who got bored with them afterwards. Varus didn’t think Segestes wanted to hear that. “I hope it will turn out for the best in the end,” the Roman said: one more sentiment that sounded good and cost him nothing.

“I always hope for this.” Segestes’ slow, deliberate Latin seemed strangely impressive. “But what I hope for and what I expect are two different things.” He sighed once more. “I cannot persuade you. I cannot, uh, convince you. All I can do is to say again, Try not to be a duck, your Excellency.” He sketched a salute and strode out of the small dining room with no more ceremony than that.

Aristocles appeared a moment later. Varus nodded, unsurprised. “Were you listening?” he asked.

“Of course not, sir!” The pedisequus sounded shocked: so shocked, Varus didn’t believe him for a heartbeat.

“He does go on, doesn’t he?” the Roman governor said.

“And on, and on,” Aristocles agreed, not caring that he’d just given himself the lie. “What was that nonsense about ducks? I couldn’t follow all of that.”

“Don’t worry - it’s not worth following. But he really is fond of his daughter.” Varus shook his head in wonder. “You never can tell.”

“With Germans, you never can tell about anything,” Aristocles remarked.

“True,” Varus said, and then wished he hadn’t.

XIII

Caldus Caelius’ caligae clunked on the timbers of the bridge across the Rhine. “One more time,” he said to nobody in particular. “Maybe we’ll finish the job this year. Then we can go do something else.”

“Or settle down in Germany for garrison duty,” said the man marching on his left. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Sometimes I think so,” Caelius answered. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.

“Silence in the ranks!” a military tribune bawled. Caelius marched on without a word. Sooner or later - probably sooner - the senior officer would find something else to worry about. In the meantime, Caelius didn’t feel like getting screamed at.