Harry Turtledove - Give me back my Legions!

“All right. Thanks.” Arminius hadn’t really expected anything else. As he’d seen in Pannonia and here, Roman camps varied little from one place to another or from one time to another. If the legionaries had put them there last year, chances were they’d do the same thing again.

It was boring. It gave ordinary men no room to deviate from the pattern. But it worked. The Romans wouldn’t have conquered so much of the world if it hadn’t. They always camped the same way. They always fought the same way, too. If you offered them battle on ground where they could do what they usually did, chances were they’d make you regret it. No one could doubt that the Germans were the fiercest fighters the gods ever made, but the Roman legions had given them all they wanted and then some for a generation now.

We need to fight them on our own terms, then . . . if we can, Arminius thought. That same notion had spun round and round inside his head ever since he came back from Pannonia. Like so many things, it was easier to imagine than to bring off - as his father hadn’t tired of reminding him. But Quinctilius Varus really did think he was a tame German. That was bound to help. Would it help enough?

XIV

Quinctilius Varus paused halfway through his latest report to Augustus. He knew he sounded as hopeful as things in Germany could possibly allow, and then a little more besides. When you were writing to the ruler of the Roman world, you didn’t want to have to tell him things weren’t going well. Even a man married to Augustus’ grand-niece could spill his career in the chamber pot if he forgot that.

And if, after Varus returned to civilization, anyone asked him why-he’d seemed so optimistic, he could point to the reports he’d got from subordinates all over Germany. He’d kept every single one of them, dating back to the day he’d first crossed the Rhine. And he’d based his optimism squarely on theirs.

He started to write again, then paused with the reed pen only a digit above the papyrus. “Damnation!” he muttered. Of course he made everything in Germany seem good to Augustus, whether it really was good or ... not quite so good. Wouldn’t his own underlings do the same thing with him?

They would if they thought they could get away with it. He was sure of that. They wouldn’t want him breathing down their necks, any more than he wanted Augustus breathing down his. But he had to accept their reports. How else was he supposed to know what was going on?

You could travel all over the province and see for yourself, he thought. But he was shaking his head as soon as the idea formed in his mind. If he spent all his time on horseback and in the sorry camps legionary detachments built for themselves while patrolling the German wilderness, how was he supposed to administer the land between the Rhine and the Elbe? He saw no way.

But he didn’t like having to depend on reports he couldn’t check. “Aristocles!” he called.

“Yes, sir?” As usual, the pedisequus appeared with commendable haste.

“I’d like to speak with Ceionius for a bit. Fetch him, if you’d be so kind.” Some Romans would have said Varus wasted politeness on a slave. But a little honey made the gruel more appetizing. It wasn’t as if politeness cost anything.

“I’ll bring him directly.” Aristocles hurried away.

While Varus waited, he wrote a little more of the report. Some inspiration seemed to have oozed out of him, but he persisted even so. Augustus expected to be informed on how Germany was doing. And what Augustus expected, Augustus got. More than a generation of his rule had proved that.

If Aristocles couldn’t find Ceionius, if he brought Lucius Eggius back instead . . . Varus wouldn’t be very happy about that. The two camp prefects were as different as chalk and cheese. You could reason with Ceionius, while Eggius, curse him, was as stubborn, as cross-grained, as any man ever born. He didn’t have nearly enough respect for his betters.

To the governor’s relief, his slave returned with Ceionius. “Hail, your Excellency!” the prefect said, saluting. “What do you need today?”

“I expect you’ll know, ah, reliable centurions in most of the detachments we’ve got wandering through Germany,” Varus said.

Lucius Eggius might not have caught his drift. Ceionius did. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, he asked, “Reliable in what way, sir?”

“If some of their superiors are trying to gild lead in their reports, that’s something I should hear about, don’t you think?” Varus said.

By the camp prefect’s vulpine expression, he did think so. “It’s something I ought to hear about, too,” Ceionius murmured. He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, sir, I’m sure I can find centurions like that. Quietly letting them know what you need will take a bit of doing, but I can manage it.”

“I thought you might be able to,” Varus said. “The more ways we have to learn what’s really going on, the better. And, as you say, best to do it under the rose.”

“I’ll get right on it, sir. Off the top of my head, I can think of three or four men who’d be perfect.” Sketching another salute, Ceionius hurried away.

Aristocles had listened, as discreetly as if he were part of the tent canvas. “Not bad, sir. Not bad at all,” he said.

“Who knows whether these field commanders truly are doing all the wonderful things they claim?” Varus said. “If some of them are lying and I can show they are, that will make all of them tighten up.”

“Just so.” Aristocles dipped his head in agreement. “Do you need anything else from me right now, sir?”

“No. You may go,” Varus said. The pedisequus vanished as smoothly and quickly as he’d manifested himself. Varus attacked his report for Augustus with renewed vigor. He might not tell Claudia Pulchra’s great-uncle things weren’t perfect here, but at least he could come closer to the truth himself.

Varus paused once more, muttering to himself. He was setting spies on his subordinates now, to make sure they did what they told him they were doing. He was a good enough administrator. Realistically, though, the Empire had plenty of others just as capable, even if they didn’t enjoy his connections.

Augustus, now, had long since proved he was one of a kind. No one else could run things the way he did. That being so, wouldn’t he have had men quietly keeping an eye on Varus and Germany all along?

What were they saying? How well did they think Rome was doing here? If they thought Varus was botching things, would he suddenly get a letter recalling him to Italy?

Would I be sorry if I did? Varus wondered. He would be sorry Augustus judged he’d failed - he would be especially sorry if Augustus shipped him to an island in the middle of the sea - but would he be sorry to get out of Germany?

“No,” he said firmly. With a sigh, he re-inked the pen and started writing again.

Lucius Eggius watched the old German come out of his village and approach the legionary detachment. Eggius kept his hand on his swordhilt. Even if this fellow was graying and balding, you never could tell with Germans.

But the native held up his right hand with the palm out to show it was empty. “Hail, Romans,” he called in fair Latin. “Come ahead, if you like. We have no quarrel with you.”

“Thanks,” Eggius answered. “Can you feed us?”

“Some,” the German said. “We are not rich. This is not a large village, either. But we will give you what we can.”

They would try to hold out on the legionaries. Lucius Eggius had heard that song often enough to know all the verses. Well, his men had got plenty of practice at squeezing out more than the barbarians felt like giving. And if the Germans didn’t like it, too bad.

“We will take what you can give,” Eggius said aloud. Several of his men grinned. A few of them chuckled. They’d take anything else they thought they needed, too. Again, what could the locals do about it?

“Come. Be welcome,” the old man said. He wasn’t going out of his way to make trouble, anyhow. Eggius wished the locals were this reasonable more often.

As soon as he got into the village, he figured out why nobody here felt like getting uppity. The place held plenty of women and girls of all ages, but only a handful of men between fifteen and fifty. Youths with downy cheeks, yes. Fogeys like this fellow who spoke Latin, yes. In between? No.

“Where are your warriors?” Eggius asked bluntly. If they thought they could ambush his detachment, they’d be sorry - but not for long. And he had plenty of hostages, if it came to that.

But the old German pointed northwest. “There is trouble with the Chauci, may the gods cover their backsides with boils.” Eggius had to hide a grin; sure as sure, the native had learned his Latin from legionaries. “And so they go off to fight.”

“Good luck to them,” Eggius said. He’d fought the Chauci himself, and hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Even for Germans, they were rough, tough, and nasty. “I hope they help cut those buggers down to size.” He meant every word of that. If the Germans fought among themselves, they did the legions’ work for them. Every German some other German killed was a German the Romans didn’t have to worry about.

“It will be as the gods decide.” But after a moment, the barbarian added, “Any gods who would favor the Chauci over our tribe don’t deserve the sacrifices we give them.”

“There you go,” Eggius said as the German ambled off.

“Quinctilius Varus won’t be sorry to hear the savages are squabbling,” one of his aides said in a low voice.

“I was thinking the same thing,” the camp prefect answered. “For once, I won’t have to make up pretty stories when I write to him.”

“You don’t do much of that,” the junior officer said loyally.

“No more than I can help,” Eggius agreed. “If I told him what things were really like in this gods-forsaken province, he’d sack me. Not that I’d mind getting back to the real world - who would, by Venus’ pretty pink nipples? - but I hate to walk away from a job before it’s finished.”

Women - mostly women too old to be interesting - and youths brought out barley mush and beer. Eggius politely suggested that they kill some pigs, too. He would have got less polite had they said no, but they didn’t. The savory smell of roasting pork made spit flood into his mouth. Some soldiers said meat made them slow. He’d never felt that way himself.

He eyed the graybeard who’d come out to greet the Romans. “You fed us pretty well, I will say,” he allowed.

“We don’t want trouble right now,” the German said.

Right now? Eggius wondered. But probing what was likely just a slip of the tongue would only stir up trouble. He didn’t think it would tell him anything he didn’t already know. He teased the barbarian instead: “So you’re finally getting used to the notion of living inside the Empire, eh?”

The German looked back at him with eyes suddenly as cold and pale and flat as a sheet of ice. “Of course,” he said.

You lying bastard, Lucius Eggius thought. But the natives here didn’t have to like anything about submitting to Rome. They just had to do it. If they kept doing it long enough, their grandchildren would like it fine. And Eggius’ full belly told him they were getting used to doing it.

Rain drummed down on Mindenum. The Romans squelching along the encampment’s muddy, puddled streets swore at the miserable weather. Arminius had to work hard not to laugh at them.

They were used to winter rains. He’d seen that in Pannonia, which had weather like Germany’s. Spring and summer could be wet there, as they so often were here. The Romans, arrogant as usual, thought the pattern they were used to was the only natural one. Thinking that way only made them hate northern weather even more than they would have otherwise.

One of the legionaries twisted his fingers into the horned gesture they used against the evil eye. If he’d aimed it at Arminius, the German would have had to start a fight to salve his own honor. But the soldier shot his hand up at the sky. He might have been telling the gods they had no business letting it rain at this time of year.

They wouldn’t listen to him. No matter what he thought, rain in spring and summer was no prodigy, not in Germany. It happened all the time. The gods wouldn’t stop it on one Roman’s account; he reminded Arminius of a yappy little dog barking at his betters. No, the gods wouldn’t heed him. But they might - they just might - remember he’d been rude.

A wagon train came into the encampment: supplies fetched from the headwaters of the Lupia. If men had trouble getting through the mud, heavy wheeled wagons had far more. The wheels only tore up the ground worse. The oxen hauling the wains struggled forward one slow stride at a time. The soldiers guarding the wagon train had to shoulder wagons forward whenever they bogged down. By the mud soaking the men, they’d already done a lot of shouldering.

“Most excellent Arminius!”

That precise, fussy voice belonged to Aristocles. Sure enough, here came Varus’ chief slave. He was fussy about his person, too, and looked even more unhappy at going out in the rain than most of the Romans did.

“What can I do for you today?” Arminius asked. He treated the skinny Greek as politely as if Aristocles were free. You had to do that with prominent Romans’ prominent slaves. Your life wouldn’t be worth living if you didn’t. Some of them ran their masters rather than the other way around. That would never have happened among Germans. Slaves here knew their place. If they forgot it, a clout in the teeth reminded them what was what.

“The governor wishes to confer with you,” Aristocles said.

He could be polite, too. Arminius had no trouble imagining what Varus had told Aristocles. Go fetch the German, he would have said, or, perhaps more likely, Go fetch the barbarian. He wouldn’t have cared whether his slave honey-coated the message or not. But Aristocles did.

“I am always pleased to confer with the governor,” Arminius replied. He can give me orders as long as I’m stuck in this terrible encampment. So many things the German and the Greek weren’t saving. Arminius wondered if Aristocles heard them nonetheless.

He watched the pedisequus flinch delicately as rain poured down on him. That almost made him laugh. A German who minded getting wet would soon go mad. Besides, Arminius could always pull his cloak up over his head. He didn’t bother here. Impressing Aristocles counted for more.

“This weather leaves much to be desired,” the Greek said.

Arminius only shrugged. “It’s often like this here,” he said, which was nothing but the truth.

“But you say it’s better north of the hills?” Aristocles asked.

“Is that what the governor wants to talk about?” Trying to hide his sudden excitement, Arminius parried question with question.

“He doesn’t tell me such things,” the slave sniffed. “ ‘Aristocles, go find Arminius and bring him to me’ - that’s what he said.” Arminius smiled - that was close to what he’d imagined, all right. Striking a pose even in the rain, Aristocles continued, “I found you, so now I’ll bring you.”