Harry Turtledove - Give me back my Legions!

“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 more 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 voice. “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.”