Arminius

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by Robert Fabbri


  The old slave squinted in the lamplight and then began.

  I had never seen the like of her; she outshone Musa and cast every female around her into a deep shade. Her beauty was young and fresh as a sapling in spring and she burst with vigour and the joy of life, like a lamb gambling on a sun-rich morn. Hair so blonde it was worth more than its weight in gold, skin so smooth and pale as to be almost reflective and eyes that … Well, eyes in which a man could lose himself for eternity: blue and deep as the sea on a summer’s day, they could strip you of your certainties and leave you a quivering wreck with one glance, enthralled by them. I saw her, Thusnelda, for the first time as the snow melted and the kings and sub-chieftains of the six tribes gathered at my father’s hall, and I knew that I had to have her. However, she was still considered to be one summer too young to be taken to wife and, anyway, there was also a major obstacle to any plans I had in that direction: her father, Segestes, my father’s cousin; he hated Siegimeri because he felt that he should lead the Cherusci and so, as the son of the object of his jealousy, I was hated too. Yet I gazed upon her, as she rode into my father’s compound as a part of Segestes’ retinue, as a parched man would at a cool stream; wanting to feel her wash all over me and then to drink her in. But even if there had not been that impediment and the way would have been clear for me to possess her that day, I would not have; not at that point. For by the first occasion that I set eyes on her, my plans were well advanced and I knew that I would have no time for the joys of a young wife until they had come to a successful fruition.

  I had spent the first winter back in Germania visiting, initially, the kings of the Chauci and the Sugambri who both gave me the exact same answers as the others: they would lead their men to the Teutoburg Wald but would not commit until they felt sure of victory. I left these two great men in their halls with words of thanks and praise for their courage and vision in even contemplating the idea that they may be part of an army that would free our land from the people who had seized it by force. I did, however, manage to extract one hard promise from each of them: they would provide supplies. So it was with my men of the Cherusci collecting sacks of grain and fodder and driving cattle and sheep into the forest and penning them in the dozen or so rode that we had cleared over the last year that I revisited the other three kings.

  ‘So,’ Adgandestrius mused as he contemplated my words next to the roaring fire in the centre of his hall, ‘you wish to charge us for the honour of being present to watch your first attack; is that it?’

  I did my best to hide my exasperation at the man’s deliberate obtuseness. ‘You know full well that is not the case, Adgandestrius. I am merely planning ahead. If you are good to your word …’

  ‘And there is no reason to suppose that I won’t be; the Chatti always keep their word.’

  ‘Indeed. When you fulfil your promise and bring your warriors to Teutoburg then they must eat; some of them may be hidden there for a moon.’

  ‘A moon?’

  ‘Yes, a whole moon. We have to get Varus to march to us; we have to be waiting and to do that we have to be there in advance, well in advance.’

  ‘And what if I decide not to bring my warriors in advance – well in advance?’

  ‘Then you will not have the opportunity to share the honour of Rome’s defeat.’ I held his gaze, my eyes hardening. ‘And you would not have kept your word, and when we are victorious every tribe in Germania will know who was there and who had promised to be there but failed to arrive and no man will want to share his board with you and your warriors. You will all be accounted of little worth both by the other tribes as well as by your own women.’

  And that produced the reaction that I had intended: with an explosive slamming of his fist on the table, Adgandestrius leapt to his feet, hurling his bench back to crash down onto the rush-strewn floor. His men all jerked their heads around in reaction to their lord’s outburst as he went for his dagger and slammed the point down into the board and left the weapon quivering in front of me. I remained motionless, still holding his gaze.

  ‘You would dare belittle me and the Chatti, you, you son of a friend of Rome; a man who’s stood back and let Rome tax his people to penury and played lickspittle to Varus whilst he tramples all over his lands. A man who’s—’

  ‘Been practical, Adgandestrius; practical! As you all have been. Your father may have got a better treaty with Rome; he may not have had to send his sons as hostages, but that was because he had not just tried to defeat Rome in battle. My father negotiated with Drusus having lost a great battle in which the flower of the Cherusci were cut down; my father could not choose his terms; but now I’m choosing mine and you can be part of it or not. Let your honour decide.’ I placed both palms on the table and pushed myself up, never once taking my eyes from his. ‘How do you want your women to feel about you, Adgandestrius? How do you want the Chatti to be perceived? Think on that because only you can decide this matter.’

  I turned and walked away knowing that I had made an enemy for life.

  Nevertheless, the vision I had painted of a future in which the Chatti had no honour stirred Adgandestrius and he began to send supplies to Teutoburg, although he did it in such a way as to imply that it was his idea and I had been a fool not to have thought of it myself. Engilram of the Bructeri and Mallovendatz of the Marsi needed less persuasion; the former, with the wisdom of age, saw the obvious necessity, and the latter’s hatred of Rome meant that he would acquiesce to anything that would make her defeat more likely despite it being someone else’s idea.

  And so, using the cover of winter when the legions were back in their winter quarters and the garrisons left in Germania rarely ventured further than the frozen rivers to break the ice to refill their water-skins, we stocked our supply bases little by little; by the spring thaw there was enough to provision twenty thousand warriors for a month. This news was met with various degrees of congratulation when I informed the kings and their sub-chieftains, gathered around a great table in my father’s, hearth- and torch-lit hall in the Harzland. It was the final few days before Rome stirred herself from her winter slumber and her legions marched east from the Rhenus to reassert their dominance over Germania for what, I hoped, would be the last time.

  ‘And why should you be guarding the supplies, Siegimeri?’ Adgandestrius asked my father, wafting smoke away from his face and looking in annoyance at the central hearth; the logs were damp with snow-melt.

  ‘It is not for me to answer, Adgandestrius; Erminatz commands here as you well know, so that no one king should dominate another.’

  My uncle, Inguiomer, nodded in agreement. ‘It is a logical thing.’

  Segestes, my kinsman, spat on the rushes. ‘So it’s logical to be dominated by a boy instead.’

  It was the first time that I had let the sub-chieftains of the tribes into the plan, having previously only taken counsel with the kings, and many, Segestes especially, had felt insulted that they had been kept in the dark.

  ‘What does this boy have that makes him think he can defeat three legions?’ Segestes continued, his voice oozing contempt; his eyes flashed angrily in the flicker of the torchlight.

  ‘I have the vision, Segestes; I have the vision, the will, the hatred and the plan but, most of all, I have the trust of Varus. I alone here wear the uniform of Rome. Yes, you fight alongside Rome, but as Germanic allies, not as I do, as a prefect of an auxiliary cohort. I am seen to be Roman and therefore can be trusted; you are considered barely couth barbarians and about as trustworthy as a Parthian.’

  Segestes was incensed. ‘We keep our word!’

  ‘So do Parthians but Romans choose not to believe that they do. It’s a matter of perception: in me they see a clean-shaven, shorthaired soldier, wearing a cuirass, a tunic and a red cloak and speaking fluent Latin with a patrician accent. Tell me, what do they see when they look at you?’

  My kinsman looked around the gathered kings and chieftains, their hair top-knotted, their beards long and
clad in trousers with swirling tattoos visible on exposed flesh. ‘Will you take this insult from a puppy? A whelp of Rome!’

  ‘I did not mean it as an insult; it’s an observation to help answer your question of why I think that I can defeat three legions. I can defeat them because I can get at them from within; you on the other hand, you of all, you can only take them from the outside, head-on. We all know what happens when you take on Rome head-on.’

  Segestes hawked and spat once more. ‘I’ll not listen to this runt any longer.’ He pushed his chair back and stalked from the hall.

  I watched him go with deep regret; not because he would not join our cause, which irked, but because it had been that morning, when he had arrived with his retinue and family, that I had beheld Thusnelda for the first time; now I wondered how I would ever get his permission to marry his daughter. But that worry was soon driven from my mind by my father.

  ‘I’ll make sure that he does nothing rash,’ Inguiomer murmured in my ear as the assembled company broke out into rumbling conversation about the rights and wrongs of what they had just witnessed.

  I looked at my uncle, shocked. ‘You mean he would betray us?’

  He shrugged.

  My father leant forward keeping his voice low. ‘He is a proud but resentful younger kinsman; he has never been more than the chieftain of a sub-tribe of the Cherusci. Now he sees you, returning after years in exile, positioning yourself to win more glory than he has ever dreamt possible with kings and other chieftains doing your will and he finds it intolerable; he would rather see you fail and condemn Germania to slavery than be remembered as just a kinsman of the great Erminatz.’

  ‘What if he were to be remembered as my father-in-law?’ I whispered.

  My father frowned, looking at me from beneath bushy brows, as he worked out just what I meant. ‘You would marry Thusnelda?’

  ‘Why not? She’s beautiful, she’ll be of an age next spring and it would give Segestes a closer tie to me.’

  He shook his head. ‘All that you say is true, and even if Segestes could be persuaded to allow his daughter to marry you he would still be unable to allow the marriage to happen unless he broke an oath to Adgandestrius.’

  ‘Adgandestrius?’

  ‘Yes, Thusnelda is betrothed to him.’

  I looked across the table to where the king of the Chatti sat and swore to myself by the Great Thunderer that such vitality and beauty should never be soiled by the man who had made himself my enemy. Choking down the bitterness that I felt I called the company back to order and waited for quiet, which eventually manifested.

  ‘So now that we have the supplies ready we wait until September. In the meantime we do nothing to arouse Varus’ suspicions. We do his bidding and pay Rome’s taxes. If he asks for your warriors to supplement his legions and auxiliaries fighting to the east of the Albis, you send them or, better still, you lead them to his aid yourselves. We are the most compliant subjects; we welcome Rome and totally agree with Augustus’ plan for Varus to prepare for the annexation of the eastern bank of the Albis. We look forward to the creation of Germania Ultima and will do everything within our power to keep Varus busy this year along the Albis. There will be no trouble anywhere else in Germania, nothing to draw him away from the east so that come the equinox in September, and it’s time for him to return to his winter quarters, he will take the Road of the Long Bridges back west; and that is when I shall come to him with news of a fictitious rebellion of the Ampsivarii to the north of the Teutoburg Wald.’

  I paused and looked around the men listening to me; all were concentrating on my words and not even Adgandestrius seemed to be in disagreement. So I considered it safe to issue my first order. ‘The full moon will be early in September; that is when we will start amassing our strength in the Wald. When the moon starts to wane begin sending your warriors in groups of not more than a hundred at a time; try if possible to have them travel at night so that the mass movement is less noticeable. We will meet at the Grove of Donar, the southern one, that is, not the northern, on the day after the equinox and there we will wait for my father to send word of Varus’ departure for the west. And then, my friends, we shall have him and we shall strike a blow that will echo down the ages.’

  ‘And what about the auxiliaries?’ Engilram asked.

  ‘They will be told nearer the time. Send word to your headmen serving in the cohorts telling them to obey my word as if it came from their king when the time comes. This will be the moment that will decide all: if I can lead the auxiliary cohorts scouting ahead and to either side of the legionary column against it, then, along with my Cherusci warriors, we will be able to split the column into two or three. If we do that, my friends, the gods will be on our side and we can destroy the legions piecemeal. That would be the moment that I would ask you to lead your warriors to our aid; that would be the moment that we have to press our advantage and seize the victory. If we let them regroup they will build a defensive position; we do not have the discipline to conduct a siege and our men will melt away. So we must finish the thing on the first day.’ I thumped my fist down hard on the board. ‘The first day, my friends; the first day or we would have failed. You must make your decisions to join with me by noon on the first day.’

  Adgandestrius smiled without warmth. ‘And should we decide against sending in our warriors, what then? Our men serving in the auxiliary cohorts will have already turned against Rome, there will be no denying it. Varus will assume that we ordered them to do it and will punish us as well as them.’

  I looked at him and wondered how such a gift as Thusnelda could be bestowed upon a man with so little backbone. ‘Varus can’t crucify every man in Germania Magna. He will first come for the Cherusci. We are the tribe with the most to lose; we will suffer at his hands if we fail. You, on the other hand, can send hostages to him, beg for forgiveness, say that you were unaware that the villain, Erminatz, had poisoned the minds of your men. Or you can wheedle out of it any other way that you like, Adgandestrius; but remember this: should you decide not to lead your tribe in then we would have lost the chance to free our Fatherland for ever. I say let Varus do as he likes with us if we fail; what can he do that is worse than stealing our land and making us look weak before our mothers, wives and daughters?’

  It was quiet at first, just a singular tap of the board; and then it was echoed from another corner of the table. Then a third joined in and the beats came in time, building, slow and steady. My father slammed his palm down, joining in the beat and causing my drinking horn to jump. I looked up and down the table: every man bar one was hitting it in time; every man was applauding my plan; every man save Adgandestrius. I smiled at him in triumph and he scowled back before joining in the beat with exaggerated mannerisms.

  But I did not deign to notice his sarcasm because I knew then that I had won over the Chauci, the Marsi, the Bructeri and the Sugambri; with all those warriors allied to my father’s Cherusci then surely this thing would be possible, no matter what the Chatti did. Adgandestrius would not prove false; he would not dare to lose face by slinking away with his tail between his legs. He would not want to be the only king without the stones to help annihilate three legions. His warriors would add their weight to the struggle and they would earn their glory despite their king’s hesitation.

  As the rhythm grew more frenetic my father signalled to his steward to admit the warriors waiting outside and to begin bringing in the roasted boars and deer and the barrels of ale so that the feast could begin. The men filed in through all three of the doors, cheering, not knowing wherefore but because their lords were doing so and I watched them with a smile on my face. But the smile was not solely because of the satisfaction that I was feeling at having been given approval of my plan, although that was good; no, the smile was given warmth by a separate thought because I had just conceived of how to humiliate Adgandestrius and at the same time get what I craved. It was a sweet thought, made sweeter still by the grandness of the gesture. Lucius
would have been proud of me.

  CHAPTER VIIII

  THUMELICATZ FLEXED HIS shoulders and cracked his knuckles, smiling at his Roman guests as Aius rolled up his scroll. ‘That was the point at which my father became the leader of the confederation of tribes that was responsible for keeping Germania Germanic. And it was also at that moment when my father sealed his fate and consigned himself to an early death. Unlike you Romans, it is not within our culture to let one man dominate us all.’

  ‘A hundred and fifty years ago the same could have been said of us,’ the younger brother said. ‘When we were still a republic it was not possible for one man to dominate the city.’

  Thumelicatz scratched at his beard. ‘Until Gaius Marius changed the terms of military service and made your army professional: paid and with the promise of land on discharge rather than the duty of all property-owning citizens because they are considered to have a stake in society worth defending. I know your history and its consequences: as soon as soldiers became the clients of their generals who awarded them their plots after twenty-five years’ service it was only a matter of time before individuals would amass the power to be able to exert their will on all others; first Marius then Sulla, Cinna, Pompeius, Antonius, Caesar, and look where that has led you to: now you have an emperor.’ Pulling a louse from his beard, he inspected it before crushing it between his fingers. ‘We, on the other hand, because we’re tribal, could never accept a Caesar; the kings and the chieftains are too proud to allow domination and my father knew that when he became the leader of the confederation. But he also knew that he would have to continue to exert his influence in order to keep the confederation together to repel any attempt by Rome to retake Germania. I’m convinced that he understood then how that would end but nevertheless he carried on until … but I get ahead of myself.’

 

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