Give Me Back My Legions!

by Harry Turtledove

  “He aims to rebel against Rome. Because of this, I want nothing to do with him.” Segestes spoke with care. He had to pause now and then to remember an ending for a noun or verb. He went on, “I have been a friend to the Romans ever since you began to bring your power into Germany. That is more than twenty years ago now. I think our folk will gain by coming under the Empire. Ask any of your long-serving officers. They will tell you I speak truth.”

  “I believe you.” Varus did. Not even a German would be silly enough to spout a lie so easily checked. Varus took another sip from his winecup. It bought him a few heartbeats in which to ponder. “Why do you say Arminius is a rebel? That is a serious charge. What will he say when I ask him about it?”

  “He will give you whatever lies he thinks he needs,” the chieftain replied. “He will say he joined the auxiliaries because he wanted to help Rome. But he is like a snake. He colors himself like grass, so you do not see him before he strikes.” He spoke in his native tongue to Tudrus, who nodded vehemently.

  “How old is he? How old is your daughter?” Varus asked. “Is she past the age of consent?”

  Segestes looked unhappy. “Thusnelda has twenty years,” he said reluctantly. “Arminius has four or five more. But I am the father here. You Romans know what it means to be the father.”

  In theory, a Roman paterfamilias had all but absolute power over his descendants. In theory, yes. In practice, the law whittled away at that power year by year. Varus had no idea whether a German father was also, in essence, a paterfamilias. His interest in what passed for law among the barbarians was greater than his interest in falling on his sword, but not a lot greater.

  “Meaning no disrespect to you or your friend,” he said, “but sometimes a woman will do what she will do whether her father wants her to or not. Sometimes she’ll do it because her father doesn’t want her to. Did this Arminius kidnap her, or did she go with him willingly?”

  Tudrus asked a question in the Germans’ language – probably wondering what Varus had said. Segestes answered in the same speech before returning to Latin. “She went of her own will,” he admitted, even more reluctantly.

  “Well, then, my dear fellow…” Varus spread his hands. “What do you expect me to do? I am only a governor. I am not a god, to make her undo what she has already done.”

  “You are the governor, yes,” Segestes said. “You can order Arminius to give her up. You can punish him for sneaking on to my land and stealing her.”

  “Yes, I supposed I could do those things,” Varus said. “But then what? Would her match with your friend here go forward as if, uh, Thusnelda never left your home?” He’d heard the Germans valued their women’s chastity far more than Romans did. That struck him as something which would have been admirable if it weren’t so futile.

  Segestes and Tudrus went back and forth in their language. In his bad Latin, Tudrus said, “It to go forward anyhow.”

  “I… see.” Varus wondered if he did. Was Tudrus so loyal to his chieftain that he would accept damaged goods from him? Or was he so eager to lie in a young girl’s arms that he didn’t care if he wasn’t the first? With a Roman, Varus would have judged the second more likely. With one of these savages, who could say?

  “Tudrus is of my tribe. He is of my clan. He is of my band,” Segestes said, as if that explained everything. Maybe, to him, it did.

  “And this Arminius?” Varus inquired.

  “He is of my tribe,” Segestes said. “I would not have sent Thusnelda away from the Cherusci.” The choking guttural with which he began the tribe’s name sounded badly out of place in a sentence intended to be Latin. He went on, “But past that, no. Tudrus is far closer to me: another reason I like this match better.”

  “Well, I will summon Arminius. I will hear what he has to say,” Varus said. “But if he does not want to give up your daughter, and if she does not want to leave him…” The Roman spread his hands again. “There are such things as accomplished facts. You may not like them. I can’t blame you if you don’t. Sometimes, though, you have to accept them and go on from there. Life is like that.”

  Segestes looked unhappy. When he translated for Tudrus, his companion looked unhappier yet. “I think you are making a mistake, sir,” he said. “If you Romans are going to rule in Germany, you cannot be so mild. You must be strong.” He and Tudrus got to their feet. They bowed, and then left the tent without waiting for Varus’ permission.

  “Strong,” Varus murmured. He led three legions. Of course he was strong. Of course Rome was strong. Segestes didn’t understand the difference between strength and restraint—or, more likely, the barbarian simply didn’t care.

  Arminius had never imagined he could be so happy. He’d taken Thusnelda from her father for his honor’s sake. What he’d felt about her didn’t have much to do with it. He hadn’t had any strong feelings about her for her own sake. How could he, when he hadn’t known her well?

  But he knew her now. He’d lain with her once to seal the bargain of her giving herself to him rather than to her father or to Tudrus. And he’d lain with her every chance he got after that, just for the sake of lying with her. He’d never dreamt anyone could be so beautiful or give him so much pleasure.

  He’d never realized that anyone who gave him so much pleasure would naturally seem beautiful to him. He was still very young.

  And Thusnelda was as delighted with him as he was with her. He knew he’d hurt her the first time—a man couldn’t help it. After that, though… After that, she was as eager as he was, which said a great deal.

  The two of them amused his father. “I ought to throw a bucket of cold water over you, the way I would with dogs coupling in front of the door,” Sigimerus said.

  “Why?” Arminius protested. “We don’t do it in public. We always put our cloaks up around the bed. No one can see us.” Nobody in any German household had more privacy than that.

  His father chuckled. “No one can see you, maybe, but that doesn’t mean no one can hear you. Your woman yowls like a wildcat.”

  “Well, what if she does?” Arminius had noticed that, too. He took pride in it, as reflecting well on his own manhood.

  Before Sigimerus could tell him anything different, one of the house slaves dashed in from outside, calling, “Lord! Lord’s son! Half a dozen Romans are riding up the path toward the steading!”

  “Romans!” Arminius exclaimed. Half a dozen Romans might ride some distance through Germany. In a time without overt war, the locals might not want to try to ambush them. Too great a chance one or more would get away—and Roman retribution was something the Germans had learned to be wary of.

  Sigimerus cursed Segestes as foully as he knew how. “What will you bet he’s complained of you to their chief?” he said.

  Arminius hadn’t expected that. But he was a Roman citizen, and so was Segestes. If Thusnelda’s father had found a way to use that against him… If so, Segestes really was a devious Roman, where Arminius wore his citizenship as a disguise.

  “What do you want to do, son?” Sigimerus asked. “We can kill them if we have to.”

  “We aren’t ready to stand against Rome if we do,” Arminius replied, and his father didn’t try to tell him he was wrong. He grimaced. “Let me go talk with them and see how serious this is.”

  He stepped outside. The day was cool and gray: a usual enough German day. The Romans had almost reached the steading. They were not big men, but the horses they rode were large by German standards. They could look down on him, as few Romans on foot could do. Their faces were all planes and angles and imperious noses; their dark eyes showed him no more than polished jet might have.

  “I am Arminius, Sigimerus’ son,” he said in Latin. “I am a Roman citizen. What do you want of me?” His father and the slave stood behind him. Sigimerus’ hand rested near his swordhilt, but not on it.

  “Hail, Arminius,” one of the Romans said, shooting out his clenched fist in the salute his folk used. “Publius Quinctilius Varus, the go
vernor of Germany, summons you to his lodging at Mindenum, so that you may explain your conduct in the matter of the abduction of the daughter of another Roman citizen.”

  All those genitives thrown in his face one after another… The horseman was trying to make things difficult for him. But Arminius followed, though he wasn’t sure his father did. “Am I under arrest?” he asked. If the Roman told him yes, he might have to fight. By German standards, Roman notions of justice were harsh and arbitrary.

  But the fellow shook his head. “No. I am to inform you that this is an inquiry only.”

  “Do you take oath by your gods that you tell me the truth? Do you take oath by the eagle of your legion that you tell me the truth?”

  “By my gods and by the eagle of Legion XVIII, Arminius son of Sigimerus, I tell you the truth,” the Roman horseman replied without the least hesitation.

  Romans were born deceitful. Not many of them, though, were depraved enough to swear falsely an oath like that. Arminius had seen that Roman soldiers put their legion’s eagle, the symbol of their comradeship, even above their gods. Warriors who could be skulkers and villains in other ways would lay down their lives without a murmur to keep their eagle safe.

  “Do you swear I will go free afterwards?” he asked.

  “I cannot do that. It is for the governor to judge. But he has a name for fair dealing,” the cavalryman replied.

  Arminius considered. He knew how badly Segestes had wronged him. Any fool could see as much. If this Varus even half deserved the reputation the Roman said he had… Arminius noted that the fellow had not tried to cozen him with a lying promise. That argued that he did take his oath seriously.

  It also helped Arminius make up his mind. “I will go with you,” he said. “Your governor will use me justly.” I hope.

  “He is not only my governor. He is the governor of all of Germany,” the Roman said.

  No one did or could govern all of Germany. The very idea made Arminius want to laugh. But he didn’t. All he said was, “Let us go.”

  IV

  When Lucius Eggius was in Mindenum, he drank more beer than wine. The locals brewed beer, so it was cheap. Every amphora of wine came cross-country from Vetera. Sutlers made you pay through the nose. Varus could afford fancy vintages whenever he pleased, maybe. As a prefect, Eggius was a long way from poor. But he wasn’t made of money like a provincial governor, either.

  “You know what else?” he said after a blond German barmaid brought him a fresh mug. “Once you get used to it, this horse piss isn’t so bad.”

  “It isn’t so good, either,” another Roman said. “And here’s the proof—even the cursed Germans buy wine when they can afford to.”

  “Wine’s in fashion, that’s why,” Eggius said. “Same way as every Roman who thinks he’s anybody has to learn Greek so everybody else can see how clever he is, that’s how the Germans drink wine. It lets ‘em think they’re as good as we are, so they do it.”

  “It must get ‘em mighty drunk, too, if they’re dumb enough to think like that,” the other officer came back, and got a laugh from the soldiers who filled the drink shop.

  “Oh, come on. Give me a break. They do like to ape us. Everybody knows that,” Lucius Eggius said. “Sometimes it even comes in handy, like when they go to Varus on account of their woman-stealing instead of starting their own private war. We’d just get sucked in if they did.”

  “We’re liable to get sucked in any which way,” said a young soldier named Caldus Caelius. “Her father’s a big shot, and so is the guy she was promised to, and the guy who ran off with her, too.”

  “It’s like something out of Homer,” Vala Numonius said. Had Eggius seen him in the tavern, he might not have made his crack about upper-crust Romans learning Greek. The cavalry commander was a Roman like that. He showed he knew the Iliad, continuing, “What turned the Greeks against Troy? Paris running off with Helen, that’s what. And what made Achilles angry? Agamemnon keeping Briseis when he had no right to her.”

  “And they all fought a bloody big war on account of it.” Eggius knew that much, anyhow. Who didn’t? “We don’t want ‘em doing that here.”

  “Me, I wouldn’t mind if they did. The more they kill each other off, the better, far as I’m concerned,” Caldus Caelius said. “I wished they’d all do each other in.” He eyed the statuesque barmaid and appeared to have second thoughts. “Well, the men, anyway.”

  “There you go, son,” Eggius said. “Think with your crotch and you’ll always know where you stand.” Everybody groaned. Someone threw a barley roll at him. Showing a soldier’s quick reflexes, he caught it out of the air and ate it. He would have liked to dip it in olive oil, but not much of that made it to Mindenum, either. The Germans used butter instead. Eggius might have acquired a taste for beer, but he drew the line at butter.

  “The father is a Roman citizen. So is the fellow who ran away with the girl,” Vala Numonius said.

  “An upstanding Roman citizen,” another officer put in, and drew more groans.

  Numonius ignored him, proceeding down his own track: “So it must be proper for Quinctilius Varus to sort out the rights and wrongs, whatever they happen to be.”

  He’d come to Germany with Varus. He was going to assume the man from whom he’d got the command was right no matter what. That was how the world worked. Eggius understood such things perfectly well. Who didn’t, who hadn’t been born yesterday?

  Eggius could still get in a jab or two: “So what will he do, then? Tell them to cut the wench in half, so they both get a share?”

  “That’s what the Jews did once upon a time, only with a baby,” Vala Numonius said. “Lots of those crazy Jews in Syria.”

  He’d been with Varus before, then. Lucius Eggius had figured as much. “Jews and Germans. Two sets of crazy barbarians. They deserve each other,” he said.

  “No doubt,” Numonius said. “They aren’t just crazy, either. They’re two of the stubbornest sets of barbarians anybody ever saw, too.” He sighed. “Furies take me if I know how we’ll ever turn either lot into proper Romans, but I suppose we’ve got to try.”

  “Sure.” Eggius finished his latest mug of beer. He looked around for the barmaid. There she was, trying to talk to Caldus Caelius. Except for what had to do with her trade, she knew next to no Latin. Caelius spoke none of her tongue, either. Eggius didn’t know whether the barmaid would ever make a proper Roman, but Caldus Caelius, with or without the Germans’ language, was doing his best to turn her into an improper one.

  When he reached under her shift, she poured a mug of beer over his head. He swore, spluttering like a seal. He started to get angry, but the rest of the Romans laughed at him. If they all thought it was funny, he couldn’t very well slap the barmaid around.

  Trying might not have been such a good idea anyhow. She was an inch taller than Caelius, and almost as wide through the shoulders. If she had a knife, she’d be deadly dangerous. And, as Eggius knew all too well, Germans always had knives, or a way to get hold of them.

  Sighing, he waved to the barmaid himself. She came over and refilled his mug. He didn’t try to feel her up. She nodded, acknowledging that he didn’t. In Germany, winning a nod like that came close to a triumph. Lucius Eggius sighed again, and proceeded to get very drunk.

  Arminius ground his teeth when he got a good look at Mindenum. It wasn’t that the legionary camp didn’t look familiar. It did; he’d seen plenty just like it when he campaigned in Pannonia. This one was bigger, because it held more men. Otherwise, it was as much like any of the others as two grains of barley.

  No: what infuriated him was that this enormous encampment sat on German soil. The Romans had built it as if they had every right to do so. They’d thought the same thing in Pannonia. The locals there were trying to throw them out, but Arminius didn’t think they’d be able to do it. The Romans had already got too well established.

  And if they got well established here, the Germans would have a demon of a time throwing them o
ut, too. Arminius scowled. He was cursed if he’d let some slab-faced Roman seal-stamper tell him and his folk what to do. He was cursed if he’d let the Romans crucify his kinsmen who presumed to disobey, too.

  Careful, he told himself. You can’t show what you think. If you do, you won’t get free of this place. Dissembling didn’t come naturally to Germans. His folk were more likely to trumpet what they aimed to do than to hide it. But the Romans themselves had taught him that lying had its uses. He needed to show this Quinctilius Varus what a good student he made.

  He urged his mount forward. It let out a manlike sigh. It was a small horse, and he was a large man. Carrying his weight couldn’t have been easy. Well, carrying Rome’s oppressive weight wouldn’t be easy for Germany, either.

  He rode down toward the porta praetoria, the encampment’s northern gate. Varus’ tent would lie closer to that one than to any of the others. Supply wagons came in from the west. The Romans would have brought their goods as far up the Lupia as they could: easier and cheaper to move anything massive by water than by land. But Mindenum lay east of the Lupia’s headwaters, right in the heart of Germany.

  If I were at war with the Romans now, I could cut off their supplies as easily as I snap my fingers, Arminius thought. How much good would that do him, though? The legionaries would fight their way back toward the Rhine, plundering as they went. The forts along the Lupia and the ships that sailed it could help them, too. They had a formidable force here—people said three legions, and the camp looked big enough to hold them. Cutting their supply line would infuriate them, but probably wouldn’t destroy them: the worst of both worlds.

  “Halt! Who comes?” a sentry called, first in Latin and then, with a horrible accent, in the Germans’ speech. The Romans were alert. Well, in this country they had to be, or they’d start talking out of new mouths cut in their throats. They made good soldiers. They wouldn’t have been so dangerous if they didn’t.