Give Me Back My Legions!

by Harry Turtledove

  “Caesar likes to tell stories,” Eggius said with a shrug. “Sometimes they’re true. Sometimes they just sound good.”

  “How do you know which are which?” Varus asked.

  “Sometimes you can tell. Sometimes—like with the aurochs—you can really find out. Sometimes…” The legionary officer shrugged. “It’s the same way with the stories about Caesar, I guess. He’s—what?—fifty years dead. Who knows which ones are true and which ones are just crap? Any old way, though, they’ll be telling tales about him forever.”

  “Yes, I suppose they will,” Quinctilius Varus said in tones more bitter than he would have expected.

  Lucius Eggius wasn’t wrong. Julius Caesar’s fame would last as long as men endured. So would Augustus’—Varus had no doubt of that. But what about my own? he wondered, not for the first time.

  If he was the man who brought Germany into the Empire, his name would live. Some historian would write an account of Augustus’ reign, the way Sallust had written about the war against Jugurtha the Numidian and about Catiline’s plot against the Senate or the way Caesar himself wrote about the war against the Gauls. Nobody could talk about Augustus’ reign without talking about the conquest of Germany. And so, to some degree, people would remember that there had been such a man as Publius Quinctilius Varus.

  But it wouldn’t be the same. Everyone would always know who Julius Caesar and Augustus were. People would always tell stories about them. The stories wouldn’t shrink in the telling, either. Stories never did. If a man two hundred years from now wanted to learn the name of the man who conquered Germany, though…

  So many books were written and then forgotten, never recopied after the author put in the labor of composing them in the first place. Still, these were important times, and would surely attract an important historian, one whose works would be reproduced often enough to last… somewhere.

  The library at Alexandria was supposed to keep at least one copy of every work in Greek and Latin. It had been damaged in the fighting in Caesar’s day, but say it did what it was supposed to do. That would give the future scholar a chance to discover the name of Publius Quinctilius Varus—if he could find the scroll he needed among the thousands in the library… and if he could afford to go to Alexandria to do his research in the first place.

  Immortality, then. But a shadowy immortality, rather like the one Homer gave the spirits of the dead in the Odyssey. Better than nothing, less than enough.

  “Something wrong, your Excellency?” Eggius asked. “You look a little peaked, like.”

  “No, no, no.” Varus denied it not only to the soldier but also to himself. “Just thinking about what Germany will be like when it’s been Roman for a couple of hundred years, that’s all.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d been thinking, but it came close enough to let him bring the lie out smoothly.

  Lucius Eggius made a face. “It’ll still be the back woods, you ask me. The Gauls, now, the Gauls are picking things up pretty quick. But these gods-cursed Germans? They’re stubborn bastards, no two ways about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still mumbling to themselves in their own language, even after all that time.”

  Struck by an odd thought, Varus asked, “Have you learned any of it?”

  “Me?” Eggius laughed. “Just a tiny bit, sir, so I can talk a little with the German girls I bed. They like that, you know? You can tell ‘em what you want ‘em to do, and they can let you know what feels good to them.”

  “I suppose so.” Varus had slept with some German women, too. What else was he going to do, when Claudia Pulchra’d stayed down in Rome? But he’d made sure his bedwarmers understood enough Latin to get by. The other approach hadn’t even occurred to him.

  Eggius chuckled again. “Hate to talk business instead of pussy, sir, but when do you aim to cross the Rhine again?”

  “How soon can the men be ready?” Varus asked.

  “An hour from now, if they have to be.” Professional pride rang in Eggius’ voice. “If you’re not in a hurry, though, a few days to get organized won’t hurt.”

  “All right. Do that, then. I don’t think there’s any great rush,” Varus said.

  “Right you are, sir.” Lucius Eggius nodded. Then he raised a curious eyebrow. “You sure this Arminius fellow isn’t as much trouble as people say he is?”

  “I’m not losing any sleep over him,” Varus answered. “I don’t think anybody else needs to, either.”

  The Romans had cut back the woods on the right bank of the Rhine opposite Vetera far enough to make it impossible to bushwhack them when they crossed their bridge into Germany. That didn’t mean Arminius couldn’t watch them cross without being seen himself.

  This wasn’t the first Roman army on the march he’d seen, of course. He’d fought alongside the legions in Pannonia, and, before that, he’d fought against them here in Germany. He didn’t think the Romans knew about that. They wouldn’t have granted him citizenship if they did. Back in those days, he’d been nothing to them but another shouting barbarus with a spear and a sword and a shield.

  Barbarus. His mouth twisted. It didn’t just mean someone who wasn’t a Roman, the way he’d once thought. It meant somebody who couldn’t talk like a human being, someone who made bar-bar-bar noises instead.

  He’d learned Latin. He spoke it pretty well—not perfectly, but pretty well. He’d never yet met a Roman who came close to speaking the Germans’ tongue anywhere near so well.

  Romans had an almost perfect contempt for anyone from beyond their borders. He often wondered why, feeling the way they did, they wanted to rule other folk at all. He supposed perfect greed outweighed almost perfect contempt.

  No denying they made a brave show, though. Cavalrymen crossed the Rhine first. He envied them their big horses. Germans, big men, rode ponies so small they often jumped off them to fight. Mounts from the Roman side of the Rhine were great prizes. There weren’t many horsemen here: enough to smoke out an ambush and hold it off till the foot soldiers deployed.

  Behind the cavalry came one of the legions the Romans were using to try to hold down Germany. As a fighting man, Arminius had nothing but respect for the soldiers tramping forward into his country. They were tough. They were brave. In a fight in the open field, they could beat more than their number of Germans. Arminius didn’t like that, but he’d seen it was true. The Romans worked together so much better than his own folk did…

  He muttered something guttural under his breath. If the Germans were ever going to beat the legionaries, they would have to do it on a battlefield where the Romans couldn’t deploy to advantage. The Germans would have to spring a trap, in other words.

  Still, the Romans weren’t stupid. They sent scouts ahead of their force and out to either flank. They were more careful than Germans, too. Arminius did some more muttering.

  Camp surveyors and engineers followed the first legions. Then came Varus’ baggage and that of the leading Roman officers, with plenty of horsemen to protect it. Arminius chuckled. The Roman governor wasn’t about to let anything happen to what belonged to him.

  Varus and his slaves and flunkies came next. The warm breeze fluttered the soldiers’ scarlet capes. The slaves, in plain white tunics, were easy to distinguish from their masters.

  The horsemen who weren’t in the vanguard followed the commanders. Even with their fine mounts, the Romans got less from their cavalry than they might have. Their foot soldiers were so good, they hardly seemed to care about their riders.

  More wagons rattled and creaked after the cavalry. Seeing them made Arminius scowl. They carried catapults that could hurl immense arrows or stone balls or pots full of burning oil farther than a bowshot. He’d seen what they were worth in Pannonia. The rebels there couldn’t match them. Neither could his own folk. Being struck by weapons to which you couldn’t hope to reply naturally spread fear. And the catapults could easily flatten the stockade that warded even the strongest German village.

  Arminius had talked about ca
sting the Romans out of his land. Talking was easy. Seeing a Roman army on the march reminded him that actually doing it would be anything but.

  Behind the engines marched the other two legions. The aquilifer who had the honor of carrying each legion’s eagle marched in front of it, surrounded by the lesser standard bearers and the buccinatores with their gleaming brazen horns. The aqulifers’ mailshirts were likewise gilded, and blazed under the bright spring sun.

  Camp followers -loose women, sutlers, ragtag and bobtail—made up a disorderly train that straggled along behind the legionaries. There, at least, Arminius felt superior and virtuous. Germans did without such folderol. They also probably would have done without a rear guard. Again, though, the Romans didn’t believe in taking chances.

  The legionaries brayed out a bawdy marching song. Arminius smiled before he quite knew he was doing it. He’d sung that one himself, tramping through Pannonia.

  But the smile didn’t last long. The Romans aimed to enslave his land and his folk. He wasn’t sure how to stop them: only that he had to try.

  Lucius Eggius’ head went back and forth, back and forth, like a ball in a bathhouse game of catch. All he saw were fields and, beyond them, just out of bowshot, the dark, endless German forests. Fields and forests were all he saw, yes, but that failed to reassure him.

  “They’re out there,” he said. “They’re watching us. Can’t you feel the eyes?” He scratched at his arm, as if he were complaining of flea bites.

  “Well, what if they are?” Vala Numonius said. “Let them watch all they please. By the gods, three legions marching through their heartland will give them something to think about.”

  “Yes, sir,” Eggius said resignedly. Numonius outranked him—he didn’t want to argue too hard. But he also didn’t want the cavalry commander to think he agreed completely, so he went on, “I’m worried about what they’re thinking.”

  To give Numonius his due, he didn’t put on airs. He’d always been a quiet, respectable fellow. He said, “If they aren’t thinking we could carve them into mincemeat, they’re stupid even for barbarians.”

  “Here’s hoping,” Eggius answered. “But they’d have another go at us if they ever saw the chance. In Gaul, the natives are licked. They know we walloped their granddads, and they don’t want to try their own luck with us. It isn’t like that here. You come into Germany; you’re in a country where the people don’t think they’re whipped.”

  “Well, if they’re fools enough to take on three legions at once, that’ll change in a hurry,” Numonius said. “I almost wish they would—know what I mean? That would settle things, and then we could get on with the business of turning this miserable place into a proper province.”

  “That’d be good,” Eggius said. “Wouldn’t need such a big garrison then. Maybe they’d send me somewhere with decent weather instead.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that myself,” Numonius agreed with a rueful chuckle. “If I never see another winter like this last one… There were a couple of nights when I thought they’d freeze right off and leave me a eunuch.”

  “I know what you mean, sir,” Eggius said in a high, squeaky falsetto. Both soldiers laughed. Letting his voice fall back to his usual gruff baritone, Eggius continued, “We’d be better off if we could chop the balls off some of these gods-despised Germans.”

  “I won’t quarrel with you—not even a little bit,” the cavalry commander said. “A gelding’s easier to ride than a stallion, and an ox won’t gore you or trample you the way a bull will. We could make the Germans peaceable, and ”

  “And sell them for a nice price once we take their family jewels,” Eggius broke in. “If we have to sell all the Germans into slavery, we can resettle the place with people who wouldn’t give us a hard time. It worked in Carthage. Why not here?”

  “I wouldn’t complain,” Numonius replied. “Now if only the Germans wouldn’t…”

  “They always complain, seems like.” Lucius Eggius’ head swung from left to right and back once more. Nothing was going to take him by surprise, not if he could help it—and he could. “What’s-his-name—Segestes—wants us to skin Arminius for him because Arminius is spreading his little girl’s legs. And if you believe even half of what you hear, that Arminius spends all the time when he isn’t pumping Thusnelda complaining about us.”

  “His Excellency believes that’s all moonshine and vapors,” Vala Numonius said. “When Segestes sent that other barbarian to accuse Arminius a couple of months ago, Varus set a flea in his ear and told him to go away. Segestes is lull of sour grapes, if you know your Aesop.”

  “I know that one, anyhow,” Eggius said. “Have to tell you, though, I sure hope the governor’s right. We’re liable to wind up in a peck of trouble if he’s wrong.” He paused and brushed an early fly away from his horse’s mane. Then he went on, “And you can tell him I said so. I don’t care. He knows what I think I’ve told him so to his face.”

  “So he’s said to me. He respects you for your forthrightness,” Numonius answered.

  Lucius Eggius didn’t believe that for a minute. Nobody—nobody—liked it when someone came right out and told him he was wrong. But Eggius had risen from the ranks. He wouldn’t go any higher than camp prefect. Quinctilius Varus might bust him down to centurion’s rank, but no further. He could live with that. Since Varus couldn’t destroy his career, he was free to speak his mind.

  All that flashed through his mind in a couple of heartbeats. Meanwhile, Numonius continued, “I happen to think the governor’s right this time. Segestes is acting like an outraged father in one of Plautus’ comedies. You can’t believe somebody like that—you really can’t.”

  “Why not?” Eggius said. “Seems to me like he’s got a pretty good reason to be mad.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Numonius shrugged. He seemed at home on horseback—he might have been the human half of a centaur. Eggius could ride, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. When somebody gave him a leg-up, he felt much too far off the ground. And he didn’t have enough to hold on to, either. Well, that was also true for Numonius, but Numonius didn’t seem to care. The cavalry commander continued, “His Excellency has talked to all these people, remember. If anybody can judge who’s telling the truth and who’s up in arms over nothing, Varus is the one.”

  Eggius grunted. “That’s so—no doubt about it.” And it was. He wished it made him feel better. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It only made him fear Arminius was pulling the wool over the governor’s eyes.

  That had something to do with where he was. His head went to the left once more, and then to the right. The army had flank guards out to both sides, of course. No great swarm of howling German barbarians would catch the legions unawares. He kept peering this way and that anyhow. He might have been in a small detachment that needed every working eyeball it had. He’d been in detachments like that often enough to give him habits almost impossible to break.

  Numonius also looked now one way, now the other. Eggius nodded to himself when he noticed that. The other officer had also learned caution in enemy country, then. And this was enemy country—no two ways about it.

  No wonder Caesar had made more of the aurochs than it deserved after first plunging into the German forests. And he talked about the moose as if it were so large it made trees fall over when it leaned against them—and it couldn’t get up again afterwards, because its legs had no joints. And Caesar spoke of another weird beast with a single, branching horn growing out of its forehead. Lucius Eggius hadn’t the slightest idea what that was supposed to be. He suspected Caesar couldn’t have told him, either. Old Julius had listened to a few yarns too many, all right.

  The bad news was, the German forests remained as full of Germans as they were in Caesar’s day. And Germans remained more dangerous than all the aurochs and moose (mooses?) and one-horned whatsits put together. Lucius Eggius had no trouble seeing that. He wondered why Varus had so much with it.

  Into Germany again. Quinctilius Varus
could have done without that. Indeed, he would gladly have done without it. Leaving the Empire behind was harder the second time than it had been the first. The year before, he hadn’t really realized what he was abandoning. Now he did.

  “Do you know what I don’t understand?” he said to Aristocles as the legions made camp one night.

  “No, sir,” the pedisequus answered. “But you’re about to tell me—aren’t you?”

  “Too right I am.” If Varus recognized the irony lurking in his slave’s voice, he didn’t show it. Instead, intent on his own thoughts, he went on, “I don’t understand why the Germans aren’t dropping down on their knees and knocking their heads against the ground to thank us for taking them into the Empire. The way they live now…” He shuddered.

  “Is it so bad?” Aristocles asked. “You didn’t take me along this afternoon when you visited that—what do they call it, sir?”

  “A steading. They call it a steading.” Varus brought out the terminus technicus with sour relish. “And no, it’s not that bad. It’s worse—much worse, if you want to know what I think. The Germans and their farm animals all shared the same miserable room. The Germans—oh, yes, and the chickens—were the ones who walked on two legs. Past that, it was hard to tell them from the beasts of burden.”

  Aristocles giggled. Then he tried to pretend he hadn’t. Then he gave up pretending and giggled some more. “That’s wicked, sir. Wicked!”

  “What? You think I’m joking? By the gods, I wish I were. Fetch me some wine from the cooks, will you? Maybe it’ll wipe the taste of what I saw out of my mouth,” Varus said.

  “Of course, sir.” Aristocles hurried away. When he came back to Varus’ tent, he had a cup of wine for the governor—and one for himself.

  Varus didn’t say anything about that, Naturally a slaw would look out tor himself. After pouring a small libation onto the squashy German soil, the governor asked, “Where was I: