Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

That only made Arminius grimace again. He’d seen the legions in action in Germany and in Pannonia. He knew from the inside out how formidable they were. Well-equipped and orderly to a degree no high-hearted German would have tolerated for a moment, the Romans had plenty of practice holding down folk who didn’t want to be held. Pannonia was giving them even more, as if thev needed it.

“We have to take them on when they aren’t at their best,” he said, thinking aloud.

“How?” his father asked bluntly.

It was an important question, however much the younger man wished it weren’t. It was, in fact, the important question. “I don’t know yet,” Arminius admitted.

“Well, you’d better walk small till you figure it out—if you ever do,” Sigimerus said. “Otherwise, the Romans will make you sorry. Not just you, either. They’ll make all the Cherusci—all the Germans—sorry.”

Arminius tried to imagine a catastrophe that would affect all the German tribes, from the Chamavi and Tencteri pressed hard against the Rhine to his own Cherusci in the German heartland to the Marcomanni under King Maroboduus north of the Danube (Maroboduus quietly encouraged the Pannonian rebels, but only quietly—he didn’t want Roman legions marching after him next) to the Gotones far away in the east. The Gotones had kings, too, but they were so far away that Arminius didn’t know the names of any of them. What kind of catastrophe would be big enough to make all those tribes feel it?

The question suggested its own answer. A Roman province stretching from the Rhine east to the Elbe would bring most of the German tribes under Augustus’ rule—would enslave them, in other words. The Gotones would still lie beyond Rome’s reach, but they would need to change their way of doing things, too. And if—no, when—the eagles decided to lunge forward again…

“I have to find a way, Father. We all have to,” Arminius said. “If we don’t, they’ll own us. Have you seen that camp of theirs, that Mindenum?”

“I’ve heard about it,” Sigimerus said.

“That’s not enough,” Arminius said. “I saw plenty of legionary camps in Pannonia. I lived in one, fought in one, while I learned what they did and how they did it. But Mindenum, by all the gods, Mindenum is the biggest one I ever set eyes on. None of the ones in Pannonia comes close. And in Pannonia, at least the Romans can say they already rule the place. We’re still free—or we think we are. Mindenum says something different.”

“If we rise and we lose, that would be worse than not rising at all, bec—” Sigimerus said.

“Yes, you told me that before,” Arminius interrupted impatiently.

His father went on as if he hadn’t spoken: “Because it would geld us at the same time as it gave them the excuse to tighten the shackles on our fatherland. We can’t afford that. I think we’re lucky to have held out against them as long as we have.”

“I promise, Father: when I set us in motion against them, we won’t fail,” Arminius said. “Or if we do, I won’t live to see it.”

“I gladly accept the first part of that oath. May the second part not come to pass,” Sigimerus said.

“Yes. May it not. But we must fight the Romans. Even the Gauls fought the Romans, though they lost.” Like most Germans, Arminius looked down his straight nose at the folk who lived in Gaul. Gallic tribes had settled a good part of Germany, till Germans drove them out of it. Germans would have occupied the west bank of the Rhine, had the Romans—not the natives—not driven them back. Against the Roman legions, honors were about even so far. That thought brought Arminius back to his main idea, “The Gauls fought well enough to keep their honor. If we roll over to show our bellies like whipped dogs, we will have none—and deserve none.”

“Dead men may have honor, but they cannot eat of it,” Sigimerus said.

“True enough. But those who come after them will remember them for aye. Their names will live in song—and deserve to,” Arminius said. “Better that than to live a long life and be forgotten like any other slaves—and deserve to be.”

His father sighed. “I cannot persuade you to set this aside?”

“I was not the only one who felt his manhood threatened when the Romans robbed us here. They have more ways to make men eunuchs than just by cutting.” As Sigimerus had before him, Arminius cupped his right hand over his genitals.

Sigimerus sighed again. “If you will not set this aside, I had better give you all the help I can. By the gods, son, you’ll need it, and more besides. I only hope you find everything you need, that’s all.”

A smile like the sun coming out from behind storm clouds lit Arminius’ face. “If we struggle together, how can we lose?”

“There are ways,” Sigimerus replied. “There are always ways.”

Quinctilius Varus looked at the accounts his secretaries had compiled. He knew how much the Roman provincial administration took from Syria every year. Germany had yielded barely a twentieth part of that. Yes, this land was poor. How could it be anything else when it had scant gold or silver of its own and when neither the olive nor the vine wanted to grow here? Even if the natives weren’t so barbarous, those would have been important entries in the ledger’s debit columns.

Varus understood as much, anyhow. Varus had seen Germany with his own eves. Now that he and the legions were abandoning Mindenum for the winter, he could put seeing Germany with his own eyes in the same place all his other memories went. Yes, he’d come back next spring. He didn’t have to dwell on that just yet, though. He didn’t have to, and he didn’t intend to.

Augustus hadn’t seen Germany with his own eyes, though. Augustus, fortunate soul, had never crossed the Rhine. What would the ruler of the Roman Empire think when he saw the paltry sum Varus had extracted from this province? How angry would he be?

Were Varus but a little bolder, a little nervier, he would have cooked the books before his wife’s great-uncle ever set eves on them. But he didn’t have the guts—didn’t have the balls—to risk it. His greatest fear (one that, by the nature of things, he had to keep to himself) was that Augustus had a spy, or more than one, secreted somewhere within his own retinue. If he gave Augustus one set of figures himself, while the spy delivered a different and significantly worse set…

The mere idea made Quinctilius Varus shudder. All sorts of nasty little desert islands scattered through the Mediterranean. Varus didn’t want to spend the rest of his days on one. And he might, if he got caught telling that big a lie.

Being married to Claudia Pulchra wouldn’t pull his chestnuts out of the fire, not if Augustus got angry enough. Augustus’ grand-niece’s husband? So what? Augustus’ own daughter had spent five years on the island of Pandataria, forbidden wine and all male company not specifically approved by her father, before winning a slightly milder exile in Rhegium, on the toe of the Italian boot.

Of course, Julia was guilty of gross immorality, where Varus would only have embezzled. After being used like a game piece in Augustus’ dynastic plans—none of which worked out the way he wanted—Julia hadn’t cared what she did, as long as it scandalized her father. Varus, for better or worse, was far less flamboyant.

He sighed. “Are you all right, sir?” Aristocles asked.

Letting the pedisequus hear what was on his mind wouldn’t do. “I suppose so,” he said. “Gods know I’ll be glad to get away from Mindenum. Who that wasn’t crazy wouldn’t be?”

“You’re right about that!” Usually, Varus had to wonder whether a slave was sincere. Not this time. Aristocles couldn’t stand Germany or the Germans, and didn’t bother trying to hide how he felt.