Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

“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 casting 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.”