Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

“Only one thing wrong with that, sir,” the military prefect said. “There isn’t as much money in Germany as there is in an ordinary province. The natives mostly don’t buy and sell amongst themselves—they swap back and forth, like. So sometimes we can squeeze silver out of ‘em, sure, but sometimes they just don’t have any.”

Varus’ smile showed genuine pleasure. Now he was arguing on his ground, not the legionaries’. “As the province grows more settled and more used to Roman rule, we can expect to see more traders entering from Gaul, and from Rhaetia south of the Danube. They’ll bring silver with them—they want to do business in cash whenever they can. The more denarii there are in Germany, the more we can take out in taxes. Doesn’t that seem sensible to you?”

He didn’t even have to make his tone suggest That had better seem sensible to you, or you’ll be sorry. The mildly spoken words were plenty by themselves. And Lucius Eggius got the message. He might be a stubborn nitpicker; unlike some of his colleagues, he wasn’t a stupid stubborn nit-picker. “Well, yes, sir. As long as everything in Germany stays smooth, that has a fighting chance of working out, anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t everything stay smooth?” Now Varus let himself sound ominous.

But if he hoped to impress the officers, he failed. At least half a dozen of them chorused, “Because it’s fornicating Germany!” Several others nodded. All Varus could do was fume.

Somewhere ahead lay the ocean. Arminius had never seen it, but he could smell the salt tang on the wind blowing down from the north. Serving in Pannonia, he’d heard Romans talking about the sea. To them, it was blue and warm and generally friendly. But he’d also heard men from the Frisii, the Chauci, the Anglii, and other seaside German tribes. They called the ocean green or gray. They said it was cold—freezing in the wintertime. And they thought it was at least as dangerous as a wolf or a bear. Either somebody was lying or the ocean was more fickle than any woman ever born. Arminius still hadn’t made up his mind which.

He was up near the marches between his own Cherusci and the Chauci. He wanted to talk to the men who lived north of his tribe. He knew they were fierce; the wars they’d fought against his own folk proved as much. The Cherusci would long since have conquered any tribe that couldn’t match their ferocity. Arminius might not love the Chauci, but he respected them for many of the same reasons he respected the Romans.

And the Chauci would respect him—unless they decided to take his head instead. If they did, they would face another round of war with the Cherusci. They had to know it.

That north wind brought more than sea-scent with it. Rain started dripping down out of a lead-gray sky. Arminius pulled his cloak up over his head. His father was doing the same thing at the same time. Neither of them got upset. It was winter. If it didn’t rain, it would likely snow.

“Living close by the sea, the Chauci have wetter winters than we do,” Sigimerus said.

Arminius shuddered. “One more reason to be glad we don’t belong to their tribe,” he said. “Some of the Romans told me it never rains in summer in their country, and hardly ever snows in winter.”

“No rain in the summer! How do they raise their crops?” his father asked.

“They plant in the fall and harvest in the spring,” Arminius said. “They do get rain in winter. It waters the grain.”

“I think those Romans were lying, the way they would if they said their trees grew with branches underground and roots in the air,” Sigimerus said. “They just wanted to see what you’d fall for.”

“I don’t know, Father,” Arminius said. “Pannonia plants in spring and reaps in the fall, the same as we do. The Romans kept talking about how funny that was.”

“Well, I wasn’t there,” Sigimerus said—a polite way of skirting an argument. His foot came down in mud. He pulled it out and scraped the muck off on some dying grass. “I wish I weren’t here, too.”

“If you know a better track that goes north, you should have told me about it,” Arminius said. This one snaked north and west along the edge of a bog. The reasonably hard ground was wide enough for three or four men abreast, no more.

Sigimerus pointed. “It does get a little better up ahead—just a couple of bowshots up ahead, as a matter of fact. The ground up there gets higher, and… Are you listening to me, Arminius?” He raised his right hand, as if he were on the point of cuffing his son for not paying attention. But that was only old habit. Arminius was too big to cuff, even if he wasn’t listening.

And he wasn’t. He was looking at the higher ground Sigimerus had pointed out. By the way he was looking at it, he might have seen the Germans’ fierce gods feasting there.

Sigimerus stared. Try as he would, he couldn’t see or even imagine the gods there. Because he couldn’t, he went on grumbling: “When I was a young man, we respected our elders. We didn’t forget they were there.”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Arminius didn’t sound very sorry. “It’s just that -”

“What?” Sigimerus snapped.

“Now I know what to tell the Chauci,” Arminius said. Sigimerus spent the next two days trying to get him to explain what he meant. To the older man’s disgust, Arminius wouldn’t. His smile, though, was even broader and more self-satisfied than it had been when he brought Thusnelda home from Segestes’ house.

Quinctilius Varus had just sent away a German girl when Aristocles tapped on his door. Varus grumbled to himself; the pedisequus was pushing things by bothering him so soon. Couldn’t a man have some leisure to enjoy the afterglow? Had Varus been as young as the girl, he would have enjoyed another round. In his fifties, he’d have to wait a day or two—or three—no matter how many leeks and eggs and snails he ate. Not even oysters would help much, and they’d likely spoil by the time they got here from the coast.

And so, grouchily, he said, “What is it?”

“Please excuse me, sir,” Aristocles said as he came in, “but there’s someone here I think you’d better see.”

“Oh, really? Who?” Varus asked. The first person he thought of who might fit that bill was a messenger from Augustus. If the rebels in Pannonia had surrendered or been crushed, if Tiberius was on his way to finish the job in Germany… Varus wouldn’t be affronted. By the sweet gods! he thought. I could go home!

But a glance at his slave’s face told him the news wasn’t that good. Voice faintly apologetic, Aristocles answered, “The distinguished German gentleman named Segestes.”

Varus knew that, as far as Aristocles was concerned, there was no such thing as a distinguished German gentleman. He also knew Segestes was about the last person he wanted to see. “I don’t suppose you could tell him I’ve gone down to Italy to get the hair in my nose and ears trimmed?” he said.

Aristocles tossed his head. “I don’t think he’d be happy to hear something like that, sir. He did come all this way… He talks as if he thinks he has important news.”

“The only trouble with that is, he always thinks he has important news, and he’s been wrong every time so far.” Quinctilius Varus heaved a sigh. “Oh, very well. You can’t really tell him to turn around and go on back to Germany. Take him to the small dining room and give him wine and whatever else he fancies. I’ll be along soon.”

“I’ll do that then, sir.” The pedisequus bobbed his head and hurried out of the bedchamber. With another sigh, Varus draped himself in his toga. Roman fashions weren’t made for winters like this. He understood why the Germans wore breeches under their cloaks. He wished he could himself, but what people would say if a Roman governor started aping the barbarians did not bear thinking on.