Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

But not even Augustus’ designated governor could keep some kind of commotion from starting in front of his tent. “What’s going on now?” Varus asked irately.

“I’ll go see, sir.” Aristocles went off to find out. He came back sooner than Varus had expected. His expression was altogether unreadable.

Voice as carefully blank as his face, Aristocles said, “The German named Arminius has returned, your Excellency. His father is with him, as he was last year.”

“Oh, good!” Varus said. Aristocles’ face took on an expression then. Had Varus tried to name it, he probably would have called it unwatered horror.

Arminius had wondered whether he would get back to the site of Mindenum before the Romans finished rebuilding it. But no: the camp or town or whatever you called it was a going concern by the time he and Sigimerus came southeast from the country of the Chauci to central Germany.

The Roman sentries bristled like angry dogs when they spotted Arminius. Varus might enjoy having him around, but they didn’t. Only the governor’s rank kept them from showing how little they enjoyed his company. Even that wouldn’t have sufficed if they were Germans.

“In the name of your eagle, greetings,” he called to them. He didn’t want the Romans angry at him now. That might ruin everything. Maybe reminding them that he knew and respected their customs would make them happier. He didn’t want somebody knifing him in the back while he was walking through the encampment. If somebody did, he would bet gold against copper that Varus never caught the murderer.

He didn’t soften up the Romans as much as he’d hoped. “Our eagle has its eye on you,” one sentry snarled. The others nodded. A couple of them let their hands fall to the hilts of their gladii.

“Careful, now,” Sigimerus said out of the side of his mouth, his lips barely moving.

“I know,” Arminius answered the same way. When he addressed the Romans again, he raised his voice: “Would you please be kind enough to let his Excellency the governor know I’m here?” If Varus knew, the legionaries couldn’t kill him right here and then claim they hadn’t realized who he was. And the looks on their faces said they wanted to.

Most reluctantly, one of the sentries went back into the encampment. “May we enter?” Sigimerus asked in his slow, halting Latin. “I am not a young man any more. I get tired standing out here in the sun.”

He and Arminius had practiced at swords not long after sunup. If he’d been tired then, Arminius hadn’t noticed. Sigimerus might not be quite so fast or quite so strong as he had been when he was Arminius’ age. But he was still fast and strong enough to be dangerous—and he knew every trick all his years of fighting had taught him.

Shouts rang out inside Mindenum. Arminius hid a smile. His father was probably doing the same thing as he murmured, “See how much they love you?”

“Nothing we didn’t already know,” Arminius said. He raised his voice again: “May we come in? I don’t want to harm my father’s health.” The Romans were like Germans in respecting their elders. And, once he and Sigimerus got into Mindenum, the legionaries would have a harder time throwing them out than they would excluding them in the first place.

But one of the sentries answered, “Let’s see what the governor’s got to say. If it were up to me…” He didn’t say what would happen then. Arminius drew his own conclusions.

Another sentry looked over his shoulder. “Here comes his Excellency now!” The legionaries stiffened to attention. They expected their auxiliaries to do the same thing. Arminius had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life, but he’d learned the silly pose. Going along was easier than arguing, especially for one lone man facing a ponderous military machine.

The Romans thought all of Germany would take the easy road, go along, and submit to their yoke. But the Germans were not one lone man. They outnumbered the invaders. They were more determined than the Romans, too. I’m more determined than the Romans are, Arminius thought. And I can kindle Germany. I can, and I will.

A stocky figure mounted to the top of the earthen rampart. The sun gleamed from the Roman’s bald scalp. Arminius smiled and waved. “Hail, your Excellency!” he called. If the smile never reached his eyes, Quinctilius Varus couldn’t hope to notice from that distance.

Sigimerus waved, too. If he didn’t smile so broadly, he was an older man, and carried himself with more dignity. Arminius hoped Varus would think so, anyhow.

And evidently Varus did. He was at least as old as Sigimerus, but he wore a smile wider than Arminius’. “Hail! Welcome!” he said. “I didn’t know if we’d be lucky enough to see the two of you back here this year.”

“Here we are, sir,” Arminius said. “May we come into Mindenum? Your men didn’t seem to want us to.”

“You know how soldiers are,” Varus said. And Arminius did: he was one himself. If the Roman governor wasn’t, or didn’t think of himself as one, why did he hold this position? Smiling still, he went on, “You certainly have my permission to come in. I’m sure I will want your advice again and again on how best to civilize this province.”

Sigimerus growled down deep in his throat. Arminius’ gaze flicked over to his father, but the older man’s expression didn’t change. And the Romans wouldn’t have heard him. Arminius wore his smile like a mask, hiding his fury. What Varus meant by civilizing Germany was taking away its character and its freedom.

“Always a pleasure to help,” Arminius lied.

“Spoken like a Roman citizen—like the member of the Equestrian Order you are,” Varus boomed. After a moment, Arminius realized the Roman governor wasn’t really speaking to him, or wasn’t speaking to him alone. Varus was reminding the legionaries that the man outside was a tame German, a good German. He didn’t say anything to or about Sigimerus. But if the soldiers accepted Arminius, they wouldn’t mind his father.

Arminius drew himself up straight and delivered a clenched-fist Roman salute. Yes, let the legionaries see I can ape their customs. Let them see that I’m a tame German, a good German. And, when the time comes, I’ll show them just how tame and good I am.

None of that showed on his face. He probably had more practice dissembling than any other German since the gods first created his folk. Among themselves, Germans were always altogether honest (unless, of course, they saw some pressing reason not to be, as Segestes had when he broke his pledge to Arminius and tried to give Thusnelda to Tudrus). What they thought of as their innate honesty put most of them at a disadvantage when they tried to deal with deceitful foreigners.

Arminius had been shocked to discover that the Romans reckoned his folk a pack of lying, thieving savages. How could they be so blind? He finally decided that, since the Romans were liars and thieves themselves, they thought other peoples shared their vices.

“Pass in, Arminius. Pass in, Sigimerus,” Quinctilius Varus said loudly. If the sentries tried to go against that now, they would be mutinying against the provincial governor—indirectly, against Augustus himself. The Romans had some fearsome penalties for anyone who dared such a thing.

Any folk that had such penalties was bound to need them—one more argument against Rome and all its ways.

Legionaries mostly held their faces straight as Arminius and Sigimerus walked into Mindenum. They probably wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t under Varus’ eye. Then again, they probably wouldn’t have let the two Cherusci into Mindenum if not for Varus’ orders.

“That one soldier is smiling at us,” Arminius’ father whispered. “What’s wrong with him?”