Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

“So your woman’s got a bulging belly, eh?” Quinctilius Varus said after Arminius presented Chariomerus to him and told him the news.

“Yes, sir,” Arminius replied. The Roman had a bulging belly, too, but only because he made a glutton of himself. Arminius went on, “My clansmate tells me she worries about her health. So does the midwife. And so Thusnelda wants to see me. I’d like to see her, too.”

“There is the matter of guiding us along your much-praised route to the Rhine,” Varus said.

“My father will stay behind with you and the legions, sir,” Arminius said. “He told me himself that he knows the way better than I do.” He smiled. “You know what fathers are like.”

That proved a mistake. Mouth twisting, Varus shook his head. “Not of my own experience. My father… passed away when I was quite young.” More to himself than to Arminius, he added, “He always clung to his ideals, even in the midst of civil war—and he paid for it.”

“I am sorry, your Excellency. I did not know,” Arminius said. Chariomerus murmured sympathetically.

“Thank you both. You are kind,” Varus said. “You may go, Arminius. If your, uh, Thusnelda has a boy-child, I hope father and son will know each other for many years.”

“You leave me in your debt, sir.” Arminius knew how he intended to repay Varus, too. He eagerly looked forward to it. And yet, in an odd way, he meant what he said. He didn’t hate Varus for anything the Roman had done, but because Varus was a Roman. For a German who wanted to see his land free, that was reason enough and more.

Varus wrote something on a scrap of papyrus. “Here. Give this to the sentries. They will pass you out with no fuss.”

“Thanks again.” Whatever shame Arminius might have felt, he made a point of stifling it. He and Chariomerus bowed their way out of the governor’s presence. Chariomerus started to say something in their own language. Arminius sharply shook his head. To his relief, his comrade took the point and kept quiet. To have some sneaky Roman understand inopportune words now, when things were coming together… Arminius shook his head again. If the plans he’d spent so long laying fell apart because of something like that, it would be too much to bear.

Well, it wouldn’t happen. The pass did help him and Chariomerus leave the camp easily. As Varus had promised, the sentries didn’t fuss at all. The two Germans rode away. “Out in the free land again!” Chariomerus exulted.

Arminius didn’t reprove him, not when they were out of earshot—and bowshot—of the legionary encampment. “Soon the whole land will be free again,” Arminius said. “Very soon.”

The middle of Germany. Three legions. No one dared approach the Romans or challenge them. Anyone foolish enough to dare would have died, either quickly and unpleasantly or slowly and unpleasantly, depending on the soldiers’ mood. But having all the legionaries gathered together in one long, sinewy column reminded Lucius Eggius that everything around them was enemy country.

Whenever they passed by a steading or through a village, it seemed almost empty of warriors. Of course, most German steadings and villages seemed almost empty of everybody. The barbarians didn’t want to meet the legionaries and make friends with them. Had an army of Germans come tramping through Italy, Italian peasants wouldn’t have hung around to greet them, either. Peasants and soldiers were oil and water.

Eggius and Quinctilius Varus were oil and water, too. The camp prefect knew it. All the same, he caught up to Varus the morning after Arminius rode out of camp and said, “Talk with you for a little while, your Excellency?”

“You seem to be doing it,” Varus answered coolly.

“Er—right.” Eggius had guessed this wouldn’t go well. Now he saw how right he was. Even so, he plunged on: “I sure hope that Segestes fellow didn’t know what he was talking about when he said the Germans were getting ready to jump us.”

“Oh, of course he didn’t.” Quinctilius Varus went from cool to irritable in less time than it took to tell.

Eggius sighed. “Yes, sir.” You couldn’t come out and tell a governor he had his head up his… But, oh, by the gods, how you wished you could! Since Eggius couldn’t, he continued, “We still shouldn’t take any chances we don’t have to. Better to worry too much and not need to than to need to and not worry.”

“I have nothing against the customary precautions. Do we neglect our encampments? Do we forget to post sentries?” Varus said.

“No, sir. But I was just thinking… maybe we shouldn’t have come this way at all.” There. Eggius got it out.

And it did no good. The governor stared at him. “Do you want to turn around and go back? For what amounts to no reason at all?”

“Might be safer if we did,” Eggius said.

Varus stared at him as if he were something sticky and stinky on a sandal sole. “Yes, I suppose it might—if you believe Arminius to be a traitor and Segestes an honest man. Do you believe that, Eggius?”

To the crows with you if you do, Eggius. The camp prefect could hear what Varus wasn’t saying as well as what he was. Picking his own words with care, Lucius Eggius replied, “Sir, I don’t like taking chances any which way. If we don’t have to, I don’t think we ought to.”

“Well, I don’t think we are,” Varus said. “And that settles it.”

How right he was. When the governor of a Roman province decided something, the only man who could overrule him was Augustus. And Augustus was in no position to overrule Varus about this, even on the unlikely assumption that he would. Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX were stuck with Varus’ decision. Eggius just had to hope the governor was right.

Vala Numonius was waiting to see the governor when Lucius Eggius left Varus’ presence. “Everything seems to be going well enough,” the cavalry commander remarked.

Eggius eyed him with something close to loathing. “Easy for you to say,” he growled. “If things get buggered up, you and your boys can gallop off. The rest of us, we’re just in for it.”

“Do you think we’d do that? Do you?” Vala Numonius sounded deeply affronted. “We’re all in this together, and there’s no reason to worry about any fighting. The Germans are as peaceful as they’ve ever been.”

“Too peaceful,” Eggius said. “His Excellency isn’t worrying enough, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t. I’m sure the governor didn’t, either,” Numonius said pointedly. “Have you been dropping your own worries in his lap?”

If you haven’t. I will. That was what he had to mean. Eggius glared at him, then shrugged. “Say whatever you cursed well please,” he answered. “He won’t hear anything from you that he hasn’t heard from me. Maybe he’ll even listen to you. I can sure hope so.”

Numonius edged past him as if afraid he had something catching. Lucius Eggius knew too well he didn’t. If the truth were contagious, it would have spread more. The cavalry commander was more likely to spread good, old-fashioned slander.

“I hope everything is all right, sir,” Aristocles said as Eggius stormed out of Varus’ tent.

“So do I,” Eggius answered. “I wouldn’t bet more than a copper on it, though.”

Clouds piled up in the northwest, tall and thick and dark. The wind blew them toward the marching Romans. Quinctilius Varus’ nostrils flared. If that wasn’t the wet-dust odor of rain on the way, he’d never smelled it.

Curse it, Arminius had told him rain wasn’t so likely in these parts. Varus looked around before remembering the German was off seeing to Thusnelda. Then Varus looked for Sigimerus. He didn’t see Arminius’ father, either.