Give Me Back My Legions(103)
“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.”