Give Me Back My Legions(127)

“This is poor guesting,” he observed.

“It is, and I am sorry,” Segestes said. “But times are hard, and I have a strong foe. Can you blame my retainers for staying wary?”

“When you put it so, I suppose not,” the other man replied. “My news comes from his steading, in fact. You will have heard your daughter gave birth to a boy?”

“Yes, I know that.” Segestes nodded. One of these days, that grandson might lead him to reconcile with Arminius. One of these days . . .but not yet. “What of it, stranger?”

“My name is Alcus,” the newcomer said. “I am sorry to have to tell you the baby is dead. A flux of the bowels, I hear - it was quick, and seemed painless.”

“Woe!” the retainers cried. They covered their faces with their cloaks.

“Woe!” Segestes said with them. He too covered his face. Tears ran down his cheeks, so he could uncover himself without shame - no one would think him coldhearted or mean of spirit. In truth, though, he didn’t know what he felt. “You are sure of this?” he asked.

“I am. There is no doubt,” Alcus said. “My fields lie next to Arminius’ - I have the word straight from his retainers.”

“Yes, it is so, then,” Segestes said. “Woe! Woe, indeed! Always hard when a babe dies untimely.”

“Harder when the babe is your grandson. I beg you, Segestes - don’t hate me for being the one who brought you the news,” Alcus said. “I know you and Arminius . . . are at odds. If I had not come, you might not have heard for some time.”

“True. I might not have.” Segestes wondered if that wouldn’t have been for the best. Reluctantly, he shook his head. The news would have come sooner or later. And, sooner or later, grief would have speared him. Sooner wasn’t better, but it also wasn’t really worse. “I do not hate you, Alcus. You did what you thought best, and who is to say you did not have the right of it?”

“Thank you, lord. That is well said.”

“And I will show you good guesting.” Segestes realized he had to do that if he were not to be reckoned liar and niggard. “Eat as you will of my bread and meat. Drink as you will of my beer, and of my wine from beyond the Rhine. Sleep soft tonight before you fare forth to your farm.”

Alcus bowed. “You are gracious. You are kind.”

“Yes. I am,” Segestes said bleakly. “And much good any of that has done me.”

Rain pattered down on Rome. It was winter: the proper season for rain, as any man who lived round the Mediterranean would have agreed. Augustus was one of those men, and faced a problem common to a lot of them - his roof leaked. A drip near the entrance to his great house plinked into a bowl.

He gave the bowl a jaundiced stare. New leaks started every winter. The men who laid roof tiles always promised that everything would be perfect this time. They always lied, too. Augustus shook his head. In the scale of human calamities, there were plenty worse. His mouth tightened. He knew too much about that.

He opened the door and looked out. The guards standing outside stiffened to attention. “As you were, boys,” Augustus said, and they relaxed.

“What can we do for you, sir?” one of them asked.

“Not a thing. I’m only looking at the weather.”

“All right, sir. However you please.” The guardsman grinned at Augustus. He had a strong-nosed face with cheekbones that made sharp planes below his eyes. He spoke Latin like the native of Italy he was. All his comrades came from Italy, too.

In the frightening, frightened days after news of Varus’ disaster came to Rome, Augustus had eased all the Germans - and, for good measure, all the Gauls - out of his personal guard. Most of them, maybe all of them, remained loyal to him, but he dared not take the chance that they would do something to help Arminius. He didn’t cashier them. He did send them out of Rome. Quite a few of them were garrisoning Mediterranean islands these days.

Against whom were they garrisoning those islands? Pirates? Drunken fishermen? Skrawking sea gulls? Augustus had no idea. But doing things that way had preserved the honor of the Germans and Gauls. If he ever needed them again, he could use them.

He’d begun repairing the mutilated Roman army, too. The legions he’d raised in the aftermath of the disaster were no match for the ones Arminius had destroyed. He knew that. They held far too many older men, far too many squinting craftsmen and chubby shopkeepers. He’d had to draft men to fill out their ranks at all, which caused no end of grumbling.

But he’d done it, and he wasn’t about to look back and tell himself he shouldn’t have. Yes, those raw new legions would get hacked to bloody bits if they ever faced rampaging Germans in the field. Augustus knew that. So did the officers under whom the reluctant soldiers served.