Give Me Back My Legions(16)

Sigimerus pulled the rawhide latch cord and shoved the door open. “Veleda!” he called. “Look who’s here at last!”

Arminius’ mother was spinning wool into thread. She sprang off the wooden stool where she sat - a Roman luxury, bought from a trader - and hurried over to hug and kiss him. “So good to see you home!” she said between kisses.

“It’s good to be home, too,” Arminius answered. “I only wish I didn’t have to come back for a reason like this.”

His father, who was pouring the wine, growled down deep in his throat like an angry hunting hound. “Segestes didn’t just insult you when he took Thusnelda away and swore her to this wretch of a Tudrus,” he said. “He put the whole family in the shade, and everyone who follows us. Whatever you want to do to pay him back, you’ll have plenty of men behind you.”

“I’ve told him the same thing,” Chariomerus said.

“I would have known it even if you didn’t say a word,” Arminius replied. “I’ve been thinking about things all the way back from Pannonia. . . . Ah, thank you, Father.” He took an earthenware cup from Sigimerus. A German potter had made the cup; the sweet-smelling red wine inside came from some land the Romans ruled.

“Your health,” Sigimerus said, lifting his own cup in salute.

“Yours.” Arminius copied the gesture. So did his mother and Chariomerus. He drank. He’d tasted better wine, but also plenty worse. He nodded appreciatively.

“You’ve been thinking about what to do. . . .” Sigimerus prompted. He fiddled with the brooch that held his cloak closed. Because he was wealthy, the brooch was gold, and decorated with garnets red as the wine. An ordinary farmer would have closed his cloak with a bronze pin; a poor man would have made do with a thorn. “If you go after Segestes or Tudrus, we’ll back you.”

He tensed as he said the words; Arminius could see as much. But he said them anyhow, and didn’t hesitate over them. Arminius loved him for that. “I don’t want to start a bloody feud with Segestes, Father,” he said. “We shouldn’t fight one another now. We should all march side by side to fight the Romans.”

“You say this, and I think you speak wisely,” Sigimerus said. “Not everyone will, though. Segestes won’t. He’d sooner march with the Romans than against them. I hear that’s part of why he took Thusnelda away from you and gave her to Tudrus. Tudrus loves the Romans, too.”

“Loves to lick their backsides, you mean,” Chariomerus said.

“Some of them would like it if he did,” Arminius said. Chariomerus and Sigimerus both made horrible faces. So did Veleda. Men who wanted to use other men as if they were women did what they did in secret among the Germans. You heard whispers about such things, but that was all. Anyone caught doing them died slowly and painfully.

The Romans didn’t just talk openly about such things. Those who wanted to do them . . . did them. Arminius had got one of his many shocks inside the Empire when he learned that. He’d got another shock when he discovered it didn’t make them effeminate - not even the ones who were pierced rather than piercing. They fought the Pannonian rebels as bravely as anyone else. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it, but he had.

“If you don’t aim to start a feud with Segestes and his retainers, what will you do to regain your honor?” His father brought the talk back to the business at hand - and steered it away from what he didn’t care to think about. No flies on Sigimerus.

“Well, that depends,” Arminius answered. “Is Thusnelda wed to Tudrus, or is she only promised to him?”

“She is promised,” Veleda said. “She still lives in Segestes’ steading.”

Arminius breathed a sigh of relief. “That makes things easier.” Even killing Tudrus wouldn’t necessarily have got him Thusnelda if she’d already married Segestes’ comrade. Widows often staved single the rest of their days. With one as young and pretty as Thusnelda, that would have been a dreadful waste, which didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Sigimerus nodded. “You have more choices.”

“Just so,” Arminius said. “But I think I know what I’m going to try. . . ”

Soldiers gossiped. They didn’t only gossip about who was screwing whom or who was feuding with whom - although, being human, they did waste a lot of time gossiping about those eternal favorites. And, being human, they also wasted a lot of time gossiping about the officials set over them.

Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX had served together for a long time. Octavian raised them during the civil war against Antony and Cleopatra. A handful of senior centurions had been green kids scooped into the legions more than forty years before. The rest of the men had joined since. There were older legions, and legions that had seen more fighting, but XVII, XVIII, and XIX had nothing to be ashamed of.