“This Varus . . . well, he’ll never make a proper general,” Lucius Eggius said. He knew all the men in the tavern with him, and knew - or was as sure as you could be about such things - none of them would go telling tales to the new governor of Germany.
“His cavalry commander’s not so bad,” said Marcus Calvisius, a centurion from Legion XVIII. He was in his early fifties, a little too young to have been part of XVIII’s original complement. “Doesn’t go around making too much of himself, anyway.”
“Numonius? Mm, maybe not.” Lucius Eggius weighed whether to give the other newcomer the benefit of the doubt. Alter draining his winecup, he shook his head. “He won’t tell his boss he’s wrong. Varus says, ‘We’ll whip the Germans into shape in an hour and a half.’ And Vala Numonius says, ‘We sure will. An hour and a halt - tops.’ He’s like a lap dog wagging his tail.”
Marcus Calvisius ran a hand through his hair. It was silver, but his hairline hadn’t retreated by even a digit’s breadth. Add that to a chin like a boulder, and he made an impressive-looking man. “An hour and a half won’t finish the job. You’re right about that, gods know.”
“A year and a half isn’t likely to finish the job, either,” Eggius said. “I tried to tell ‘em so, but did they want to listen?” He laughed bitterly. “I mean, what the demon do I know? All I am is the bastard on the spot. That counts for nothing. They’ve got orders from Augustus. That counts for everything.”
“How come Augustus can’t see it’s not as easy as he thinks?” Calvisius grumbled. “He’s a smart guy, right?”
“He is a smart guy,” Lucius Eggius said. “But even a smart guy can be dumb about places he’s never seen. Augustus never came up here. All he knows is, Germany’s not a proper province yet. He’s mad about it, too. How can you blame him, if you look at things from down in Rome?”
“Yeah, well . . .” Marcus Calvisius ran a hand through his hair again. “If you look at things from down in Rome, you don’t know anything about the Germans.”
All the Roman officers nodded. Somebody said, “We’re up here, and I don’t think we know anything much about the Germans.” The veterans nodded again.
“They don’t want to turn into a province. It’s about that simple,” Eggius said. He shoved his cup over to the tapman, who poured it full. Fancy aristocrats watered their wine like Greeks or children. He drank his neat. So did his friends. What point to drinking if you didn’t feel it?
“Gaul’s didn’t want to turn into a province, either. Caesar walloped the snot out of them,” Calvisius said. “Now we’re here, and they don’t mind. Not like that on the other side of the Rhine.”
Nobody told him he was wrong. Lucius Eggius knew too well that he was right. Cross the Rhine, and you crossed into a different world. Even the trees and the rivers on the east side seemed to hate Romans. As for the people . . . “Well,” Eggius said dryly, “it’s not like they don’t give us plenty of practice over there.”
He got a laugh. How many battles had Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX fought on the wrong side of the river? On the far side of the river, Eggius corrected himself. If Augustus said they were going to bring it into the Empire, the land over there wasn’t on the wrong side at all.
Assuming they could do what Augustus said, of course. Yeah, Eggius thought. Assuming.
A centurion from Legion XIX said, “Some of the Germans are good guys. Some of them get along with us all right.”
“Sure.” Eggius nodded. He could feel the wine, all right, but it hadn’t made him stupid yet. He didn’t think it had, anyhow. He knew he wasn’t stumbling over his own tongue. That was good. He took another pull at his cup and went on, “Answer me this, though. How many of those Germans who’re good guys, those Germans who get along with us all right, would you trust at your back when you’ve got other Germans - Germans you know are enemies - trying to do you in from the front?”
A considerable silence followed. Lucius Eggius considered it. None of his considerations made him very happy. The centurion from Legion XIX didn’t look very happy, either. He got his mug refilled, tilted his head back, and took a big swig: Eggius watched his prominent larynx bob up and down as he swallowed. At last, he said, “Well, there are a few.”
Most of the Romans who heard that nodded. Lucius Eggius did himself. “Yeah, there are,” he agreed. “But we’ve been trying to turn that miserable mess of trees and swamps and fogs and frogs into a province for a demon of a long time now. If we were going anywhere with it, don’t you figure there’d be more than a few Germans you could count on when your back was turned?”