Give Me Back My Legions(25)

“Strong,” Varus murmured. He led three legions. Of course he was strong. Of course Rome was strong. Segestes didn’t understand the difference between strength and restraint - or, more likely, the barbarian simply didn’t care.

Arminius had never imagined he could be so happy. He’d taken Thusnelda from her father for his honor’s sake. What he’d felt about her didn’t have much to do with it. He hadn’t had any strong feelings about her for her own sake. How could he, when he hadn’t known her well?

But he knew her now. He’d lain with her once to seal the bargain of her giving herself to him rather than to her father or to Tudrus. And he’d lain with her every chance he got after that, just for the sake of lying with her. He’d never dreamt anyone could be so beautiful or give him so much pleasure.

He’d never realized that anyone who gave him so much pleasure would naturally seem beautiful to him. He was still very young.

And Thusnelda was as delighted with him as he was with her. He knew he’d hurt her the first time - a man couldn’t help it. After that, though . . . After that, she was as eager as he was, which said a great deal.

The two of them amused his father. “I ought to throw a bucket of cold water over you, the way I would with dogs coupling in front of the door,” Sigimerus said.

“Why?” Arminius protested. “We don’t do it in public. We always put our cloaks up around the bed. No one can see us.” Nobody in any German household had more privacy than that.

His father chuckled. “No one can see you, maybe, but that doesn’t mean no one can hear you. Your woman yowls like a wildcat.”

“Well, what if she does?” Arminius had noticed that, too. He took pride in it, as reflecting well on his own manhood.

Before Sigimerus could tell him anything different, one of the house slaves dashed in from outside, calling, “Lord! Lord’s son! Half a dozen Romans are riding up the path toward the steading!”

“Romans!” Arminius exclaimed. Half a dozen Romans might ride some distance through Germany. In a time without overt war, the locals might not want to try to ambush them. Too great a chance one or more would get away - and Roman retribution was something the Germans had learned to be wary of.

Sigimerus cursed Segestes as foully as he knew how. “What will you bet he’s complained of you to their chief?” he said.

Arminius hadn’t expected that. But he was a Roman citizen, and so was Segestes. If Thusnelda’s father had found a way to use that against him ... If so, Segestes really was a devious Roman, where Arminius wore his citizenship as a disguise.

“What do you want to do, son?” Sigimerus asked. “We can kill them if we have to.”

“We aren’t ready to stand against Rome if we do,” Arminius replied, and his father didn’t try to tell him he was wrong. He grimaced. “Let me go talk with them and see how serious this is.”

He stepped outside. The day was cool and gray: a usual enough German day. The Romans had almost reached the steading. They were not big men, but the horses they rode were large by German standards. They could look down on him, as few Romans on foot could do. Their faces were all planes and angles and imperious noses; their dark eyes showed him no more than polished jet might have.

“I am Arminius, Sigimerus’ son,” he said in Latin. “I am a Roman citizen. What do you want of me?” His father and the slave stood behind him. Sigimerus’ hand rested near his swordhilt, but not on it.

“Hail, Arminius,” one of the Romans said, shooting out his clenched fist in the salute his folk used. “Publius Quinctilius Varus, the governor of Germany, summons you to his lodging at Mindenum, so that you may explain your conduct in the matter of the abduction of the daughter of another Roman citizen.”

All those genitives thrown in his face one after another . . . The horseman was trying to make things difficult for him. But Arminius followed, though he wasn’t sure his father did. “Am I under arrest?” he asked. If the Roman told him yes, he might have to fight. By German standards, Roman notions of justice were harsh and arbitrary.

But the fellow shook his head. “No. I am to inform you that this is an inquiry only.”

“Do you take oath by your gods that you tell me the truth? Do you take oath by the eagle of your legion that you tell me the truth?”

“By my gods and by the eagle of Legion XVIII, Arminius son of Sigimerus, I tell you the truth,” the Roman horseman replied without the least hesitation.

Romans were born deceitful. Not many of them, though, were depraved enough to swear falsely an oath like that. Arminius had seen that Roman soldiers put their legion’s eagle, the symbol of their comradeship, even above their gods. Warriors who could be skulkers and villains in other ways would lay down their lives without a murmur to keep their eagle safe.