Immortality, then. But a shadowy immortality, rather like the one Homer gave the spirits of the dead in the Odyssey. Better than nothing, less than enough.
“Something wrong, your Excellency?” Eggius asked. “You look a little peaked, like.”
“No, no, no.” Varus denied it not only to the soldier but also to himself. “Just thinking about what Germany will be like when it’s been Roman for a couple of hundred years, that’s all.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d been thinking, but it came close enough to let him bring the lie out smoothly.
Lucius Eggius made a face. “It’ll still be the back woods, you ask me. The Gauls, now, the Gauls are picking things up pretty quick. But these gods-cursed Germans? They’re stubborn bastards, no two ways about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still mumbling to themselves in their own language, even after all that time.”
Struck by an odd thought, Varus asked, “Have you learned any of it?”
“Me?” Eggius laughed. “Just a tiny bit, sir, so I can talk a little with the German girls I bed. They like that, you know? You can tell ‘em what you want ‘em to do, and they can let you know what feels good to them.”
“I suppose so.” Varus had slept with some German women, too. What else was he going to do, when Claudia Pulchra’d stayed down in Rome? But he’d made sure his bedwarmers understood enough Latin to get by. The other approach hadn’t even occurred to him.
Eggius chuckled again. “Hate to talk business instead of pussy, sir, but when do you aim to cross the Rhine again?”
“How soon can the men be ready?” Varus asked.
“An hour from now, if they have to be.” Professional pride rang in Eggius’ voice. “If you’re not in a hurry, though, a few days to get organized won’t hurt.”
“All right. Do that, then. I don’t think there’s any great rush,” Varus said.
“Right you are, sir.” Lucius Eggius nodded. Then he raised a curious eyebrow. “You sure this Arminius fellow isn’t as much trouble as people say he is?”
“I’m not losing any sleep over him,” Varus answered. “I don’t think anybody else needs to, either.”
The Romans had cut back the woods on the right bank of the Rhine opposite Vetera far enough to make it impossible to bushwhack them when they crossed their bridge into Germany. That didn’t mean Arminius couldn’t watch them cross without being seen himself.
This wasn’t the first Roman army on the march he’d seen, of course. He’d fought alongside the legions in Pannonia, and, before that, he’d fought against them here in Germany. He didn’t think the Romans knew about that. They wouldn’t have granted him citizenship if they did. Back in those days, he’d been nothing to them but another shouting barbarus with a spear and a sword and a shield.
Barbarus. His mouth twisted. It didn’t just mean someone who wasn’t a Roman, the way he’d once thought. It meant somebody who couldn’t talk like a human being, someone who made bar-bar-bar noises instead.
He’d learned Latin. He spoke it pretty well - not perfectly, but pretty well. He’d never yet met a Roman who came close to speaking the Germans’ tongue anywhere near so well.
Romans had an almost perfect contempt for anyone from beyond their borders. He often wondered why, feeling the way they did, they wanted to rule other folk at all. He supposed perfect greed outweighed almost perfect contempt.
No denying they made a brave show, though. Cavalrymen crossed the Rhine first. He envied them their big horses. Germans, big men, rode ponies so small they often jumped off them to fight. Mounts from the Roman side of the Rhine were great prizes. There weren’t many horsemen here: enough to smoke out an ambush and hold it off till the foot soldiers deployed.
Behind the cavalry came one of the legions the Romans were using to try to hold down Germany. As a fighting man, Arminius had nothing but respect for the soldiers tramping forward into his country. They were tough. They were brave. In a fight in the open field, they could beat more than their number of Germans. Arminius didn’t like that, but he’d seen it was true. The Romans worked together so much better than his own folk did. . . .
He muttered something guttural under his breath. If the Germans were ever going to beat the legionaries, they would have to do it on a battlefield where the Romans couldn’t deploy to advantage. The Germans would have to spring a trap, in other words.
Still, the Romans weren’t stupid. They sent scouts ahead of their force and out to either flank. They were more careful than Germans, too. Arminius did some more muttering.