Give Me Back My Legions(56)

Hard to worry about anything with spring burgeoning all around. New bright grass pushed up out of the ground. New shiny leaves were on all the trees that weren’t conifers - and in weather like this, mild and mostly sunny, you could ignore the gloomy needles on the pines and spruces. Flowers blazed across the meadows like stars in the night sky. The air smelled sweet and green.

Birds sang in the trees, throwing out music for anyone who walked by. “Germany wouldn’t be a bad place,” Caelius remarked, listening to a blackbird’s clear notes, “if it stayed this way the year around.”

He came from a farming village south of Neapolis, down near the toe of the boot. He knew the difference between summer and winter there: winter was the rainy season, and it did get cooler than the blazing summer heat. But it rarely snowed, and far fewer trees lost their leaves than they did here. Life down there had a more even pace. He missed it.

One of his friends peered into the woods. “Germany wouldn’t be a bad place,” the other legionary said, “if it didn’t have Germans in it.”

All the other Romans laughed. Caelius wondered why. “You’ve got that right, Sextus,” he said. “Only way to get rid of them is to kill ‘em all, though.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sextus said. “And how many of us would they bump off before we finished with ‘em?”

The sun ducked behind a cloud. Some of the brightness would have gone out of the day even if it hadn’t. “Too stinking many,” Caelius said. “They’re tough - no two ways about it.”

A rabbit bounded across the trail and disappeared into tall grass. Sextus pointed after it. “The barbarians hide just like that, the buggers.”

“There’s a difference,” Caelius said.

“What’s that?” His friend liked being contradicted no more than any other mortal.

“When rabbits hide, they don’t take along spears and swords and bows,” Caldus Caelius said.

Sextus grunted. “Well, so they don’t. And all kinds of things eat them. I wish something would eat up the Germans.”

A local, wrapped in his cloak, rounded a stand of trees up ahead. “Watch your mouths, boys,” Caelius said quietly. “Some of these bastards know Latin. We don’t want to be calling them dogs to their faces.”

“Why not?” another legionary demanded. “It’s what they are.”

“But the officers’ll have our guts for sandal straps if we start a fight for no reason,” Caelius said. The other soldier, a younger man - not that Caelius was very old - muttered under his breath but subsided. Caelius showed the German up ahead a raised, empty right hand.

Slowly, the native returned the gesture. Even more slowly, he came toward the Romans. He was tall and proud and skinny. His cloak had a bronze clasp in the shape of a beast. The creature’s eye was of stone, or perhaps glass paste. That said the German was a man of some substance, though probably not a chief. A real leader would have had a gold or silver clasp for his cloak, and would have worn breeks under it, too. This fellow’s hairy shanks stuck out below the bottom of his cloak. His spear was made for thrusting; it was longer and stouter than the javelins Caelius and his friends used.

“We have no quarrel with you,” Caelius said in Latin. Then he said what he hoped was the same thing, using his scraps of the Germans’ language.

“No? Then go back where you came from.” The barbarian’s Latin wasn’t much better than Caelius’ command of his language. He looked at his spear. He looked at the Romans. Several of them and one of him. If he started a fight, he’d regret it - but not for long. And he’d never do anything else that stupid afterwards. With a sigh, he nodded. “I have no quarrel with you - now.”

Caldus Caelius gave his pal a look that said, See? He might have understood you after all. The one the other Roman returned said something like, Yes, Mother. They grinned at each other. Caelius gave his attention back to the German. “There’s a little village down this path, isn’t there?” he said.

“Why you want to know?” From the anger and alarm in the native’s voice, he was wondering whether the legionaries aim to burn the place first and then rape the women or the other way round.

“I thought maybe we’d buy some of that, uh, beer you people brew,” Caelius answered. He liked wine better - what Roman in his right mind wouldn’t? By all the signs, the Germans liked wine better, too, when they could get it. But all the wine that came to Mindenum started from Vetera. There was usually enough to give each legionary his fair share, but not enough to get drunk on. And so ... Beer would do.