Give Me Back My Legions(61)

Varus . . . wouldn’t have minded having it. He didn’t think he’d get it after Augustus died, though. Of Augustus’ surviving kin, all the signs pointed to Tiberius. Not only had he been (disastrously) married to Augustus’ daughter, he was also Augustus’ wife’s son and a first-rate soldier to boot. Overthrowing him would take a civil war, and Rome had seen too many.

But Tiberius was within a year or two of Varus’ age, and childless. If he died fairly soon . . . In that case, people might look to me, Varus thought.

A branch hanging down from an oak into the narrow path swatted him in the face and snuffed out his daydreams of imperial glory. “Never mind building a new Rome here, Numonius,” he said. “What we need to build in this benighted place are some decent roads.”

“You’ve thrown a triple six with that, sir!” Vala Numonius exclaimed. “It won’t be easy or cheap, though. So much of this country is swamp or bog or mud or something else disgusting.”

“We can do it,” Varus said. “Back a lifetime ago, the Germans never dreamt we could bridge the Rhine and punish them for sticking their noses into Gaul. Caesar showed them how ignorant they were. And proper highways would be worth their weight in gold here. Except along rivers, we have a demon of a time getting troops where they need to go.”

“Don’t I know it!” Numonius rolled his eyes. “Horsemen have an even worse time pushing down these narrow, twisting tracks or slogging through the mud than foot soldiers do.”

“Yes, I can see how that would be so.” Varus’ decisive nod was patterned after the one Augustus habitually used. “Roads, then. As soon as we decide it’s safe enough for the engineers to start working on them. Or maybe even a little before that.”

“A little before that would be very good,” Vala Numonius said. “If you wait till you’re sure you’re safe in Germany, you’ll wait forever.”

“Ha!” Varus’ laugh faded to a rueful chuckle. “That’s one of those jokes that would be funny if only it were funny, if you know what I mean.”

One of the Romans riding ahead of the governor and the cavalry commander said, “Here’s their village, sir.” Under his breath, he added, “Gods-forsaken little pisspot of a place, isn’t it?”

Quinctilius Varus didn’t think he was meant to catch that last, so he pretended he didn’t. As the path came out of the forest into the cleared land around the village and he got a good look at it, he found he had a hard time disagreeing with the cavalryman.

The cattle and sheep were small and scrubby, the horses mere ponies. The swine seemed only half a step up from wild boars, while the snarling dogs might have come straight from the wolfpacks that roamed the woods. The houses were huts, with walls of mud and sticks and with thatched roofs that hung out on all sides far enough to keep the rain from melting the mud.

And the people . . . were Germans. Varus had got to the point where he didn’t mind watching the women. They were tall, strongly made, and most of them fair. Nothing wrong with any of that. The men, though, were as close to wild as the pigs and the dogs. He’d learned that calling another man a swinehound was a favorite German insult. Now he thought he understood why they used it. It suited them.

Ten or twelve big men, all swathed in cloaks and carrying spears, stood around in what passed for the village square arguing with one another. They shouted. They clenched fists and shook them under their neighbors’ noses. No one ran anybody through, but Varus wondered if it was only a matter of time.

“This is the assembly they wanted you to see, sir?” Vala Numonius said. “If they’re proud enough of this to want to show it off, gods only know what they do when we’re not watching.”

“Too true,” Varus said with a sigh. Still, he could write to Augustus and truthfully - well, almost truthfully - tell him he’d seen the Germans begin to imitate Roman institutions. Augustus would be glad to hear something of that sort. And if it wasn’t as true as it might have been just yet, Varus would make it so before too long. He was confident of that.

Then one of the barbarians startled him by waving and calling out in pretty fair Latin: “Hail, your Excellency! Good to see you! How are you today? Would you like me to translate for you?”

“Arminius!” Varus was pleased he remembered the fellow’s name. He’d had it shouted in his ear all winter long, of course, to say nothing of the scandal the summer before. But Arminius was only a German, after all. A lot of Romans wouldn’t have bothered recalling his barbarous appellation no matter what. So ... Quinctilius Varus was pleased.