The Greek’s sallow cheeks went quite pink when Varus asked him about it. “No, sir, I don’t fancy them. They look at me the way stray dogs look at tripes in a butcher’s stall.”
They did, too. Varus had noticed it. He thought of it as wolves eyeing a crippled fawn, but the pedisequus’ comparison was just as apt. “They can’t help it, Aristocles,” the Roman governor said. “They don’t understand that a peaceable man should be left to live in peace.”
“I should say they don’t!” Aristocles exclaimed. “That’s why I wish they’d leave.”
“Well, I find myself with two things to say about that,” Varus replied. “The first is that, however they look at you, they’ve offered you no harm. And the second is that we’ve come to Germany not least to make it into a place where a peaceable man can be left to live in peace.” He chuckled wryly. “We’ve come with three legions to make it into that kind of place, in fact.”
“Yes, sir.” But Aristocles only sounded dutiful, not amused. That disappointed Varus, who was pleased with the line he’d got off.
“They are our guests, don’t forget,” Varus said. “That matters here. If I send them away, I’d affront them.”
“But what if they’ve come here to murder you?” Aristocles blurted.
That made Quinctilius Varus laugh. He wasn’t especially brave: one more reason he felt uneasy around soldiers, many of whom took their own courage for granted. But he could tell when his slave was jumping at shadows. “If they wanted to murder me, they could have done it a dozen times by now - and they could have sneaked away before anyone knew I was dead. Since they haven’t seized any of those chances, I have to think they don’t aim to do me in. What would murdering me get them?”
“They would have killed the man charged with bringing Germany into the Roman Empire.” To Aristocles, it must have seemed obvious.
Varus went on laughing. “Yes? And so?”
“And so - that!” the pedisequus replied. “Isn’t it enough?”
“Not if they aim to stop Rome from conquering Germany,” Varus said. “We’d take such revenge that the savages would shriek and wail and hide under their beds for the next hundred years. Vala Numonius would see to that, he and whoever Augustus sent out to replace me. Besides, you’re missing something else.”
“What’s that?” Like anyone else, slave or free, Aristocles didn’t care to believe he could be missing anything.
“Arminius is a Roman citizen. He’s a member of the Equestrian Order. He risked his life to put down the rebels in Pannonia and bring that province back under Roman rule,” Varus answered. “So why would he and his father want to work against Rome at all?”
His Greek slave only sniffed. “Why do all those people say he was doing nothing else but all winter long . . . er, sir? Seems to me he’s the biggest fraud in the world.”
The biggest fraud who isn’t a Greek, you mean, Varus thought, but he didn’t care to wound Aristocles’ feelings unless he had to. “I think we heard lies put together by Segestes’ claque. I’ve thought so all along.”
“Segestes is a Roman citizen, too,” Aristocles said. “He’s been one longer than Arminius has.”
“As if that proves anything! He’s older than Arminius. And he’s still trying to fix Arminius for running off with his daughter. With Thusnelda . . . The names these Germans have!” Quinctilius Varus was pleased with himself for remembering hers.
“Doesn’t that say something about the kind of wolf - uh, man - Arminius is?” Aristocles replied. “He swoops down like a thief in the night and -”
And Varus couldn’t stop laughing. “I’ll tell you what kind of man Arminius is. He’s a young man - that’s what kind. He goes around with a stiff prong all the time. Didn’t you, when you were that age?” Without waiting for Aristocles to answer, the Roman governor went on, “Besides, it’s pikestaff plain he didn’t steal Thusnelda away against her will. She went with him because she felt like it.”
“He fooled her. He tricked her.” The pedisequus was nothing if not obstinate. “And he’s fooling you, tricking you, too. And you’re letting him.”
“The day a German barbarian can fool a Roman, he’s earned the right to do it,” Varus said. “But I don’t think that day will come any time soon.”
Aristocles sighed. “Yes, sir. I understand. Once upon a time, we Greeks said, ‘The day a Roman barbarian can fool a Greek, he’s earned the right to do it.’ We didn’t think that day would come, either. But look where we are now. Look where I am now, sir.”