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Give Me Back My Legions(91)

By:Harry Turtledove


Quinctilius Varus shook his head. “Not until my wife’s great-uncle gives us leave.” What would Augustus do if he threw up this governorship and went back to Rome on his own? Maybe nothing. Maybe he would understand Varus simply wasn’t the right man for the job.

Or maybe he would make an example of his grand-niece’s husband. Closer relatives were spending the rest of their lives on small, hot, barren Mediterranean islands. While the weather at a place like that was bound to be an improvement over Mindenum’s, the rest of the arrangements wouldn’t be.

And the humiliation! If he went home, anyone who remembered him after he was dead would remember him for a sentence in some as yet unwritten history that read something like, “In the thirty-sixth year of Augustus’ reign, Publius Quinctilius Varus was exiled to Belbina for neglecting his duties.” And anyone who cared (if anyone at all cared) would have to consult some geographer’s work to find out where the demon Belbina was.

To keep from thinking about Belbina (Varus knew too well where the arid rock was, and knew it wasn’t much more than a good piss long, and maybe half that wide), he poured down the wine. The legionaries had fortified Mindenum. The wine fortified Quinctilius Varus. He thrust the cup at Aristocles. “Fill this up again.” When you were talking to a slave, you didn’t even have to say please.

Aristocles gauged him the way a sailor gauged clouds boiling up to windward. Like a prudent sailor, the pedisequus shortened sail. “Yes, sir,” he said, and not another word.

He came back with the refilled cup faster than he’d brought it before. Varus poured a very small libation this time. The rest of the wine went straight into him.

After two of those good-sized cups of potent vintage, he felt like finding a nice, quiet spot somewhere, wrapping his cloak around him, and going to sleep like a dormouse. In Germany, nobody could tell him he couldn’t do something like that if he wanted to. The only person in the whole Roman Empire who could tell him any such thing was Augustus - and Augustus was a long way from Germany.

But not even Augustus’ designated governor could keep some kind of commotion from starting in front of his tent. “What’s going on now?” Varus asked irately.

“I’ll go see, sir.” Aristocles went off to find out. He came back sooner than Varus had expected. His expression was altogether unreadable.

Voice as carefully blank as his face, Aristocles said, “The German named Arminius has returned, your Excellency. His father is with him, as he was last year.”

“Oh, good!” Varus said. Aristocles’ face took on an expression then. Had Varus tried to name it, he probably would have called it unwatered horror.

Arminius had wondered whether he would get back to the site of Mindenum before the Romans finished rebuilding it. But no: the camp or town or whatever you called it was a going concern by the time he and Sigimerus came southeast from the country of the Chauci to central Germany.

The Roman sentries bristled like angry dogs when they spotted Arminius. Varus might enjoy having him around, but they didn’t. Only the governor’s rank kept them from showing how little they enjoyed his company. Even that wouldn’t have sufficed if they were Germans.

“In the name of your eagle, greetings,” he called to them. He didn’t want the Romans angry at him now. That might ruin everything. Maybe reminding them that he knew and respected their customs would make them happier. He didn’t want somebody knifing him in the back while he was walking through the encampment. If somebody did, he would bet gold against copper that Varus never caught the murderer.

He didn’t soften up the Romans as much as he’d hoped. “Our eagle has its eye on you,” one sentry snarled. The others nodded. A couple of them let their hands fall to the hilts of their gladii.

“Careful, now,” Sigimerus said out of the side of his mouth, his lips barely moving.

“I know,” Arminius answered the same way. When he addressed the Romans again, he raised his voice: “Would you please be kind enough to let his Excellency the governor know I’m here?” If Varus knew, the legionaries couldn’t kill him right here and then claim they hadn’t realized who he was. And the looks on their faces said they wanted to.

Most reluctantly, one of the sentries went back into the encampment. “May we enter?” Sigimerus asked in his slow, halting Latin. “I am not a young man any more. I get tired standing out here in the sun.”

He and Arminius had practiced at swords not long after sunup. If he’d been tired then, Arminius hadn’t noticed. Sigimerus might not be quite so fast or quite so strong as he had been when he was Arminius’ age. But he was still fast and strong enough to be dangerous - and he knew every trick all his years of fighting had taught him.