Give Me Back My Legions!

XV

Heat came to Germany but seldom. When it did, as on this stifling late-summer day, it came with a thick blanket of humidity such as Mediterranean lands never knew. Sweating, itching, scratching, swearing legionaries tore Mindenum to pieces.

“Gods, I hope we never have to do this shitty job again,” one of them said.

“Sure—and then you wake up,” another Roman said with a scornful laugh. “We build ‘em. We take ‘em down. Then we build ‘em one more time.”

Quinctilius Varus nodded as he watched the legionaries work. That was what they were for, all right. They were beasts of burden, more clever and versatile than mules or oxen, but beasts of burden all the same.

“Well, I hope the stupid fucking governor makes up his stupid fucking mind one of these years,” the first soldier said.

“Sure—and then you wake up,” the other man repeated. This time they both laughed, the way men will when there’s really nothing to laugh about but the only other choice is to go on swearing.

Somebody behind Varus laughed, too. The governor whirled angrily. Aristocles’ face was as innocent as if he’d never heard anything funny in his life. Arminius and Sigimerus also might have been carved from mirthless marble. Varus fumed, his ears burning. Sometimes even a man of exalted rank could look ridiculous in front of his inferiors.

He pulled himself together. “We’ll be ready to march soon,” he told Arminius.

“Yes, sir. So I see,” the German said. “Your men always do everything very smoothly.”

“Roman efficiency,” Varus said, not without pride. “I expect we’ll show you more of it on the march.”

“Oh, so do I,” Arminius replied. “And I thank you for finally taking me up on the route I offered you.”

Tall, wet-looking, anvil-headed clouds drifted across the sky. The sun played hide-and-seek behind them, but the day got no cooler, no less muggy, when it disappeared for a few minutes. Two days earlier, some of those clouds had let loose in a thunderstorm the likes of which Varus had seldom seen. For all he knew, they might do it again any time—when the legions were on the move, for instance.

“If the weather is better—drier—farther north, that’s the way we want to go,” he said.

Arminius nodded. “Oh, yes. It almost always is.” He nudged his father and spoke to him in their guttural tongue.

Thus prompted, Sigimerus also nodded. “Weather better. Ja,” he said in his dreadful Latin. The last word wasn’t really, but it was one of the handful Varus had learned from the Germans’ language.

“You will see the country I spring from.” Arminius was far more fluent—far more civilized, when you got right down to it.

“Oh, joy. One more bloody flea-bitten pesthole in a land packed full of them,” Aristocles said.

For a moment, Varus wondered why Arminius didn’t draw his sword and try to cut the insolent slave in half. Then he realized the pedisequus had spoken with a straight face and mild tones—and, much more to the point, had spoken in Greek. To Varus, with his fancy education and years of service in the East, it was as natural as Latin. To a rude German, though, it would only be noises.

“Now, now,” Varus said, also in Greek. “It’s his, such as it is. Only natural for him to be proud of it.”

“A swallow must be proud of a nest of sticks and mud,” Aristocles retorted. “That doesn’t mean I want to go out of my way to visit.”

Arminius looked from one of them to the other. When neither offered to translate, the German shrugged his broad shoulders. Maybe he wondered if they were talking about him behind his back, so to speak. If he did, he didn’t look angry about it, the way Varus thought a barbarian would be bound to do.

Clang! A legionary threw an iron tripod into a wagon. The Romans would bury more iron, but not where Arminius or any other German could watch them do it. They didn’t want the savages digging up the metal and hammering it into spearheads and sword blades.

Things did go smoothly. And why not? The soldiers tore Mindenum down every year at this time. They’d had plenty of practice by now. Would they still wreck it at the end of summer twenty years from now? Or would they stay here around the year by then, to garrison a peaceful province? If they don’t, Varus thought, I haven’t done my job.

That led to another thought. If I don’t do my job, what will Augustus do to me? Varus had already brooded about some of those possibilities. Disgrace. Exile. A desert island miles and miles from anything but another desert island. Even if he escaped all those, failure would bring Augustus’ disapproval down on him, and Augustus’ disapproval was colder than any blizzard on the Rhine.

I’d better not fail, then, he told himself.

“Did you ever hear it rains less up on the other side of the hills than it does down here?” Lucius Eggius asked Ceionius.

The other camp prefect shook his head. “No. But I never heard it rains more there than it does here, either. So that should be a wash. These Germans are like so many Syrian fig-sellers: they’ll tell any kind of lie to get you to go their way. But I think it’ll work out all right.”

“Hope so,” Eggius said. “This stinking trail sure isn’t everything it ought to be. We had what was almost a proper path—not a real road, on account of it wasn’t paved, but a path, anyhow—going straight west from Mindenum. This scrawny little thing isn’t anything like it.”

“It’s all right as long as we’re in the meadows. I just don’t like it when it twists through the woods.” Ceionius returned to his previous theme: “Don’t worry about it, Lucius. Like I say, Germans lie all the time. Do you know what that old fox of a Segestes said to blacken Arminius’ name while you were out on patrol?”

“Tell me,” Eggius urged.

“He said warriors were heading off to jump us somewhere.” Ceionius laughed. “I’d like to see ‘em try.”

“I wouldn’t.” Eggius wasn’t laughing. “I passed through a bunch of half-empty villages and steadings this summer. The old men who’d stayed behind claimed their fighters were off getting ready to go to war against the Chauci. If they were getting ready to go to war against us instead…”

“You always were more jittery than you need to be,” Ceionius said.

“I’ve got more experience with the Germans than you do,” Lucius Eggius replied. “No such thing as being too jittery around them. They always try to come up with sneaky new ways to screw us over. I’d better talk to Varus.”

“He won’t listen,” Ceionius predicted.

That struck Eggius as much too likely. Even so, he said, “I’d better…”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Ceionius warned him as he booted his horse forward. A stubborn man, Eggius nodded and pressed on.

He had a demon of a time catching up to Varus. The trail did dive into a forest. Tree trunks pressed close on either side. Marching legionaries could hardly squeeze in close to make way for him, no matter how he shouted and swore. Regardless of his rank, they swore back at him.

There was the governor’s Greek slave, up on his donkey. And there was Quinctilius Varus himself, laughing and joking with Arminius. Eggius was no courtier, but even he could see this wasn’t the time to beard Varus. As well tell a man his dog killed ducks while the beast was licking its master’s hand.

Eggius sat his horse between two massive oaks till Ceionius finally came up. Ceionius eyed him. “You didn’t say anything.”

“That’s right,” Eggius admitted. “How could I? He had Arminius right there with him. You think he would have paid any attention to me?”

“No.” Ceionius couldn’t help adding, “Told you so.”

“Ahhh—“ But Eggius didn’t say anything about the other officer’s mother. You could do that with a close friend, but Ceionius wasn’t one. He might think Eggius meant it, and things could end in blood if he did. “Maybe I’ll try again later,” Eggius said.

“Sure.” Ceionius didn’t believe a word of it. Since Eggius didn’t, either, he couldn’t even call him on it.

Arminius wanted to caper like a colt. He wanted to dance for joy. The Romans were doing exactly what he wanted them to do. If not for the training in duplicity they’d given him, he might have betrayed himself. He couldn’t believe things were going this well.

The only person he could talk to was his father, and then only in tiny whispers at night in their tent. “Just don’t get too excited, that’s all,” Sigimerus said. “It may not work as well as you hope.”

“I know,” Arminius answered. “Believe me, I know. But it may, too. And if it does, by the gods—!”

“Worry about it then.” In his own way, Sigimerus was as practical as a Roman. “In the meantime, get some sleep.”

Most of the time, Arminius would have had no trouble sleeping. What else could you do after the sun set, especially without a warm, friendly woman to keep you awake for a while? He could hear legionaries snoring in the encampment. He could hear mosquitoes buzzing, crickets chirping… and sentries exchanging password and countersign as they patrolled the rampart they’d built a few hours earlier. Yes, Romans were hard to surprise, curse them.

A couple of days later, Chariomerus rode up as the legionaries were readying the night’s camp. Arminius’ clansmate clasped hands with him and with Sigimerus. “What are you doing here?” Arminius asked the other German. He was ever so conscious of the listening legionaries, and hoped Chariomerus was, too. The wrong words, even in their own language, could mean disaster.

“When you left for Mindenum, you left Thusnelda with child,” Chariomerus said.

Sigimerus allowed himself a rare smile. “I shall be a grandfather!” he exclaimed.

“If the gods grant it,” Chariomerus said. “The confinement has been rough. The midwife is worried about Thusnelda—she fears her hips may be too narrow for an easy delivery. And Thusnelda wants nothing more than to see you again, Arminius.”

“I would be there soon enough anyhow,” Arminius said, frowning. “The governor counts on me to show him the way north and west.”

“Go to your woman, son,” Sigimerus said. “I am here. I can bring the Romans along as well as you can—I’ve known the way longer than you’ve been alive.” He used his own tongue, as he almost always did. The legionaries would have wondered why he suddenly started spouting Latin with his son and the other German. Some of them would follow what he was saying now regardless of the language he used.

“I promised his Excellency that I’d do it,” Arminius said.

“Go talk with him. Take Chariomerus with you. Let him tell the governor what he just told you. Varus will give you leave to go home. He is a fine man, an understanding man.” Sigimerus spoke with a perfectly straight face. Arminius admired his father. He hadn’t thought the older man could act so well.

He had to hide his own admiration. The Romans shouldn’t see it. Dipping his head, he said, “I will do as you say. Come on, Chariomerus.”

Arminius wasn’t surprised when Aristocles greeted him with “This must be your fellow tribesman” outside of Varus’ tent. News flashed through a legionary encampment quick as lightning, as it did through a German village.

“Just so.” Arminius introduced Chariomerus to him, then went on, “He brings news from my home. We need to speak of it with his Excellency.”

“Let me find out if he can see the two of you,” the Greek slave said. Chariomerus looked worried. Arminius reassured him with his eyes. Aristocles always said things like that—they made him seem important. But Arminius was confident Varus would meet with him and Chariomerus.

Sure enough, when the pedisequus came back he beckoned them on without another word. Maybe someone could have made something of Chariomerus’ relieved grin, but Arminius didn’t think so. Anybody would take it to mean that Chariomerus was glad he wouldn’t have to waste his time standing around outside. If Arminius hadn’t known the circumstances, he would have taken it that way himself.

“So your woman’s got a bulging belly, eh?” Quinctilius Varus said after Arminius presented Chariomerus to him and told him the news.

“Yes, sir,” Arminius replied. The Roman had a bulging belly, too, but only because he made a glutton of himself. Arminius went on, “My clansmate tells me she worries about her health. So does the midwife. And so Thusnelda wants to see me. I’d like to see her, too.”

“There is the matter of guiding us along your much-praised route to the Rhine,” Varus said.

“My father will stay behind with you and the legions, sir,” Arminius said. “He told me himself that he knows the way better than I do.” He smiled. “You know what fathers are like.”

That proved a mistake. Mouth twisting, Varus shook his head. “Not of my own experience. My father… passed away when I was quite young.” More to himself than to Arminius, he added, “He always clung to his ideals, even in the midst of civil war—and he paid for it.”

“I am sorry, your Excellency. I did not know,” Arminius said. Chariomerus murmured sympathetically.

“Thank you both. You are kind,” Varus said. “You may go, Arminius. If your, uh, Thusnelda has a boy-child, I hope father and son will know each other for many years.”

“You leave me in your debt, sir.” Arminius knew how he intended to repay Varus, too. He eagerly looked forward to it. And yet, in an odd way, he meant what he said. He didn’t hate Varus for anything the Roman had done, but because Varus was a Roman. For a German who wanted to see his land free, that was reason enough and more.

Varus wrote something on a scrap of papyrus. “Here. Give this to the sentries. They will pass you out with no fuss.”

“Thanks again.” Whatever shame Arminius might have felt, he made a point of stifling it. He and Chariomerus bowed their way out of the governor’s presence. Chariomerus started to say something in their own language. Arminius sharply shook his head. To his relief, his comrade took the point and kept quiet. To have some sneaky Roman understand inopportune words now, when things were coming together… Arminius shook his head again. If the plans he’d spent so long laying fell apart because of something like that, it would be too much to bear.

Well, it wouldn’t happen. The pass did help him and Chariomerus leave the camp easily. As Varus had promised, the sentries didn’t fuss at all. The two Germans rode away. “Out in the free land again!” Chariomerus exulted.

Arminius didn’t reprove him, not when they were out of earshot—and bowshot—of the legionary encampment. “Soon the whole land will be free again,” Arminius said. “Very soon.”

The middle of Germany. Three legions. No one dared approach the Romans or challenge them. Anyone foolish enough to dare would have died, either quickly and unpleasantly or slowly and unpleasantly, depending on the soldiers’ mood. But having all the legionaries gathered together in one long, sinewy column reminded Lucius Eggius that everything around them was enemy country.

Whenever they passed by a steading or through a village, it seemed almost empty of warriors. Of course, most German steadings and villages seemed almost empty of everybody. The barbarians didn’t want to meet the legionaries and make friends with them. Had an army of Germans come tramping through Italy, Italian peasants wouldn’t have hung around to greet them, either. Peasants and soldiers were oil and water.

Eggius and Quinctilius Varus were oil and water, too. The camp prefect knew it. All the same, he caught up to Varus the morning after Arminius rode out of camp and said, “Talk with you for a little while, your Excellency?”

“You seem to be doing it,” Varus answered coolly.

“Er—right.” Eggius had guessed this wouldn’t go well. Now he saw how right he was. Even so, he plunged on: “I sure hope that Segestes fellow didn’t know what he was talking about when he said the Germans were getting ready to jump us.”

“Oh, of course he didn’t.” Quinctilius Varus went from cool to irritable in less time than it took to tell.

Eggius sighed. “Yes, sir.” You couldn’t come out and tell a governor he had his head up his… But, oh, by the gods, how you wished you could! Since Eggius couldn’t, he continued, “We still shouldn’t take any chances we don’t have to. Better to worry too much and not need to than to need to and not worry.”

“I have nothing against the customary precautions. Do we neglect our encampments? Do we forget to post sentries?” Varus said.

“No, sir. But I was just thinking… maybe we shouldn’t have come this way at all.” There. Eggius got it out.

And it did no good. The governor stared at him. “Do you want to turn around and go back? For what amounts to no reason at all?”

“Might be safer if we did,” Eggius said.

Varus stared at him as if he were something sticky and stinky on a sandal sole. “Yes, I suppose it might—if you believe Arminius to be a traitor and Segestes an honest man. Do you believe that, Eggius?”

To the crows with you if you do, Eggius. The camp prefect could hear what Varus wasn’t saying as well as what he was. Picking his own words with care, Lucius Eggius replied, “Sir, I don’t like taking chances any which way. If we don’t have to, I don’t think we ought to.”

“Well, I don’t think we are,” Varus said. “And that settles it.”

How right he was. When the governor of a Roman province decided something, the only man who could overrule him was Augustus. And Augustus was in no position to overrule Varus about this, even on the unlikely assumption that he would. Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX were stuck with Varus’ decision. Eggius just had to hope the governor was right.

Vala Numonius was waiting to see the governor when Lucius Eggius left Varus’ presence. “Everything seems to be going well enough,” the cavalry commander remarked.

Eggius eyed him with something close to loathing. “Easy for you to say,” he growled. “If things get buggered up, you and your boys can gallop off. The rest of us, we’re just in for it.”

“Do you think we’d do that? Do you?” Vala Numonius sounded deeply affronted. “We’re all in this together, and there’s no reason to worry about any fighting. The Germans are as peaceful as they’ve ever been.”

“Too peaceful,” Eggius said. “His Excellency isn’t worrying enough, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t. I’m sure the governor didn’t, either,” Numonius said pointedly. “Have you been dropping your own worries in his lap?”

If you haven’t. I will. That was what he had to mean. Eggius glared at him, then shrugged. “Say whatever you cursed well please,” he answered. “He won’t hear anything from you that he hasn’t heard from me. Maybe he’ll even listen to you. I can sure hope so.”

Numonius edged past him as if afraid he had something catching. Lucius Eggius knew too well he didn’t. If the truth were contagious, it would have spread more. The cavalry commander was more likely to spread good, old-fashioned slander.

“I hope everything is all right, sir,” Aristocles said as Eggius stormed out of Varus’ tent.

“So do I,” Eggius answered. “I wouldn’t bet more than a copper on it, though.”

Clouds piled up in the northwest, tall and thick and dark. The wind blew them toward the marching Romans. Quinctilius Varus’ nostrils flared. If that wasn’t the wet-dust odor of rain on the way, he’d never smelled it.

Curse it, Arminius had told him rain wasn’t so likely in these parts. Varus looked around before remembering the German was off seeing to Thusnelda. Then Varus looked for Sigimerus. He didn’t see Arminius’ father, either.

He did see Aristocles, who, as usual, rode his donkey instead of a horse. And the Greek slave saw him, too. “Ah, your Excellency—?” he said, as insolently as a man could use an honorific.

“What is it?” Varus snapped—he could hear the testiness in his own voice.

As he’d known Aristocles would, the pedisequus pointed out the obvious: “I hate to say it, your Excellency, but it looks like rain.”

“If you hate to say it, then keep your miserable mouth shut,” Varus growled.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Aristocles didn’t seem to know whether to sound scared or hurt.

Quinctilius Varus sighed. Owning a man, holding his life in your hands, could make you feel pretty big. It could also make you feel pretty small if you struck at him for something that wasn’t remotely his fault. Sighing again, Varus said, “Nothing you can do about the weather. Nothing anybody can do about it, worse luck.”

“That’s true, sir.” Aristocles was nothing if not relieved. If Varus felt like striking out at him, what could he do about it? Nothing, as he had to know too well.

After looking around again, the Roman governor felt his frown deepen. “Have you seen Sigimerus lately?”

The slave’s neck twisted as he too looked this way and that. “No, sir, I haven’t. He’s got to be somewhere, though.”

“Everybody’s got to be somewhere.” This time, Varus looked up to the heavens. The clouds were darker and closer, the smell of rain more distinct. Unhappily, he clicked his tongue between his teeth. “But where the demon is Sigimerus right now?”

Aristocles made as if to peer inside his belt pouch, which drew a snort from Varus. “I haven’t got him,” the Greek said.

“Well, neither have I.” Varus looked around one more time. No, still no sign of Sigimerus. He called to one of the Roman cavalrymen riding nearby: “Find me Arminius’ father. I need to talk to him.”

“Yes, sir.” The rider sketched a salute. He told off two or three other horsemen of lower rank. They worked their way forward and back through the long column, calling Sigimerus’ name.

“That’ll flush him out.” Aristocles might have been talking about a partridge hiding in the brush—or, given how carnivorous Sigimerus seemed, a sharp-clawed wildcat rather than a helpless, harmless, hapless bird.

Varus heard legionaries shouting “Sigimerus!” louder and louder and more and more insistently. What he didn’t hear was Arminius’ father answering. “Where could he have got to?” Varus said.

“He doesn’t seem to be anywhere close by,” Aristocles replied, which wasn’t what the Roman governor wanted to hear.

A little later, the horseman Varus had first asked to find Sigimerus came back and said the same thing in different words: “Sorry to have to tell you, sir, but curse me if it doesn’t look like the miserable bugger’s gone and given us the slip.”

“But how could he?” Quinctilius Varus’ wave took in the thousands of marching legionaries. “So many of us, only the one of him.”

The cavalryman shrugged stolidly. “Wouldn’t have been that hard—begging your pardon, sir, but it wouldn’t. Suppose he goes off into the woods a couple of hours ago. If anybody asks him, he says he’s easing himself or something like that. But chances are nobody even cares. He doesn’t mean anything to ordinary soldiers except for being one more nuisance they’ve got to keep an eye on.”

“Well, why didn’t they keep enough of an eye on him to notice that he didn’t come out of the woods?” Varus demanded. The cavalryman’s guess struck him as alarmingly probable.

He got another shrug from the fellow. He could figure out what that meant even if the horseman didn’t feel like putting it into words. He himself might care about Sigimerus, if for no other reason than that the German was Arminius’ father. Ordinary Romans, though, wouldn’t be sorry if the barbarian disappeared.

“It wouldn’t look so bad if he’d told you he was going off to keep Arminius company,” Aristocles observed: one more thing Quinctilius Varus didn’t care to hear.

“Shall we beat the bushes for him, sir?” the cavalryman inquired. “The boys’d like that—you bet they would. More fun than hunting a wild boar or an aurochs, even if we couldn’t butcher him or roast him over hot coals once we caught him.” He smiled thinly. “Or maybe we could, though we wouldn’t eat him after he cooked.”

Reluctantly—reluctantly enough to surprise himself—Varus shook his head. “No, better not,” he said. “He may still have left for some innocent reason.”

“Huh,” the horseman said: a syllable redolent of skepticism.

“He may,” Varus insisted. “And Arminius is a true friend. He wouldn’t stay one if we hunted his father with hounds.”

This time, the cavalryman’s shrug suggested that he couldn’t care less. Varus was surprised again—surprised and dismayed—when Aristocles shrugged exactly the same way.

Before the Roman governor could say anything, a drop of water splashed down onto the back of his left hand. He stared at it in amazement. Where could it have come from? Well, you idiot, where else but… ? Varus looked up at the dark and gloomy heavens. Another raindrop hit him in the right eye.

“So much for Arminius as weather prophet,” Aristocles said, brushing at his cheek.

“He did warn me that he couldn’t promise.” Varus’ voice sounded hollow, even to himself. Before long, it started to rain in earnest.

“Come on!” Arminius called. “You can do it! We can do it! And we have to do it fast, too!”

German warriors built slabs of turf they’d cut into a concealing protective rampart on a hillside. Arminius also cut and carried and stacked. When he said we, he meant it. He wasn’t asking the men he’d called together to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.

He made a point of being very visible as he labored. The warriors weren’t from his small sworn band, or his father’s larger one. Most of them weren’t even Cherusci. They would have been battling amongst themselves if he hadn’t persuaded them to try to deal with the Romans first. They might yet, and he knew it. He had to keep them loyal to him till the legions arrived. After that…

After that, he would either be the biggest hero Germany had ever known—or he’d be dead. Whichever way things turned out, he wouldn’t have to worry about fractious followers after the fight.

“Arminius!” somebody called.

He threw his chunk of turf into place and waved a grimy hand. “Here I am!”

“They’re coming!” the German said. “They’re not far! And—”

Arminius didn’t let him go on. He yelled, “They’re coming!” himself. His voice reached all the working warriors. Some chieftains had that knack. Most Roman officers did. The Romans could teach a man how to make his voice bigger. Arminius had learned the trick from them.

How the Germans cheered! Suddenly, this seemed real to them. They could do it. They would do it. They were less steady than Roman legionaries, less steady even than Roman auxiliaries. But they had more fire. With the goal plainly there in front of them, they would work like men possessed. For how long? Arminius wondered. For once, the question answered itself. For long enough.

The messenger came up to him. “There’s something more,” the man said, in tones not meant for the rest of the men.

“What is it?” Arminius asked, also quietly.

“Your father is free of them,” the other German said. He looked back over his shoulder. It had started to rain; he couldn’t see very far. But he smiled as he turned towards Arminius. “In fact, here he is now.”

“Father!” Arminius shouted.

He ran toward Sigimerus. The two big men embraced. Sigimerus peered through the raindrops at the growing rampart. He pounded Arminius on the back. “I did not think you could bring this off. By the gods, son, I did not. And, by the gods, I own I was wrong.”

“We aren’t finished yet,” Arminius warned. “You know what they say about pricing the colt before he’s born.”

Sigimerus went on as if he hadn’t spoken: “They’ll come right past here. They have to—they’ve got no other choice. None. The track leads straight here. And if they go off it, they go into the swamp, into the mud. They don’t know the secret ways through it—and those ways won’t let them move that many men, either.”

“Won’t let them deploy.’“ Arminius used the precise Latin word. “This is what we’ve been looking for all along.”

“You found it,” Sigimerus told him. “You said you had when we went up to talk to the Chauci, and you were right. And this mound—”

“Rampart.” Again, Arminius used a Latin word in place of a less accurate one from his own language.

“Rampart,” Sigimerus agreed indulgently. “You’ll stick on leaves and branches and such, so they don’t know what it is ‘till too late?”

“Oh, yes.” Arminius grinned. “You’re thinking along with me, all right.”

“You can talk about deploying and ramparts and all that fancy stuff as much as you want,” his father said. “Just the same, you’d better remember I was ambushing Romans before you were born.”

“Some people do need a head start.” Arminius sounded as innocent as a child.

“Why, you miserable puppy!” But Sigimerus started to laugh instead of walloping him. “I’m among my own kind again! Gods, it feels good. And pretty soon—”

“No more Romans among us,” Arminius finished for him. “If everything goes the way it should, I mean.” No, he didn’t want to price the unborn foal.

“Where are your warriors cutting those turves?” Sigimerus asked.

Your warriors. Arminius didn’t answer for a moment, savoring that. It was as if his father had passed him the jeweled pin that closed a highborn man’s cloak. Pride made his heart swell—and almost choked him. He had to try twice before he could say, “Over behind the hillock there.” He pointed. “We don’t want the Romans to notice anything wrong.”

“You thought of everything.” Sigimerus’ eyes glowed. “Well, I’ll go back there and cut some myself. I want to be part of all of this, even if it means fetching and carrying like an ox or an ass.”

“I’ve cut them and carried them, too,” Arminius said. “I feel the same way you do—and seeing me work hard makes the rest of the men work harder.”

“That’s one of the tricks, all right,” his father agreed. “I hate to say-it, but I was some older than you are before I figured it out.”

“One more thing I picked up from the Romans,” Arminius said. “Anybody knows fighters will follow a strong fighter. But in the legions and auxiliaries, any officer who works himself, no matter at what, can get his men to do the same.”

“The Romans have taught us plenty of lessons,” Sigimerus said. “Now we teach them one: they don’t belong in our country. We’ve been trying to get it across since I was a little boy. This time, maybe…” “Just one more thing we’ve got to do,” Arminius said. “What’s that?” “We’ve got to win.”