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He said what he needed to say to the centurion: “I’m sorry. I made a mistake, and we’re all paying for it. My fault - no one else’s. I am sorry.”
“Too late for that, don’t you think?” the other Roman growled.
“Too late for everything,” Varus agreed.
“Ah, bugger it,” the centurion said. “Too late for everything is right. What do you aim to do now?”
“Die,” Varus said simply.
“Want me to do the honors?”
“My slave will attend to it,” Varus replied. “But if you’d be kind enough to take him off quickly after I’m gone, I’d be grateful, and so would he.”
“I’ll tend to it,” the centurion promised. “And then I’ll look for somebody to do the same for me.”
“Thanks,” Varus said, and then, raising his voice till he sounded almost gay, “Aristocles! I’ve found someone to kill you!”
“Oh, thank you, your Excellency!” Relief filled the little Greek’s voice. “Better one of our own than . . . this.”
His wave took in the madness all around them. The Germans would have assailed them sooner, but a whole great swarm of the barbarians were plundering the baggage train, which wasn’t far behind. Some of the Germans guzzled wine. Others stuffed themselves with barley bread. Still others led off pack horses and murdered the slaves who’d tended them. All the barbarians seemed to be having a rare good time.
Here and there, small groups of Romans fought on. But there was no room for the legionaries to make war as they usually did, and the Germans, who were used to fighting as individuals, had all the better of it.
“I’ll be glad when I’m dead,” the centurion said. “Then I won’t see the savages steal our eagles.”
“I’m sorry,” Varus said again. He knew what the eagles meant to the men who served under them. Three legions were going down here. Was it any wonder their eagles would be lost?
A spear flew through the air. It pierced the soft ground and stood quivering only a few cubits from Varus’ feet. Aristocles said, “Not meaning to rush, sir, but I don’t think we should wait much longer.”
“No, no. Neither do I. If anyone here ever sees Augustus, tell him I’m sorry, too,” Varus said. He drew his sword. He’d never used it in war here - the first blood it would drink in Germany would be his own. He handed it to his pedisequus. “Here you go, Aristocles. I daresay you’ve dreamt of doing this for years. Strike hard!”
If Varus had little experience with the sword, Aristocles had none. A slave - a slave who wasn’t a gladiator, anyhow - caught with a blade commonly died a cruel death. Rome had seen too many slave uprisings and plots for anything else to seem safe. And so the ski
Sighing, Varus pulled up his tunic and ran his forefinger between two ribs on the left side of his chest. “Put it here and stick it in,” he said, as if he were a girl helping an eager boy lose his cherry. But you only did this once.
Aristocles set the sword in place. He gulped. He closed his eyes. With a horrible grimace, he shoved it forward.
It hurt. It hurt like nothing Varus had ever known before. He knew a certain pride that he didn’t pull away from the blade. He couldn’t help shrieking, though. When the sword came out, he fell to the ground and waited for the end.
It took longer than he’d hoped it would. From what he’d seen, dying always took longer than you hoped it would, and hurt worse. Blood filled his nose and mouth. He felt as if he were suffocating, but he was really drowning, drowning from the inside out.
Aristocles screeched. The centurion had struck him down from behind, by surprise. That wasn’t so bad. But, as Varus’ vision faded, he saw that the soldier needed a second stroke to finish the job. That wasn’t so good. But Aristocles was in no position to complain. And, after a bit, neither was Varus.
Arminius hadn’t slept for a day and a half, maybe longer. Excitement kept him going. He wondered if he’d ever sleep again.
It was all over now. Well, close enough. The Germans still hunted Roman stragglers through swamps and woods and fields. Sooner or later, they’d track down most of them and kill them. A few might get away. Arminius had stopped worrying about it. They would spread fear ahead of them, spread it all the way into Gaul. And behind the fear would come . . . Arminius.
Three legionary eagles lay at his feet. He knew what the eagles meant to Roman soldiers - knew as well as any German could, anyhow. They defended those eagles to the death. They had defended these eagles so, and now they were dead.
Varus’ head lay at his feet, too. Varus was also dead by the time the Germans found him and took it. His scrawny slave had lain dead beside him. That disappointed Arminius. He’d wanted to offer them to his gods after they watched him offering plenty of other Romans. He shrugged. You couldn’t get everything you wanted. He had more than enough.
A German carrying a wine jar from the Roman baggage train staggered past. He gave Arminius a sozzled grin. “Good!” he said, his broad, extravagant wave taking in - well, everything.
“Good,” Arminius agreed. And so it was.
More Germans led lines of captured legionaries, their hands chained, off toward the oak groves where they would be sacrificed. Even now the dying cries of men being offered to the gods rose in the distance. His folk often worried about whether the gods got enough to eat. They wouldn’t have to worry for a long time, not after the bounty the gods were enjoying now.
Here and there, two or sometimes four Romans carried an unconscious comrade toward the sacrificial groves. Nobody wanted to waste any of this enormous feast for the gods. If a man still breathed, his spirit was nourishment.
Sigimerus came up to Arminius and bowed before him. “You did it,” he said. “You truly did.”
“Germany is free,” Arminius said. “The Romans will never dare stick their noses across the Rhine again. We’ll visit them on their side before too long.”
“I do believe we will.” His father sounded almost dazed at the size of their triumph. “And after that . . .” He shook his head. Plainly, he couldn’t imagine what might happen after that.
Well, neither could Arminius. But he was sure he would think of something when the time came.
When Caldus Caelius came back to himself, he thought he was dead and being punished in Tartarus. His head ached as if it had been smashed to pieces - and so it nearly had. He needed a little while to realize he might have been better off if he were already dead.
He tried to raise a hand to his throbbing brow. Both hands came up - they’d been chained together. The links between the manacles clanked as they moved. Why would anyone have . . . ? Slowly, realization returned. “Oh,” he muttered. “The battle. We must have lost.”
If you lost a battle to the Germans, what happened next? No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he got an answer of sorts. A shriek rang out that made him wonder if he hadn’t been right when he first regained consciousness. Maybe he really had landed in a realm of eternal punishment.
No matter how much his battered head hurt, he made himself turn it so he could see where that shriek came from. A moment later, he wished he hadn’t. Several Germans were holding down a legionary - the luckless Roman was also chained, just like Caelius - while another barbarian slowly and clumsily decapitated him. The screams subsided into a gurgling wheeze. Blood poured out onto the damp ground and spattered all over the Germans.
At last, the sword - it was a Roman gladius - found its way between two neck vertebrae. With a grunt of satisfaction, the German held up the dripping head. To Caldus Caelius’ horror, the head wasn’t just dripping. Even after it was severed from its thrashing body, it blinked several times before its eves finally sagged shut. Its mouth might have tried to shape a word. Caelius hoped that was his imagination, but feared it wasn’t.