Give me back my Legions!

As the courier spoke, color drained from Augustus’ face, leaving him pale as bleached linen. “You are sure of this?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “No possible doubt?”

“None, sir. I’m sorry. The man who gave me the written message” - the courier took it off his belt and handed it to Augustus - “had it from one of the horsemen who somehow escaped the massacre inside Germany. The rider filled his ears with worse things than ever got written down, and I had some of them from him. To say it was a bad business beggars the power of words.”

“It can’t be,” Augustus muttered. “It can’t.” Moving like a man in the grip of nightmare, he broke the seal on the written message, unrolled it, and held it out at arm’s length to read it. The scribe who first composed the message must have remembered it was bound for an old man, for he’d written it large to make sure the intended recipient could make it out. By the look of anguish on Augustus’ face, the power of written words to describe what had happened in Germany wasn’t beggared after all.

“Are you all right, sir?” one of his underlings asked in Greek-flavored Latin, real anxiety filling his voice. The ruler of the Roman world was the very image of a man overwhelmed, a man unma

Were any pins or brooches handy, Augustus might well have sought to blind himself as Oedipus had done. As things were, he reeled away from the courier and the slaves and servitors who helped make him the most powerful man in the world. He might as well have been blind as he fetched up against the frame of the doorway through which he’d entered the antechamber.

He pounded his head on the sturdy timbers of the frame. While his servants exclaimed in alarm, he cried out as if he were indeed the protagonist of a tragedy on the stage: “Quinctilius Varus! Give me back my legions!”

In a tragedy, everyone knew - though the actors’ skill might almost disguise the fact - that the events portrayed came from the realms of myth and legend and history, and were not happening to those portraying them. Here ... It was real. No one would muster the men of Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX again. They were dead - all too often, horribly dead.

“Give me back my legions, Quinctilius Varus!” Augustus wailed again, his forehead bruised and swelling. “Give them back, I tell you!”

Neither the courier nor any of the servitors seemed to know what to say. None dared say anything, for fear it would be wrong. When Augustus cried out once more and yet again battered his head against the doorframe, one of the men who served him - the men who helped him rule the Roman Empire - gestured to the courier.

By then, the man who’d brought the bad news was glad to get away, lest he be blamed for it. Augustus’ servitor took him off to the kitchen and told the lesser slaves there to bring him bread and wine and olives.

“Obliged, sir,” the courier said, and then, “I’m sorry. I knew it would be bad. I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“He never imagined failure,” the servitor said. “Why should he, when he’s known so much success?”

“Beats me.” The courier gulped wine. He would never be able to drink enough to forget the look on Augustus’ face when the Roman ruler realized all his plans for Germany had just collapsed in ruin. “What will he do now?”

“I don’t know.” From one of Augustus’ aides, that was no small ad-mission. “I fear we shall have to change our policy, which is not something we usually do. Gods curse those barbarians for being difficult!”

As the courier nodded, Augustus’ voice echoed down the halls from the chamber where he still stood: “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!”

Scowling, Arminius stared across the Rhine. He wouldn’t be able to invade Gaul now, and he knew it. As soon as he’d stopped encircling Aliso, the Romans trapped inside the fortress broke out and fought their way west to the Rhine. Most of them had made it across. So had the garrisons from forts on the Lupia closer to the greater river.

And two full legions had rushed up from the south when the Romans in Gaul got word of what happened to their countrymen in Germany. Over on the west bank of the Rhine, a detachment from one of those legions paced Arminius’ army. He hadn’t been able to shake loose of the Romans, even with night marches. He wouldn’t be able to fight on ground of his choosing if he did force a crossing. On ground of their choosing, the legions had the edge. He wouldn’t have had to work so hard to draw Varus into his ambush otherwise.

Someone called his name. “I’m here!” he answered, waving, glad for any excuse not to think about the west bank of the Rhine.

A man from his own clan came up to him. “Good news!” the fellow said. “Your woman has given you a son. She and the baby are both doing well.”

“Gods be praised! That is good news!” Arminius took off a golden ring - spoil from the vanquished legions - and gave it to the other German. “This for bringing it to me.”

“I thank you.” The other man found a finger on which the ring fit well. “What will you call the baby?”

“Sigifredus,” Arminius said without the least hesitation, “in memory of the victory I won against the Romans.” That victory, however great it was, was also turning out to be less than he’d hoped it would. With an old man’s sour wisdom, his father insisted things were often thus. Arminius had hoped Sigimerus was only carping. When he looked across the Rhine and saw the Roman soldiers there, he knew his father had a point.

“I also visited the grove of the sacrifice,” his clansman said. “Never have the gods feasted like that before, not in all the days since the world was made. So many heads spiked to the holy oaks and hung from them!” The man’s eyes glowed. “And three eagles! Three! Have the Romans lost three since their realm began?”

“That I don’t know,” Arminius admitted. He’d served with the legions long enough to know the Romans had suffered military disasters before. But they were tight-lipped about them. Well, what warriors in their right minds boasted of battles lost?

“Ah.” The other German didn’t much care about the answer. He was only making conversation. He went on, “In among all of them, though, I didn’t see Varus’ head, and I wanted to.”

“You wouldn’t have. I brought it with me as we moved toward the Rhine. I wanted to use it as a talisman to frighten the Romans, but that didn’t work out so well as I hoped it would.” Arminius sighed. “Can’t have everything, I suppose.” For a little while, he’d thought he could. He’d thought he had. Almost, but not quite - the price he paid for aiming so high.

“What will you do with the head now? Pitch it in the river?” the other German asked.

“Well, it was partly burned before I got my hands on it. I salted it down, but it’s getting high anyway.” Arminius wrinkled his nose. “Still, I don’t aim to throw it away. I’ll send it southeast, to Maroboduus and the Marcoma

“Won’t it just!” his clansmate exclaimed, eyes glowing. “Oh, won’t it just!”

Till Arminius’ meteoric rise, King Maroboduus had unquestionably been the most powerful German of all. He’d drawn Augustus’ watchful attention, too. Had the revolt in Pa

Thanks to me, Arminius thought proudly. Maroboduus might have stirred up others to fight against Rome. Arminius had done his own fighting, against foes who invaded his land. If the folk of Germany couldn’t see which of those was the greater accomplishment . . . Arminius couldn’t imagine that his countrymen would be so blind.