Текст книги "Give me back my Legions!"

Автор книги: Harry Norman Turtledove

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Yes, sir.” The courier bowed. He respected the master of the Roman world, if not the lesser men surrounding him. “I am sorry, sir, but the news is as bad as it can be. Quinctilius Varus’ three legions are destroyed in the Teutoburg Forest, only a handful of men escaping. Their eagles are lost, captured by the Germans. Varus trusted the chieftain named Arminius, and the barbarian betrayed him to his doom. When Varus saw the fight was hopeless, he had a slave slay him. He died as well as a man could, but thousands more died with him and because of him.”

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 unmanned, by disaster unlooked-for. Oedipus could have seemed no more appalled, no more horrified, on discovering he’d lain with his mother.

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 theirchoosing, 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 isgood 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 Marcomanni. It will show him what we Germans can do when we set our minds to it.”

“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 Pannonia not broken out, he likely would have drawn Augustus’ legions as well. Maroboduus loudly denied he’d had anything to do with stirring up that revolt. Arminius believed not a word of it. He was sure Augustus didn’t, either. But the Roman ruler hadn’t found the chance to attack Maroboduus, and odds were he never would now.

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.

“A Roman who dreamt of ruling us,” his clansmate said. “And what is he now? Nothing but a stinking souvenir!”

“A stinking souvenir,” Arminius echoed. A slow smile spread over his face. He nodded, half to the other German and half to himself. Yes, he liked that. And it was true of more than Quinctilius Varus alone. Roman hopes for Germany had also fallen into decay. And they were no more likely to rise from the dead.

Segestes lived quietly on his steading. A good many of his sworn retainers stayed there with him. A few of them – younger men, mostly – had gone off to fight the Romans with Arminius despite what Segestes thought of the man who’d stolen his daughter. Enough remained to fight a war if Arminius decided to try punishing Segestes for staying loyal to the Empire.

So far, there’d been no signs such trouble was coming, nor even threats. Segestes gave Arminius reluctant credit for that – or maybe Arminius was so enmeshed in great affairs that his woman’s father had fallen beneath his notice. Segestes sighed, out in front of the thatch-roofed farmhouse. He’d always thought of himself as a man of consequence, but he could hardly deny that events had outrun him these past few months.

“They wouldn’t have if he’d listened to me,” Segestes murmured.

“What’s that?” one of his warriors asked.

“Varus,” Segestes said. “If only he’d listened to me. Are there any words sadder than I told you so?The only time anyone ever gets to say them is when it’s already too late for them to do any good.”

“I never thought of it like that.” By the puzzled expression on the retainer’s face, he didn’t waste a lot of time thinking. He was a good man with a spear in his hands, though. Everyone had his strengths and his failings. Segestes sighed again. Hisfailing was that he’d been born into a German body, not a Roman one.

He knew what the Romans thought of his folk. He knew that, in Varus’ eyes, he’d been as much a barbarian as Arminius. He sighed once more. Time would have solved that. Had the Romans brought Germany into the Empire, his grandchildren’s grandchildren would have been unquestioned Romans, as babies born in Gaul now were.

That wasn’t going to happen, not now. Whether Arminius had done something good or bad, men could argue one way or the other. That he’d done something great . . . nobody could doubt.

Germany would not be Roman. Three legions gone? Taken all in all, the Roman Empire had no more than thirty or so. One soldier in ten from all the Empire had perished in the swamps and woods not too far north of where he stood. Augustus was a canny man. He wouldn’t risk such a disaster twice. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk it once. But Varus thought he could trust Arminius, and. . . .

Three or four Roman fugitives had made it here after the battle. Segestes hid them for a little while, fed them, gave them barley cakes and sausage to carry when they left, and sent them away by night. He wished he could do more, but more would have cost him his life if word got out . . . and word of such things always got out. You did everything you could do, not everything you wanted to do.

Unless you were Arminius. Segestes’ scarred hands folded into fists.

Arminius had done everything anyone could have wanted to do.

Or had he? Men said he’d intended to cross the Rhine and plunder Gaul – maybe even try to take it away from the Romans. His army got to the river, but it didn’t cross over. What would he do with all those warriors now? How long could he keep feeding them? How long before the galloping shits or chest fever broke out among them?

Segestes laughed harshly. Arminius had served with the Romans, learning their ways so he could fight them better. Segestes had served with them, too, years earlier. Arminius would have seen how the legions kept themselves supplied. He would have seen how they kept their camps clean.

And how much good would it have done him? He was dealing with Germans here, not Romans. Supply wagons? Rafts carrying grain along rivers? Segestes laughed again. He knew his own folk hadn’t a prayer of organizing anything like that. German encampments were always filthy, too. The Romans said dirt led straight to disease. From everything Segestes had seen, they knew what they were talking about, as they commonly did.

“What’s funny, lord?” his retainer asked.

“Funny? Everything in the world, or maybe nothing at all,” Segestes said.

The warrior scratched his head. A moment later, he squashed something between his thumbnails. That made Segestes want to scratch, too. “I don’t think I understand,” the younger man said.

“Well, don’t worry your head about it,” Segestes said. “I don’t think I understand, either.”

His retainer scratched some more. He didn’t come up with any new vermin – or, if he did, Segestes didn’t see him do it, which was good enough.

A few days later, a solitary warrior approached the steading. The chieftain’s followers led the fellow to Segestes himself. Three of them stood between the man and Segestes. If the fellow had come with murder on his mind, he’d have to go through them to get at his target.

“This is poor guesting,” he observed.

“It is, and I am sorry,” Segestes said. “But times are hard, and I have a strong foe. Can you blame my retainers for staying wary?”

“When you put it so, I suppose not,” the other man replied. “My news comes from his steading, in fact. You will have heard your daughter gave birth to a boy?”

“Yes, I know that.” Segestes nodded. One of these days, that grandson might lead him to reconcile with Arminius. One of these days . . .but not yet. “What of it, stranger?”

“My name is Alcus,” the newcomer said. “I am sorry to have to tell you the baby is dead. A flux of the bowels, I hear – it was quick, and seemed painless.”

“Woe!” the retainers cried. They covered their faces with their cloaks.

“Woe!” Segestes said with them. He too covered his face. Tears ran down his cheeks, so he could uncover himself without shame – no one would think him coldhearted or mean of spirit. In truth, though, he didn’t know what he felt. “You are sure of this?” he asked.

“I am. There is no doubt,” Alcus said. “My fields lie next to Arminius’ – I have the word straight from his retainers.”

“Yes, it is so, then,” Segestes said. “Woe! Woe, indeed! Always hard when a babe dies untimely.”

“Harder when the babe is your grandson. I beg you, Segestes – don’t hate me for being the one who brought you the news,” Alcus said. “I know you and Arminius . . . are at odds. If I had not come, you might not have heard for some time.”

“True. I might not have.” Segestes wondered if that wouldn’t have been for the best. Reluctantly, he shook his head. The news would have come sooner or later. And, sooner or later, grief would have speared him. Sooner wasn’t better, but it also wasn’t really worse. “I do not hate you, Alcus. You did what you thought best, and who is to say you did not have the right of it?”

“Thank you, lord. That is well said.”

“And I will show you good guesting.” Segestes realized he had to do that if he were not to be reckoned liar and niggard. “Eat as you will of my bread and meat. Drink as you will of my beer, and of my wine from beyond the Rhine. Sleep soft tonight before you fare forth to your farm.”

Alcus bowed. “You are gracious. You are kind.”

“Yes. I am,” Segestes said bleakly. “And much good any of that has done me.”

Rain pattered down on Rome. It was winter: the proper season for rain, as any man who lived round the Mediterranean would have agreed. Augustus was one of those men, and faced a problem common to a lot of them – his roof leaked. A drip near the entrance to his great house plinked into a bowl.

He gave the bowl a jaundiced stare. New leaks started every winter. The men who laid roof tiles always promised that everything would be perfect this time. They always lied, too. Augustus shook his head. In the scale of human calamities, there were plenty worse. His mouth tightened. He knew too much about that.

He opened the door and looked out. The guards standing outside stiffened to attention. “As you were, boys,” Augustus said, and they relaxed.

“What can we do for you, sir?” one of them asked.

“Not a thing. I’m only looking at the weather.”

“All right, sir. However you please.” The guardsman grinned at Augustus. He had a strong-nosed face with cheekbones that made sharp planes below his eyes. He spoke Latin like the native of Italy he was. All his comrades came from Italy, too.

In the frightening, frightened days after news of Varus’ disaster came to Rome, Augustus had eased all the Germans – and, for good measure, all the Gauls – out of his personal guard. Most of them, maybe all of them, remained loyal to him, but he dared not take the chance that they would do something to help Arminius. He didn’t cashier them. He did send them out of Rome. Quite a few of them were garrisoning Mediterranean islands these days.

Against whom were they garrisoning those islands? Pirates? Drunken fishermen? Skrawking sea gulls? Augustus had no idea. But doing things that way had preserved the honor of the Germans and Gauls. If he ever needed them again, he could use them.

He’d begun repairing the mutilated Roman army, too. The legions he’d raised in the aftermath of the disaster were no match for the ones Arminius had destroyed. He knew that. They held far too many older men, far too many squinting craftsmen and chubby shopkeepers. He’d had to draft men to fill out their ranks at all, which caused no end of grumbling.

But he’d done it, and he wasn’t about to look back and tell himself he shouldn’t have. Yes, those raw new legions would get hacked to bloody bits if they ever faced rampaging Germans in the field. Augustus knew that. So did the officers under whom the reluctant soldiers served.

All the same, the new men could fill up forts. They could protect backwaters that needed only a show of force to stay quiet. And, in doing things like that, they could free up better troops to deal with real trouble.

Augustus sighed. “Cheer up, sir,” one of the guards, said. “The rain’ll make the grain grow.” He was a stubby little fellow, and seemed all the more so when Augustus remembered the hulking blonds who’d protected him before. If you couldn’t trust your bodyguards, though, what were they worth to you? Not even a lead slug.

“I know, Sextus. I know,” Augustus answered. If Sextus wanted to think the weather was what was wrong, he could. Augustus only wished he could think the same thing himself.

Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!How many times had he howled that in his torment? More than he cared to remember. He had no guarantee he wouldn’t start howling it again, either, if the black mood seized him again.

He’d gone on so long and done so well, maybe he’d started believing he couldn’t make mistakes any more. If so, he’d got a reminder of his own humanity, his own fallibility, far blunter and more brutal than the stinking turds in his chamber pot.

Forty years. That was how long he’d ruled the Roman world, the Mediterranean world. In all that time, he hadn’t had to pull back his horns very often. Oh, death had forced him to change his mind more than once about his successor. Irony there: he’d been sickly in his younger years – he was often sickly even now – but he’d outlived almost everyone to whom he’d thought to entrust the Empire after he was gone. Still, no mortal could outwit or outreach death.

Since he’d never had a son of his own body, he supposed Tiberius, his wife’s son from an earlier marriage, would have to do. Tiberius made a fine soldier. He’d proved that in Pannonia. If he hadn’t been busy settling that revolt, he might have proved it in Germany instead.

Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!Again, die howl of torment rose unbidden in Augustus’ mind, though he managed not to cry out loud. Those legions were gone, gone forever.

Tiberius made a good soldier, yes. But did he have what it took to continue the delicate charade Augustus had carried on with the Roman Senate all these years? Augustus held all the power in the Empire worth holding, but he’d artfully pretended to be no more than a magistrate of the Republic. That was likely one reason, and not the smallest one, he’d escaped assassination for so long. People had feared his great-uncle would make himself into a king – and so Julius Caesar died under the knives of men who’d been his friends. Augustus cared little for the show of power. The reality sufficed.

He wasn’t so sure about Tiberius. Tiberius didn’t suffer fools gladly. If the Conscript Fathers got pushy . . . Tiberius would do whatever he had to do to remind them where power really lay. They wouldn’t like that. Tiberius wouldn’t care. Different parts of the Roman government shouldn’t squabble with one another.

Augustus had to hope they wouldn’t. He saw no one but Tiberius to whom he could hand over the reins. Death had cut down his other choices. When he was gone, all this would be his stepson’s worry.

And so would Germany. Bringing it into the Empire as Julius Caesar had brought in Gaul would have been Augustus’ greatest legacy to his successor. It would have been, but it wouldn’t be now. Augustus knew he would never – could never – mount another campaign to annex Germany. The Rhine and the Danube would remain the Empire’s frontiers.

Maybe, after enough time had passed, Tiberius would be able to avenge this defeat. Even as the thought formed, Augustus shook his head. Some wounds were just too large, too deep. Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!

Again, Augustus kept the shriek inside him. The first few weeks after the catastrophe, he couldn’t even manage that. All his servants flinched whenever he cried out. Varus would have flinched, too, were he not beyond any reproaches but the gods’.

Arminius, curse him, had managed what only death had done before: he’d made Augustus withdraw from a policy he’d set his mind to. If Germany was not to be Roman, it would stay . . . German. It would stay squalid, it would stay barbarous, it would stay independent. It would stay troublesome. Augustus could see that. He had to hope it wouldn’t become too troublesome too soon.

Three days later, a courier down from the Danube reached the great house on the Palatine Hill. He spoke to the grooms. One of the guards spoke to one of Augustus’ senior servants. The freedman approached Augustus himself. “Sir, I think you would do well to see this man, to hear him, to see the burden he bears.”

“Send him to the anteroom, then. I’ll see him there.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did Augustus remember that was where he’d seen the messenger who brought word of the battle in the Teutoburg Forest. Quinctilius Varus . . .Augustus spat into the bosom of his toga to turn aside the evil omen.

The courier looked nervous when Augustus strode into the small antechamber. Augustus knew that meant nothing. Couriers coming before him mostly looked nervous. At the man’s feet lay a large leather sack. Augustus’ nostrils twitched – a faint foul odor rose from it.

“Well?” Augustus pointed toward the sack. “What’s that in aid of?”

“Sir, let me give you this first. It will explain better than I can.” The man handed him a letter festooned with the usual wax seals and ribbons.

“Very well.” Augustus broke the seals and unrolled the letter. The script was small and none too neat. After struggling with it for a moment, Augustus passed it to his servitor. “Read this to me.”

“Of course, sir,” the freedman said. “I begin: ‘I am Gaius Libo, a wine merchant and a Roman citizen. I am at the court of King Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, north of the Danube. King Maroboduus has no letters himself. He asks me to write to you to explain the gift this letter comes with.’“

Augustus pointed to the sack again. “Whatever’s in there?”

“That’s right, sir,” the courier said.

“All right.” Augustus turned back to his servitor. “Go on.”

“Yes, sir. ‘Not long ago, Maroboduus received from Arminius, another German princeling, the head of the Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus. Maroboduus says he has no quarrel with you and no quarrel with Varus. To show this, he sends you the head for burial.’ “

“Ah,” Augustus said, to give himself a moment to gather his thoughts. Then he asked the courier, “Do you know if this is truly Varus’ head? Or is it the head of some nobody Maroboduus is using to curry favor with me?”

“Sir, I don’t know. I never met the gentleman alive, and I would not recognize him,” the courier said. “I also have to tell you the head is not in the best of shape. But I have heard that Arminius did send Varus’ head to Maroboduus.”

“Yes. I have heard the same thing,” Augustus said unhappily. Even more unhappily, he went on, “Take the head out of the sack. If anyone is likely to recognize poor Varus, I am the man.”

He could have summoned Julia Pulchra or her son – no, the younger Quinctilius Varus was studying in Athens. But he would not have done that to his grand-niece, and he couldn’t do it to the peaceable youth. He’d seen battlefields and their aftermath, even if not for many years.

He braced himself. The courier didn’t reach into the sack – he didn’t want to touch what it held, and who could blame him for that? Instead, he turned it inside out, spilling the head onto the mosaic floor. The stench the sack had contained filled the audience chamber. Gagging, Augustus’ freedman beat a hasty retreat. He knew no more of battlefields than Claudia Pulchra or the younger Varus did. His ignorance – the ignorance of so many in the Empire – was Augustus’ doing, and something for Augustus to be proud of.

But battlefields hadn’t disappeared altogether, even if Augustus wished they – and one in particular – would have. He stalked around the severed head, examining it from every angle, weighing the wreckage here against what he remembered of his grand-niece’s husband. His gorge didn’t rise – yes, he remembered what death and its aftermath could do to flesh.

“Well, sir?” asked the courier, who’d stood his ground – and won credit with Augustus for doing it. “Is it him?”

“Yes,” Augustus said in a voice like iron. “That is Publius Quinctilius Varus, or what remains of him. The bald crown, curly hair at the temples and nape, the nose, the chin . . . There can be no doubt. That is Varus.”

“He died well, sir, from what people say.” The courier offered such solace as he could.

“So he did. But too many died with him – too many died because he let Arminius trick him.” Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!Quinctilius Varus never would. The disaster in Germany was no nightmare to wake up from. It was real, and would stay real forever. With a sigh, Augustus nodded toward Varus’ remains. “Would you be kind enough to put – that – back in the sack?” he said to the courier. “I will give it decent burial, but not right now.”

“Yes, sir,” the other man answered resignedly. Getting the head back into the sack wasn’t so neat as taking it out had been. When the nasty job was done, the courier said, “May I wash my hands?”

“Of course.” Augustus called for some slaves, for a basin of warm water, for scented oil – “The sweetest and strongest we have, by the gods” – and for a bronze strigil so the courier could scrape his fingers clean.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” the man said as the slaves brought what Augustus required.

“No. I have to thank you: for your help there, and for the word you brought me,” Augustus said. “Now we know what became of . . . this much of Quinctilius Varus, anyhow. And now we can lay this much to rest.”

After the courier had scraped off as much of the corpse-reek as he could, Augustus dismissed him with a gift of five goldpieces for all he had done. The ruler of the Roman world wished he could have dismissed the whole German problem as easily. But the foul odor from Varus’ head lingered in the audience chamber even after a slave gingerly carried away the sack. The larger problem that foul smell symbolized lingered, too.

And he couldn’t do anything about it. He’d tried, and he’d failed, as he’d failed against death. The death reek here brought back memories of those earlier failures. Wild German tribes would go on prowling the Roman Empire’s northern borders.

Because they were separate tribes, a canny ruler might be able to play them off against one another. Maroboduus and Arminius had no love for each other now. Chieftains in years to come would also surely be rivals. Augustus knew he could exploit a situation like that.

But he also knew his day was passing. If he lived five years more, he would be surprised; if he lived ten more, he would be astonished. How many of those who came after him would share his peculiar combination of talents?

He grimaced. He couldn’t do anything about that. He’d done every-thing he could about Germany, and it hadn’t been enough. If only he’d had two Tiberiuses. If only Pannonia hadn’t rebelled when he was about to lay hold of Germany once and for all. If only . . .

“Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” he cried once more. The empty, useless words echoed back at him from the antechamber’s walls.

HISTORICAL NOTE

What happened in the middle of Germany two thousand years ago has had a profound effect on the history of Europe ever since. The battle of the Teutoburg Forest (Teutoburger Wald in German), in A.D./C.E. 9, made sure that Germany would notbecome part of the Roman Empire, and that the Germans would not become Romanized as the Gauls had before diem. To this day, the division between Romanized and non-Romanized peoples in Europe is easily visible in the languages and cultures of the nations that grew up on the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West: a collapse accomplished in military terms primarily by Germanic tribes whose histories would have been altogether different had Germany been annexed to Rome (if, indeed, they would have had separate histories for long after that point).