Masua nodded. “Yes, a man on the next farm over was like that when I was growing up. His belly griped him all the time, because he would eat berries and apples before they got ripe. But for that, he was a fine fellow. He was bold in the fight - I remember that.”
“Good for him,” Segestes said. A German who wasn’t bold in the fight wasn’t a man, not in the eyes of his tribesmen. The chieftain came back to the point at hand: “I think this is what’s wrong with Varus. When he looks at Arminius, he can’t see what is plain to everyone else.”
“It could he so,” Masua said after some thought. “Arminius will gripe his belly it he isn’t careful, though or even if he is.”
“Yes. He will.” Segestes remembered something else his retainer had said. “His men tried to ambush you?”
“They did.” Masua’s big head went up and down. “One of them showed himself too soon, though. It was early morning, and foggy - maybe he thought I would not see him. But I did. and I went back to the steading where I’d passed the night. The men there are your friends they told me of another way east. Next morning, one of those men started up the path I’d taken the day before. He was near my size. about my coloring, and he had on a cloak much like mine. Meanwhile. I used the side way they showed me. The hope was that the ambushers would think the local man was me, and so it proved. I pray the gods let him get back to his steading safe.”
“May it be so,” Segestes said, “Good to know I do still have friends here and there. With Arminius making such a racket. It’s hard to be sure these days.”
“That he witch.” Masua scowled. “He has bespelled the Roman governor. I don’t know how, but he has.”
“Oh, I know how.” Segestes sighed. The fire had died down to embers, and his breath smoked. “Arminius is young and handsome and bold. I seem old and grumpy by comparison. He can say he loves Thusnelda. Maybe he even does. But I think his course is a disaster tor Germany. That is why I tried to give the girl to Tudrus, who has belter sense.”
“I would have done the same,” Masua said. “None of my girls is old enough to wed yet, though.”
“I know. Wait till you see how lucky you will remember yourself as being,” Segestes said. “Women cause trouble. They can’t help it. It’s part of what they are.”
“Oh, and men don’t? I have learned something,’ Masua said.
The chieftain laughed, then sighed again and shook his head. “Arminius causes trouble - no doubt about that. Why would he not want to become part of Rome? Such foolishness! Without Rome, where would we get our wine? Our fine pottery? Our own potters make junk good enough to use, but not good enough to look at. Where would we get rich jewelry, or coins, or all kinds of other good things?”
“You don’t need to tell me all this,” Masua said gently. “I already know.”
“Yes, yes. Anyone with sense enough to cover a mustard seed would know,” Segestes said. “But that leaves Arminius out. And it leaves a lot of young Germans out. They don’t think of anything but fighting and killing.”
“Fighting is good. Killing is good,” Masua said. “Of course, when you’re young you don’t think you might get killed instead. That’s not so good.”
“No, it isn’t,” Segestes agreed, his voice dry. “If we rise up against the Romans, how many will get killed?”
“Lots, chances are,” Masua said. “Wars are like that.”
Segestes came over and kissed him first on the right cheek, then on the left. “You can see this. You are not a blockhead. I can see this, too. I hope I am not a blockhead.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Masua said quickly, as a sworn retainer should have done for his chieftain.
“Well, I thank you for that,” Segestes said. “But Arminius can’t see this. He’s going here and there and everywhere, telling people we can drive out the Romans without breaking a sweat. What kind of blockhead is he? Those runty little dark bastards don’t fight the way we do, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fight.”
“I have seen them do it,” the younger man replied. “You are right. They know how.”
“Why does he think we can beat them so easily, then? Why?” Segestes said. “Even if we win a battle, they will just bring in more soldiers. That is what they are doing in Pannonia. Their king, this fellow Augustus, is as stubborn a man as ever was born. He will not let go because he burns a finger. Isn’t it better to ride the way the horse is already going instead of trying to turn the stupid beast around?”
“I think so,” Masua said.
“I told you - you are no blockhead. And we have a lot to learn from the Romans, too. This whole business of writing ...” Segestes regretfully spread his hands. “I wish I would have come to it when I was young enough to learn it. It seems to me a very large idea.”
“It could be,” said Masua, who had no interest whatever in writing. “But I will tell you something else.” Segestes made a questioning noise. His retainer explained: “That Varus, he has a lot to learn from us.”
Serving as an officer in the Roman auxiliaries made Arminius a sophisticated man in Germany. Command meant more among the Romans than it did with his own folk. In Germany, a chieftain had to persuade to lead. If his retainers didn’t like what he was doing, they wouldn’t follow him.
A Roman officer who gave an order expected to be obeyed because of his rank. If the men under him said no, the Romans made them pay. Having authority like that made Arminius more persuasive, even if he couldn’t use it all. If you tried to give a German an order he didn’t fancy, he would up and tell you no. Either that or he would walk away and ignore you from then on. Arminius the German chieftain didn’t have the coercive tools Arminius the officer of auxiliaries had enjoyed.
But he still spoke as if he expected to be obeyed. Because he did, he got more Germans to follow him than he would have if he’d begged for support the way a lot of would-be leaders did.
“You sound like a man who knows what he wants to do,” was something he heard again and again.
“I am a man who knows what he wants to do,” he would say whenever he heard that. “I want to throw the Romans out of our country. The more men who follow me, the better. But if I have to fight them by myself, I will.”
He would do no such thing. Fighting the legions singlehanded was exactly the same as falling on his sword. It sounded bold, though. It sounded better than bold: it sounded heroic. And the more he said it, the more he repeated it, the less likely it became that he would have to follow through on it.
The Romans had been pushing German customs in their direction a little at a time, so slowly that only old men noticed things weren’t done now as they had been in the days of their youth. Had the invaders kept on with that slow, steady pressure, they might have turned a lot of Germans into willing - even eager - imitators of their ways without the locals’ even noticing.
But paying taxes the way Roman subjects did was not to the Germans’ liking. Arminius seized on that. “Who knows what this Varus will want from you next? Who knows what he will take from you next?” he asked, again and again. “You can’t trust him. You don’t dare trust him. If you give him a finger, he’ll take an arm. If you give him an arm, he’ll take all of you. Then you’ll be one more Roman slave.”
He wanted to talk about Roman soldiers stealing German women.
He wanted to, but soon found out he couldn’t. It would have been lovely if he could; to the Germans, every Roman alive was a natural-born lecher, a threat to their women’s virtue. Whenever Arminius tried that tack, though, a pro-Roman German would sing out, “What about Thusnelda?” A man who’d stolen a woman himself couldn’t very well accuse others of wanting to do the same thing.
Oh, he could, but he got no profit from it if he did. And so Arminius, a practical man, soon stopped trying. He found plenty of other bad things to say about Varus and the Romans that didn’t leave him open to heckling. His own folk were glad enough to listen to him when he steered clear of talk about women.