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 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. His failing 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.