No one spoke as the two old men finished and began rolling up the scrolls and replacing them in their cases, their eyes never leaving the work on the desk in front of them.
Thumelicus looked thoughtfully into his beer cup. ‘My father was a great man and it is my loss that I never met him.’ His eyes flicked up and bored into Vespasian. ‘But I’ve not had you sit here with me and listen to his story just so that I can wallow in a bit of self-pity afterwards. I wanted you to hear it so that you can understand my motives in what I shall do next; I intend to go against everything that my father stood for.’
Sabinus leant forward. ‘Does that mean you can tell us where the Eagle is hidden?’
‘I can tell you which tribe it is with, that is easy; the Chauci, on the coast to the north of here, have it. But I’ll do more than that; I will actively help you find it.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Vespasian asked.
‘My father tried to make himself king of a Greater Germania, uniting all the tribes under one leader. Imagine the power he would’ve had if he’d succeeded. He would have had the strength to take Gaul; but would he have had the strength to hold it? I don’t think so; not yet, whilst Rome is so strong. But that was his dream, it’s not mine. I look far into the future to a time when Rome starts her inevitable decline as all empires have done before. For the present I see the idea of a Greater Germania as a threat to all the constituent tribes. It is the potential cause for a hundred years of war with Rome; a war for the next few generations that we don’t yet have the manpower to win.
‘So I do not desire to be the leader of a united Germanic people but there are many of my countrymen who suspect that I do. Some actively encourage me by sending messages of support but others are jealous of me and would see my death as furthering their own ambitions. But I just want to be left in peace to live, in the manner that was denied me all my youth, to live as a Cherusci in a free Germania. I want nothing of Rome, neither vengeance nor justice. We’ve freed ourselves from her once; it would be foolish to put ourselves in the position where we have to fight for our freedom again.
‘However, Rome will always want her Eagle back and whilst it’s on our soil she will come looking for it. The Chauci will not give it up and why should they; but their keeping it puts us all at risk. I want you to have it, Romans; take it and use it for your invasion and leave us in peace. So I’ll help you steal it and the tribes will learn that I helped Rome and they will no longer want me to become — or fear me becoming — an image of my father.’
‘Won’t the Chauci see that as a declaration of war against them?’ Vespasian asked.
‘They would if there weren’t other circumstances involved. I know that Rome collects tribute from many of the tribes in Germania and I also know that recently she has been demanding ships from the coastal tribes instead of gold. Now, the Chauci’s neighbours the Frisii are very fond of their ships and I heard that to avoid handing too many of them over they sold the secret of where the lost Eagle is to-’
‘Publius Gabinius!’
‘Exactly. So the Chauci are going to lose their Eagle soon, but if we can get it before Publius Gabinius arrives with a Roman army then many Chauci lives might be saved.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Thirty miles east of here is the Visurgis River; that takes us all the way to the Chauci’s lands on the northern coast. We’ll be there the day after tomorrow if we go by boat.’
CHAPTER XI
At mid-morning the following day the column rode into the dilapidated remains of a small, Roman military riverport, uncared for since the final withdrawal of the legions back across the Rhenus twenty-five years previously. Although the roofs of most of the single-storey barrack buildings and warehouses were still reasonably intact, their brick walls were being eaten into by dense, dark ivy and other climbing plants. Barn swallows swooped in and out of open windows, whose shutters had long since rotted away, constructing their mud nests in the eaves of the deserted buildings. A pack of wild dogs, which seemed to be the only other inhabitants, trailed the column as they made their way along a grass-tufted, paved street down to the river.
‘My people didn’t burn this port because my father felt that it was of some strategic use,’ Thumelicus explained; he had divested himself of Varus’ uniform and wore a simple tunic and trousers, in the manner of his people. ‘He made it a supply depot from where he could provision his forces quickly using the river, but after his murder it was abandoned to rot.’
‘Why?’ Vespasian asked. ‘It could still be extremely useful to you.’
‘Yeah, you would have thought so; but the problem would be: who would stock it and who would guard it?’ Magnus pointed out. ‘I imagine there would be a lot of competition for the latter but very few volunteers for the former.’
Thumelicus laughed. ‘I’m afraid that you have understood my countrymen all too well. No clan chief is going to give up his grain and salted meat to be guarded by men from another clan, even though they are all Cherusci. My father had the strength to make them do it but since he’s gone they’ve returned to the old ways of bickering amongst themselves and only ever uniting in the face of an external threat from another tribe.’
‘It makes you realise just how close we were to subduing the whole province,’ Paetus said as they passed a crumbling brickbuilt temple. ‘To have built all this so deep into Germania shows that we must have been pretty confident of remaining here.’
‘It was confidence or rather overconfidence that was Varus’ problem.’
Magnus scowled. ‘Arrogance more like; yet another pompous arsehole.’
Vespasian opened his mouth to defend the long-dead general again but the pointless argument was driven from his mind as they passed between a line of storehouses and onto the riverside quay. Before them, each tied to a wooden jetty, were four sleek boats; long with fat bellies and high prows and sterns with a single mast amidships and benches for fifteen rowers on each side.
‘We live in longhouses and we sail in longboats,’ Thumelicus quipped. ‘We Germans think that it’s quite a good joke.’ When no one laughed he frowned and looked around at Vespasian and his companions; their expressions were all similar: confusion. ‘What’s the matter?’
Paetus turned to him. ‘Horses, Thumelicus, that’s what the matter is. How do we take our horses with us?’
‘You don’t. The horses are the price for the boats.’
‘Then how do we get back across the Rhenus?’
‘You’ll get home by sailing on out to the sea and then follow the coast west. Your Batavians can handle this sort of boat, they’re good seamen.’
‘But good seamanship won’t protect us against storms,’ Magnus muttered. ‘Last time Germanicus sailed back to Gaul he lost half his fleet in the Northern Sea. Some of the poor buggers were even driven ashore in Britannia.’