Rome’s Fallen Eagle (23 page)

‘Arminius gave us the choice of being sacrificed by burning in one of their wicker cages or swearing upon all our gods to stay alive for the task that he wanted us to perform. No one who has seen and heard a wicker sacrifice will face the fire; we chose what every man would.’

‘I wouldn’t argue with that, mate,’ Magnus chipped in, getting a look of distant recognition from Aius at the use of such a familiar term. ‘The idea of my balls roasting over the fire would be enough to make me swear to anything.’

‘But they wouldn’t have roasted,’ Thumelicus informed him, taking the lid off the jar, ‘we always take care to remove the testicles first.’

‘That’s very considerate of you, I’m sure.’

Thumelicus dipped his fingers into the jar. ‘I can assure you that it’s not out of consideration for the victim that we do this.’ He pulled out a small, off-white, egg-shaped object and bit it in half. ‘We believe that eating our enemies’ testicles brings us strength and vigour.’

Vespasian and his companions looked on in horror as Thumelicus chewed loudly on it, savouring its taste. He popped the other half into his mouth and, with equal relish, ate that as the two slaves, surprisingly, took a seat each on the far side of the desk.

Thumelicus washed down his snack with a swig of beer. ‘After the battle here and all the battles and actions that my father fought in our struggle for freedom we had almost sixty thousand testicles
pickled; my father shared them out amongst the tribes. This is the last jar left to the Cherusci; I keep it for special occasions. Perhaps we should think about refilling our jars again soon?’

‘You’d be mad to try,’ Sabinus said, ‘you could never cross the Rhenus.’

Thumelicus inclined his head in agreement. ‘Not if we stay as disunited as we are now, and even if we could you would use the resources of your Empire to beat us back in time. But you still have the strength to cross the other way and that is why I am here talking to you against all my principles. One of you has something to show me, I believe.’

Vespasian got out his father’s knife and passed it to Thumelicus.

‘How did you come to be in possession of this?’ he asked, examining the blade.

Vespasian explained the knife’s history whilst Thumelicus traced the runes with a finger.

When he had finished, the German thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘You speak the truth; it is exactly how my father set it down in his memoirs.’

‘He wrote his memoirs!’ Vespasian exclaimed, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

‘You forget he was brought up in Rome from the age of nine. He learnt to read and write, although not that well as it had to be beaten into him; we do not consider them to be manly practices. However, he had a better idea: he would dictate his memoirs to his crushed enemies and he would keep them alive so that they could read them out whenever it was necessary, and today it may be necessary. Mother, would you join us?’

The curtain opened and a tall, proud, greying woman with the deepest blue eyes that Vespasian had ever seen entered. Her skin was lined and her breasts fell low but she had evidently been a beauty in her youth.

‘Mother, is it necessary to tell Father’s story to these Romans? What do the bones say?’

Thusnelda pulled from a leather bag at her waist five straight, carved, thin bones covered on all four sides in what Vespasian
now knew to be runes. She breathed on them and muttered some half-heard incantations over them before casting them to the ground.

Stooping, she examined their fall for a few moments, pawing at them. ‘My husband would wish his story told to these men; to understand you they must understand where you come from, my son.’

Thumelicus nodded. ‘Then so be it, Mother, we shall begin.’

Vespasian indicated to the two slaves now sorting out scrolls and putting them in order on the desk. ‘So he spared these two to write down his life and read it out?’

‘Yes, who better to tell of the life of Arminius than the
aquiliferi
, the Eagle-bearers, of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Legions?’

The sun was long set by the time the two old slaves, once proud bearers of their legions’ most sacred objects, finished the tale of Arminius’ life with their verbal account of how he was murdered by a kinsman. It had not just been a simple reading; Thusnelda had contributed parts from her recollection and Thumelicus had encouraged Vespasian and his friends to question Aius and Tiburtius about their memories of the battle at Teutoburg; he also ordered the old men to write their answers down. Magnus, who, whilst serving in the V Alaudae, had been present at the battle of the Long Bridges and the following year at the battles of the Angrivarii Ridge and Idistavisus, Arminius’ first defeat, had shared his memories of Germanicus’ two campaigns, six and seven years respectively after the massacre – before he had been recalled by Tiberius, jealous of, and frightened by, his success. Thumelicus had seemed genuinely pleased at hearing this new point of view and had told his slaves to make notes, which they duly did with misty looks of longing in their eyes as they heard the legions spoken of in plain, legionary-mule terms; their ageing faces registered the depth of their shame in not only losing their legions’ Eagles but also in being unable to face the fires afterwards and so being condemned to live without hope of redemption. Apart from the occasional question, Vespasian,
Sabinus and Paetus had nothing to contribute and sat listening as the tale unfolded, sipping their beer and nibbling at the food arrayed around in bowls; on numerous occasions they politely declined the offer of a treat from Thumelicus’ jar.

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

A
T 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.’

‘Then you’ll be there, ready and waiting, when the invasion fleet finally arrives.’

Sabinus looked sourly at Thumelicus. ‘Is that another German joke because I didn’t find that one particularly funny
either?’ His sense of humour was not helped by contemplating a sea voyage; he was not the best of sailors.

‘No, merely an observation. But that’s the deal: horses for boats and you’ll be in the Chauci’s lands tomorrow.’

Vespasian pulled Sabinus and Magnus aside. ‘We’ve got no choice but to take it; if Gabinius beats us to that Eagle then Callistus will take the credit and Narcissus could easily say that Sabinus didn’t keep his end of the bargain and his life is still forfeit. Besides, it will be a lot easier trying to get back by sea rather than overland with Chauci cavalry chasing us all the way.’

‘But at the least the contents of my stomach will be staying where they belong.’

‘Not if you get gutted by a Chauci spear,’ Vespasian observed.

Sabinus paused to reflect upon this detail. ‘Well, brother, I suppose you’ve got a point. Boats it is, then.’

Vespasian looked at Thumelicus. ‘It’s a deal.’

‘But what about my horses?’ Paetus asked through clenched teeth. ‘It takes months to train them and—’

‘And you’ll do as you’re told, prefect,’ Vespasian snapped before turning back to Thumelicus again. ‘But we keep the saddles and bridles.’

‘Agreed.’

Paetus relaxed somewhat but still did not look happy. ‘I’ll get the men dismounted and start the embarkation.’

‘I think that’s a very good idea, prefect,’ Vespasian said, slipping off his horse.