The Wald (36 page)

“Will that be all then, lord?” asked Septimus.

“One last item.  I’m sure my brother enjoyed banter with the men.  You may have been counted in that number, I wouldn’t know.  The gods have not seen fit to bless me with such gifts.  My friends are few in number.  You and I will not be friendly.  It is best that you and my officers understand that fact.  My personality flaws are numerous, but I understand how to carry out a military campaign.  I have the ability to conquer Germania, but not the enthusiasm for the task.  The emperor wishes it to continue, so I will Romanize the tribes with my presence.  I don’t mean to play the game to jump ahead of my brother with regard to feats such as driving to the Albis or sailing the Mare Germanicum to the very Pillars of Hercules.”  He said the last with a bit of disdain.

“I was there when we discovered them, lord,” Septimus impatiently interrupted.

“That is exactly what I mean.  I did not bring up my brother’s famed accomplishments to connect with you via conversation.  I used them as an example to demonstrate my point.  You’re dismissed.  Take my servant with you as a guide and interpreter.  He is trustworthy.  I have confidence that you’ll carry out the orders admirably.”

Septimus bowed.  “I will, lord.”

. . .

Some two hundred tribesmen filled the damp glen where they had met just a few years
earlier, before Drusus had crisscrossed their lands at will.  Back then they had the numbers, strength, and will to speak against the interlopers.  It was cold in the deep gorge, but it warmed Berengar to think of what might be the last, great chance to forge an alliance.  They had spent years negotiating to build an army.  Each time the gods saw that fate plowed under their agreements and caused disagreements to blossom, yielding one hundred fold.

“
It is a time of transition for the Roman army and her leadership.  Perhaps we should mass an army toward them, meet them head on before they drive deeper into the wald, before they burn our food for one more year,” suggested the young man.

Ermin stood next to his friend
, among the Sugambrians rather than his Cheruscan relatives.  “Yes, that could do it.  Or at the very least, we could spring a trap toward the Rhenus rather than the Albis.  We must preserve food and our people.”

“What will you feed our men?” asked Segimer – a legitimate question.  “An army eats food, and lots of it.”

“Father, those same men will eat food if they sit in their villages.  If we bring our men, all of them, west, at least they’ll have the peas and wild spinach from the east to sustain them,” pleaded Ermin.

The Cheruscan warlord nodded to concede the point.  Adalbern was uncharacteristically quiet, but his eyes showed that he agreed.

“So, we unite.  The Romans see fit to call us Germans while all along we think of ourselves as Cheruscans or Suebians or whatnot.  It’s time we live up to the name Rome gave us.  Let us finally unite on the field of battle.  Let us rally our armies together and end this before another hungry year passes.”  Ermin had moved to the center of the circle where the nobles had gathered.

The boy was going to be a late bloomer, if he bloomed at all.  He was thin like the rest from lack of nourishment, but even his frame remained narrow.  His hands were long and thin, but could clutch and swing a sword like a man twice his size.  Ermin had long ago learned how to compensate for his size.  He used cunning intelligence and speech to win over rivals.  When that did not work he employed leverage and force honed by hours of practice with the blade.  More often than not
, he got what he wanted from a negotiation or a fight.

“Segimer,” said Berengar.  “Just a year ago you told me to wait until we could strengthen ourselves to fight Rome on another day.  Well
, how will we ever do that while we let them bleed us to death?  Let us do as Ermin says.  A word from you will go a long way to persuading these other men.”

“I have been as unsuccessful against Rome as the next man,” said Segimer.  “And what I meant was that perhaps my generation will not be able to thro
w off the yoke of Rome.  Perhaps it will be you and my boy, or even my grandchildren.”

Ermin tried to bring some levity.  “Father, I’ll gladly make you some grandchildren with Thusnelda, though she is not ready for that task just yet.”  The Cheruscans laughed at the joke.  Kolman, Thusnelda’s father, did not.

“You boys don’t know the first thing about war.  You think of things only as earth and sky, as water and ice.  You ignore the mist and the nuances in between,” called Kolman.  “And Ermin, if you continue in this vein, I’ll certainly never grant my daughter to you in marriage.”  He had no intention of agreeing to the match, but thought it important to keep up the appearance that he gave it careful consideration so as not to offend his friend, Segimer.

A Cattan spoke up.  “It is easy for you to talk, boy,” pointing to Ermin.  “You don’t have Roman forts built of wood and stone sitting directly on your lands or just across the river.  This Tiberius must take his army on a summer’s journey to reach you.
  When he falls out of his bed in the morning, he is upon us.”

“Unless he sails north with the fleet Drusus built and paddles up the
Albis or Visurgis.  With good pilots he could be upon us in just a few weeks,” shouted Ermin.

“And don’t forget that the Sugambrians have forts in our wald, too.  We also look at forts to the west across the
Rhenus and to the north across the Lupia.  They don’t stop me and my father from supporting a war – a war now!” added Berengar.  He looked to his father who nodded while tugging at his long white beard.

Ermin continued, “And to say Cheruscans have this advantage or Cattans have that disadvantage is to think small.  It is to think like villagers.  Well
, we can think that way if you wish, but in short order Rome will see that we are hers.  Bid your village rule farewell.  We are against an imperial menace and must think in broader scope.  We must think as one.  We must make the best choice for Cattans, Suebians, and Sugambrians.”  Men mumbled their approval at the boy’s speech.  He turned many hearts that day.

Kolman sensed the
collective will turning toward all-out war, so he softened his criticism.  “Even if we did this – even if we galloped home and brought thousands of men to fall on Tiberius, can we succeed or are we just killing ourselves for no reason?”

Segimer answered.  “
No reason?  The reason would be for freedom even if we did lose, Kolman.  I’d rather die a free man than a caged animal.”

“But, we haven’t even tried to work with Rome yet.  Why not?  The Chaucians to the north committed to a treaty with Drusus.  What fields they have are still producing crops.  Ours are torched each year,” pleaded Kolman.

“Chaucians are women,” muttered Adalbern.  Men laughed, Cheruscan and Sugambrian alike.

“You had a man fighting with you.  His name was Stigr.  He was Chaucian and I dare say that he was no woman,” retorted the cautious Cheruscan.

Adalbern shrugged, “Even a woman can grow a stray hair on her chest.”  All the men who heard his voice laughed at that.  Gundahar, the Sugambrian with the cleft palate, snorted so that a ball of snot came into his mouth.  He had to spit the green mess onto the ground, making men laugh even more.

Ermin rejoined the conversation.  “See
, men?  We can all laugh together.  Why not fight together?  I call for a question of each leader here and now.  Will we take the initiative from the Romans and attack?  Will we fight together this season as one?”

Kolman did not want the vote to take place yet.  He could tell that the men saw wisdom where
he thought there was none.  Rome could not be defeated.  He had to have time for that good sense to penetrate these warlords.  “No, Ermin!” he called before the boy had a chance to inquire of anyone.  “It is not right that we answer without divining the will of the gods.”

“Kolman, to ride back to the old priestess Rike would be the same as saying no to our plan.  So unless our cousins from the other tribes have brought a priestess with them, we must forego the formality,” said a disgusted Ermin.

“You’re right.  It’s a matter that must be decided quickly.  All of us, each tribe that is, agrees that there are omens in the animals, am I correct?” asked Kolman.  The men all agreed.

“Then let us wait until morning
, at which time we will look to them for guidance,” offered Kolman.

“Wait, Kolman,” said Segimer while standing.  “We are not so dense as to think that you aren’t trying to manipulate us to your side of the argument.
  I value your counsel, friend, but I don’t want to be swayed by trickery.”  He stood on a rock that was nearly completely covered in a thick green moss.  “Is there any man,” he shouted, “among any of you who has a perfectly white horse?  Not a spot, not a speckle.”

The crowd mumbled and murmured.  No answer came.  Again Segimer called, “So none of you has an unblemished white horse?”  Again the murmuring.  He climbed down and faced his old friend.  “There you have it, Kolman.  So that we are not forced into any direction without the gods, I’ve made it so that we sue for peace with Rome only if the spirits truly will it.  We reach out to Rome only if at first light a pure white horse stands in this very grove of trees.”  Segimer looked to his son and Berengar.  “Do we all agree with these terms?”

The young friends nodded, thinking that the odds were certainly in their favor.  Kolman nodded in defeated frustration at having been out-politicked by his old friend.

. . .

His century had captured two women whom Stigr recognized, so Septimus felt confident that he had good direction for his hunt.  Tiberius had selected him for the mission because Septimus had been the centurion who led the raiding force that had captured Adalbern’s wife, Dorthe.  The written orders from the new general had directed him to return there and find Adalbern.  He was to guarantee the man’s safety and bring the warlord and his leaders to Tiberius to negotiate peace between Rome and the Sugambrians.

The old man was not
, however, asleep in his burned-out hovel when the soldiers marched into the hilly clearing early one morning.  Septimus and Stigr had been given horses from the legion’s open air stables constructed inside the summer fort.  They used them to ride down the two women who fled from the small settlement at the first sign of the army, capturing them at the point of a sword.  They weren’t even scratched, but lashed out like wild animals until words from Stigr allowed them to settle down.  The women spoke back and forth to the servant for a few moments and then again started their mad screaming.  This time they concentrated their force onto Stigr.  It took a few driving strikes from the pommel of Septimus’ sword onto each of their heads for them to at last fall to earth so they could be bound.

Stigr saw Septimus’ questioning glance as they tied the women’s hands.  “They recognized me,” he answered in his heavy accent.  Then he searched for more words in his rudimentary list of
the Latin tongue.  “They think I am a traitor.”

Septimus answered.  “I imagine you did not have much choice in the matter.”

Stigr shook his head while he slid one of his prisoner’s sleeves under the rope so she would not receive a burn.  “No, I fought against Rome for the Sugambrians with all I could.  We bloodied you, but you gutted us.  I gave up and rode north toward my home by the sea.  I was captured and sent to Rome as a slave.  I saw the city of yours.  There is no way our people in the wald can defeat a people that have built such a place.  Somehow I ended up in the service of Tiberius and back here.”

“And Lord Tiberius trusts you?” asked Septimus as they tossed the women onto
a horse’s back.

“It would seem so.  I hope to impress him with my abilities and dedication.  One day I hope to live in the empire as a free man, perhaps even a citizen of Rome.
  I had never known anything other than my home.  Now I know there is more to see.”

Septimus nodded because he did
n’t feel like taking away the man’s hope.  It was exceedingly rare for a slave, no matter his devotion, to earn his way to freedom.  Instead Septimus said, “So you are a traitor if you serve Rome so enthusiastically?”

Stigr looked thoughtfully sad.  “I suppose so,” he said.  “Perhaps just resigned to the fate the gods have given me.
  I want to serve victors.”  The two men walked their horses back to where the century had fanned out in the village.

The centurion had let them rest for much of the morning as they waited for the women to return to their senses.  When their eyes flickered back awake, Septimus was there with his helmet off to appear less frightening.  He offered them food from his rations, even untying their hands when he felt certain they were calm.  While the women ate
greedily – they were as starved as their warrior husbands – Stigr was called over.  One woman spit at him, missing badly.  The other spit a partially eaten piece of food into her hand and threw it at him.  The second woman didn’t miss.  The bread, softened by her saliva, slapped and stuck onto Stigr’s cheek.  Angrily, the servant wiped the bread away and raised his arm to strike her.

“No,” Septimus said.  Stigr stopped his hand, remembering his place.

“Good.  Now calm yourself and tell them that they will not become slaves and that they will be set free once we learn what we’ve come here to learn.”  The interpreter forced a smile to the women and spoke the words of Septimus.  It appeared that he said more though, gesturing to himself several times in an attempt to explain his actions to them.  He would, of course, have much for which to answer.  The last time the women had seen Stigr he was of the tribes, at war with Rome.  Now he appeared to be allied with their bitter enemies.