“We have no quarrel with you,” Caelius said in Latin. Then he said what he hoped was the same thing, using his scraps of the Germans’ language.

“No? Then go back where you came from.” The barbarian’s Latin wasn’t much better than Caelius’ command of his language. He looked at his spear. He looked at the Romans. Several of them and one of him. If he started a fight, he’d regret it - but not for long. And he’d never do anything else that stupid afterwards. With a sigh, he nodded. “I have no quarrel with you - now.”

Caldus Caelius gave his pal a look that said, See? He might have understood you after all. The one the other Roman returned said something like, Yes, Mother. They grinned at each other. Caelius gave his attention back to the German. “There’s a little village down this path, isn’t there?” he said.

“Why you want to know?” From the anger and alarm in the native’s voice, he was wondering whether the legionaries aim to burn the place first and then rape the women or the other way round.

“I thought maybe we’d buy some of that, uh, beer you people brew,” Caelius answered. He liked wine better - what Roman in his right mind wouldn’t? By all the signs, the Germans liked wine better, too, when they could get it. But all the wine that came to Mindenum started from Vetera. There was usually enough to give each legionary his fair share, but not enough to get drunk on. And so ... Beer would do.

“Ach” the German said: a deep, guttural noise. He nodded again, visibly relaxing. “Yes, there is a village. Yes, there is beer.”

“Good. That’s good.” Caldus Caelius turned to the other Romans. “Come on, boys.”

They sidled past the German. Both they and he stepped out of the path while they did it, so neither side admitted to giving way to the other. Caelius had done that dance of pride before. If you respected a German’s manhood, he wouldn’t feel he had to prove it to you.

Most of the time, anyway.

Caelius looked back over his shoulder once, to make sure the barbarian wasn’t trying to get cute. The German was looking back at the Romans. Their eyes met - locked. Slowly and deliberately, Caelius nodded. So did the German. They both looked away.

“Trouble?” Sextus asked.

“Nah,” Caelius said after a moment’s pause for thought. “Not now, anyhow. He was just . . . checking, you know? Same as me.”

Sextus nodded. “Sure. My neck’s on a swivel every time we leave the encampment.”

“You aren’t the only one,” Caldus Caelius assured him.

The village, such as it was, lay not quite half a mile down the path. Five or six farmhouses stood close together in the middle of the fields the natives worked. Caelius didn’t sneer at it that much. He’d seen cities, sure, but he’d grown up in a place not a whole lot bigger than this one.

Watching the Germans hoeing and planting at this season instead of harvesting still startled him. But what could you expect in a land where it rained in the summertime?

Women tended the vegetable plots, the way they would have in Italy. A lot of the vegetables were familiar, too: onions, lettuces, the indispensable turnips and beets. But the Germans had never heard of garlic. Fools that they were, barbarians that they were, they thought it smelled bad. They grew some roots and leaves the Romans didn’t use back home. Caldus Caelius had tried a few of them. He supposed he could eat them again if he had to, but hoped he wouldn’t have to.

The legionaries didn’t try to get fresh with the gardening women. The Germans hated unwelcome advances at least as much as Italians would have. One squeal from a girl and all the barbarians out in the fields would have come running with mattocks and adzes and whatever else they had out there.

A gray-haired man, bent and stiff with age as old men always were, hobbled out of one of the farmhouses leaning on a stick. Caelius eyed it: it was carved from top to bottom with little animals and men hunting. Clever work, if you had the time to sit down and do it.

Like a lizard, the old-timer soaked up sunshine. He stretched and straightened a little. Scars seamed his arms and legs; he’d seen his share of fighting and then some back in the day. A cataract clouded one of his eyes. The other had stayed clear.

“Pax,” he said to the Romans. Not only his accent but two missing upper front teeth made his voice mushy.

“Pax,” Caelius answered. The old man cupped his free hand behind his ear. “Peace,” the legionary repeated, louder this time.

Still in Latin, the old man went on, “You come for the beer, yes?” He could make himself understood, all right. How much of his fighting had been against the Romans, how much against Germans from other tribes or from this one? Some questions might be better left unasked.

Besides, the barbarian’s query needed answering. “That’s right,” Caldus Caelius said eagerly. The other legionaries seemed happy enough to let him do the talking, but they added smiling nods.

“You have silver?” the graybeard went on.

“Sure do.” Caelius dug a denarius out of his belt pouch. His friends could pay their share later. No matter how much he drank, he wouldn’t forget that they owed him: a denarius was close to a day’s salary for him.

“Ach.” The old man made that guttural noise Germans liked. He held the denarius out at arm’s length so he could examine it with his good eye. The silver coin shone in the sun. He was looking at the reverse, because Caelius could see Augustus’ right-facing profile on the other side. A slow smile spread across the barbarian’s face. “It is good.”

“Sure,” Caelius said. A denarius might be worth a good bit to him, but it was worth a lot more to the native. Since the Germans didn’t mint their own money, they made a big deal of the coins they got from the Romans.

The German said something in his own language. Caelius thought it meant something like Bring it out - I’ve got the cash. That was about as far as his knowledge of the Germans’ tongue stretched.

Two women close by left off gardening and went into the farmhouse. One of them rolled out a good-sized oaken barrel - the barbarians often preferred barrels where Romans would have used pottery. The other woman carried earthenware cups and a dipper carved from wood. She handed each legionary a cup.

“Thank you,” Caelius said in her language. She blinked, then smiled at him. She wasn’t pretty, and she was at least fifteen years older than he was, but the smile turned her from a crone to somebody who might be a nice person.

Down into the barrel went the dipper. The woman who’d handed Caelius his cup filled it for him. “Your health,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said again. The Roman salute was the same, though he thought it sounded better in Latin. A Greek doctor attached to the legion had once told him Greeks said the same thing, too. That was pretty funny, when you got right down to it.

He drank. As soon as he tasted the stuff, he had to remind himself not to screw up his face. However much he wished beer were sweet like wine, it wasn’t. You couldn’t do anything about that. But if you drank enough, beer would do something to you.

“I’ve been up on - over, I mean - this miserable frontier too long,” Sextus said. “Gods help me, I’m starting to like beer.”

“Tell the doctor’s helpers next sick call,” Caldus Caelius said. “Maybe they can cure you.” Then he laughed. “If you like it enough to drink a lot, you will need to see the doctor’s helpers at sick call.”

“So what?” Sextus said. “I’ll be happy while I’m drinking, and that’s what counts.” He dipped his mug full again, then started emptying it.

Caldus Caelius filled his mug again, too. Why not? They were off duty. They might get teased for coming back to the encampment drunk, but they wouldn’t get in trouble.

“You know,” another Roman said, “when you look at ‘em the right way, these German gals aren’t so ugly. They’ve got a lot to hold on to, you know what I mean?” He eyed the girl who’d rolled out the barrel.