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accepted Gerd’s plan without comment. Of course, she might correctly believe
     that the risks were no greater than they’d been when she served in the army of her own time horizon.
    Pauli drew up two strides short of the gate. “Courier from Rome,” he growled. His Latin, though perfectly grammatical, had
     a distinct North German clip to it.
    He snapped the fingers of his right hand. The horse whickered softly as Beckie ran forward with the orders. The non-com stepped
     forward to take the tablet from her. He undid the twine and slanted the boards so that light shadowed the writing on the waxed
     inner surfaces.
    “You’re a Batavian, then?” one of the older legionaries said to Pauli.
    “That’s right,” he replied, neither hostile nor friendly. “One of Augustus Caesar’s horse guard, here on Augustus Caesar’s
     business.”
    “These look to be in order,” the noncom said as he handed the documents back. He looked sharply at Pauli and said, “Gaius
     Julius Clovis, do you want to bathe and change clothes before you attend the governor?”
    “I do not,” Pauli said. “My comfort can wait until I’ve delivered my commission from the emperor.”
    The noncom grinned. “I think you’ll find Governor Varus considers it more to
his
comfort that he not have to deal with anybody travel-stained,” he said, “and a soldier besides. But I daresay he’ll make
     an exception in your case.”
    He looked at his men. “Flaccus,” he said to the man holding the javelins, “take Gaius Qovis to the forum and see that the
     bailiffs inform the governor of his arrival. Crispus, you take the gentleman’s servants to headquarters. When they’re assigned
     billets, you go to the forum and guide Gaius Clovis to them after he’s finished his business with the governor.”
    “Forum?” Pauli said.
    “The governor is a great one for the law’s civilizing effect,” the noncom said dryly. “He’s so convinced of that that he’s
     spent most of this campaigning season holding court and settling disputes between our benighted German subjects … at a nice
     profit to himself.”
    “He might think about first making sure the Fritzes
were
our subjects,” Flaccus said. “In the course of which there might be some profit for a poor legionary, too, you know.”
    “Put a spear up the backside of enough of them,” another soldier agreed, “the rest get subject real quick—for a while. Thing
     is, you got to keep applying the treatment to make sure it’s taken.”
    Pauli laughed. The legionaries knew—thought—he was a Free German himself. They clearly assumed that as a fellow soldier he
     would understand and sympathize with their complaints about a civilian commander who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the
     ground.
    “I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I’m like you. I just carry out my orders.”
    Pauli dismounted, careful not to fall and make the troops wonder at his clumsiness. He was riding with just a blanket rather
     than a saddle. The facilities in TC 779 could have produced a four-homed military saddle along with the other articles of
     clothing and equipment. Bareback was the more likely riding style for a Free German even in Roman service, and Pauli had enough
     experience with the technique that he thought he was safer than if he used an unusual saddle for the first time.
    He handed Gerd the reins. “See that she’s properly stabled and fed on the imperial account,” he ordered. “I don’t want her
     being fobbed off with the baggage mules’ chaff and moldy hay.”
    “Master,” Gerd said, bowing without a trace of sarcasm. Part of the mission prep had been hypnotically implanted languages.
     Gerd spoke upper-class Latin and Greek—as well as several dialects of German that he didn’t expect to use. The microprocessor
     in each headband could translate virtually any language the team might encounter, but that wouldn’t permit the team members
     to reply to the