Chapter 11

Devnum

Lucilla made her way into one of the several smaller amphitheaters that had sprung up across the city as it grew and the new workers began demanding entertainment. The men, and it was all men, already assembled there looked nervously towards her as she and her guards made their way down the steps towards the center stage area.

Their nervousness was why she’s picked a place out of the way and small, rather than the large original amphitheater, the forum, the Colosseum, or worse, her father’s audience hall, for this meeting. These people had been pulled in from the small coastal villages where they’d been gathering since making it to the island by Praetorians, which would have been a frightening thing for refugees. She didn’t want to frighten them further by having them brought into a place designed to inspire awe.

“Good morning,” she said once she reached the stage, speaking loud enough for the forty or so men to hear her, but trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “Does anyone here speak Latin?”

Two of the men raised their hands, while the rest continued looking confused and worried.

“Do you speak the languages of any of the other men here?”

“Yes,” the man with blond hair and striking blue eyes said.

“Some,” the larger, darker-haired of the pair said.

“Good. Since so many of you are from different places, this is going to take some time. Could you talk to your fellows? I speak many languages, but I need to know what everyone speaks, so I know how to address them directly. I could use your help getting them to just talk to me for a few minutes until I can work out the correct language. After that, we’ll get to the point of why you were brought here. None of you or your people are in trouble. You were only brought here to give us a little information and then you’ll be sent back to your people.”

Hearing they weren’t going to be harmed outright, the men relaxed and started working with her to get each of the other men in the crowd to talk to her enough for Sophus to work out the languages that needed to be translated. She’d spent time with the voice in her ear, learning to follow the translations and respond without long pauses in between. It was harder than she thought it would be since it sometimes required her to listen and speak at the same time.

Thankfully, unlike her, Sophus was able to follow dozens of people talking at a time and could supply her with the bits she missed. Sophus wasn’t always great at figuring out who she needed to talk to at a given time, because it couldn’t see who was speaking, but they’d been working at it diligently every night, especially since the senate session where the issue of refugees had come up.

The Senators made pronouncements about how to deal with these people, some of whom weren’t refugees at all but traders and businessmen, without ever talking to any of them to find out what they wanted or were even capable of doing. At some point, she’d have to go back and try to get something less inflexible put in place, since this wouldn’t be the last group of refugees they’d have to deal with, but first, she needed to talk to them, since decision-making without information just led to bad decisions.

In the end, she was able to divide the men into three groups, refugees who were fleeing the Carthaginians and couldn’t go back, people from regions that had submitted to but weren’t controlled by the Carthaginians, mostly from northern Germania, and traders whose stay in Britannia would be temporary, mostly made up of Scandi.

The easiest group to deal with were the true refugees from Iberia and southern Germania, people whose leaders had either collaborated or been executed and their communities integrated into the Carthaginian machine. These people had no real hope of ever returning home and mostly liked the idea of becoming Britannic citizens, which would allow them to more or less resume their lives.

“What if, one day, your homelands were freed? Would you return there and try to rebuild?”

“Yes,” one man said.

“It depends on who freed it and if they intended to stay. If they’re no better than the Carthaginians, what would be the point,” said another.

“No. There’s nothing to return to. All of the men of fighting age have been taken for the army and half the women have just been taken. There’s nothing left to return to.”

Those three statements more or less made up the responses from the others, not that it mattered. She didn’t know Ky’s plan yet for dealing with a freed territory. If they did take the continent, it was a lot of land, more than they could effectively control, and even before the Carthaginians there hadn’t been a lot of centralized control. Germania had been, at best, a series of loosely bonded tribes, and at worst a series of warring tribes. The landscape had changed, but they wouldn’t be making deals with just a few kingdoms. It would be hundreds of alliances, some of which would make other alliances impossible. And even if they did make alliances, they’d never have the manpower to patrol and defend all that land.

“For those of you who wish to stay, the senate has recently passed a measure allowing you to become citizens if you join critical parts of the labor force or the military. We have lots of need for bodies in both of those fields, so all you have to do is ask and you’ll have employment needed to get your citizenship. For those that don’t want to stay, and just want a place to keep their families safe, we have plenty of work for you too. If you aren’t going to become citizens, then you’re going to have a tax placed on you, to help support our legions which are keeping the island clear of Carthaginians and safe for you. Don’t worry,” she said when the men who’d indicated they would probably leave as soon as their homelands were freed started shifting. “The work we have pays well, and you’ll do better, even paying the taxes, than you did under Carthaginian rule. Besides, helping to support the legions is also helping to free your homeland, since at the moment our forces are the only ones pushing the Carthaginians back. Since you won’t be swearing fealty to the Empire, you will remain under extra scrutiny, but we will try and keep it from interfering with your lives.”

“What about us?” one of the Scandi asked. “We have no interest in working in factories or joining your army.”

“That’s a good question. Your people are not, yet at least, being threatened by the Carthaginians. One day you will be, since the Carthaginians have made no secret of their desire to conquer every part of the world, but you’ve remained largely untouched by their wars. How do you think your people would feel about allying with the Empire, to keep that day from ever happening?”

“We wouldn’t,” the man said, without hesitation.

“That seems short-sighted.”

“Don’t get me wrong, many of us, especially those that sail into areas controlled by the Carthaginians, can see what you mean, but if you think Germania isn’t a unified whole, you will find that my people take autonomy to a whole new level. Our homeland is mountainous and most of our villages are along the coast, and none of them cooperate in anything that could be considered a single nation like you or the Carthaginians. You’d have to make deals with each village independently.”

“That’s disappointing. Still, we welcome you and your people who want to stay here, although you will have to pay the same tax as the other non-citizens. In return, there will be even more new goods that I think you’ll have little trouble finding markets for. There is a lot of money to be made over the next few years, if we can survive the Carthaginian’s attempts to reclaim the island. If we don’t, then there won’t be another civilization capable of standing up to them in our lifetimes, and when they do come for you, there won’t be anything to stop them from doing to you what they’ve done to the rest of us. Something for you to think about.”