Avenger of Rome

VIII

‘They’re gaining.’ Aurelius’s voice remained steady, but the concern was written stark in the lines of his weathered features. ‘I thought we were holding them, but they are making ground on us with every minute.’ His eyes darted constantly between the heavens and the waves and the three sails that were now clearly visible on the horizon. ‘They will not use their oars until they are close, because their rowers can only maintain their hunting speed for a short time. There is no point in using up their strength until they need it. But all is not lost. We may be fortunate yet.’ His hand reached up automatically to touch the carved figure of Poseidon where years of habit and countless maritime dramas had worn a shining circle on the knee.

Valerius tried to judge the distance between the three pirate craft and the Golden Cygnet. How much time did they have?

Aurelius read his mind. ‘We have a following swell and that tells me there is more likelihood of the wind’s freshening than backing. There are still four hours till dark, but if we don’t lose a steering oar or snap a rope we should be able to stay ahead and they will not relish continuing the chase after dusk. They are cowards at heart. They will always seek a profit, but not if it is likely to cost them blood. We may be only a single ship, but we can still put up a fight. The only reason they have not turned tail already is because of the prize.’ He frowned and spat.

‘Very well, Aurelius.’ Valerius’s voice took on the authority of a man who had commanded a legion — an African legion, but still a legion. ‘You are in command of the ship, but who is in command of the defence of the ship?’

Aurelius nodded solemnly. ‘My men are not fighters, though if it is fight or die they will fight. But understand this. If it is a choice between fight and run, we will run. What do you need to know?’

Valerius signalled to the watching Tiberius, who ran to them and saluted. ‘Sir.’ The young tribune’s eyes were bright with expectation and Valerius thought: here is one man who will defend the ship to his last breath. A man to fight alongside. Another man to fight alongside was standing a few feet away, trying to look uninterested, but Valerius knew Serpentius would be listening to every word.

‘First we need to know how many weapons are on board and how many of your sailors you can spare to fight.’

‘I have a crew of twenty and in a stern chase I can give you a dozen of them, armed with either a sword or a spear, though I doubt they’ll be much use with either.’

Tiberius snorted dismissively, attracting a glare from the captain, but Valerius only looked thoughtful. ‘What about axes?’

Aurelius brightened. ‘Oh, yes, they can all handle an axe. Give a sailor an axe and watch the blood and teeth fly.’

‘So, we have seventeen, including the tribune’s cavalrymen and my servant. Tiberius, we will leave one of your troopers to provide protection for the lady Domitia and her staff. The question is how many will oppose them?’

The captain chewed his lip. ‘The Cilicians pack them in tight. A big pirate galley can ship fifty men over and above those on the rowing benches.’ Tiberius gave a short whistle. ‘But at least one of the galleys is the scout ship we saw; he will carry no more than twenty.’

The figures were double what he had expected, but Valerius hid his concern. ‘Very well. Tribune Crescens. I have my own thoughts on the defence of the Golden Cygnet, but I would value yours.’

Tiberius struggled to hide a grin. When he spoke his tone was professional and his words considered. ‘As I see it, from a military point of view the Golden Cygnet is simply a walled fighting platform and it can be defended in the same way I would defend any fortification. If we can get enough men to the point of attack we can fight off a force of greater numbers, especially a force of pirate scum.’

Valerius smiled. ‘I wouldn’t underestimate the pirate scum, Tiberius, but I agree with your conclusions. My only concern would be if we were attacked in more than one place, which I’d suggest we have to assume is a possibility.’

Aurelius nodded gloomily. ‘These pirates, they climb like the monkeys they are. Given even the slightest opening they will swarm all over the ship.’

Valerius exchanged glances with Tiberius. ‘Then we must consider another option. We can’t let them get on to the Cygnet.’

The younger man glanced uncertainly towards the pirates. ‘We fight them on their own ground?’

‘Fight them on their own ground and kill them on their own ground.’ Valerius turned to the captain. ‘Do you have anyone on board who has served on one of those galleys?’

Aurelius didn’t need more than a second. ‘Capito!’

The wizened sailor who had met Valerius and Serpentius on the wharf in Ostia ran up to them. He looked abashed to be singled out, but brightened when he realized what he was being asked.

‘Aye, they had me chained to an oar for nine months and would have thrown me and those chains overboard if yon navy lads hadn’t been so quick.’

‘Can you draw a picture of a galley and point out its strengths and weaknesses for me?’

The sailor told them, ‘I can do better than that. I can show you.’ He ran below and returned with a lovingly carved wooden model, every spar and every oar in its place. ‘Now this here is the biggest of the type. Twenty oars a side, fifty feet stem to stern, and a dozen across the beam.’ He pointed to the centre of the ship. ‘Your scouts, they have but ten a side and are maybe eight feet across.’

‘And besides the oarsmen the bigger ships carry say fifty fighting men and the smaller twenty?’

Capito frowned. ‘That would be as a rule. Sometimes less, sometimes more. A pirate chief, he would be hard put to it to fill his bigger ships these days, with the pickings so slim.’

‘They must have a weakness,’ Tiberius said, studying the little model critically.

Capito looked blank as if the thought had never occurred to him, but after a few moments his face broke into a gap-toothed grin. He patted the solid oak of the side of the Golden Cygnet. ‘Their weakness is that they won’t ram this. Their captains are savages: thieves and murderers who revel in torture and cruelty. They abused us slaves horribly. But they are also businessmen. The galleys are built for speed, light fast craft that can fairly skim across the water if the oarsmen are driven. But that strength is also their weakness. I’ve seen a Roman galley shear clean through a pirate hull.’

Capito returned to his station and the three commanders discussed the situation for a few minutes more before Valerius made his decision. Aurelius, in that curious ebb and flow of confidence that affects men before a battle, had pondered whether they should turn and use the ship as a sea-borne battering ram. It was an idea that appeared to have merits, but Valerius pointed out that while they were tangling with one ship the other two would undoubtedly converge on them and they would eventually be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘The answer is to try to outrun them if we can, but to engage them one at a time if there is no other alternative.’ He looked out over the waves. The little group of sails was closer still. ‘We need to lighten the ship.’

In the depths of the hold Valerius’s eyes took time to adjust to the gloom and bring into focus the individual objects around him. Aurelius’s face had crumpled when Valerius had announced his decision. He had argued and growled and ‘I’ll be damned’ until it had been pointed out that his most precious cargo was the general’s daughter, and that if they lost Domitia they were unlikely to survive her father’s wrath, or Nero’s.

Valerius’s gaze fixed on rank after rank of earthenware amphorae. He nodded to Aurelius. ‘Form a chain and over the side with them.’

Aurelius winced. He could have wept, seeing his profit for the entire trip jettisoned, but he waved forward the men who had been waiting by the ramp.

‘What’s in here?’ Valerius pointed to an enormous stack of odd-shaped parcels and packages set to one side of the hold.

‘The lady Domitia’s personal baggage.’ Aurelius’s eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t…’

Back on deck, Valerius studied Capito’s model of the galley and tried to ignore the closing presence to the north. Above the familiar creak and groan of the constantly shifting puzzle of ropes and jointed wood that was the Golden Cygnet ’s rigging, he heard the rhythmic splash as the ship’s cargo of finest Cretan olive oil was consigned to the depths.

A sharp feminine shriek broke his concentration and he looked up to see Tulia, Domitia’s companion, wrestling with a sailor who was attempting to push a crate over the side. The crewman was twice Tulia’s size, but from what Valerius could see he was getting the worst of the encounter and would bear the scars for some time to come. He was about to intervene when the general’s daughter emerged from below decks. She took in the scene and he saw her fists clench and her eyes narrow. Her face took on the combative look he’d last seen on an Iceni warrior charging a Roman shield line. She advanced on the struggling pair.

‘What is going on, Tulia?’ she demanded.

The freedwoman disentangled herself from her opponent. ‘They are throwing your things overboard, my lady,’ she said tearfully. ‘The tribune says anything heavy must be sacrificed.’

Valerius felt the moment she turned on him, and when he raised his head it was like looking into the mouth of a volcano. Before she could speak, he nodded towards the stern. Her eyes followed his and widened as she realized how quickly the pirate had closed since the last time she had been on deck. In that instant her whole demeanour changed and he was reminded of the difference between other women and a Roman lady bred to rule. The aggression drained from her to be replaced by a languid grace, and the headlong charge was transformed into a neat turn.

‘Then if the tribune says they must go, they must go, Tulia. Kindly show them where to find the tableware and the boxes containing the statuary.’

Valerius rose and went to her side. ‘Thank you, my lady, I appreciate your cooperation. If it had not been necessary…’

She shook her head and looked again at the pirate galleys, which were now less than half a mile away. ‘In times of war we are all soldiers, tribune, and we must all make sacrifices.’ She turned, and forced him to look deep into her eyes. ‘Is that not so? We place ourselves in your trust.’

When she was gone and his heart had stopped thundering he forced his attention back to their pursuers, wondering at the turmoil she awoke in him. Another complication he didn’t need. He imagined the big galleys gaining stroke by stroke, coming closer and closer until they touched hulls with the Cygnet. What would he do then? How could he confound his enemy? He thought back to the defence of Colonia, when he had tempted Boudicca’s warrior chiefs with the only remaining bridge to the city and they had taken the bait. This was different. He was being hunted by three wolves, and when the first wolf’s jaws closed the others would move in and together they would tear him to pieces.

‘Look!’

He joined Tiberius at the side.

‘Something strange is happening,’ the younger man pointed out. ‘Perhaps they are abandoning the chase.’

Valerius looked back to where two of the galleys had closed and their movement seemed to stutter. For a moment his hopes rose, before the ships parted and the smaller of the two suddenly surged ahead of its brethren.

‘What’s happening, Aurelius? I need to know what they’re planning.’

The Golden Cygnet ’s master scratched his head. ‘I do not know, unless…’ He looked again to where the single galley was powering towards them, each stroke bringing it closer and allowing him to see it with more clarity. ‘Capito, come here. Tell me what you see.’

The old sailor hurried to his captain’s side. He understood in an instant.

‘Poseidon save us. I’ve seen it done before, but only once. They’ll have run a plank between the sterns of the two ships and reinforced the crew of the smaller one. When a slave tires they throw the poor bastard overboard and he’s replaced by a fighter. It means that they can maintain their highest speed but you’ll face up to forty pirates instead of only twenty.’ He took in the distance between the scout galley and the Cygnet and his voice faltered. ‘They’ll be upon us in minutes.’ Valerius saw the moment Capito’s nerve snapped. The sailor’s eyes spun in his head and he let out a terrible cry. ‘They won’t take me again!’

Before anyone could stop him he ran to where a stack of amphorae lay against the side of the ship, picked up one of the great stone jars and leapt over the rail. Valerius searched the spot where the wizened seaman had jumped, but it was as if he had never existed. The weight of the amphora had taken him straight to the bottom. In the appalled silence that followed Aurelius barked an order and another sailor picked up one of the amphorae, preparing to heave it over the side. Valerius put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

‘How many left?’

‘These are the last twenty I think, sir.’

‘Keep them. I want the oil poured into as many buckets as you can find. And get me a couple of iron files. Big ones.’

Tiberius looked at him as if he’d gone mad, but when Valerius had explained his plan the young tribune shook his head in admiration.

‘Madness. But it might even work.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘It is a soldier’s privilege to volunteer to commit suicide, tribune, and I ask to be first over the side.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘There is someone better qualified, Tiberius. You are young; you will have other opportunities for glory.’

‘You’re right.’ Tiberius grinned. ‘Where you lead, I will follow. In any case, I doubt any of us will get back alive, even if we succeed.’ His grey eyes turned serious. ‘I underestimated you, tribune. For all your laurels, I thought you had gone soft, but I was wrong. You’re as hard as the iron in that gladius you wear. Are you sure they all have to die?’

‘All we can reach. We will have one chance. If we can’t sink the galley we have to disable it.’

The sailor returned with a pair of heavy metal rasps. Valerius handed one to Tiberius. ‘Here. You know what to do.’ He took the other rasp to where Serpentius sat near the stern, calmly running a whetstone up and down the edge of a sword. The Spaniard nodded as Valerius took his place beside him.

‘So we fight?’

‘Fight or die. Maybe both.’

‘Isn’t it always so?’

‘I have a job for you. A special job.’

Serpentius gave a bitter laugh. ‘Isn’t it always so.’ He handed Valerius the sword, which was the one with the silver pommel. Valerius took it and nodded gravely before he bent and removed his sandals. The Spaniard’s eyes widened as he started working on the leather sole with his knife to further expose the metal studs in the base.

‘Why would you be ruining a perfectly good pair of marching boots?’

So Valerius told him.