Avenger of Rome

IX

‘I need five of your strongest and steadiest men. Have them issued with axes and tell them to report to me for their instructions. You know what to do when they reach us?’

Aurelius nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes never left the pirate galley three hundred paces away, powering its way towards them through rising, white-capped waves whipped up by a wind that strengthened with every passing minute. The two larger pirates, hampered by their low freeboard in the heavy seas, had fallen back, but were still less than a mile away. Valerius studied their motion and reckoned that he had five minutes at most to do what he needed to do.

He replayed the plan in his mind and thought about the decision he’d taken. Was there any other way? The answer, as it had been every time he’d considered it, was no. But it didn’t make him feel any better. It was murder, pure and simple. Not war. Not self-defence. Murder.

Tiberius waited by the side with his cavalrymen. They had expected nothing more than an uneventful cruise nursemaiding the general’s daughter and it showed on the drawn, tense faces. Would they follow him? Only the gods knew, and Valerius had never placed much faith in the gods. He gripped his sword tight and it seemed to shrink in his hand as he lived the next few minutes in his mind. It was a sword that had been forged in the fires of victory. A sword of honour. The gold crown Nero had placed upon his brow might have given him fame, but the sword Suetonius Paulinus had placed in his hand had given him freedom. Freedom from the guilt of survival. Freedom to live again. Was he about to sully it?

He looked round and found Serpentius’s shrewd eyes on him. The Spaniard knew. Without a word he took the blade and returned a few minutes later with another from the Cygnet ’s armoury. Valerius nodded his thanks, but Serpentius had already turned away to focus his attention on the pirate, judging the effect of every wave and every stroke of the oar with the fierce intensity of a man who knew his life depended on it. The sword he held was a long cavalry spatha, a double-edged bludgeon of a weapon that only someone exceptionally strong could wield with any finesse. Serpentius could use it, though. Valerius had exercised with him most mornings since they had met and outmatched him only once, and that by trickery. The Spaniard could weave mesmerizing patterns with the heavy sword that left a man dazzled by a whirlwind of bright iron. Old Marcus had boasted affectionately that he could remove your liver and serve you it for dinner before you even realized it had gone, and he had only been exaggerating a little. Each of them had a dangerous job this day, but Serpentius had the most dangerous one of all.

When he heard that the Spaniard was to lead the attack, Tiberius had argued against it until Valerius explained why he had made the choice. Serpentius, the gladiator, had faced five and even six fighters in the arena and lived to tell the tale. He knew how to kill and he knew how to survive and the second of those skills was as important as the first if the men Valerius led were to get back to the ship alive.

Fight the enemy on his own ground, the naval prefect had said. Well, that was what he planned to do, but first he had to get there and then he had to stay long enough to make it count.

A cough from behind made him tear his eyes from the galley and he turned to find the sailors Aurelius had promised in a small jostling group behind him. A couple wore nervous grins, most were grave-faced, but one or two were clearly terrified. The five burliest men held axes, although only two were of the brutally effective long-handled type Valerius had hoped for. Tiberius took them aside and explained what was expected of them, and Valerius was pleased to see that none flinched when they heard their orders. He told the rest to be ready to resist any boarders from the galley and lined them up behind the buckets full of olive oil.

Four ship-lengths. He looked back to the stern where Aurelius stood by the steering platform talking urgently to the broad-shouldered steersmen — four now, for the manoeuvre he planned would place a huge strain on the big steering oars. Beside the mast waited the big Nubian sailmaster, Susco, his face tense and his eyes on the men who stood by the lines that secured the sail. It was up to them now. Aurelius assured him it could be done. If he was wrong they were as good as dead.

The outcome depended on how well the Cygnet ’s captain could judge the speed of his ship, and the speed of the galley. How well he knew the capabilities of them both. The timing had to be perfect.

The sea and the wind were rising all the time. Salt spray whipped across the deck and every few seconds the ship would lurch as another wave pounded the sternpost. Was he imagining it or had the course changed fractionally to the west? Would the captain of the galley notice?

Three ship-lengths. He could see the pirate crew as an amorphous mass with the occasional movement as they hurriedly switched places when a rower slumped forward exhausted from the mighty effort of powering the galley forward minute after muscle-tearing minute. He thought he heard a scream as another scarecrow figure went over the side, but he couldn’t be sure.

Fight them on their own ground.

It had sounded so simple when the naval officer had said it, but now, looking at the galley, so slim and so deadly as it slipped through the waves, he felt his mouth go dry. Somehow he kept his face impassive. The others deserved that much. Inside, his guts were churning and something liquid had formed at the base of his stomach. He was Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome. He had been through the fire and the iron of the Temple of Claudius and he had lived. He had faced Boudicca’s horde on the field before Colonia and he had never taken a step back. But he had never fought on a ship. Fear was a warrior’s enemy and he had never felt a fear like this. He looked at the churning waters between the galley and the Golden Cygnet and he imagined what it had been like for old Capito. What had he felt as he plunged into the depths still clutching the amphora he had chosen as his doom? Valerius adjusted his iron helmet with the reinforced crown and heavy cheekpieces, and checked the straps of his lorica segmentata, the jointed plate armour that covered his shoulders, chest and back which he had chosen rather than the pretty, but less protective, leather breastplate. The armour would be his doom if he made a single slip in the next few moments. Tiberius had set aside a shield for him. The grip had been subtly altered so that he could release it with a twist of his wrist. It was potentially dangerous, because it was less secure, but he might have to move fast and the ability to jettison it could be the difference between life and death. He slipped the walnut fist into place and took up his position at the ship’s rail a pace from Serpentius. ‘Ready?’

A dismissive snort was the only reply. Behind him, where Tiberius and his cavalrymen stood, he heard someone mutter a prayer.

Two ship-lengths. The pirates were visible as individuals now, no jeers or threats, just fierce bearded faces waiting implacably for the moment of contact.

‘Now!’ The roar came from Aurelius at the stern.

In a single smooth movement the spar holding the huge mainsail dropped towards the deck, instantly slowing the ship’s forward momentum. At the same time, the four steersmen leaned on the steering oars and the big merchantman leapt like a bucking horse, straining against the enormous pressure as the sea forced itself against the broad wooden paddles. The ship seemed to stop and turn simultaneously, its remaining impetus taking it across the path of the galley. Valerius clutched the side to steady himself. He heard a roar of surprise which immediately turned to triumph as the Cilicians concluded, as Aurelius had planned, that the Cygnet had lost a spar and was now disabled. The manoeuvre had been timed so that even the pirate’s master, a man who had spent a lifetime at sea, would have no chance to alter course. The galley would meet the bigger ship bow first, amidships, exactly as Valerius had hoped.

The pirate chief’s frantic orders rang in his ears and he saw the flash of backing oars before the galley struck the Golden Cygnet ’s hull with a heavy crash. In the same instant the first of the grappling hooks fell on the deck and were hauled back to catch the ship’s side. This was the moment. Even as the hooks landed, five of Aurelius’s crewmen hurled the contents of their buckets on to the men in the prow of the pirate galley. Of all the elements, fire is the seaman’s greatest enemy and when they felt the viscous liquid covering their bodies the pirates took an involuntary step back, then another, as they looked up in fear for the lighted torch that was certain to follow.

But there was no torch.

Only Serpentius.

The Spaniard landed like a cat on the raised platform in the bow, his sword ready and his eyes promising death. Confused by the oil, the vanguard of the boarding party took vital seconds to recover. They had crammed into the first dozen feet of the galley and were hemmed in by the rowing benches and their surviving occupants. The deck beneath them was slick with oil and their feet slithered and slipped on the planking as they fought to stay upright. The long spatha flicked out and the first pirate fell before they even realized Serpentius was among them. A growl went up and the leaders prepared to surge forward, but the gladiator’s blade was a blur of bright metal and the surge died stillborn. Instead of attacking they were forced to retreat a step, and then another.

Two steps were enough. Valerius launched himself from the deck of the Golden Cygnet and crashed on to the bucketing galley in the space the Spaniard had cleared with his sword. The wooden planking was made treacherous by the olive oil, but the sharpened hobnails of the Roman’s caligae gave him a purchase that was denied the barefooted pirates. A heartbeat later he was at Serpentius’s left shoulder smashing his shield into the bearded, wild-eyed faces in front of him. Another thud told him that Tiberius and his men were following, and a second later the young tribune’s shield locked into place beside his. Within moments they had been joined by the three cavalrymen and Serpentius was able to step back, his job done.

Valerius’s wall of shields created an impassable barrier across the narrow breadth of the scout galley, anchored at the flank by the curve of the ship’s wooden sides. The pirates could only attack two at a time up the narrow passage in the centre of the ship, or over the crowded rowing benches, and that meant they would never be able to focus enough power, momentum or numbers to break through. But it wasn’t enough. Already Valerius could hear the sound of Aurelius’s men reaching the deck behind him. And those men needed room to work.

‘On me,’ he roared. ‘Now.’ As one, the five shields battered forward with the automatic twist of the wrist that opened a gap for the lunge of the gladius. At the same time, the five men stepped into the space before the first of the wooden benches that would hamper their further progress as much as it hampered the pirate attack. Valerius was on the left of the line where his left-handed sword would do most good, with Tiberius to his right. He could feel Serpentius’s comforting presence behind him, ready to aid the hardest pressed or fill any gap in the line. Now was the moment for the pirates to feel the scorpion’s sting of the gladius. In an instant three or four of them were writhing on the deck and only the cavalrymen in the centre remained face to face with their attackers.

Chained to the bench in front of Valerius, a blackened husk of a man with shoulders whipped to raw meat by the overseer’s lash raised his hands and pleaded for release. But the chains were an inch across and the only way they could be removed was if the galley were to be captured. Valerius had always known that six men could never take the ship.

‘Two inches in the right place is better than six in the wrong one.’ He heard the words of his first instructor as the triangular point of his short sword punched through the breastbone of the captive oarsman and into his heart. The man’s eyes widened and his body slumped to the side, leaving just enough room for Valerius to take another step into the centre of the ship. If he could not kill all the pirates, the only way to save the Golden Cygnet and Domitia was to disable their vessel. The galley slaves had to die so that the general’s daughter might live.

The slaughter had begun.

Valerius had killed before, more times than he could count, but the men he had killed had either been trying to kill him or deserved to die. He had never done murder. He took another step forward, screaming at the pirates to come to him, and his sword flicked out again. More than anything else he wanted to take a life that deserved to be taken, as if that would cleanse him of the slaughter of innocent men. When he had landed on the pirate galley’s bow he had felt a terror that had never affected him on land. The lurching deck and the cramped confines of the fragile wooden hull tested his courage and his confidence. But now that the killing had begun, the battle calm settled over him.

A hulking unshaven brute in a loincloth clambered between the slaves at the rowing benches and stabbed at his eyes above the shield with a short spear. Valerius used the curved rim of the scutum to force the point up and was rewarded by a howl as his gladius pierced the man’s unprotected belly, spilling blood and entrails on to the boards. To his right, Tiberius and the man beside him carved a path through the pirates in the central aisle. The water in the ship’s bilge swirled and slopped an awful slaughterhouse pink and Valerius’s nostrils filled with the stink of gore and oil, raw fear, ingrained sweat and the dried shit that painted the galley sides.

An enormous figure, naked to the waist and with a shaggy pelt like a bear, burst from the pirate ranks and vaulted the rowing benches on the right of the Roman line. Before the cavalryman facing him could react, the giant tore the man’s shield from him and tossed it away, then picked the soldier up and threw him shrieking over the galley’s side. The big pirate howled in triumph and turned towards the next man in the shield line, but before his comrades could profit from his victory Serpentius had stepped forward and sunk his long sword into the man’s belly, ripping the blade free with a twist of his wrist. The Cilician collapsed disbelievingly into the ship’s bottom and the Spaniard snarled defiance at his enemy and called more of them forward to die.

They had won three benches before Valerius heard the sound he had been waiting for. The sharp thunk of axes chopping into the galley’s wooden hull brought a howl of dismay from the pirates and a screamed order from their captain that launched a ferocious attack on the Roman line. Another spear flicked off the rim of Valerius’s shield and caught him a glancing blow on the cheekplate as he fought off two pirates, one of them, he noticed dispassionately, in a rusting Roman helmet of a pattern that hadn’t been in use since the days of Pompey the Great. With a cry, the first of the men fell into the gap between two rowing benches where a galley slave already cowered. For a moment Valerius puzzled over whose sword had accounted for the pirate: it was a mistake that almost killed him. Just in time he sensed movement and darted a look towards his feet. The pirate had wriggled below the benches and was now readying his sword to stab upwards into the Roman’s unprotected groin. It was too late to bring his own sword round to meet the blow, and evasive action was impeded by the body of an oarsman he had killed earlier. He saw the fierce light in his killer’s eyes even as an axe blade from behind split the grinning head in two, spattering blood and brains on his legs. He shouted his thanks to his saviour, who turned out to be Julius, the lookout, but the sailor was already gone, throwing an oar overboard and bringing his big axe down to bite into the ship’s bottom with all his weight behind it. How long had they been fighting? Valerius had no idea, but the bloody water at his feet reached past his ankles now. The ship was holed and that meant they couldn’t fight for much longer. The other pirate galleys would be closing fast. They had done what they could. Now they had to do the impossible. Without taking his eyes from his enemy he shouted the command. ‘Prepare to disengage!’

Tiberius grunted to acknowledge the order as he flicked a spearpoint aside with the edge of his shield.

‘One step at a time, on my shout… Now!’

Somehow keeping his shield steady and fending off his attackers, Valerius made the awkward step back over the rowing bench and the body that was still chained to it. He could only hope that the other men were doing the same. In front of him the pirate crew howled as they realized what was happening and renewed their attack with redoubled fury.

He risked a glance at the boards and saw water gushing through a jagged hole low down on the side of the boat. A sword stabbed at his throat, forcing him to duck behind his shield, and another hacked at the leather covering, drawing splinters from the wood.

‘Now.’

At last, the galley walls began to curve inwards and he could hear cries from the Golden Cygnet as the axemen clambered back on board. ‘Tiberius,’ he cried. ‘Get your men out of here. I’ll close on you and we’ll hold them from the centre. Serpentius? You follow them.’

By now the pirates were fighting with the frenzy of the damned as they realized they had to regain control of the galley before it sank under them. He could hear the captain’s roars above the howls of the gutted and maimed and the groans of the dying. Someone must have found a bow, because for the first time arrows began to zip past Valerius’s head. One hit his shield with a sharp crack and a cry from behind told him another of the shafts had struck home. He felt hands working at his waist below his armour, but he didn’t have time to wonder what was happening.

‘Tiberius?’

‘Sir,’ the tribune gasped. His own breath rasping in his throat, Valerius found he was uncommonly pleased that the younger man was showing signs of tiring. At least it showed he was human.

‘When I move forward, you go.’

‘I can hold them.’

‘That’s not a suggestion, tribune. Get back to the ship. Now!’ As he shouted the word Valerius smashed his shield at the pirates contesting the narrow passageway. He hadn’t worked out what came after. All that mattered was to give Tiberius and his men time to escape. The other galleys would be almost on them now and Aurelius had orders to get the Golden Cygnet under way before they were in a position to threaten him, no matter who was left on board. Sword blades clattered against the big wooden shield and he knew it was only a matter of time before someone worked their way over the oar benches to flank him, or stabbed his legs beneath the shield. The pressure was almost unbearable. He remembered the last moments in the Temple of Claudius and realized he was grinning.

‘Lord? Valerius?’ His heart quickened further at Serpentius’s shout. ‘Now.’

A hail of spears arced over his head into the crowded passage in front of him and the pirate crew hesitated for a precious moment.

With a twist of his wrist the shield dropped free and he ran.