Rome's executioner

CHAPTER VIIII

By the time they got back to the ship it was early evening and too late to sail. Rhaskos had slept most of the afternoon away but had not looked at all refreshed upon waking. He had refused to tell them what reply he had received from Amphiaraos; all he would say was that he had been spoken to in his dream by the Hero and that he was now contemplating the meaning of the message. Whereas that morning they would all have found some amusement in the situation, now even Sabinus was taking Rhaskos seriously; not because they believed in the curse but because they were curious to see if the slave fever would disappear through Amphiaraos’ intervention.

After a mild night lying on the open deck beneath a swathe of stars, thickened by the early setting of the moon, Vespasian awoke to a turquoise dawn sky feeling refreshed. He had been lulled asleep by the gentle sound of water lapping against the hull but now this had been replaced by a more strident sound: waves breaking on the rocky cove. He felt the ship swaying beneath him and sat up immediately; a cool breeze blew in his face.

All around him the ship was coming to life. Half of the forty-man crew were bending the main- and foresails on to their respective yards, then furling them ready to be hauled up the masts, whilst the rest were preparing to weigh the fore and aft anchors. Rhaskos moved around the deck like an excited hound, barking at everyone and baring his teeth and growling at the slightest error or sign of slacking, such was his anxiety to be under way as fast as possible.

‘What do you make of that, sir?’ Magnus asked, giving Vespasian a thick cut of cold pork and a cup of well-watered wine. ‘A fucking wind, eh, who’d have thought it? What a weird place.’

‘That was some strange stuff we saw yesterday,’ Vespasian agreed, biting off a hunk of pork. ‘Where’s Sabinus?’

‘Ah well, he’s a bit too busy to be joining us for breakfast, if you take my meaning,’ Magnus replied, pointing towards the bow.

Vespasian turned to see his brother leaning over the side, convulsing violently.

A series of loud orders from Rhaskos through a speaking-trumpet caused the fore-anchor detail to start to heave on their cable. As the anchor — a small boulder — cleared the water the stroke-master began his monotonous beat and the slaves started to back oars. The ship eased gently away from the cove then, as the aft-anchor cable tautened, began to swing round. The huge quinquereme came parallel to the shore and Rhaskos shouted through his trumpet again. The aft-anchor detail heaved hard on their cable and the anchor lifted from the seabed; below on the oar-deck the slaves, as one man, reversed stroke and the ship started to glide forward. Once the aft anchor had been secured on deck another series of shouts caused the mainsail hands to start hauling on a halyard, raising the yard aloft. When it was in position six men clambered up the rope ladder on the mast and made their way, three on either side, along the footropes of the yard. At another signal from Rhaskos they released the brails, unfurling the sail that flapped in the wind until its sheets were tallied. The wind snapped the sail taut, the drumbeat from the oar-deck accelerated and Vespasian felt the ship lurch forward.

‘Thanks to our Mother Bendis for this wind,’ Rhaskos called to the sky as the crew went forward to deal with the foresail.

‘Shouldn’t it be Amphiaraos you should be thanking?’ Vespasian asked, walking over to him at his position between the steering-oars.

‘No, this is Bendis’ work,’ Rhaskos replied with a grin and shouted another series of orders through his trumpet.

The yard was hauled up the forward-raked foremast and soon the foresail was set and the ship put on another turn of speed.‘What makes you so sure that it wasn’t Amphiaraos?’ Vespasian continued when Rhaskos’ attention was again free from nautical matters.

‘Because the dream that he sent me was so fanciful I can’t understand it and so I haven’t done what he suggested.’

‘You still believe that the ship is cursed then?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘So why have we got a wind?’

The old trierarchus smiled; there was a self-satisfied glint in his eye. ‘Because whilst I was communing with the Hero yesterday, as insurance I had my crew sacrifice the third ringleader to Bendis, under the mast. They cut his body in two and placed a half on either side of the ship then walked between it with the sails to purify them and themselves. The Macedonians do the same sort of thing with a dog but we find a human much more potent.’

Vespasian raised his eyebrows slightly; Rhaskos’ religious fervour had ceased to amaze him. ‘Well, it seems to have worked,’ he conceded, ‘but what about the slave fever, has that gone?’

‘No, we’re still cursed in that respect; over a quarter of them are suffering from it now.’

‘So why don’t you do whatever Amphiaraos told you in your dream?’

Rhaskos shook his head mournfully. ‘Because it seems so ridiculous, and it would be suicide.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Yes. Perhaps I should have more faith in the Hero but I just can’t bring myself to do what he suggested.’ He looked at Vespasian apologetically. ‘I dreamt that I took a slave by the hand and in return for his oar I gave him a sword.’

The breeze and the stroke-master’s beat remained steady; the day wore on. The extreme heat had diminished with the arrival of the wind and conditions on deck were much improved. On the oar-deck, however, the fever was spreading gradually and the slave-master had been forced to abandon the lowest level of thirty oars on each side, operated by single slaves, leaving just the middle and top rows working, both operated by pairs of slaves. The resulting loss of speed irked Rhaskos, who kept up a constant stream of entreaties to his various gods.

Keeping a mile or so out to sea, the ship slid past the bay of Marathon and on down the Attic coast. After two days they crossed the Saronic Gulf to the Peloponnese, weaving through the numerous trading vessels making their way to and from the port of Piraeus in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Early in the morning on the fifth day they approached the strait between the southern tip of the Peloponnese and the island of Cythera. Vespasian and Magnus were leaning on the bow-rail watching the dry coastline pass by, so clear through the pure air that, even at a distance, individual trees could be picked out on its hills. Sabinus joined them, looking pale and none too steady on his feet although he had not been sick for a couple of days now.

‘We’ll be making the crossing to Italia soon,’ Vespasian said, idly turning his attention to a couple of distant trading ships some three miles ahead. ‘What happens when we get to Ostia?’

‘We’ve got to get the priest to Antonia,’ Sabinus replied weakly, leaning against the rail, ‘and then we wait.’

‘For what?’ Magnus asked.

‘For Macro to tell us how and when to get Rhoteces to Capreae.’

Magnus looked alarmed. ‘Hold on a moment, there’re two things in that sentence that I don’t like the sound of: Macro and Capreae. Why’s this the first that I’ve heard mention of them?’

‘Yes, Sabinus,’ Vespasian said, equally as alarmed, ‘why haven’t you told me about Macro’s involvement before?’

‘Oh, so he’s told you about taking Rhoteces to Capreae then, but you just didn’t bother to mention it to me, did you?’ Magnus sounded aggrieved.

‘That’s because you don’t have to come.’

‘Are you going?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, so am I. And what’s Macro got to do with this?’

‘Antonia’s using him as our route to Tiberius,’ Sabinus replied. ‘In return she’ll commend his loyalty to the Emperor and recommend that he uses him to replace Sejanus. It’s an alliance of convenience.’

‘Well, it don’t sound too convenient to me,’ Magnus grumbled. ‘The last time we saw Macro he was trying to prevent us getting out of Rome; I tried to take his head off and he left a dagger in Vespasian’s leg.’

‘Magnus is right, Sabinus; and he would have got a good look at us both.’

‘Yes, and I don’t suppose he’ll be too pleased when he gets a good look at the two of us again, if you take my meaning.’

‘Well, I doubt that Antonia’s going to change her plans just because you’ve had a difference of opinion with Macro,’ Sabinus said dismissively. ‘Anyway, he’s working with us now so I’m sure that he’ll be happy to put the past behind him — if you ask him nicely and give him his dagger back, that is,’ he added with a thin smile.

‘Very funny, Sabinus,’ Vespasian snapped, ‘but I don’t intend to get that close to him.’

‘You might not have a choice,’ Magnus said darkly and stomped off to the other end of the ship to where Sitalces was sitting with Artebudz and Drenis under the awning.

Vespasian swallowed hard; he did not fancy coming face to face with Macro but it seemed that it was going to be unavoidable. Contemplating the problem, he turned his attention back to the two distant ships and watched with interest how they were forced to tack with the wind, zigzagging to negotiate the narrow strait between the island and mainland. Even at its reduced speed the quinquereme was slowly overhauling them as it made the passage on a straight course, under oars.

‘Do you have any more surprises in store for me, Sabinus?’ Vespasian asked after a while. ‘It would be nice to know now whilst there’s still time to think about them.’

‘I’ve always told you whatever you needed to know at the time,’ Sabinus replied testily.

‘No you haven’t, you’ve only told me what you thought I needed to know. If we’re to work together effectively we need to share everything because it’s impossible to make the right decisions without all the information. You weren’t aware that I had come across Macro so you didn’t think it important to tell me that his interests and ours are now aligned.’

‘You should’ve told me that you’d come across him in the first place.’

‘He was trying to arrest me on the Aemilian Bridge four years ago; the way I saw it he was just another Praetorian doing his duty. I would have mentioned it if I’d known that he’s now changed sides.’

‘So I’ve told you now; what difference does it make?’ Sabinus snapped, hating being lectured to by his younger brother.

Vespasian fought to retain his temper. ‘The very fact that Macro has got to where he is in the Praetorian Guard shows that he is a man of ruthless ambition and not one to let bygones be bygones. He will have his revenge on me if he sees and recognises me, there’s no doubt about it. The question is whether his desire for revenge will interfere with whatever plan we put into place to get Rhoteces in front of the Emperor.’

‘He would be a fool if it did.’

‘You might think so, but pride is blind. I left him sprawling in an undignified heap in the dust; he may well think that the slight to his dignitas is too much to bear and use the opportunity to stick a knife between my ribs, just to make himself feel better, even if it jeopardises everything else.’

Having met the man Sabinus could see that his brother’s hunch might not be so far from the truth. ‘You could be right, I suppose,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll just have to try and keep you away from him.’

‘How will that be possible?’

‘We’ll see, but I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about him before, Vespasian.’

‘So, any more surprises then, Sabinus?’

A shout from the forward watch, just next to them, cut short any reply.

‘Trierarchus! Dead ahead.’

Vespasian looked up. A trireme had appeared from behind the headland at the tip of Cythera and was speeding towards the two traders, now no more than a mile away.

Rhaskos came running forward for a closer look.

‘Oh, Bendis help me,’ he wailed. ‘Pirates, and we don’t have the men to fight them off. We are truly cursed.’

‘The sun’s low behind us. We must be in its glare on the water — they haven’t seen us yet,’ Vespasian observed. ‘Let’s just leave them alone. They’ll be more than happy with what’s on board those two traders.’

‘We could try to sail past,’ Rhaskos replied, ‘but that will only arouse their interest. They’d expect a ship of this size to try and intervene; if we don’t they’ll assume that we’re either undermanned or carrying someone or something too precious to warrant risking. Either way they’ll come after us.’

‘What about turning and running?’ Sabinus suggested.

‘That will definitely tell them that we’re scared and with so many of the slaves too ill to row they’d catch us in a couple of hours. The only thing to do is to call their bluff. I’ll have Gaidres and his men arm the crew and we’ll sail straight for them as if we’re going to ram them and pray to every god that you can think of that they run.’

‘How many bows do you have?’ Sabinus asked, thinking of his only previous encounter with pirates.

‘More than we have crew,’ Rhaskos replied as he ran back to give the order to Gaidres to break out the ship’s weaponry.

Up ahead the trireme had reached the first of the traders. Vespasian watched as grappling hooks flew over the little ship’s stern and it was hauled into a deadly embrace. A stream of men flooded from the pirate galley on to their prey. By now they were close enough to hear the screams of the defenders float across the water as they were cut down within the close confines of their small, nautical world. The second trader sailed on.

By the time the first trader was taken the quinquereme’s crew and Gaidres with his men had assembled on deck. Each was armed with a bow and — much to Vespasian’s unwarranted surprise, since they were Thracians — a rhomphaia strapped on their backs.

Rhaskos shouted an order and the stroke-master accelerated the beat to attack speed. From below the sound of whips cracking over the backs of the labouring slaves intensified as they were goaded into the more rapid rhythm.

The quinquereme surged forward, its huge ram cutting through the swell, churning the water beneath its bow into white foam. It powered towards the pirate trireme, which had now spotted them and was in the process of hurriedly disengaging from its newly acquired prize. The skeleton crew left aboard the trader cast off the grappling hooks and the trireme, with surprising speed, executed a 180-degree turn, bringing it round to face the quinquereme. They were not going to run.

Gaidres immediately started to organise the crew into small units, each commanded by one of his marines, and positioned them around the ship ready to pump volleys of arrows into the pirate’s crowded deck. A couple of deck-hands were circulating with skins of water. Magnus pushed through the milling crewmen with Sitalces, Artebudz and Drenis in tow.

‘Looks like they mean to take us head to head,’ he observed calmly, handing a bow and quiver each to Vespasian and Sabinus; he then adjusted the rhomphaia he had taken from the dead Ziles, which hung down his back, and took his place at the rail.

Sabinus notched an arrow and smiled grimly, all traces of seasickness having disappeared beneath the rush of adrenalin. ‘A few good volleys should see off this rabble before they get anywhere near us,’ he said with confidence as the quinquereme passed the headland at the northern tip of Cythera.

The ships were now less than a half-mile apart. Vespasian’s mouth dried as the distance between them lessened with every beat of the stroke-master’s drum. He reached for his sword hilt and pulled on it slightly, checking that the weapon was loose in its scabbard, and then drew an arrow from his quiver. All around him men were going through their various personal rituals before combat; there was a tense silence on deck broken only by the rhythmic drumbeat and irregular whip-cracks from below.

At two hundred paces the pirates let off an ill-disciplined volley that fell short, bringing a half-hearted cheer from the Thracian crew. Gaidres shouted encouragingly in Thracian and they cheered again, this time with more conviction.

As the quinquereme’s bow was raised by the swell a second long-range volley found its mark but the shots were spent and most bounced off the hull. Of those that reached the deck only a few retained enough velocity to pierce the planking. One crewman went down with an arrow dangling from his shoulder; it was soon extracted and he took his place again, bleeding lightly, back in the line.

Gaidres shouted in Thracian and the crew raised their bows and took aim. Vespasian, Sabinus and Magnus followed suit and waited for the order to release. Gaidres lifted his arm in the air and paused, judging the rise and fall of the trireme’s bow.

At a distance of ninety paces his arm flashed down.

Over fifty arrows tore towards the pirate ship. The volley hit as its bow slipped down a trough exposing more of its deck and the hundred or so men within, felling almost a dozen of them as they let fly a ragged reply.

The drumbeat quickened and the quinquereme lurched forward into ramming speed.

Vespasian quickly reloaded and waited for the order to shoot, confident, as were the rest of the cheering crew, of Gaidres’ ability to judge the moment correctly.

Gaidres’ arm flashed down again and they released another perfectly timed volley.

The celebratory cheering as they reloaded was cut short by a cry from the larboard watch. The cheers turned into a collective groan. Vespasian looked over his left shoulder to see another ship emerge from under the lee of the headland, a mile behind them, and head straight towards them.

They were trapped.

‘There’s fuck all that we can do about them at the moment,’ Sabinus shouted, having seen the threat. ‘Let’s deal with these bastards first.’

The trireme was now less than thirty paces away. Gaidres’ arm came down again but he mistimed it; most of their third volley slammed into the pirate’s hull, causing little damage.

At a shouted order from Rhaskos the Thracian crew grabbed the side of the ship.

‘That was brace for impact,’ Vespasian shouted at Magnus and Sabinus.

‘Thanks, sir,’ Magnus shouted back gripping the rail; he had never really got the hang of Thracian.

Vespasian tensed his body against his arms and spread his feet, one in front of the other as the two ships hurtled towards each other.

At what seemed to be the very last moment the trireme veered to its left and shipped its starboard oars.

Vespasian heard Rhaskos scream an order and felt the ship reel to the right in an attempt to prevent the trireme raking its starboard oars. The pirate trierarchus was ready for this and, as the heavier quinquereme’s bow came round, he shipped his larboard oars and, with a sharp push on the steering-oars, brought his smaller, more manoeuvrable ship back into its original course to grate down its opponent’s larboard side, disgorging a close-range volley followed by a boarding party as it went by.

Whether Rhaskos’ last order included anything about shipping oars, Vespasian could not tell, but, if it had, it came too late. The pirate trireme crashed into the quinquereme’s larboard oars, cracking the thick wooden shafts like twigs, with sudden, explosive reports that belied the ease with which they snapped. The ships shuddered violently with each impact, throwing defenders and attackers alike to the deck. The slaves below shrieked in tormented agony as their oar-handles, to which they were manacled, were punched back, crunching into their faces or throats or shattering their ribcages and hurling them, bodily, off their soiled benches only to be abruptly restrained by their leg-irons, fastened to the deck. As the momentum of the trireme pushed the stumps of their oars ever back those slaves who had the misfortune not to be killed outright suffered the added torture of being stretched between their shackles until the sinews in their wrists could take it no more; hands ripped off under the intense pressure, flying through the air like macabre missiles to land with sickening thuds around the deck, causing the rising hysteria of the unharmed slaves on the opposite side to overflow into outright panic.

They ceased to row.

Without the purchase of the starboard oars the quinquereme started to spin, pulling it away from its tormentor which carried on in a straight line, its bow clearing the oars as it came level with the mast and leaving the thirty-man boarding party temporarily stranded. The violent shuddering ended and the deck became stable.

As if upon a given signal everyone got to their feet as one, each man knowing that an instant’s delay could spell death. Too close for archery, the two sides hurled themselves at each other. Vespasian leapt forward, drawing his sword as rhomphaiai hissed from their scabbards all around him; he threw himself at the shield of the nearest opponent. With no shield of his own, his left shoulder cracked into the leather-covered, wooden hoplon, knocking its wielder back a pace. A flash of iron through the air as the pirate brought his weapon down in an overarm cut caused Vespasian to parry his sword above his head, meeting his assailant’s wrist. His sword juddered and blood spurted on to his tunic as the pirate retracted his arm with a scream, leaving his hand, still grasping the sword, to clump to the deck. A quick jab to the throat put paid to the howling man; swiftly Vespasian grabbed his shield, squatted, and glanced around. To his right Sabinus and Artebudz were both grappling hand to hand in desperate wrestling matches. To his left Magnus and Sitalces were scything their way, with Gaidres, his marines and the rest of the crew, through the outnumbered and disorganised boarding party, like harvesters in a wheat field. More used to attacking ships in the southern Aegeum, where the defenders fought with swords (if at all), the pirates were buckling under the vicious assault of so many long, slicing blades, wielded two-handed, out of reach of the thrusts and cuts of their shorter weapons. Without the discipline to form a military shield wall, they let the Thracians in amongst them and they paid with their limbs and heads that now littered the blood-soaked deck.

Advancing steadily to his right, Vespasian thrust the point of his sword down through the eye of Sabinus’ opponent and then squared up to a young, desperate-looking man pointing a shaking sword nervously before him as he took a step back, on to the rail. A head spun through the air between them, spewing gore that flecked the young pirate’s face. Vespasian pounced forward; with a yelp the man threw himself overboard. Vespasian laughed.

‘What the fuck are you finding so funny?’ Sabinus growled from behind him.

Vespasian spun round to see his brother, spattered in blood, looking incredulously at him. All around the pirates, and a few Thracians, lay dead. The fighting was over.

‘I just met someone who would rather drown than die with some degree of honour,’ he replied through his mirth. ‘Although why that’s funny I don’t know,’ he added, getting himself under control.

A screamed order from Rhaskos abruptly ended the conversation. The brothers looked up. A hundred paces away the trireme had unshipped its oars and was turning back to face them, but, more worryingly, the second ship was now just half a mile away and approaching fast. As they watched it they heard the unmistakable sound of the drumbeat changing to ramming speed.

Vespasian looked over the rail. Below him, over half the oars were missing; those still in place hung limply in the water. It was obvious, even to his nautically untrained eye, that it would be some time before the ship would be able to manoeuvre. They were helpless and would be rammed and then boarded by both triremes and, without the manpower to repel two crews; Vespasian knew that they would perish.

‘Sabinus,’ he called, running towards Rhaskos at the stern, ‘take Magnus and get Rhoteces out of his cage.’

He wove his way up the chaotic deck, through crew throwing copses and limbs overboard whilst others were being marshalled by Gaidres into groups ready to repel boarders at either end of the ship. He found Rhaskos in a heated debate with the slavemaster.

‘Rhaskos,’ Vespasian shouted, cutting short the argument, ‘we need more men.’

Rhaskos looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘And just where are we going to find them in the middle of the sea?’

‘There’re over two hundred below.’

‘They’re slaves, we need them to row.’

‘But they’re not rowing now and we haven’t got the time to run; we’re going to die, as will they when the ship goes down. This is what your dream was about, you have to free them all and arm them; our cause is now theirs if they want to live.’

Rhaskos looked towards the triremes; their proximity made the decision easy. ‘You’re right; if they fight for us we may just beat off both attacks. Get Gaidres to bring all the spare weapons to the hatchway.’ He looked at the slave-master, who was standing dumbfounded, evidently worried about the vengeance that over two hundred armed slaves might wreak on him and his mates. Reading the man’s mind, Rhaskos said: ‘We’ll worry about what happens afterwards if there is an afterwards. Get the keys and unlock them all. I’ll come down and speak to them.’

Vespasian raced off to find Gaidres as a volley from the nearest trireme hailed down upon the deck, reducing the defenders’ numbers by a precious few more.

‘Fighting alongside slaves,’ Gaidres said grimly, having been told the plan, ‘that’s novel. Let’s hope they fight with us and not against us.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Vespasian said, making for the hatchway down to the oar-deck. A violent shudder ran through the whole ship, knocking him to the deck just short of the hatch. The first trireme had rammed them but fortunately had been unable to build up sufficient momentum for its bronze-headed ram to pierce the hull timbers. The second trireme definitely had and was now only three hundred paces away. Vespasian dropped his shield and scrambled down the ladder on to the oar-deck.

Rhaskos was addressing the slaves. ‘You have a choice: drown at your oars as the ship goes down or fight with us as free men, to live or die as the gods will. And remember, the pirates will chain you to your oars again if they prevail, but if we beat them off you will still be free, and I will have the Queen confirm that freedom when we return to Thracia. What’s it to be?’

Vespasian opened the door to the small forward cabin. Inside Magnus was unlocking the priest’s foot-irons whilst Sabinus restrained him.

‘Get a move on, boys,’ Vespasian urged.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Magnus asked, fumbling in his haste with Rhoteces’ chains.

‘We’re enlisting a small army,’ Vespasian replied as a large cheer went up from the slaves.

‘Unchain them,’ Rhaskos shouted above the din.

The slave-master and his mates started working up the benches, quickly turning keys for the eager ex-slaves to cast off their shackles.

‘I pray to Amphiaraos that he has shown me the right thing to do and I haven’t misread his message,’ Rhaskos said to Vespasian, brushing past him to make his way back on deck with cheering ex-slaves following in his wake.

‘What did he mean by that?’ Sabinus asked as he and Magnus hauled the still manacled and muttering Rhoteces through the cabin door.

Before Vespasian could reply a deafening crack reverberated around the oar-deck; the ship lurched to starboard, throwing everyone into the air. Sharp splinters of wood exploded all around and a bronze-headed ram burst through the hull, accompanied by the roar of gushing water and headed straight for Vespasian. It came to a sudden halt a hand’s breadth from where he lay with another booming thud as the attacking ship’s bow powered into the quinquereme’s hull. Screams of anguish filled the air. The ship rolled again, lifting the ram, which tore at the fissure, cracking through the planking with a series of ear-splitting reports. Water surged in under high pressure. As the ship rolled back the ram came thumping down on to the deck, splitting it open and crashing through, down into the bilge to crush to a pulp a handful of sick slaves unfortunate enough to be in its path. With another creaking roll the ship settled, bringing the ram back up to the oar-deck where it stayed, rocking menacingly, like a wild beast preparing to pounce, just in front of Vespasian’s face.

‘Bacchus’ bell end,’ he croaked, staring in wide-eyed horror at the ram’s bronze head; on it was engraved in Greek: ‘Greetings to Poseidon’. A piece of mangled slave plopped back down into the bilge.

Magnus recovered first. ‘Come on, sir,’ he shouted, pulling Vespasian up out of the churning water. Ex-slaves dashed past, jumping over the unsteady ram and pounding up the ladder away from the terror of the quickly flooding oar-deck. The slavemasters hurriedly unlocked the remaining rowers and joined the rush to escape. Those too maimed to walk were left behind calling pitifully for aid as the water level rose. Fingers appeared through the gratings to the bilge, but they remained locked and the ram blocked any hope of exit through the smashed deck.

Magnus pushed his way to the foot of the ladder; Sabinus dragged Rhoteces, who was gibbering with fear, behind him. Vespasian followed, his senses gradually returning, and clambered up on to the main deck.

Vespasian picked up his shield, drew his sword and looked around; it was a fearsome sight. Ahead of him pirates hurled themselves from the bow of the second trireme, still embedded in the quinquereme’s hull, and on to the deck. They crashed into the wild melee that was being fed all the time by the arrival of newly armed ex-slaves who, with the pent-up rage of years of servitude freshly released, fought like feral beasts, uncaring of their own safety as they once again experienced the exhilaration of free will. The years spent chained to their oars, incarcerated in that dark dungeon, faded in an instant as they used their powerful limbs to maim and kill, their rotten teeth bared beneath long, matted beards, screaming, almost with joy, like furies.

Seeing that the pirates were being slowly pushed back at the bow Vespasian ran up the deck to where the other trireme had fastened itself, broadside on, with grappling hooks to the Thracian ship. Here the wider front meant that more of the attackers had been able to board and the fighting was less one-sided. Having seen what happens when you let rhomphaia-wielding Thracians get in amongst you the pirates had formed a shield wall. Crouching low behind their shields, ducking beneath the deadly sweeps of the rhomphaiai, they took slow, steady paces forward and were pushing back the crew and marines, who were having difficulty holding their ground. On the flank of the fight closest to him, next to the rail, Vespasian spotted Sabinus and Magnus, both with shields captured in the last fight, standing shoulder to shoulder pushing back at the pirates’ wall; Sabinus mechanically worked his blade whilst Magnus attempted to wield his rhomphaia one-handed. Vespasian rushed to join them, taking care not to slip on the blood that flowed freely on the deck, and pushed in between his brother and the rail; he held his shield firmly in front of him and began jab and thrust.

As the pirate line steadily advanced more of their mates were able to board behind, broadening it, until all sixty of the remaining crew were aboard, adding extra weight to the scrum and putting increasing pressure on the Thracians whose line was becoming thinner as it extended. A couple of the boarders had had their legs swept from under them and lay screaming on the deck, blood spurting from their freshly carved stumps, but otherwise their line remained intact.

‘This is no fucking good,’ Sabinus wheezed as he was forced to take another step back and almost losing his balance as the ship listed suddenly to its bow, ‘we’re sinking. We need to take their ship, not the other way round.’

‘We’ll wheel them so their backs are towards the other fight,’ Vespasian grunted as he stabbed again only to connect with a wooden shield. ‘Then the slaves could take them from behind.’

‘Or the pirates will just swarm all over the deck.’

‘Not if we co-ordinate it and do it very swiftly. Listen out for my shout then quickly give ground.’

Sabinus nodded; Vespasian disengaged and rushed around the rear of the melee. He found Gaidres with Sitalces and Drenis hacking down on the tightly packed shield wall with brutal swipes of their rhomphaiai but doing little to stop its slow advance.

‘Gaidres, with me,’ he shouted. ‘Sitalces, keep the left of the line firm when the right falls back.’

The huge Thracian shouted his acknowledgement and continued to beat ferociously down on the shield in front of him.

With Gaidres closely following, Vespasian ran, downhill, to the melee at the bow. Bodies littered the deck. The ex-slaves’ furious onslaught had driven the pirates back, with heavy losses on both sides, on to their ship. Here they were fighting desperately to prevent their wild, long-haired opponents from boarding them, whilst the trireme’s rowers backed oars in an effort to extricate the ram from the quinquereme’s hull.

‘Gaidres, I need at least fifty of our rowers to follow me; can you control them?’

‘I’ll try,’ the marine replied, looking nervously at the frenzied horde.

A high-pitched, teeth-chilling, rasping grate of wood scraping wood cut in above the screams and clash of weapons and the deck listed ominously; the trireme had released itself. With the support of the ram gone the quinquereme’s bow sagged lower into the water.

‘Hurry, Gaidres,’ Vespasian urged, ‘we don’t have long.’

With a grimace Gaidres waded into the baying mob, shouting for order. Those ex-slaves armed with bows had begun a frantic exchange of fire with the crew on the retreating trireme. Men from both sides plunged howling into the churning water clutching at shafts embedded in their dying bodies.

Gaidres soon managed to get most of the ex-slaves into some sort of order and ready to charge. Checking that they would not be threatened from behind Vespasian looked over to the retreating trireme, now thirty paces away. For a brief instant he made eye contact with a familiar figure standing in the prow: the wounded pirate trierarchus from the sanctuary. His one eye blazed with fury and he hurled a stream of oaths at Vespasian before ducking down under the rail in the face of another volley from the bow-armed ex-slaves.

Thrusting the shock of the coincidence to one side, Vespasian bellowed at the top of his voice: ‘Sabinus, now!’

At the other end of the ship Sabinus heard his brother’s call and he and Magnus pulled back immediately, taking the Thracians to their left with them. Sitalces held his position in the centre and the line pivoted on him. The pirates surged forward, not sensing the trap as Vespasian and Gaidres charged up the sloping deck with more than a hundred matted-haired, shrieking savages behind them.

With their blood-lust far from sated they crashed into the pirates’ backs, ripping them open in a deluge of blood and offal with a savagery that shocked Vespasian, even as he killed. The joy of once again feeling alive was magnified for the ex-slaves as they took life after life in a killing spree almost as brutal as their existence had been for the past few years.

Caught between the torrent of rage behind them and the flashing, two-handed swipes of rhomphaiai to their front the pirates knew that they were doomed and, expecting no quarter, resolved to sell their lives dearly. They fought with an intensity that matched their foes for the last few moments of their lives as their numbers were quickly whittled down and their line thinned.

Vespasian plunged his sword into another exposed back and twisted his wrist sharply, left then right; the man screamed, throwing his head back which, with a sudden jolt and a flash of iron, toppled from his shoulders. Blood spurted from the gaping neck as the man’s heart pumped on, spraying over Vespasian. The body collapsed and the red rain cleared leaving Vespasian staring at Sitalces, eyes aflame, teeth bared, swinging his rhomphaia back towards him. With an instinctive jerk, Vespasian pulled his shield up in front of his face and the blade slammed into its rim in a cloud of sparks.

‘Sitalces, stop!’ he yelled, lowering his shield.

Sitalces paused and peered at Vespasian, then grinned apologetically. In that instant a blood-covered ex-slave leapt at him with a howl and drove a knife into the huge Thracian’s throat.

‘Nooooo!’ Vespasian shouted as Sitalces collapsed with the maddened savage stabbing repeatedly at his throat. Vespasian grabbed the man’s tangled hair and hauled him off. He twisted round, screaming unintelligibly, and thrust his knife towards Vespasian’s thigh; a blade arced down and took his arm off at the elbow and then swiped up to sever his head.

‘You filthy little cunt,’ Magnus raged, slashing his rhomphaia back down, unnecessarily ripping open the corpse’s belly.

All along the line similar scenes were playing out as the ex-slaves came through the last of the pirates and face to face with the Thracians. Warning shouts ripped through the air as the two sides collided. Although heavily outnumbered, with the longer reach of their weapons and better discipline, the Thracians managed to hold their allies off, but not before the slave-master and one of his mates had been set upon and hideously cut up. The perpetrators were summarily despatched by a hiss of rhomphiaia blades, which seemed to bring the rest out of their frenzy and the two groups lowered their weapons and stared at each other with wary distrust, breathing heavily.

An eerie silence fell over the ship.

Vespasian glanced behind him; the bow of the ship was now almost completely submerged; the quinquereme was afloat still solely because the pirate ship, now devoid of its fighting crew, was fastened to it by four straining ropes. The second trireme was now speeding towards its sister ship in an attempt to board it and prevent the Thracians from taking it as a prize.

‘Transfer to the trireme,’ Vespasian yelled, ‘and prepare to repel boarders.’

The shout suddenly brought home the precariousness of their situation to the exhausted men and the two groups silently and mutually called a truce and then quickly set about abandoning ship.

‘Archers with me,’ Sabinus shouted, leaping over the rail and on to the trireme whose bow was slowly being forced down by the weight of the sinking quinquereme. ‘We’ll hold them off as long as possible.’

Fifty or so bow-armed crew and ex-slaves followed him.

‘We take all our wounded with us, even the ex-slaves,’ Gaidres called out so that all could hear. ‘How’s the big man?’

Magnus knelt down by Sitalces and checked for signs of life. There were none. ‘He’s dead,’ he said blankly.

‘I’ll get his body on to the trireme; the Queen will want him buried with honour. Drenis!’

‘Where’s Rhoteces?’ Vespasian asked.

‘I left him with Artebudz at the stern,’ Magnus replied, watching Gaidres and Drenis bearing Sitalces away through the remaining crew and ex-slaves who were busily checking the fallen for those still alive.

‘I’ll get him; you go and get our stuff, especially that scroll.’

Magnus did not react.

‘Come on, otherwise we’ll all be joining him.’

With a start Magnus snapped out of his reverie and dashed off to retrieve their belongings from the small cabin in the stern of the stricken ship.

Bodies floated all around in the gently swelling sea; the waterline had reached the mast, down which a crewman was climbing, having saved the Thracian royal standard. Vespasian found Artebudz in amongst the chaos, hauling a screaming Rhoteces by his manacles towards the trireme. Arrows started to fly overhead as an archery duel with the second pirate ship flared up.

The quinquereme pitched suddenly. Gaidres had cut the forward rope to ease the pressure on the trireme, which was so low in the water now that its lower oar-ports were only a hand’s breadth above the surface.

‘Hurry, Artebudz,’ Vespasian called, steadying his balance as the ship settled.

‘He doesn’t want to go, sir,’ Artebudz said, pulling the struggling priest another couple of paces across the now severely lilting deck.

‘Come on, you little shit,’ Vespasian said, grabbing him by the tunic. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you want to leave your precious cursed ship?’

‘My gods will pluck me away only if I remain on a Thracian ship,’ Rhoteces screeched; religious fervour burned in his bloodshot eyes. ‘The other pirate vessel will kill you all but I will be saved if I remain here.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ Vespasian laughed as they reached the crowded rail. ‘If you weren’t so valuable to me I’d enjoy leaving you here and watching you being disappointed.’

‘I told you this ship would never reach Rome.’

‘That wasn’t too difficult to predict,’ Vespasian said with a malicious grin, hefting the priest over the rail. ‘Rome’s not a seaport; it was never going there, it was going to Ostia, so bollocks to you and your predictions.’

He and Artebudz threw the priest on to the trireme where he landed with a loud thump and a yelp. Artebudz followed him over and dragged him away.

Gaidres cut the sternmost rope and the quinquereme lurched again; bodies started to slither down the deck. ‘For the love of Bendis, hurry,’ he screamed, ‘I can’t hold her much longer.’

Desperate cries issued from the slaves manacled to the trireme’s oars as they watched the water rise ever closer to the oar-ports.

Arrows hissed through the air, the archery duel intensifying with the arrival of more and more Thracians and their unlikely allies forcing the pirate ship to lay off.

The last of the crew were leaping across as Magnus came scrambling up to Vespasian with their bags and they jumped on to the trireme. Rhaskos was the last man over the rail, clutching a strongbox and his speaking-trumpet. Gaidres and Drenis cut the final two ropes. The trireme immediately surged upwards, almost clearing the surface, and then fell back down with a jolt and a loud splash. Every one of the two hundred and more men on deck sprawled on to the deck. The pirates took good advantage of the temporary lack of return fire and many did not get back up again.

Vespasian pulled himself back on to his feet; the roar of rushing wind caused him to turn. Just behind him the quinquereme’s stern flicked upright, towering almost seventy feet above the waves, cracking the mast in two under the intolerable pressure and catapulting dead bodies through the air to land with a quick succession of splashes, like a handful of shingle cast at the sea. Foul air billowed from the oar-ports as churning water surged up through its belly; it started to slide under. Its timbers creaked and groaned in anguished cries as the once proud ship was sucked down into the depths of Poseidon’s dark kingdom to the accompaniment of cheering from its ex-oarsmen.

With a final explosion of water, which rocked the trireme, it was gone. The archery battle, which had tailed off as both crews had stopped to watch the awe-inspiring death agonies of the huge ship, resumed again with vigour as Sabinus screamed at his men for a faster rate of volleys. The pirate ship started to back its oars to escape the relentless hail of arrows. After a couple more volleys Sabinus called a halt. The two ships lay a hundred paces apart; too close together for them to be able to build up enough momentum to do much damage to each other’s oars, let alone crack open a hull, and too far apart to threaten each other with archery. They were in a stalemate.

The air became still.

As it stood, with more than 250 men on the Thracian deck, many of them bow-armed, they could not be taken by a boarding party but equally they would not have enough provisions to get to Ostia. It was obvious to Vespasian that they had to attempt to take the pirate, either to capture the ship outright or to, at least, take off its victuals before it sank. They needed to move forward, yet they were still stationary, their oars limp in the water.

He ran back to the stern where Rhaskos had taken up his position. ‘Why aren’t we moving, Rhaskos?’

‘We’re in trouble again, my friend, may the gods preserve us,’ the trierarchus replied, raising his palms to the sky. ‘The pirate slave-masters killed more than a hundred of the rowers at their oars before our men could get to them, so we can’t manoeuvre. And when the pirates realise that they’ll pull back until they’ve got enough sea-room to get up the speed to ram us.’

‘Then we need some of our rowers to take the dead ones’ places — and fast.’

‘Yes, but now they’re free how will they take rowing again, especially shoulder to shoulder with slaves?’

‘We free the slaves; I would have done so anyway as a lot of them will have been taken from Roman ships. Talk to our rowers and send a hundred down to me.’

Calling Gaidres to follow him, Vespasian made his way down on to the oar-deck. It was a scene of carnage. Corpses lay slumped over oars, despatched by vicious thrusts through their backs and chests. The survivors were sitting, hollow-eyed with fear, staring vacantly at four Thracian marines who were unshackling the dead bodies and slithering them out of the oar-ports.

‘Release the slaves first, then get rid of the bodies,’ Vespasian ordered the Thracians. They looked at him, puzzled.

‘You heard him; do it now!’ Gaidres shouted.

The Thracians shrugged and carried out their orders.

‘You will stay in your seats,’ Vespasian shouted so that all of the slaves could hear. ‘We need you to row, but now you will row as free men. If you refuse, we will all die. Are there any Roman citizens here?’

Over twenty men raised their manacled hands.

‘You’re excused rowing, go up on deck and find a weapon each.’

There was a growl of protest from the rest.

‘Silence!’ Vespasian roared. ‘A citizen of Rome does not bend his back to an oar. You, however, do not have the protection of citizenship so you will row. If we survive, we’re going to Ostia where you may leave the ship or, if you prefer, you can return east with it; it’s down to you.’

There was a muttering of assent.

The Thracian stroke-master clambered down the ladder from the main deck followed by the rowers. He looked at Vespasian, who nodded at him to take his place behind the round ox-skin drum.

With a real sense of urgency the oar-deck was cleared of bodies and the replacement rowers took their positions. Vespasian and Gaidres hurried back up on to the deck.

The mournful cries of gulls, attracted by the flotsam and jetsam of the sunken ship, filled the air as they circled overhead and dived on edible morsels that littered the sea.

‘Looks like they’ve had enough, sir,’ Magnus said, pointing to the pirate ship; it had turned and was now a quarter of a mile away, rowing quickly west.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Vespasian replied dubiously. ‘Rhaskos, the oar-deck’s ready. What do you think we should do?’

‘Pray to the gods.’

‘And then what?’ Vespasian exploded, storming up to the old trierarchus, ‘go to sleep and hope for another helpful dream? Be practical, man! Do we try and take the pirate and get his supplies? Or do we make a run for it and worry about what everyone’s going to eat later? You’re the trierarchus, you decide what we humans on this ship should do right now.’

The vehemence of his outburst caused Rhaskos to blink his eyes quickly and then look around. ‘They’re not running,’ he said lucidly, ‘it’s as I said: they’re preparing to ram us because they think that we’re still crippled. We need to sail west anyway so we should go straight at them, then they can choose: fight or run.’ He picked up his speaking-trumpet. ‘Attack speed,’ he shouted down to the stroke-master, who reacted immediately. The steady booming started; slow at first, as the ship got under way, then quickly accelerating as the oarsmen, now free and with a real stake in the survival of the ship, willingly put their backs into the matter at hand.

The pirate ship made a hurried turn as their trierarchus saw that the Thracian ship was no longer disabled but was under full oars and coming straight towards him.

‘He’s mad if he thinks he can retake this ship,’ Magnus said, coming up to Vespasian and Rhaskos, who were watching the distance start to close between the two ships.

‘He’s not mad, he’s angry. He’s lost one of his ships but he’s not lost his judgement; he won’t board us, he’ll try to sink us,’ Vespasian replied, loosening his gladius in its sheath for the second time that day. ‘There’s no way that he can win but it is still possible that we can both lose.’

‘Archers ready,’ Sabinus shouted, running to the bow.

Despite losing a hundred or so rowers to the oar-deck there were still over a hundred men on deck.

The Thracian ship shifted course slightly to the left.

‘What are you doing, Rhaskos?’ Vespasian shouted.

‘What I’m good at,’ Rhaskos replied, his eyes fixed firmly on the oncoming vessel. ‘You just worry about your job and let me concentrate on mine.’

The pirate changed direction to match. At a distance of two hundred paces apart Rhaskos veered back on to the original course; the pirate followed suit. Now they were not quite head on, leaving the pirate with a choice: to go for an oar-rake or come round more to his left and try to ram at a slight angle. With the ships a hundred paces apart he chose to ram.

‘Ramming speed!’ Rhaskos shouted through his trumpet. As the stroke accelerated he veered away from the pirate, to the right, leaving the Thracian ship broadside on to their attackers but now rowing fast enough to pass them.

‘Release!’ Sabinus shouted. Scores of arrows shot away towards the pirate ship, now less than fifty paces away; they peppered its hull and deck bringing down half a dozen more of its crew. After the first volley the Thracians kept up a constant stream of fire, forcing the pirate crew to take shelter behind the rail.

Vespasian could see the huge pirate trierarchus by the steering-oars, impervious to the rain of arrows, screaming at his men to return vollies as he tried to bring his ship back on to an interception course. But it was too late; with the ships just thirty paces apart Rhaskos ordered another turn away to the right and the pirate was now directly behind them, chasing. A smattering of arrows fell on the tightly packed Thracian deck; a few screams from the wounded rose up above the pounding of the stroke-master’s drum and straining grunts of the 180 willing oarsmen below. The archers continued their relentless barrage.

Vespasian pushed his way through to Rhaskos. The old trierarchus was grinning broadly. ‘How about that?’ he shouted. ‘I out-steered him without a single prayer; may the gods forgive me.’

‘Why did you pass him?’ Vespasian asked. ‘I thought that we were going to try and take him.’

‘Because, my young friend, when he came about and headed straight for us I realised that you were wrong. He had lost his reason; he was prepared to lose his ship just to destroy us, out of spite. It was madness and I never like to fight a madman; who knows what they will do next?’

Vespasian looked over Rhaskos’ shoulder to the chasing pirate. ‘What do we do next? He’s gaining on us.’

‘We keep running, we can keep at ramming-speed for longer than he can,’ Rhaskos replied with a wink. ‘Gaidres, send the spare rowers down in batches of twelve to relieve the others, two sets of oars at a time starting from the bow.’

Gaidres acknowledged the trierarchus and started to round up the rowers without bows.

Vespasian joined Sabinus, who was now at the stern rail. The pirate was less than twenty paces behind them and gaining slowly as the slaves on its oar-deck were whipped mercilessly to squeeze every last drop of energy from them. The swell made accurate shooting between the ships almost impossible and the pirate trierarchus still stood at the steering-oars, shouting for all he was worth, despite Sabinus’ repeated attempts to shoot him down.

‘That man’s got a charmed life,’ he muttered, notching another arrow and taking careful aim. Again the shot went wide. ‘He’s got balls just standing there, I’ll give him that.’

Gradually the relieving of the blown rowers began to reap benefits as fresh limbs pulled on straining oars. Even the Roman citizens had volunteered for duty, realising that the privileges of citizenship did not extend to the dead. The Thracian ship was beginning to pull away when the first few oars on the pirate fouled as the exhausted slaves collapsed and it started to lose way. The pirate trierarchus pulled his ship off to the south, towards Cythera, and roared his defiance until a volley of arrows sent him ducking under the rail.

‘Cruise speed,’ Rhaskos shouted.

The drumbeat slowed gradually as did the ship.

‘My thanks to Amphiaraos for showing me the way,’ Rhaskos called to the sky. ‘I will sacrifice another ram when we reach Ostia.’

‘If we get there,’ Vespasian said. ‘How are we going to feed all these people?’

‘The gods will provide. I have no doubt of it as they showed us how to escape the pirates.’

‘They didn’t show us how to defeat the pirates,’ Sabinus scoffed. ‘Wasn’t your dream about how to preserve the crew and get rid of the slave fever?’

Rhaskos looked pleased with himself. ‘Yes, but you can’t deny that releasing the slaves did preserve the crew against the pirate attack. As to stopping the sickness spreading through the slaves, I gave orders that only the ones without the fever should be released; the ill ones down in the bilge all drowned on the ship. We are free of the fever now and should be able to complete our voyage.’

Vespasian could see the truth of it: the oracle had indeed shown Rhaskos the answer to his question. He walked to the rail and, whilst enjoying the calming effects of a cool breeze and a warm sun on his skin, contemplated everything he had seen and heard at the sanctuary of Amphiaraos.

‘It seems that the sanctuary was quite a powerful place, Sabinus,’ he said quietly to his brother a short while later as they watched the pirate and the captured trader disappear to the south, past Cythera. ‘What do you make of the prophecy now?’

‘I don’t know,’ his brother replied. ‘But one thing’s for sure, I will never forget it.’

‘Neither will I,’ Vespasian agreed as their ship left the strait of Cythera and entered the Ionian Sea, heading on towards Ostia.