The Judgement

4

Three days on, they had passed several cargo ships plying the busy sea routes between Syracuse, Nicopolis, Alexandria, Antioch, Rhodes, Thessalonika. They hailed them and asked for news of pirates, and the cargomen shook their heads and said they had encountered nothing…

‘Alexander the Great once captured a pirate,’ said Prince Torismond. ‘The King demanded, “How dare you molest the seas?” “In the same way that you dare molest the earth,” said the pirate. “I molest the seas in one small ship and I’m called a pirate. If I did so with a great navy, I’d be called an emperor.”’ The prince grinned broadly. ‘That’s philosophy, that is. For what are kingdoms but great bands of brigands?’

‘Very good,’ said Aetius dryly. ‘Now define “sophistry”. ’

On the fourth morning, serenely sailing a calm sea in a gentle north-westerly, coming gradually round to north into the Aegean and losing sailpower, inshore of the isle of Melos, they saw a lone ship near the northern horizon; she was coming their way. After maybe half an hour she had come much closer, though set on a course astern of theirs. She had a big, faded sail which might once have been black but was now a light, streaked grey. One of those battered, barnacled ships that show their sailors are poor and harmless. Then she turned and came towards them with surprising swiftness, and they realised that these sailors were not of the poor and harmless variety, but contemptuous of such menial chores of maintenance as scouring a ship’s decks or keeping a trim sail. Such tasks are for slaves. These were the kind of sailors who, if their ship began to split at the seams, would simply scuttle her and take another. Meanwhile, this one was of that variety which is scruffy, grimy, and very, very fast.

Rufus stood nearby. ‘Sir, you see the other ship, too? There on the horizon?’

Aetius squinted. Damn the boy. He could see nothing. ‘Describe.’

‘Another dromond. Seems to be turning bow-on towards us… sail bellying out.’

And the wind was with them. The nearer ship was now a mile off, less. She would close on them in a few minutes.

‘We could turn south with the wind and try to outrun them – maybe reach Crete.’

Aetius did not even consider such an option.

‘Hortator, double that drum! Break your backs down there, slaves! All spearmen below the fly deck, half a side, and keep yourselves out of sight till I give the word. Bring my sword up, boy. Princes Theodoric and Torismond, to me on the poop deck – bring a few bowmen. Master, keep a steady course east. Give ’em the sun in their eyes if they try to come in behind or portside. No, you bearded Cretan loon, get below! We want none of your wretched fire-balls now. We’ll call you when the fight is over.’

The princes and their best men soon appeared on deck, buckled and helmed. Aetius’ eyes narrowed at the helmet that adorned Prince Theodoric’s blond locks.

‘What in the name of Lucifer have you got on your head?’

The rest of the wolf-lords, and Torismond, wore plain enough Spangenhelms, tall domed helmets reinforced with crossbands of iron or bronze. Theodoric, however, wore a helmet set with studs of coloured glass which gleamed from the highly polished bronze. He removed it again, looking displeased.

‘It’s an inheritance of my family, always worn by the eldest son in battle.’

Aetius took it from him without asking. ‘Very pretty it looks, too. These glass settings will really help an enemy blade get a purchase with a downard blow. Cut straight in. Very handy. Why not just take off your helmet and offer him your scalp? On your knees?’

Theodoric looked sullen.

‘This is no fighting helmet, boy.’ He handed it back. ‘Get yourself a plain iron-hat with crossbands like the rest of your men.’

‘What should I do with this?’

‘That?’ Aetius grimaced. ‘You can give it to your granny as a pot to piss in, for all I care. We’re not playing toy soldiers now.’

Torismond stifled his giggles. Theodoric returned below.

The rowers were tired and aching after two weeks at the oar, but now was the time they would have to work hardest. The wind dropped further but still the silent dromonds came on. Suddenly it seemed a cruel, flat-calm, malevolent and glittering sea. ‘Wine-dark’ indeed, thought Aetius, clutching the stern-post, watching the bosun haul the big rudder round, feeling the wind desert them. Blood-dark, more like. ‘Wine-dark’ was Homer’s lyrical view of it. Blind Homer.

The nearing vessel had a single bank of oars and a mainsail, like the Cygnus, but it boasted high parapets and a solid raised deck over the rowers to protect them from incoming missiles.

The master turned to Aetius in consternation. ‘They’ll destroy us in a missile exchange. They stand much higher, as does their sister ship coming in there.’

‘Thank God it’s no battle group,’ muttered Aetius.

‘There may be squadrons in the area,’ said the master. ‘You heard what they did on the island of Zakynthos? Sent back sackfuls of heads to their king, Genseric.’

‘We’re going to Constantinople. We have business there. I trust our rowers can still get up to ramming speed?’

‘Ramming?’ growled the master. ‘You’re crazy.’

Aetius grinned, allowing him the impertinence. He knew the score. The stately, high-sided galleys of old were always vulnerable to ramming by low, skimming Liburnians and dromonds. But those sleek wolf-ships were very vulnerable to having a huge boulder dropped onto their hull, holing them instantly. Naval warfare by dromond and Liburnian nowadays was all about keeping your distance and shooting missiles, bolts, fire-arrows – those accursed fire-pots of Alexandria. Only a madman would still practise ramming as a tactic.

‘Prepare for ramming,’ he confirmed. ‘But let ’em come in close first.’

‘Then there won’t be enough distance to get up to speed.’

Aetius did not repeat orders.

‘You think like an old legionary,’ said Prince Theodoric quietly, having overcome his sulks about the helmet.

Aetius frowned. ‘Meaning?’

Thedoric looked at him respectfully but without fear. ‘Meaning, you want to get up close to your enemy, engage face to face, looking him in the eye, and stab him in the guts with your old-fashioned gladius. You think that’s how a true-hearted man fights, and you think to do the same at sea. You want to ram and hole this pair beneath the waterline, right up close. But there are two of them, and they stand higher than us. Ram one and you will get stuck yourself. The other will come alongside and we’ll be attacked on two fronts. Each pirate ship probably carries a hundred cutthroats. My wolf-lords are valiant beyond words, but they are not superhuman. They will all be destroyed.’ The young prince braced his shoulders. ‘And I will not have them destroyed.’

This haughty, blue-eyed prince in his gold-fillet, an unsalted adolescent, offering criticism of his naval tactics…? But Aetius quelled his indignation. ‘Trust me,’ he said.

The second ship was a mile or two off now, moving in close astern. They were to be surrounded, as expected. But the Cygnus would surprise them. Never do the expected. Alchemical Alexandrian fripperies won no battles, but rather courage, discipline, and a dash of the wholly unexpected. Aetius grinned. It was good to be fighting again.

Before boarding at Massilia he had ordered a big grappling-iron and a couple of boarding-planks from the naval stores. Now he commanded them to be brought up and laid at the stern of the ship, the grappling-iron roped.

‘The stern? But we’re ramming at the bow!’

‘Just follow orders, sailor.’ He went below.

They were magnificent men but they looked terrified, these Gothic spearmen, sea-green and shaky. The massive clunk of the ram, the sounds of battle at sea, would terrify them. They were fine and powerful, but barbarian and undisciplined. Today they might die, here in these salt wastes far from home. How could a sea death be a heroic death? Food for fish. It was not the Visigothic way. They looked to their princes and this commander, this Aetius, the Roman beloved of King Theodoric, and saw that he did not have the aura of death about him today.

Prince Torismond appeared beside Aetius.

‘Trust me,’ said the general again. ‘Consider the regard I have for your father. There is no Christian king finer, and you are his sons. You are in my care.’ Would that King Theodoric cared so much for his daughter, he thought bitterly.

Torismond looked a little reassured.

He sent further orders to the master. ‘Unchain the slaves now. The instant we ram, pull them back from below. You understand? To the stern. Shift the ballast to the bows. Our foredeck will soon be smashed in from above by pirate missiles. Keep the wolf-lords hidden until the moment I give the order. And ready your sailors to throw out the grappling-iron.’

‘Where?’

‘The second ship,’ said Aetius patiently.

‘How do you know she’ll come anywhere near?’

‘She’ll come. Hook her in, then throw out the boarding-planks.’

The pirates must have been flogging their enslaved rowers nearly to death, their vessels came on so fast. The first was only half a mile off now, the second still two or three miles off but closing fast.

‘Pull us up to full speed.’

‘We can’t outrun them.’ The master was right. The first pirate ship was already turning, ready to cut across their bows.

‘I don’t intend to outrun them. I intend to engage them.’

The rowers were driven harder.

From the nearing enemy ship, a couple of exploratory arrows came over the water but fell short. At the prow they could see her captain, narrowing his eyes. Very tall and whip-thin, with long, lank hair, bleached fair in sea and sun. He was naked but for a thick gold torc round his neck, torn breeches and a wide sword-belt, sword bare in his hand. More of his cutthroats sat along the yardarm with bows and arrows.

The Cygnus surged forward steadily, the pirate ship inexorably gaining on her, curving in tight. Away to their right was the little sunlit island of Melos. The Visigothic spearmen crouched below, beside the unchained slaves. The two ships closed slowly, amid the vast serenity of the sea.

Not taking his eyes from the enemy ship for one second, Aetius said to the brothers beside him, ‘You can swim, can’t you?’

They shook their heads miserably.

‘Then today you might have to learn – either that or make sure we don’t go down. Order your wolf-lords well.’

As she closed, they could see the pirate ship better: the Draco, with a saurian red dragon painted along the boards. Rufus squinted across to the second ship, which was giving them a wide berth, coming in astern; her prow was scratched with crude runes.

‘The Vandal tongue,’ said Aetius.

‘It looks like “ Halfish ” or something.’

‘Haifisch – the Shark.’ He roared below, ‘Wolf-lords at the ready!’

The master looked deeply unhappy.

Suddenly the Draco hauled round, her oars digging into the backwash, and came broadside on to this helpless fleeing merchant ship, blocking her off.

‘These pirates must be just out of school,’ murmured Aetius. ‘Ramming speed – now!’

Immediately the hortator ’s drum below accelerated into a furious rhythm, and the bosun’s lash whipped through the fetid air below. The slaves hauled on their oars, blistered and bleeding hands straining in one last effort, and the Cygnus surged forwards, straight towards the Draco.

The pirates stared at the oncoming ship, dumbfounded. The Haifisch altered course again to keep up with it.

‘That’s it,’ muttered one old hand. ‘We’re finished now. Good as sunk.’

‘Correct,’ said Aetius, arms folded, smiling. He strode to the stern and dropped down. The wolf-lords sat crammed along the sides of the underdeck clutching their spears in their huge hands, yet looking like men about to go into arena naked and unarmed, or to their execution. Aetius nodded to them. He told them not to be afraid. He told them their one hope of survival now, and it was a good one. ‘Lay aside your ashwood spears,’ he said. ‘This is close-up sword-work.’ He explained what they must do. ‘Imagine you’re taking a castle,’ he said. ‘If you fail to take it, you drown. We all drown – food for the circling Haifisch.’

The wolf-lords drew their swords.

The pirate ship wallowed and struggled, trying to turn again from this impossibly belligerent prey, even as her ragged archers let loose their arrows onto the exposed decks but hit nothing. The Cygnus’ bronze-headed ram, more decoration than weapon of war these days, drove on through the water like some terrible sea serpent, white ripples curling back over its length. The master bellowed down below, the lash flailed. They were but fifty yards off, thirty, twenty… The pirate ship staggered and lurched as they slammed into her amidships with a terrible splintering crash. It wasn’t top ramming-speed but it was enough. The ramhead punched straight through the bulwarks of the astonished Draco, and the sea began to pour in.

It was a pact of mutually assured destruction. Immediately, the enraged pirates began to lever huge missiles, boulders and lumps of lead up over the high sides of the wounded Draco and drop them onto the decks of the pestilent prey below. One went straight through the oak deck and into the shivering rowing-hold beneath. But the master had followed Aetius’ orders to the letter: the unchained slaves were already pulled back from their rowing benches. The timbers were smashed but no men were hurt. The wooden walls of that narrow world began to collapse and the dark waters surged in.

Torismond had a vision of the ship, a puny raft of life afloat on a black and infinite abyss, full of death, of creatures unknown, spawn of moonlight and black night. And this raft was being smashed to splinters beneath them. It was insanity. They would all die. But Aetius had said to trust him. Very well. He drew his sword. War’s no sorcery, and bravery alone wins battles. That was Aetius’ creed, as the prince was learning. Like his loyalties, and his haircut, hopelessly old-fashioned.

The Haifisch was drawing behind them, determined to avenge the damage to her sister ship.

‘Loyalty among pirates,’ sneered Aetius. ‘Wonders are many! Throw out the grappling-iron!’

The great barnacled claw rang hard upon the Haifisch ’s sides and then fell back into the water. Instantly the sailors hauled it up and threw it out again. Theodoric needed no instruction to give them covering fire as surprised pirate archers tried to hit them. His own close band of half a dozen Visigothic archers returned far more aggressive fire, and the pirates ducked behind their bulwarks, as surprised as the crew of the Draco at this unexpected belligerence. They were supposed to be taking prey. Now the prey was taking them.

The grappling-iron flew spinning out again, slipped against the planking and then one barbed tine dropped and stuck hard over the lip of an oar-port. Perfect. Too low for a pirate to sweep down a sword-blade to cut it away, even if any dared brave the Visigothic arrows. Already the pirates were beginning to wonder if loyalty to their sister ship was such a good idea. There was only a handful of archers on this enemy ship, plus that hard-faced Roman commander in his red cloak, who’d fetch a good ransom if taken alive. But still, the pirates felt ill-omened. One of them was already nursing an arm struck with a white-feathered arrow. There was something they hadn’t understood today.

A pirate stood up and loosed a javelin towards a sailor, but the nimble Libyan skipped aside and it stuck quivering in the deck. He pulled it free and lobbed it back. Not a serious throw, but the pirate ducked back smartly, cursing.

‘Haul in!’ roared Aetius.

The sailors set their callused bare feet against the boards of the Cygnus and obeyed. Slowly, very slowly, the Haifisch began to drift in helplessly, broadside on. There was an angry cry from above, an order or warning from its captain. But it was too late.

There came another monstrous crash from the bows. The Cygnus’ splintered deck was holed again, and the mainmast began to lean forward. Water was flooding in below, floating the ballast of sand barrels. The ship groaned and began to tilt sickeningly forwards. The mainmast creaked ominously.

‘Haul for your lives if you’d live to see tomorrow!’ bellowed Aetius. Soon the Haifisch jolted against the poop of the Cygnus, which was raised up by the counterweight of the water pouring into her bows.

Raised up. Nearer and nearer to the high parapet of the pirate ship. The master breathed out slowly, his bafflement and fear at last turning into something else. The timbers of his beloved Cygnus were creaking and screaming, the poor vessel tearing herself apart at the seams, yet serving in her very death throes as an unexpected siege-engine for boarding the hooked Shark at their rear. He felt a surge of hope, and sudden admiration for this obdurate Aetius. Master-General of the West, was he? Then maybe the West was in good hands.

‘More ballast to the fore!’

A crazy order on a sinking ship under assault, but now the master understood. A couple of lithe, sun-blackened sailors scrambled below, leaping over the straining line of the grappling-rope and rolling the last barrels down the steepening incline of the lower deck. The prow sank further in the water, the ram stuck into the belly of the Draco grinding her down into the depths with it. The poop deck rose further.

Aetius grinned at the princes. ‘Think your wolf-lords can vault that now?’

Theodoric nodded. ‘No problem.’

‘Then take it.’

‘Wolf-lords!’ The old Gothic war-cry.

The magnificent warriors, needing no second bidding to escape the fetid and drowning darkness, driven by a powerful mix of fear and battle-fury, came buckled and armoured up the steps at a run, shining blades in hand. The pirates looked down in shock at this erupting tide of red cloaks and straw-coloured plumes. What in Hell’s name had they taken on? This was no ordinary ship. They would be lucky to escape with their lives.

With the ships locked together in their fatal embrace, the crew of the Draco had fallen silent and inactive. At the appearance of the wolf-lords, however, they realised that the battle was on to take charge of the Haifisch, the only seaworthy ship left of the three. In an instant they were swarming over the sides of their own listing vessel and dropping down onto the foredeck of the Cygnus, now almost at water level. They tried to fight their way up, but the deck was slippery and sloped against them. Another foresight of Aetius’. As they scrambled up, they were met by three men with drawn swords, two fair-headed adolescents and an older, grey-haired fellow with a certain look in his eyes which suggested he’d seen battle before. Soon the decks were more slippery still with Vandal blood. For a few seconds Aetius, Torismond and Theodoric manned this second front alone, swords sweeping and thrusting, cutting down the oncoming pirates with ruthless despatch, letting the slain fall back into their scrambling comrades. Then the Visigothic archers loosed arrows in from the sides, and the pirates of the Draco knew the day was lost along with their ship. Now they understood very well the temper of those they had so foolishly chosen to attack this bright summer’s day. There was nothing left for it. They threw themselves into the sea.

The handful of scrawny pirates on the Haifisch were similarly outfought. Accustomed to taking harmless passenger vessels for kidnap and ransom, or fat, wallowing cargo ships laden with amphorae of oil and wine, they were stricken helpless. No match for the fifty Gothic wolf-lords vaulting in over the high bulwarks, swords drawn, teeth bared, long hair flying. There was hardly a fight to be had, to the wolf-lords’ considerable disappointment. Though unable to swim, like most sailors, who superstitiously regard the skill as a kind of temptation to fate, the second crew, too, gave themselves up to the dark, still waters of the Aegean. Any who lingered were swiftly cut to pieces, their lifeless bodies following into the foaming pink brine.

There came a strange sound from behind, like the bubbling of a drain in a rainstorm, though far greater, more sonorous. The rumbling of some vast and nameless sea creature, perhaps. It was the Cygnus at last going down, joined prow to broadside with the Draco in fatal embrace. The masts of the two ships collapsed into each other like tired lovers. The timbers creaked, the decks were washed and swamped. From below decks on the Draco, anguished cries: the pirates had not troubled to unchain their oar-slaves. And then, amid the cries of terror and lamentation, cries of desperate hope.

Aetius glanced around. Torismond had vanished.

The slaves of the Cygnus, meanwhile, were swarming after the Gothic swordsmen to the safety of the abandoned Haifisch. Then came the sailors, then Aetius and Theodoric, and finally the master himself, kneeling only to kiss the decks of his dying ship in time-honoured tradition, before abandoning her to the seas.

Slaves were emerging above deck on the half-drowned Draco and rolling over into the water. Theodoric watched anxiously.

‘Neither you nor your brother can swim, you say?’ said Aetius.

Theodoric could not speak.

‘He’s going to have to learn today.’

The sailors pulled up the last of the boarding planks, and the little Libyan scrambled down the side of the ship, holding on by one hand and with the other slashing through the grappling-rope that still tied them to the drowning ships.

Aetius nodded admiringly. ‘If you weren’t just a common sailor, I’d recommend you for promotion.’

The sailor flashed a white-toothed smile. ‘A gold solidus will do instead, my lord.’

Aetius regarded him steadily. Then he slipped a hand inside his cloak and produced a big gold coin. He glanced down. It showed Valentinian himself, the martial emperor, dragging a barbarian by the hair. Around the rim it read, ‘Unconquered Eternal Rome, Salvation of the World.’ He flicked his wrist and the gold coin arced and flashed in the air and the sailor caught it.

‘Don’t believe all you read on it, though,’ muttered Aetius.

At the prow of their fine new ship, a less than happy sound: Nicias wailing for his vanished alchemical chests.

‘Shame,’ murmured Aetius.

And last of all, paddling through the water like a puppy, breathless and ungainly but not actually choking or drowning, Prince Torismond, Saviour of Slaves. Theodoric threw out a line and hauled him up. After that, the slaves of the Draco came scrambling aboard the heavily laden Haifisch as well.

‘This is going to slow us up,’ grumbled Aetius.

‘We’ll sell ’em at the next port,’ said Torismond, his eyes glittering excitedly. He shook the saltwater from his hair, thrilled to have braved the sea and survived.

‘And spend all the proceeds on wine and girls, I suppose? ’

The brothers just laughed.

They watched the two ships go down amid huge, slow bubbles. Further off, what pirates were still afloat circled, exhausted, or clung to broken spars. Aetius ranged over them until he settled on the long, pitiless, expressionless face of the captain. He pointed him out to one of the Visigothic archers. The captain gazed steadily back, not moving, his pale hair plastered to his gaunt cheeks, his pale blue eyes fixed on Aetius, his lips moving with the words of some ancient curse. The archer lined up his arrow and fired, and the arrowhead hit him between the eyes. His head sank back, his arms floated out beside him, and they left him there gazing heavenwards, his mouth still open, the words of the curse still on his salt-white lips.

Some of the other pirates had begun to swim towards the captured Haifisch, their last hope, but at this they realised they would be speared in the water.

Aetius sent the lookout up to the fighting-top.

The lookout pointed in a direction just south of the sun. Aetius vaulted up onto the flydeck and called to the swimmers across the water, twenty or thirty soaked and bobbing heads, ‘Be thankful we haven’t slaughtered you in the water, as you deserve!’

The swimmers listened, agony on their faces.

‘You might drown. You might fatten a few sharks. What does that matter to us? But if you swim that way,’ Aetius flung his right arm out – ‘just south of the sun as it stands now, you just might make landfall. Let God decide.’

One struggling novice swimmer cried out, ‘How far is that?’

‘Maybe ten miles.’

Rufus murmured something. Aetius squinted again towards the horizon but could still see nothing. The lad’s younger eyes had seen it, though. ‘Maybe less,’ he called out again. ‘Maybe only six or seven.’

‘We’ll drown!’ they cried. ‘You are condemning us to death!’

‘On the contrary, I am leaving you to death – which you deserve – knowing that there is a small chance you may be reprieved. You’re in God’s hands. It’s a good, flat calm. The sun is shining. There’s blood in the water around you, and plenty of sharks nearby. You’d better start kicking.

‘Hortator! Sound the drum!’

In the silence, the slow, renewed dip of oars, the gentle splash, and the low Liburnian began to move eastwards through the small waves again, the water breaking in no more than a silver trickle round her bows. The wretched pirates watched the Haifisch depart, a sailor on board already reaching down to scrub out the barbaric name and paint over it afresh: Cygnus II. It had all happened with such startling speed, such ruthless efficiency. Then some of the more optimistic souls turned in the water, pushed their spars ahead of them and began to kick.

The master shook his head. ‘Caesar had his pirates crucified.’

Aetius grunted. ‘Caesar was a greater man than I.’

Torismond sold his slaves at Thessalonika. Aetius resented the loss of even those two hours, but there was no food or water left on board for them. The prince netted a bag of thirty solidi.

He grinned. ‘Quite a catch.’

‘And behold, I shall make you fishers of men,’ said his brother sardonically, eyeing the weighty leather bag. ‘Not quite what Christ intended though, I think?’

Aetius roared with laughter.

It was quite a pleasant voyage after that.