‘What is going on, Tulia?’ she demanded.
The freedwoman disentangled herself from her opponent. ‘They are throwing your things overboard, my lady,’ she said tearfully. ‘The tribune says anything heavy must be sacrificed.’
Valerius felt the moment she turned on him, and when he raised his head it was like looking into the mouth of a volcano. Before she could speak, he nodded towards the stern. Her eyes followed his and widened as she realized how quickly the pirate had closed since the last time she had been on deck. In that instant her whole demeanour changed and he was reminded of the difference between other women and a Roman lady bred to rule. The aggression drained from her to be replaced by a languid grace, and the headlong charge was transformed into a neat turn.
‘Then if the tribune says they must go, they must go, Tulia. Kindly show them where to find the tableware and the boxes containing the statuary.’
Valerius rose and went to her side. ‘Thank you, my lady, I appreciate your cooperation. If it had not been necessary …’
She shook her head and looked again at the pirate galleys, which were now less than half a mile away. ‘In times of war we are all soldiers, tribune, and we must all make sacrifices.’ She turned, and forced him to look deep into her eyes. ‘Is that not so? We place ourselves in your trust.’
When she was gone and his heart had stopped thundering he forced his attention back to their pursuers, wondering at the turmoil she awoke in him. Another complication he didn’t need. He imagined the big galleys gaining stroke by stroke, coming closer and closer until they touched hulls with the
Cygnet
. What would he do then? How could he confound his enemy? He thought back to the defence of Colonia, when he had tempted Boudicca’s warrior chiefs with the only remaining bridge to the city and they had taken the bait. This was different. He was being hunted by three wolves, and when the first wolf’s jaws closed the others would move in and together they would tear him to pieces.
‘Look!’
He joined Tiberius at the side.
‘Something strange is happening,’ the younger man pointed out. ‘Perhaps they are abandoning the chase.’
Valerius looked back to where two of the galleys had closed and their movement seemed to stutter. For a moment his hopes rose, before the ships parted and the smaller of the two suddenly surged ahead of its brethren.
‘What’s happening, Aurelius? I need to know what they’re planning.’
The
Golden Cygnet
’s master scratched his head. ‘I do not know, unless …’ He looked again to where the single galley was powering towards them, each stroke bringing it closer and allowing him to see it with more clarity. ‘Capito, come here. Tell me what you see.’
The old sailor hurried to his captain’s side. He understood in an instant.
‘Poseidon save us. I’ve seen it done before, but only once. They’ll have run a plank between the sterns of the two ships and reinforced the crew of the smaller one. When a slave tires they throw the poor bastard overboard and he’s replaced by a fighter. It means that they can maintain their highest speed but you’ll face up to forty pirates instead of only twenty.’ He took in the distance between the scout galley and the
Cygnet
and his voice faltered. ‘They’ll be upon us in minutes.’ Valerius saw the moment Capito’s nerve snapped. The sailor’s eyes spun in his head and he let out a terrible cry. ‘They won’t take me again!’
Before anyone could stop him he ran to where a stack of
amphorae
lay against the side of the ship, picked up one of the great stone jars and leapt over the rail. Valerius searched the spot where the wizened seaman had jumped, but it was as if he had never existed. The weight of the
amphora
had taken him straight to the bottom. In the appalled silence that followed Aurelius barked an order and another sailor picked up one of the
amphorae
, preparing to heave it over the side. Valerius put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
‘How many left?’
‘These are the last twenty I think, sir.’
‘Keep them. I want the oil poured into as many buckets as you can find. And get me a couple of iron files. Big ones.’
Tiberius looked at him as if he’d gone mad, but when Valerius had explained his plan the young tribune shook his head in admiration.
‘Madness. But it might even work.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘It is a soldier’s privilege to volunteer to commit suicide, tribune, and I ask to be first over the side.’
Valerius shook his head. ‘There is someone better qualified, Tiberius. You are young; you will have other opportunities for glory.’
‘You’re right.’ Tiberius grinned. ‘Where you lead, I will follow. In any case, I doubt any of us will get back alive, even if we succeed.’ His grey eyes turned serious. ‘I underestimated you, tribune. For all your laurels, I thought you had gone soft, but I was wrong. You’re as hard as the iron in that
gladius
you wear. Are you sure they all have to die?’
‘All we can reach. We will have one chance. If we can’t sink the galley we have to disable it.’
The sailor returned with a pair of heavy metal rasps. Valerius handed one to Tiberius. ‘Here. You know what to do.’ He took the other rasp to where Serpentius sat near the stern, calmly running a whetstone up and down the edge of a sword. The Spaniard nodded as Valerius took his place beside him.
‘So we fight?’
‘Fight or die. Maybe both.’
‘Isn’t it always so?’
‘I have a job for you. A special job.’
Serpentius gave a bitter laugh. ‘Isn’t it always so.’ He handed Valerius the sword, which was the one with the silver pommel. Valerius took it and nodded gravely before he bent and removed his sandals. The Spaniard’s eyes widened as he started working on the leather sole with his knife to further expose the metal studs in the base.
‘Why would you be ruining a perfectly good pair of marching boots?’
So Valerius told him.
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.