"Graciously grant this to
me,
eh?" He thumped himself on his bronze-sheathed chest. "The man to whom she owes everything?"
"Rulers don't like to be reminded of their debts," Flaccus
told him. "They'd rather be praised for their greatness." He
paused. "You must face it, Marcus: You have no legions. You
can't impose your will on a foreign ruler, like Norbanus."
"Norbanus!" Scipio said, exasperated. Friends in Rome had sent them word of his new march and the war plan. "The gods must love him. He will be immortal."
"He's just been lucky," Flaccus said. "He was born to an
important family; he was chosen for the reconnaissance
mission; he was on the spot when a commander was needed
and it coincided with his father's consulship. Then he made his march just at a time when the territory he went through was disorganized and fought over by petty princelings."
"Luck like that is proof of the gods' favor."
"This is not like you, Marcus. You shouldn't allow a
schoolboy rivalry to sour you. Your own accomplishments
have been fabulous."
"I don't envy the reputation he's won!" He took a deep swallow from the golden cup, then set it on an ivory-inlaid table. "Not much, anyway. No, the man is a menace to the republic. He wants to make himself dictator, or king."
"Your enemies in the Senate say exactly the same of you,"
Flaccus pointed out.
"Yes, but my enemies are wrong, whereas I am right. His own father to command the main army! How could he make
his dynastic ambitions more plain? And taking his army on a complete circuit of the Middle Sea! He's just doing it because no one else has done it before!"
Flaccus nodded somberly. "Yes, the expense in boots and
hobnails alone must be staggering."
"Don't be flippant," Marcus said disgustedly.
"You know he's overreaching himself. His battle experi
ence hasn't been great, and Carthage will be throwing its best against him. He's being set up to fail; that's the only explanation why the Senate has gone along with his harebrained scheme."
Scipio refilled his cup and stared into it gloomily. "It's not that bad a scheme, you know, just ambitious. I might have proposed such a thing myself, only I would have waited until all these new legions were more experienced and our leadership had a better grasp of how to command and coordinate so many men. As it is, there are too many ways for things to go wrong. We'll be trying to coordinate
the movements of large armies over vast distances…
"
He
trailed off, his eyes going vacant.
That was more like it, Flaccus thought. Now his friend was going over the possibilities in his mind, finding applications for the new inventions of the Archimedean school.
"They say Norbanus has a pair of Eastern women to read
the stars for him," Flaccus remarked. "Alexandria is full of astrologers and I have been speaking with the Egyptian and Greek priests about them. They seem about evenly divided whether the stars are of any use in foretelling the future. Norbanus seems to set great store by these two."
"It's a weakness," Scipio said. "They're just telling him what he wants to hear."
"That has long been a major part of the seer's art," Flaccus said. "That and being equivocal, making statements that could be interpreted more than one way and fitting any outcome."
"What are you getting at?" Marcus asked, knowing his friend all too well.
"As you pointed out, this reliance upon soothsayers is a
weakness, and an enemy's weakness is something to be ex
ploited."
"Subvert his astrologers? But how? They are rather far away, you know."
"True, true. But we are in the process of turning the
Middle Sea into a Roman lake. The Archimedeans have de
signed some extremely swift vessels. Why should we not
wish to keep in contact with Norbanus's army on its march?
It only makes military sense."
"It does," Scipio agreed. "The Senate will resent such col
lusion. They would prefer to hold the reins."
"What of it?" Flaccus asked. "We now have armies spread out over vast distances. Our generals will be nearly
autonomous of necessity, whatever the Senate wants. What's
sitting in Rome right now is an elderly pack of old soldiers
reminiscing about their younger days when Roman soldiers were real Romans. They think what we're doing is the same
as fighting German tribesmen on the Northern Sea."
Marcus was silent for a while. "No, we can't do it."
"What? Keep in contact with Norbanus's army?"
"No, that's an excellent idea. I mean we can't subvert these prophetesses or whatever they are."
"Whyever not? The opportunity is there. Norbanus is your enemy. Do something to him before he does it to you. It's the sensible thing to do."
"Should I endanger Rome for the sake of a personal vendetta? My sabotage might result in a Roman defeat. It's not something I can do just to trump a man I detest."
Flaccus sighed. "Marcus, you are a splendid soldier. You are a genuine visionary. But you are a political infant. To de
feat a rival, you use whatever comes to hand. These Judean woman are a gift from the gods which you spurn at your peril."
"Still, I reject them. Let the gods punish me for rejecting
their favor."
At this Flaccus held his counsel.
The next morning they were at the naval shipyard, which
had been all but taken over by the Archimedean school. There were vessels under construction and on the slips and in the water that were unlike anything ever seen before.
There were also many craft of foreign design brought by the
queen's order from the most distant waters. Their hull and sail designs were copied, analyzed and experimented with.
"What about that madman with the steam project?" Sci
pio asked the ship philosopher, head of the facility. He was a
Spanish Greek named Archelaus.
"Worthless," he said. "He's trying to adapt it to water
wheels and screw-type water raisers using a system of metal
tubes and rods and sliding cylinders, but it can't possibly work."
"Why not?" Scipio asked.
"Two reasons. One is the weight. Even if the machine can
be made to work, it will require a great weight of metal. Another is the fire. The last thing you want on a ship is a
big fire. And you'd have to go ashore constantly to replenish the firewood. No, it has no real advantage over rowers, who
need nothing but food."
"Well, what else, then? I know we've been concentrating
on coastal warships and harbor defense, but I need a cutter that can cover great distances on open water fast. It can't carry a lot of rowers. I don't want it putting in to shore every day or two. It should keep on the move every hour, even traveling at night."
"That's a challenge. What is it to carry?"
"Aside from sustenance for the crew, just information. I want the water equivalent of a horseback courier. It's to keep
me in contact with an army that will be constantly on the march."
Archelaus nodded, stroking his small beard. "I see. How intriguing. And how fortuitous. Come with me."
The two Romans followed the man. He led them past a
barge-like boat, its deck holding a number of the flying ma
chines and equipped with a system of towering masts from which to launch them. Other ships were fitted with paddle
wheels, with varying arrangements of cranks and treadmills
to drive them. They came to a pier to which were fastened
several small vessels featuring a bewildering array of masts,
yards and sails.
"Here," Archelaus informed them, "we experiment with new sail plans and rigging systems."
"And how do these affect performance?" Flaccus asked.
"In many ways, we have found. We've been using a single, large, square sail spread before the mast since the Argo.
With a wind astern, it moves the ship well. But only if the wind is from almost directly astern."
"That much we know from our admittedly limited seafaring experience," Flaccus said. "How may it be done otherwise?"
"Look at this." They came to a small, narrow vessel. It
was no more than forty feet long and had the familiar, single
mast. But its yard, instead of being set square across the
length of the vessel, slanted across it. "You can't get a good
idea from this; you'll have to see it sailing. It's copied from
a type of ship used off the coast of India. One of our skippers
brought one back this season, along with some Indian sailors to show us how it is employed."
"What is its advantage?" Marcus wanted to know.
"It can make use of a wind that is not blowing from directly astern. With skill, using both sail and steering oar, it can even make use of a wind that comes from slightly ahead."
"Sail into a headwind?" Flaccus said. "That makes no sense."
"As I said, you'll have to see it demonstrated. It takes a
skilled crew, but it needs only five or six men. We built this
one small, because it was to be used just for experiment with the sail. There's no cargo space and precious little for the crew. But it may be ideal for your purpose. If all you want is a courier, this is it."
"Show us," Marcus said.
And so the little vessel set out with its small crew and
two Romans, first in the sheltered waters of the harbor, then
past Point Lochias into the open sea. All morning and into the afternoon the shipmaster, a hard-bitten old pirate from Cilicia, and his crew of strange men from fabled India, demonstrated the bizarre sail and its seemingly unnatural capabilities. It proved to be triangular, and when set, its extremely long yard almost touched the bow rail on one side of the ship, while the opposite end towered above the stern
on the opposite side. It was huge in proportion to the vessel,
and the Romans remarked upon this.
"It's a lot of mast and sail for such a small ship," the master agreed. "She has to be heavily ballasted to keep her from
capsizing. Her bottom's filled with lead bricks to keep her upright."
He showed them how, by a combination of slanting the
sail and working the steering oar, the ship could take advan
tage of a less-than-favorable wind. After taking the wind
from one side for a while, at the master's order the crew per
formed a breathtaking maneuver, collapsing the sail and slewing the long yard up and across to hang on the other side of the mast and take the same wind from that side. The ship changed direction, but its general trend was still in the direction desired.
"You see?" the skipper said. "When the wind's not right, you travel in a series of zigzags to keep moving ahead. It's not as fast as with a stern wind, but it beats sitting on shore and sacrificing rams for one."
"What about a wind from directly ahead?" Marcus asked.
"Not much you can do about that," the skipper admit
ted. "This sail's clever, but it's not magical. Still, if you want
to get from one end of the sea to the other and you don't
want to feed a lot of oarsmen doing it, this rig will beat any
thing else afloat."
By the time they returned to the harbor, Marcus had decided. The little vessel would be the first of his new fleet of courier craft. As soon as he set foot to the pier, he was bellowing for the master shipbuilder, the harbormaster and the ship philosopher. He said that he wanted twenty of the ships for a start, and training of the crews was to begin immediately, that very day. He named the little ship
Hermes.
There was no argument. Functionaries and workmen had grown accustomed to the peremptory ways of the Romans.
"And get some paint on that ship," Flaccus said, point
ing to
Hermes.
"She's plain as a fishing boat."
"Any color in particular?" asked the master shipbuilder dryly.
The Romans considered this. "I think blue would be good," said Flaccus.
Scipio nodded. "Blue with gold trim. Paint all our
courier vessels that way. And dye the sails blue as well. Can
you do that?"
The master shipbuilder rolled his eyes skyward. "As long as you don't insist on Tyrian purple, I think we can manage."
"What about a device?" Marcus mused. "Our new Roman navy uses Jupiter's eagle, but the queen might resent that. What's that sea-horse thing?"
"The
hippocampus,
you mean?" Flaccus asked. "The front
part of a horse and a long fish-tail behind?"
"That's it. Master shipbuilder, decorate the sails with the
hippocampus, and carve them as figureheads, above where
the ram would be, if these ships had rams."
"It shall be done," promised the official.
Pleased with their day's work, the Romans returned to the palace. A steward summoned them to the queen's presence. They found her waiting in her privy chamber next to
the throne room. She frowned when she saw Marcus.