‘The girl?’
‘I doubt they are after the timber and olive oil in our holds, tribune. Someone will have seen us dock in Creta. In a harbourside bar one of the crew boasts that his passenger is the daughter of the famed General Corbulo. They wait. They watch. They see us leave unescorted. If they catch us, they might take us all, but probably not. No, it is the girl they are after. They will move her along the coast to a sheltered cove – past Tarsus, maybe – and smuggle her into the hills where they will sell her to one of the bandit kings who still rule in the disputed lands on the borders of Cappadocia and Armenia. Those men have little love for her father. They will ask for a ransom that will make his eyes water and he will either pay it or get her back one pretty piece at a time.’
‘Then let us hope they don’t catch us.’
Aurelius sniffed the air as if testing the wind for scent. ‘Sharpen your swords and pray.’ Valerius nodded. ‘And tribune? Don’t mention this to the general’s daughter. The last thing I need is a hysterical woman panicking all over my deck.’
Three hours later there was still no sign of the poor weather Aurelius had predicted, but they were back on course and there’d been no hint of the other ship for more than an hour. Aurelius had a man permanently at the masthead, but the captain still stood on the steering platform scanning the northern horizon with a worried frown on his tanned face. Valerius wasn’t certain whether he was concerned about pirates, the clouds, which had turned into a brooding, dark-fringed pyramid, or the atmosphere, which had become sticky and breathless, though there was still enough breeze to stir the sails. The frown deepened when Domitia left the curtained tent with one of her serving girls and approached the stern.
‘Good morning, captain.’ She gave Aurelius a smile that would have melted another man’s heart. ‘I wonder if I might trouble you for some fresh water to use for washing. Sea water is all very well, but …’
‘I’m sure that can be arranged, lady,’ Aurelius said briskly. The
dwindling
water reserves had been on his mind, but if they made port as planned at Cyprus it wasn’t a major concern. If for any reason they missed their landfall he would have to turn north to seek water at some settlement or river outlet on the Asian coast. He had no doubt he would find somewhere suitable – he’d sailed these waters since he was ten years old – but it would take time and he would prefer to preserve stocks if he could. Still, it would be worth a pint or two to get the general’s daughter off his deck.
‘Julius, a bucket of clean water for the lady and her serv—’
‘Sail, due north!’ The whole ship froze at the sound of the lookout’s voice. ‘And another just to her east.’ His voice faded and he muttered what sounded like a prayer.
‘What else?’ Aurelius snarled.
‘Captain, a third, a mile further east still.’
Aurelius darted another look at the clouds gathering in the north, but there was no help there. He turned to Domitia. ‘I’m sorry, lady,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m afraid your request is denied and I must respectfully ask that you and your slaves take up your quarters below decks. It will be safer there.’
Domitia Longina lifted her dainty chin and glared at the captain. ‘I will go below decks when I see fit, and not before,’ she snapped. ‘Safer from what, captain?’
‘Lady, I command this ship and I do not have time to argue. You will go below. Tribune, will you escort the lady Domitia and explain our situation?’ He nodded to Valerius and ran off, roaring to the helmsman, ‘Cronos! Set course due south. I want her running before the wind with every ounce of speed she has. Sailmaster. Check every rope. We need every stitch straining.’
Domitia was left staring at the captain’s disappearing back, caught between a patrician’s natural inclination never to accept defeat and the knowledge that if Aurelius was concerned perhaps she should be also. Finally, she turned her anger on Valerius. ‘Well?’ For a moment he thought she might stamp her foot.
‘If you would accompany me, I could explain our difficulties as we go.’
‘Do not patronize me, tribune.’ Her eyes – he noticed for the first time that they were a deep walnut brown – threatened to catch fire. ‘I am my father’s daughter and I will not be made light of. I …’
Valerius heard a shout from the deck and looked up to see the pale ghost of a sail on the far horizon. This was no time for talking. ‘If you are your father’s daughter you should be able to obey orders.’ He took her arm and bustled her to the hatch which led below decks. He saw Serpentius grinning and Tiberius looking on with a puzzled frown and it only made him more angry at her foolishness. ‘That sail belongs to a pirate galley. You understand about pirate galleys? Well, these pirates want you. And when they get you they will use you to destroy your father. If he pays the ransom and leaves them alive, he will no longer have his honour. If he does not, he will no longer have you, and that will be infinitely worse.’
In an instant the wildcat inside her retreated. His final sentence, and the way he said it, first confused then intrigued her. She frowned and shrugged herself free as they reached the ramp. ‘If you had explained yourself so eloquently a little earlier,’ she said sweetly, ‘perhaps we would not have had this misunderstanding. Come, Suki.’
Valerius couldn’t help noticing the way her body moved under the thin skirt as she walked down the steps into the hold. He shook his head. Idiot to think of something like that when they could all be dead in the next few hours. He ran to the stern and prepared to face the enemy.
VIII
‘THEY’RE GAINING.’ AURELIUS’S
voice remained steady, but the concern was written stark in the lines of his weathered features. ‘I thought we were holding them, but they are making ground on us with every minute.’ His eyes darted constantly between the heavens and the waves and the three sails that were now clearly visible on the horizon. ‘They will not use their oars until they are close, because their rowers can only maintain their hunting speed for a short time. There is no point in using up their strength until they need it. But all is not lost. We may be fortunate yet.’ His hand reached up automatically to touch the carved figure of Poseidon where years of habit and countless maritime dramas had worn a shining circle on the knee.
Valerius tried to judge the distance between the three pirate craft and the
Golden Cygnet
. How much time did they have?
Aurelius read his mind. ‘We have a following swell and that tells me there is more likelihood of the wind’s freshening than backing. There are still four hours till dark, but if we don’t lose a steering oar or snap a rope we should be able to stay ahead and they will not relish continuing the chase after dusk. They are cowards at heart. They will always seek a profit, but not if it is likely to cost them blood. We may be only a single ship, but we can still put up a fight. The only reason they have not turned tail already is because of the prize.’ He frowned and spat.
‘Very well, Aurelius.’ Valerius’s voice took on the authority of a man who had commanded a legion – an African legion, but still a legion. ‘You are in command of the ship, but who is in command of the defence of the ship?’
Aurelius nodded solemnly. ‘My men are not fighters, though if it is fight or die they will fight. But understand this. If it is a choice between fight and run, we will run. What do you need to know?’
Valerius signalled to the watching Tiberius, who ran to them and saluted. ‘Sir.’ The young tribune’s eyes were bright with expectation and Valerius thought: here is one man who will defend the ship to his last breath. A man to fight alongside. Another man to fight alongside was standing a few feet away, trying to look uninterested, but Valerius knew Serpentius would be listening to every word.
‘First we need to know how many weapons are on board and how many of your sailors you can spare to fight.’
‘I have a crew of twenty and in a stern chase I can give you a dozen of them, armed with either a sword or a spear, though I doubt they’ll be much use with either.’
Tiberius snorted dismissively, attracting a glare from the captain, but Valerius only looked thoughtful. ‘What about axes?’
Aurelius brightened. ‘Oh, yes, they can all handle an axe. Give a sailor an axe and watch the blood and teeth fly.’
‘So, we have seventeen, including the tribune’s cavalrymen and my servant. Tiberius, we will leave one of your troopers to provide protection for the lady Domitia and her staff. The question is how many will oppose them?’
The captain chewed his lip. ‘The Cilicians pack them in tight. A big pirate galley can ship fifty men over and above those on the rowing benches.’ Tiberius gave a short whistle. ‘But at least one of the galleys is the scout ship we saw; he will carry no more than twenty.’
The figures were double what he had expected, but Valerius hid his concern. ‘Very well. Tribune Crescens. I have my own thoughts on the defence of the
Golden Cygnet
, but I would value yours.’
Tiberius struggled to hide a grin. When he spoke his tone was professional and his words considered. ‘As I see it, from a military point of
view
the
Golden Cygnet
is simply a walled fighting platform and it can be defended in the same way I would defend any fortification. If we can get enough men to the point of attack we can fight off a force of greater numbers, especially a force of pirate scum.’
Valerius smiled. ‘I wouldn’t underestimate the pirate scum, Tiberius, but I agree with your conclusions. My only concern would be if we were attacked in more than one place, which I’d suggest we have to assume is a possibility.’
Aurelius nodded gloomily. ‘These pirates, they climb like the monkeys they are. Given even the slightest opening they will swarm all over the ship.’
Valerius exchanged glances with Tiberius. ‘Then we must consider another option. We can’t let them get on to the
Cygnet
.’
The younger man glanced uncertainly towards the pirates. ‘We fight them on their own ground?’
‘Fight them on their own ground and kill them on their own ground.’ Valerius turned to the captain. ‘Do you have anyone on board who has served on one of those galleys?’
Aurelius didn’t need more than a second. ‘Capito!’
The wizened sailor who had met Valerius and Serpentius on the wharf in Ostia ran up to them. He looked abashed to be singled out, but brightened when he realized what he was being asked.
‘Aye, they had me chained to an oar for nine months and would have thrown me and those chains overboard if yon navy lads hadn’t been so quick.’
‘Can you draw a picture of a galley and point out its strengths and weaknesses for me?’
The sailor told them, ‘I can do better than that. I can show you.’ He ran below and returned with a lovingly carved wooden model, every spar and every oar in its place. ‘Now this here is the biggest of the type. Twenty oars a side, fifty feet stem to stern, and a dozen across the beam.’ He pointed to the centre of the ship. ‘Your scouts, they have but ten a side and are maybe eight feet across.’
‘And besides the oarsmen the bigger ships carry say fifty fighting men and the smaller twenty?’
Capito frowned. ‘That would be as a rule. Sometimes less, sometimes more. A pirate chief, he would be hard put to it to fill his bigger ships these days, with the pickings so slim.’
‘They must have a weakness,’ Tiberius said, studying the little model critically.
Capito looked blank as if the thought had never occurred to him, but after a few moments his face broke into a gap-toothed grin. He patted the solid oak of the side of the
Golden Cygnet
. ‘Their weakness is that they won’t ram this. Their captains are savages: thieves and murderers who revel in torture and cruelty. They abused us slaves horribly. But they are also businessmen. The galleys are built for speed, light fast craft that can fairly skim across the water if the oarsmen are driven. But that strength is also their weakness. I’ve seen a Roman galley shear clean through a pirate hull.’
Capito returned to his station and the three commanders discussed the situation for a few minutes more before Valerius made his decision. Aurelius, in that curious ebb and flow of confidence that affects men before a battle, had pondered whether they should turn and use the ship as a sea-borne battering ram. It was an idea that appeared to have merits, but Valerius pointed out that while they were tangling with one ship the other two would undoubtedly converge on them and they would eventually be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘The answer is to try to outrun them if we can, but to engage them one at a time if there is no other alternative.’ He looked out over the waves. The little group of sails was closer still. ‘We need to lighten the ship.’
In the depths of the hold Valerius’s eyes took time to adjust to the gloom and bring into focus the individual objects around him. Aurelius’s face had crumpled when Valerius had announced his decision. He had argued and growled and ‘I’ll be damned’ until it had been pointed out that his most precious cargo was the general’s daughter, and that if they lost Domitia they were unlikely to survive her father’s wrath, or Nero’s.
Valerius’s gaze fixed on rank after rank of earthenware
amphorae
. He nodded to Aurelius. ‘Form a chain and over the side with them.’
Aurelius winced. He could have wept, seeing his profit for the entire trip jettisoned, but he waved forward the men who had been waiting by the ramp.
‘What’s in here?’ Valerius pointed to an enormous stack of odd-shaped parcels and packages set to one side of the hold.
‘The lady Domitia’s personal baggage.’ Aurelius’s eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t …’
Back on deck, Valerius studied Capito’s model of the galley and tried to ignore the closing presence to the north. Above the familiar creak and groan of the constantly shifting puzzle of ropes and jointed wood that was the
Golden Cygnet
’s rigging, he heard the rhythmic splash as the ship’s cargo of finest Cretan olive oil was consigned to the depths.
A sharp feminine shriek broke his concentration and he looked up to see Tulia, Domitia’s companion, wrestling with a sailor who was attempting to push a crate over the side. The crewman was twice Tulia’s size, but from what Valerius could see he was getting the worst of the encounter and would bear the scars for some time to come. He was about to intervene when the general’s daughter emerged from below decks. She took in the scene and he saw her fists clench and her eyes narrow. Her face took on the combative look he’d last seen on an Iceni warrior charging a Roman shield line. She advanced on the struggling pair.