Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (146 page)

There was a loud snap and a crack, as if one of the great oars had suddenly split asunder, so close that I covered my face. In the same instant the boy who had smiled at me threw back his head. His mouth wrenched open in a silent howl.

The whipmaster raised his arm again. The lash slithered through the air. The boy shrieked as if he had been scalded. I saw the lash slither across his naked shoulders. He faltered against the oar, tripping on the catwalk. For a long moment he hung suspended from the manacles around his wrists as he was dragged forwards, backwards and up again. As he hung from the highest point, desperately trying to find his balance, the whip lashed against his thighs.

The boy screamed, convulsed and fell again. The oar carried him for another revolution. He somehow found his grip and joined in the effort, every muscle straining. The lash struck again. The drumbeat boomed. The whip rose and fell. Squealing and gasping from the pain, the boy danced like a spastic. His broad shoulders convulsed at the whipmaster’s rhythm, out of time with the great machine. His face contorted in agony. He cried like a child. The whipmaster struck him again and again.

I looked at the man’s face. He smiled grimly back at me, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth, then turned and spat across the shoulders of one of the straining slaves. He looked me in the eye and he raised his whip again, as if daring me to interfere. With a single voice the rowers groaned, like a tragic chorus. I looked at the boy, who never ceased rowing. He looked back at me and moved his lips, unable to speak.

Suddenly I heard footsteps from above. The messenger returned, holding up his open hand as a signal to the drumbeater. ‘All clear! All clear!’ he shouted.

The drumbeat abruptly ceased. The oars were still. The sudden quiet was broken only by the lapping of waves against the ship, the creaking of wood, and the hoarse, gasping breath of the rowers. At my feet, the boy lay collapsed atop his oar, racked with sobbing. I looked down at his broad, muscle-scalloped back, livid with welts. The fresh wounds lay atop an accumulation of older scars; this was not the first time the whipmaster had singled him out.

Suddenly I saw nothing, heard nothing; the smell of the place overwhelmed me, as if the sweat of so many close-packed bodies had turned the fetid air to poison. I pushed the messenger aside and hurried up the steps, into the fresh air. Beneath the stars I leaned over the bulwark and emptied my stomach.

Afterwards I looked about, disoriented, weak, disgusted. The men on deck were busy taking down the auxiliary sail from the second mast. The water was calm, the shore dark and silent.

Marcus Mummius saw me and approached. He was in high spirits.

‘Lost your dinner, eh? It can happen when we rush to full speed and you’ve got a full belly. I told the owner not to stock such rich provisions. I’d rather throw up a bellyful of bread and water any day than a stomach full of half-chewed flesh and bile.’

I wiped my chin. ‘We outran them, then? The danger’s over?’

Mummius shrugged. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘What do you mean?’ I looked toward the stern. The sea behind us was empty. ‘How many were there? Where did they go?’

‘Oh, there were a thousand ships at least, all flying pirate banners. And now they’ve gone back to Hades, where they belong.’ He saw the look on my face and laughed. ‘Phantom pirates,’ he explained. ‘Sea spirits.’

‘What? I don’t understand.’ Men at sea are superstitious, but I could hardly believe that Mummius would half kill the galley slaves to outrun a few sea vapours or a stray whale.

But Mummius was not mad; it was worse than that. ‘A drill,’ he finally said, shaking his head and slapping me on the back, as if it were a joke I was too stupid to grasp.

‘A drill?’

‘Yes! A drill, an exercise. You have to have them every so often, especially on a non-military ship like the
Fury,
to make sure everyone’s on his toes. At least that’s the way we run things under—’ He began to say a name, then caught himself. ‘Under my commander,’ he finished. ‘Really catches the slaves off their guard when you do it at night!’

‘A drill?’ I repeated stupidly. ‘You mean there were no pirates? It was all unnecessary? But the slaves below are run ragged . . .’

‘Good!’ Mummius said, thrusting his jaw in the air. ‘ “The slaves of a Roman master must be always ready, always strong. Or else what good are they?”’ The words were not his own; he was quoting someone. What manner of man commanded Marcus Mummius and could afford to be so profligate with his human tools?

I looked down at the oars that projected from the
Fury,
suspended motionless above the waves. A moment later the oars stirred and dipped into the waves. The slaves had been given a brief respite and now were at work once again.

I hung my head and took a deep breath of salty air and wished I were back in Rome, asleep in Bethesda’s arms.

IV

I was awakened by a poke in the ribs. Eco stood over me, gesturing for me to get up.

Sunlight was streaming through the porthole. I rose to my knees on the mattress and looked out to see land nearby with here and there a habitation set among the rocky cliffs. The buildings lower down, nearest the water, were ramshackle affairs, humble dwellings pieced together with driftwood, festooned with nets and surrounded by little shipyards. The buildings higher up were markedly different – sprawling villas with white columns and grapevine trellises.

I stood up to stretch as best I could within the cramped quarters. I splashed my face with water and sucked in a mouthful, swished it to clean my tongue and spat it out the porthole. Eco had already set out my better tunic. While I dressed he combed my hair and then played barber. When the ship gave a tiny pitch I held my breath, but he did not nick me once.

Eco fetched bread and apples, and we fed ourselves on the deck, contemplating the view as Marcus Mummius guided the ship into the great bay which Romans have always called the Cup, likening it to a vast bowl of water with villages all about its rim. The ancient Greeks who first colonized the region called it the Bay of Neapolis, I think, after their chief settlement. My sometimes-client Cicero calls it the Bay of Luxury, with a derisive tone of voice; he himself does not own a villa there – yet.

We entered the Cup from the north, skirting the narrows between the Cape of Misenum and the small island of Procida. Directly before us, at the far side of the bay, loomed the larger island of Capri, like a craggy finger pointing skyward. The sun was high, the day was fine and clear without a touch of haze on the water. Between us and the opposite strait that separates Capri from the Promontory of Minerva the water was spangled with the multicoloured sails of fishing boats and the bigger sails of the trading ships and ferries that circle the bay, carrying goods and passengers from Surrentum and Pompeii on the south side to Neapolis and Puteoli on the north.

We rounded the headland, and the entire bay opened before us, glittering beneath the sun. At its apex, looming above the little village of Herculaneum, rose Vesuvius. The sight always impresses me. The mountain towers on the horizon like a great pyramid flattened at the top. With its fertile slopes covered by meadows and vineyards, Vesuvius presides over the Cup like a bounteous, benevolent god, an emblem of steadfastness and serenity. For a while, in the early days of slave revolt, Spartacus and his men took refuge on the higher slopes.

The
Fury
stayed close to the land, circling the Cape of Misenum and then turning her back on Vesuvius to glide majestically into the hidden harbour. The sails were furled; sailors ran about the deck securing ropes and tackles. I pulled Eco out of the way, fearing that without a voice to protect himself he might be stepped on or tangled in the swinging ropes. He gently shrugged my hand from his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
I’m not a boy any longer,
he seemed to be saying, but it was with a boy’s excitement that he turned his head this way and that, trying to observe everything at once, craning his neck and skittering about with a look of awe on his face. His eye missed nothing; in the rush of confusion he grabbed my arm and pointed towards the skiff that had pushed off from the docks and was making its way towards the
Fury.

The boat pulled alongside. Marcus Mummius leaned over the bulwark, shouting a question. After he heard the reply he threw back his head and let out a sigh – whether of relief or regret I could not tell.

He looked up and scowled at my approach. ‘Nothing was resolved in my absence,’ he sighed. ‘You’ll be needed after all. At least the journey wasn’t wasted.’

‘Then you can tell me officially now that my employer is Marcus Crassus?’

Mummius looked at me ruefully. ‘You think you’re awfully clever, don’t you? I only hope you’ll be half that clever when the need comes. Now off with you – down the ladder!’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll follow later, after I’ve seen to the ship. For now you’re in the hands of Faustus Fabius. He’ll take you to the villa at Baiae and see to matters there.’

Eco and I descended to the skiff, where a tall redheaded man in a dark blue tunic stood waiting to greet us. His face was young, but I saw the lines of age at the corners of his cat-green eyes; he was probably in his middle thirties, about the same age as Mummius. He clasped my hand, and I saw the flash of a patrician ring on his finger, but a gold ring was hardly necessary to show that he came from an old family. The Fabii are as old as the Cornelii or Aemilii, older than the Claudii. But even without the ring and without the name I would have known him for a patrician. Only a Roman noble of the most venerable ancestry can pull back his shoulders quite so stiffly and hold his chin so rigidly upright – even in a small, rocking boat – without looking either pompous or ridiculous.

‘You’re the one they call the Finder?’ His voice was smooth and deep. As he spoke he arched one eyebrow, such a typical patrician gesture that I sometimes wonder if the old nobility have an extra muscle in their foreheads for just this purpose.

‘Gordianus, from Rome,’ I said.

‘Good, good. Here, we’d better sit, unless you’re an excellent swimmer.’

‘I’m hardly a swimmer at all,’ I confessed.

Faustus Fabius nodded. ‘This is your assistant?’

‘My son, Eco.’

‘I see. It’s good that you’ve arrived. Gelina will be relieved. For some reason she took it into her head that Mummius might be able to get back by late last night. We all told her that was impossible; even under the very best conditions the ship couldn’t return before this afternoon. But she wouldn’t listen. Before she went to bed she arranged to have messengers descend to the harbour, one every hour, to see if the ship had arrived. The household is in chaos, as you can imagine.’

He saw the blank look on my face. ‘Ah, but Mummius has told you next to nothing, I suppose. Yes, those were his instructions. Never fear, all shall be made clear to you.’ He turned his face to the breeze and took a deep breath, letting his unfashionably long hair flutter in the wind like a red mane.

I looked about the harbour. The
Fury
was by far the largest vessel. The rest were small fishing boats and pleasure craft. Misenum has never been a particularly busy port; most of the trade that flows into and out of the Cup is channelled through Puteoli, the busiest port in all Italy. Yet it seemed to me that Misenum was more quiet than it should be, considering its proximity to the luxurious district of Baiae and its famous mineral springs. I said as much to Faustus Fabius.

‘So you’ve been here before?’ he asked.

‘A few times.’

‘Well acquainted with trading vessels and business on the Campanian coast, are you?’

I shrugged. ‘Business has brought me to the Cup now and again over the years. I’m no expert on sea traffic, but am I wrong to say that the harbour appears rather empty?’

He made a slight grimace. ‘Not wrong at all. Between the pirates at sea and Spartacus inland, trade everywhere in Campania has come to a standstill. Hardly anything moves on the roads or the sea lanes – which makes it all the more amazing that Marcus was willing to send the
Fury
after you.’

‘By Marcus you mean Marcus Mummius?’