Rome's Executioner (21 page)

‘More than meets the eye, you mean?’ Vespasian quipped.

‘Don’t laugh, Vespasian,’ Sabinus said quietly. ‘If they can heal a man who should be dead then there must be real power here, a power older than Mithras, and it should be taken seriously.’

B
Y THE TIME
they got back to the ship it was early evening and too late to sail. Rhaskos had slept most of the afternoon away but had not looked at all refreshed upon waking. He had refused to tell them what reply he had received from Amphiaraos; all he would say was that he had been spoken to in his dream by the Hero and that he was now contemplating the meaning of the message. Whereas that morning they would all have found some amusement in the situation, now even Sabinus was taking Rhaskos seriously; not because they believed in the curse but because they were curious to see if the slave fever would disappear through Amphiaraos’ intervention.

After a mild night lying on the open deck beneath a swathe of stars, thickened by the early setting of the moon, Vespasian awoke to a turquoise dawn sky feeling refreshed. He had been lulled asleep by the gentle sound of water lapping against the hull but now this had been replaced by a more strident sound: waves breaking on the rocky cove. He felt the ship swaying beneath him and sat up immediately; a cool breeze blew in his face.

All around him the ship was coming to life. Half of the forty-man crew were bending the main- and foresails on to their respective yards, then furling them ready to be hauled up the masts, whilst the rest were preparing to weigh the fore and aft anchors. Rhaskos moved around the deck like an excited hound, barking at everyone and baring his teeth and growling at the slightest error or sign of slacking, such was his anxiety to be under way as fast as possible.

‘What do you make of that, sir?’ Magnus asked, giving Vespasian a thick cut of cold pork and a cup of well-watered wine. ‘A fucking wind, eh, who’d have thought it? What a weird place.’

‘That was some strange stuff we saw yesterday,’ Vespasian agreed, biting off a hunk of pork. ‘Where’s Sabinus?’

‘Ah well, he’s a bit too busy to be joining us for breakfast, if you take my meaning,’ Magnus replied, pointing towards the bow.

Vespasian turned to see his brother leaning over the side, convulsing violently.

A series of loud orders from Rhaskos through a speaking-trumpet caused the fore-anchor detail to start to heave on their cable. As the anchor – a small boulder – cleared the water the stroke-master began his monotonous beat and the slaves started to back oars. The ship eased gently away from the cove then, as the aft-anchor cable tautened, began to swing round. The huge quinquereme came parallel to the shore and Rhaskos shouted through his trumpet again. The aft-anchor detail heaved hard on their cable and the anchor lifted from the seabed; below on the oar-deck the slaves, as one man, reversed stroke and the ship started to glide forward. Once the aft anchor had been secured on deck another series of shouts caused the mainsail hands to start hauling on a halyard, raising the yard aloft. When it was in position six men clambered up the rope ladder on the mast and made their way, three on either side, along the footropes of the yard. At another signal from Rhaskos they released the brails, unfurling the sail that flapped in the wind until its sheets were tallied. The wind snapped the sail taut, the drumbeat from the oar-deck accelerated and Vespasian felt the ship lurch forward.

‘Thanks to our Mother Bendis for this wind,’ Rhaskos called to the sky as the crew went forward to deal with the foresail.

‘Shouldn’t it be Amphiaraos you should be thanking?’ Vespasian asked, walking over to him at his position between the steering-oars.

‘No, this is Bendis’ work,’ Rhaskos replied with a grin and shouted another series of orders through his trumpet.

The yard was hauled up the forward-raked foremast and soon the foresail was set and the ship put on another turn of speed.‘What makes you so sure that it wasn’t Amphiaraos?’ Vespasian continued when Rhaskos’ attention was again free from nautical matters.

‘Because the dream that he sent me was so fanciful I can’t understand it and so I haven’t done what he suggested.’

‘You still believe that the ship is cursed then?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘So why have we got a wind?’

The old trierarchus smiled; there was a self-satisfied glint in his eye. ‘Because whilst I was communing with the Hero yesterday, as insurance I had my crew sacrifice the third ringleader to Bendis, under the mast. They cut his body in two and placed a half on either side of the ship then walked between it with the sails to purify them and themselves. The Macedonians do the same sort of thing with a dog but we find a human much more potent.’

Vespasian raised his eyebrows slightly; Rhaskos’ religious fervour had ceased to amaze him. ‘Well, it seems to have worked,’ he conceded, ‘but what about the slave fever, has that gone?’

‘No, we’re still cursed in that respect; over a quarter of them are suffering from it now.’

‘So why don’t you do whatever Amphiaraos told you in your dream?’

Rhaskos shook his head mournfully. ‘Because it seems so ridiculous, and it would be suicide.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Yes. Perhaps I should have more faith in the Hero but I just can’t bring myself to do what he suggested.’ He looked at Vespasian apologetically. ‘I dreamt that I took a slave by the hand and in return for his oar I gave him a sword.’

The breeze and the stroke-master’s beat remained steady; the day wore on. The extreme heat had diminished with the arrival of the wind and conditions on deck were much improved. On the oar-deck, however, the fever was spreading gradually and the slave-master had been forced to abandon the lowest level of thirty oars on each side, operated by single slaves, leaving just the middle and top rows working, both operated by pairs of slaves. The resulting loss of speed irked Rhaskos, who kept up a constant stream of entreaties to his various gods.

Keeping a mile or so out to sea, the ship slid past the bay of Marathon and on down the Attic coast. After two days they crossed the Saronic Gulf to the Peloponnese, weaving through the numerous trading vessels making their way to and from the port of Piraeus in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Early in the morning on the fifth day they approached the strait between the southern tip of the Peloponnese and the island of Cythera. Vespasian and Magnus were leaning on the bow-rail watching the dry coastline pass by, so clear through the pure air that, even at a distance, individual trees could be picked out on its hills. Sabinus joined them, looking pale and none too steady on his feet although he had not been sick for a couple of days now.

‘We’ll be making the crossing to Italia soon,’ Vespasian said, idly turning his attention to a couple of distant trading ships some three miles ahead. ‘What happens when we get to Ostia?’

‘We’ve got to get the priest to Antonia,’ Sabinus replied weakly, leaning against the rail, ‘and then we wait.’

‘For what?’ Magnus asked.

‘For Macro to tell us how and when to get Rhoteces to Capreae.’

Magnus looked alarmed. ‘Hold on a moment, there’re two things in that sentence that I don’t like the sound of: Macro and Capreae. Why’s this the first that I’ve heard mention of them?’

‘Yes, Sabinus,’ Vespasian said, equally as alarmed, ‘why haven’t you told me about Macro’s involvement before?’

‘Oh, so he’s told you about taking Rhoteces to Capreae then, but you just didn’t bother to mention it to me, did you?’ Magnus sounded aggrieved.

‘That’s because you don’t have to come.’

‘Are you going?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, so am I. And what’s Macro got to do with this?’

‘Antonia’s using him as our route to Tiberius,’ Sabinus replied. ‘In return she’ll commend his loyalty to the Emperor and recommend that he uses him to replace Sejanus. It’s an alliance of convenience.’

‘Well, it don’t sound too convenient to me,’ Magnus grumbled. ‘The last time we saw Macro he was trying to prevent us getting out of Rome; I tried to take his head off and he left a dagger in Vespasian’s leg.’

‘Magnus is right, Sabinus; and he would have got a good look at us both.’

‘Yes, and I don’t suppose he’ll be too pleased when he gets a good look at the two of us again, if you take my meaning.’

‘Well, I doubt that Antonia’s going to change her plans just because you’ve had a difference of opinion with Macro,’ Sabinus said dismissively. ‘Anyway, he’s working with us now so I’m sure that he’ll be happy to put the past behind him – if you ask him nicely and give him his dagger back, that is,’ he added with a thin smile.

‘Very funny, Sabinus,’ Vespasian snapped, ‘but I don’t intend to get that close to him.’

‘You might not have a choice,’ Magnus said darkly and stomped off to the other end of the ship to where Sitalces was sitting with Artebudz and Drenis under the awning.

Vespasian swallowed hard; he did not fancy coming face to face with Macro but it seemed that it was going to be unavoidable. Contemplating the problem, he turned his attention back to the two distant ships and watched with interest how they were forced to tack with the wind, zigzagging to negotiate the narrow strait between the island and mainland. Even at its reduced speed the quinquereme was slowly overhauling them as it made the passage on a straight course, under oars.

‘Do you have any more surprises in store for me, Sabinus?’ Vespasian asked after a while. ‘It would be nice to know now whilst there’s still time to think about them.’

‘I’ve always told you whatever you needed to know at the time,’ Sabinus replied testily.

‘No you haven’t, you’ve only told me what you thought I needed to know. If we’re to work together effectively we need to share everything because it’s impossible to make the right decisions without all the information. You weren’t aware that I had come across Macro so you didn’t think it important to tell me that his interests and ours are now aligned.’

‘You should’ve told me that you’d come across him in the first place.’

‘He was trying to arrest me on the Aemilian Bridge four years ago; the way I saw it he was just another Praetorian doing his duty. I would have mentioned it if I’d known that he’s now changed sides.’

‘So I’ve told you now; what difference does it make?’ Sabinus snapped, hating being lectured to by his younger brother.

Vespasian fought to retain his temper. ‘The very fact that Macro has got to where he is in the Praetorian Guard shows that he is a man of ruthless ambition and not one to let bygones be bygones. He will have his revenge on me if he sees and recognises me, there’s no doubt about it. The question is whether his desire for revenge will interfere with whatever plan we put into place to get Rhoteces in front of the Emperor.’

‘He would be a fool if it did.’

‘You might think so, but pride is blind. I left him sprawling in an undignified heap in the dust; he may well think that the slight to his dignitas is too much to bear and use the opportunity to stick a knife between my ribs, just to make himself feel better, even if it jeopardises everything else.’

Having met the man Sabinus could see that his brother’s hunch might not be so far from the truth. ‘You could be right, I suppose,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll just have to try and keep you away from him.’

‘How will that be possible?’

‘We’ll see, but I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about him before, Vespasian.’

‘So, any more surprises then, Sabinus?’

A shout from the forward watch, just next to them, cut short any reply.

‘Trierarchus! Dead ahead.’

Vespasian looked up. A trireme had appeared from behind the headland at the tip of Cythera and was speeding towards the two traders, now no more than a mile away.

Rhaskos came running forward for a closer look.

‘Oh, Bendis help me,’ he wailed. ‘Pirates, and we don’t have the men to fight them off. We are truly cursed.’

‘The sun’s low behind us. We must be in its glare on the water – they haven’t seen us yet,’ Vespasian observed. ‘Let’s just leave them alone. They’ll be more than happy with what’s on board those two traders.’

‘We could try to sail past,’ Rhaskos replied, ‘but that will only arouse their interest. They’d expect a ship of this size to try and intervene; if we don’t they’ll assume that we’re either undermanned or carrying someone or something too precious to warrant risking. Either way they’ll come after us.’

‘What about turning and running?’ Sabinus suggested.

‘That will definitely tell them that we’re scared and with so many of the slaves too ill to row they’d catch us in a couple of hours. The only thing to do is to call their bluff. I’ll have Gaidres and his men arm the crew and we’ll sail straight for them as if we’re going to ram them and pray to every god that you can think of that they run.’

‘How many bows do you have?’ Sabinus asked, thinking of his only previous encounter with pirates.

‘More than we have crew,’ Rhaskos replied as he ran back to give the order to Gaidres to break out the ship’s weaponry.

Up ahead the trireme had reached the first of the traders. Vespasian watched as grappling hooks flew over the little ship’s stern and it was hauled into a deadly embrace. A stream of men flooded from the pirate galley on to their prey. By now they were close enough to hear the screams of the defenders float across the water as they were cut down within the close confines of their small, nautical world. The second trader sailed on.

By the time the first trader was taken the quinquereme’s crew and Gaidres with his men had assembled on deck. Each was armed with a bow and – much to Vespasian’s unwarranted surprise, since they were Thracians – a rhomphaia strapped on their backs.

Rhaskos shouted an order and the stroke-master accelerated the beat to attack speed. From below the sound of whips cracking over the backs of the labouring slaves intensified as they were goaded into the more rapid rhythm.

The quinquereme surged forward, its huge ram cutting through the swell, churning the water beneath its bow into white foam. It powered towards the pirate trireme, which had now spotted them and was in the process of hurriedly disengaging from its newly acquired prize. The skeleton crew left aboard the trader cast off the grappling hooks and the trireme, with surprising speed, executed a 180-degree turn, bringing it round to face the quinquereme. They were not going to run.