Ship of Rome

by John Stack

  The woman nodded, the gesture almost lost in the nearly pitch-darkness. The two hurried away and Atticus made his way to the tavern. He hoped the message was ambiguous enough to forestall any gossip amongst the servants, knowing that Hadria would want to keep any meeting secret.

  Atticus banged on the door and an innkeeper opened a small, face-high hatchway in the stout wooden door. Atticus asked for lodgings and, after a brief moment when the innkeeper looked beyond Atticus into the darkened street, the door was opened. A stable lad was called to take Atticus’s mount, and a young boy ran fearlessly out into the street to guide the horse away to a nearby enclosed courtyard. After the darkness of the street, the oil-lamp light of the tavern was warm and inviting. The atmosphere was subdued, with only four other guests in the spacious room. Atticus ordered an amphora of wine and some food and then settled down in a corner to wait. The whole idea had been ambitious, a goal set on the hope that Hadria had returned to her aunt’s house in the city, that he would be able to find the house and that she would be willing to see him. He thanked Venus for the good fortune that had carried him thus far.

  After thirty minutes, Atticus began to question whether his run of good fortune had ended with the discovery of the house. He anxiously watched the door, willing a knock to be heard that would signal her arrival. Doubts began to fill his thoughts. Perhaps the message had been intercepted by one of her brothers who, unknown to Atticus, had returned and was staying in the same house. Or perhaps the servant had simply pocketed the money and the message had never been delivered. The last reason he had thought of, the one he did not want to contemplate, was that Hadria had received the message but did not want to see him.

  A loud knock broke his thoughts. The knock was repeated, louder than before. The innkeeper walked across the room to the door, shouting to the person outside to be patient. As before, he opened the hatchway to peer out at the caller. Words were spoken that Atticus could not hear, although he could tell the person on the other side of the door was a man. The innkeeper turned.

  ‘Is there a Captain Perennis here?’ he called.

  Atticus stood up to identify himself, his hand automatically going to the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Someone here is looking for you,’ the innkeeper explained, his eyes seeing Atticus’s guarded gesture. His hand stayed firmly on the iron bolt holding the door closed.

  Atticus walked to the door and looked out. A soldier was standing there, a house guard who looked alertly up and down the darkened street.

  ‘I am Captain Perennis,’ Atticus said through the hatchway.

  The guard turned back to the hatchway.

  ‘The mistress of my house requests you accompany me. She has a message for her brother which she wishes you to bear,’ he said, the guarded message revealing nothing of Hadria’s identity to the prying ears of the innkeeper.

  ‘Open the door,’ Atticus ordered.

  ‘It’s not safe out there,’ the innkeeper said, ‘and you haven’t paid for your room or the lodging for your horse.’

  Atticus reached into his pocket and withdrew a bronze sestertius. The innkeeper bit the coin before putting it in his pocket. Only then did he draw back the bolt.

  Atticus stepped out into the street once more, his hand remaining steadily on his sword. The soldier turned and walked up the street, passing the main doorway the servants had indicated earlier. The street was strangely quiet, the only sounds those of muted conversations and laughter behind the burned brick walls of the houses. The guard made a sudden left turn into a narrow alleyway, the path leading along the north wall of the town house. The soldier’s steps took him unerringly to a small wooden door set into the wall. He tapped on the door and it immediately opened, a shadowy figure beyond beckoning them in off the street. The door was immediately closed and barred. Atticus followed the guard across a courtyard bathed in subdued light from second-storey windows. They made their way towards a door, and again the guard had to knock before the sound of a sliding bolt signalled their permission to enter. The opening door threw a long rectangle of light out into the courtyard and Atticus once again experienced the relief of entering a well-lit room.

  The guard who had opened the door and the escort left, leaving the young captain alone. Atticus looked around the simple square room, its doorways probably leading to other reception rooms and the atrium, their destinations now hidden from view. A long, low marble bench stood in the middle of the room, minimal furnishing that spoke to the room’s use as a waiting area. Atticus could not sit, and he paced the room for what seemed an eternity. Finally a door opened and a woman entered.

  In the weeks they had spent apart since their last encounter, Atticus had formed a picture in his mind of Hadria. A simple, unadorned portrait that spoke to her beauty and poise. It had become his icon, the image he evoked when the end of a day allowed him a moment’s peace. He could see now that even his elaborate imagination did not do justice to the real vision before him. She literally shone with beauty, the soft light of the room behind her infusing her hair and framing her image in the doorway.

  ‘Hadria,’ Atticus whispered, his voice instinctively lowered in the muted space.

  She walked forward at his summons, her movements slow and ethereal, her smile suddenly radiant and infectious.

  ‘You kept me waiting,’ Atticus said playfully.

  ‘Your message took me completely by surprise,’ Hadria countered with a smile. ‘First I had to wait until my aunt retired for the evening. Then I had to dismiss all the servants to make sure none would see you enter.’

  Atticus smiled at the convoluted arrangements.

  ‘I almost decided you weren’t worth the trouble,’ Hadria added teasingly.

  Atticus smiled but did not reply immediately and a silence began to spin out between them. They both gazed intently at each other, the air around them becoming charged with unspoken emotions before Hadria suddenly rushed the last few yards between them and flung herself into Atticus’s arms. He held her tightly, drinking in the smell of her perfumed body, the feel of her against him. They drew slightly apart and kissed, the intimacy of the moment causing them both to catch their breaths.

  As Atticus framed Hadria’s face in his hands, he noticed tears forming in her eyes and he thought his heart would break at the sight.

  ‘We have so little time,’ she explained before he could speak, ‘only minutes before the guard commander returns to escort you back to the tavern. I told him that you were going to courier a message for me to my brother in Fiumicino.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ Atticus began, ‘I am not expected back at camp until noon tomorrow. There is so much I need to tell you, so much I want to know.’

  ‘We can’t be together, Atticus,’ Hadria tried to explain, ‘not yet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of Septimus.’

  ‘Septimus,’ Atticus spat as he broke away, striding around the marble bench until it separated him from Hadria, ‘I already know what he thinks.’

  Hadria’s confused look prompted Atticus to continue.

  ‘He thinks I’m not good enough for you. That because I’m Greek, I’m beneath you.’

  Hadria’s face showed instant shock and she shook her head, her hands outstretched across the bench.

  ‘No, Atticus, that’s not true.’ She pleaded, ‘Whatever Septimus has told you is only a front. Septimus wants us apart because of Valerius.’

  ‘Valerius?’

  ‘Yes, Valerius Cispius Clarus, my first husband.’

  ‘But why…?’

  ‘Valerius was Septimus’s best friend,’ she explained. ‘They grew up together and joined the Ninth Legion together. He took Valerius’s death at Agrigentum very hard. I even believe it was one of the reasons why he transferred from the Ninth to the marines.’

  Realization began to dawn on Atticus’s face and he walked once more around the bench to be by Hadria’s side.

  ‘So Septimus is concerned…’ Atticus began.


  ‘…that history could repeat itself,’ Hadria concluded.

  ‘So why didn’t Septimus tell me this himself?’

  ‘Because he’s a proud man, Atticus, and I think he would see his concern as being a weakness.’

  Atticus instinctively held out his arms again and Hadria moved into his embrace, her worries momentarily forgotten.

  ‘I love you, Atticus. I know that now. But I also know the terrible price that would be paid if Septimus found out we were together before I had a chance to somehow allay his fears.’

  Atticus smiled at the loyalty underlying Septimus’s concerns.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Hadria asked.

  ‘He must love you very much,’ Atticus said simply.

  ‘Yes…he does,’ she said, his understanding touching her deeply.

  She moved up and kissed him full on the lips, allowing the contact to linger. The sound of approaching footsteps caused Hadria to suddenly break contact. The guard commander was returning.

  ‘Please take care, Atticus…Take care until we meet again,’ she breathed, her voice cracking with the fear she felt for the man she loved. Atticus embraced her, allowing her to draw strength from him and the intensity of their shared love before she drew away from him again. She turned quickly and rushed towards the door. For a brief second her body was outlined in the dim light from the hallway beyond, and she turned towards him one last time, whispering his name as she did so. Then she was gone.

  The activity in the camp was as frenzied as before when Atticus rode through the main gate an hour before noon. His pass was checked one last time and then confiscated to avoid it being used again. Atticus willingly relinquished the document, having no further use for it. He knew he would not get another chance to leave the camp on such an extended leave.

  Atticus checked the course of the sun in the clear blue sky. He had more than enough time for a swim and a bite to eat aboard the Aquila before his meeting with the consul. He hastened his step and crested the dune separating the camp from the beach. The sight before him caused him to stop. Of the fifty galleys that had been moored off the beach the day before, only a dozen or so remained, and they were in the process of getting under way, their bows pointed south towards the port of Ostia. It was not their progress that drew his gaze, however, it was the twenty huge transport ships that had taken the galleys’ place off the beach. They were ganged together in four groups, each one congregated around one of the four wooden piers that stretched far enough out to sea to ensure the barges did not become beached as they unloaded their cargo of humanity. Atticus stopped a soldier who was hurrying past him.

  ‘What legion are they, soldier?’

  ‘They are the Fifth, of Liguria,’ the young legionary said before running off again.

  Already the beach just above the breakwater was crowded with the disciplined formations of the newly arrived legion. Every few moments a fully formed maniple would begin the march up the beach between the framed workings of the shipbuilders. Like the Fourth, which was already encamped in Fiumicino, the Fifth was a garrison legion and therefore consisted of roughly five thousand soldiers in forty maniples. These legions lacked the additional numbers of auxiliaries and mounted cavalry that would swell their size to ten thousand, the complement of a campaigning legion such as those in Sicily. Judging from their regimented ranks and the fact that they were part of the Republic’s northern defence, Atticus suspected they were a tough, experienced unit.

  Atticus walked down the beach towards the southernmost pier where the Aquila had been moored the evening before. Beyond the two barges now moored on the pier he could see his own galley anchored two hundred yards offshore, its position well removed from the cumbersome transports. Atticus walked away from the pier to an isolated spot on the beach and waved to the galley. His wave was returned by Lucius on the aft-deck, who immediately recognized the captain. Atticus watched as a skiff was launched. He pointed towards the end of the pier, indicating where he wanted to be picked up, and then began walking the short distance back to the barges.

  The pier was eight feet wide and stretched for one hundred yards into the sea from the high-tide mark of the beach. Atticus walked down the right-hand side of the pier, the stern-faced soldiers marching three abreast coming past him on the other side. As Atticus drew level with the centre of the barge, he paused to look up onto the main deck, his progress temporarily blocked by the unloading of a large crate hanging precariously from a crane.

  The rail at the side of the low deck had been removed to allow for the six-foot-wide, twelve-foot-long gangplank to be lowered onto the pier. These massive gangplanks were ubiquitous on all trading barges, their width and sturdiness allowing for everything from livestock to gangs of slaves to be unloaded quickly. The gangplanks normally lay on the main deck and were simply thrown over the side of the ship when in port, their momentum checked at the last moment by guide ropes attached to the deck end. It was a simple yet skilful manoeuvre requiring split-second timing and a firm hand. One slip and the gangplank would fall completely over the side of the barge, an embarrassment often witnessed by Atticus in the busy ports of the Republic.

  The legionaries waited patiently at the back of the main deck as the crane, its base attached to the main mast, swung out over the lowered gangplank. A shouted command ordered the gang of sailors controlling it to ease it away, and they slowly lowered the lifting arm until the crate hung over the pier at the foot of the gangplank. A second team of sailors holding the rope attached to the crate fed the line through a pulley at the top of the crane and the cargo dropped gently onto the pier. Men clambered over the crate to untie it and the crane was hoisted away again in search of the next crate. Atticus stepped around the knot of men manhandling the cargo and walked on towards the end of the pier.

  Atticus spied the small skiff making its way towards him and he waved a greeting. A sudden thought arrested him and he spun around to look back at the barge. The legionaries had recommenced their disembarkation, their disciplined ranks forming at the head of the gangplank before marching down its twelve-foot length, three abreast. The formation wheeled right at the foot of the gangplank and continued on down the pier towards the beach. Within a minute an entire maniple, twenty rows of three men abreast, had disembarked.

  Atticus was dumbstruck by the simplicity of the idea forming in his head. His sceptical side argued against the basic concept, but his logical mind overcame the doubts to once more re-establish the solution firmly in his thoughts. Atticus began to run, his flight drawing puzzled looks from the sailors in the skiff. He passed the legionaries marching along the pier and continued on to the beach. He stopped for a second to get his bearings, his eyes searching the construction site before him, but Lentulus, the master shipbuilder, was nowhere to be seen. Atticus started running again, this time up the beach towards the camp. As he ran his face took on a determined expression, the idea turning over and over in his head.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Scipio retched again at the overpowering stench surrounding him in the pitch-black recesses of the bottom deck of the Carthaginian galley. The cramped space of the hold was in marked contrast to where Scipio had spent the first two weeks of his captivity, locked in the fortified garrison at Lipara. From the window of his cell he had been able to look out over the harbour and watch the loss of his Classis Romanus, not through destruction but through conversion and amalgamation into the Carthaginian fleet. Sixteen of his original twenty galleys had survived the ambush and their number had swelled the ranks of the enemy in a bitter twist that shamed the onceproud consul. At the end of the two weeks the Carthaginians had made ready to sail again from Lipara. It was then that Scipio had been dragged from his cell and without explanation thrown into the hold where he now languished.

  His stomach cramped as he doubled over, its contents long lost, and he fought to catch his breath. The claustrophobic nightmare of the confined space filled his consciousness again and threatened to overwhelm him
. He dug deep into his courage to fight the rising panic but found his nerve failing. His legs ached in the confined space, the five-foot headroom forcing him to alternate between squatting and crouching in an effort to keep off the filthy, cockroach- and faeces-infested deck. A bulkhead separated him from the slave quarters and he could hear their moans and wretched coughing through the timbers. It was a sound that chilled his blood.

  Scipio was not sure exactly how long he had been in the hold but he estimated it had been at least two weeks. The hatchway above him had opened intermittently during that time, his captors giving him stale bread and brackish water, their offering always accompanied by an insulting remark spoken in their incomprehensible language. During the first week Scipio had done his best to present an outward display of indifference to his predicament, not wanting to give his captors the satisfaction of knowing how much he was suffering. The act had produced a brutal response on two occasions, the second a blow to the head that had knocked him unconscious. The second week had marked the onset of a pervasive fear, a feeling that he would be left to die in the hold, and it was then that all trace of real defiance had fled. As the drum from the slave deck above him continued its unending beat, Scipio felt the final vestiges of his resolve begin to dissipate in the darkness engulfing him.

  Hannibal Gisco walked down the length of the rowing deck towards the guarded hatchway that led to the lower hold. He moved silently, his eyes ranging over the rows of chained galley slaves. As the taskmasters patrolling the deck became aware of Gisco’s presence, they intensified their whip lashes on the backs of the rowers. Their increased barbarity was not born from zeal but from fear. Gisco noted the change and smiled inwardly to himself. He had been surprised to learn that the Romans used their own sailors as taskmasters on the slave deck. Years before, Gisco had ordered the position filled by slaves taken from the ranks of the rowers themselves.

  Gisco’s method meant that from the moment those chosen picked up the whip and delivered their first lash, they became enemies of their fellow slaves. Any sign that a taskmaster was sparing his former companions from the lash was instantly punishable by returning that slave to the ranks of the rowers. Once back amongst those men, the former taskmaster’s life was measured in hours, their death normally occurring during their first relief break when, along with the men they had recently whipped, they were confined out of sight in the hold beneath the rowing deck. The move had immeasurably enhanced the effectiveness of the taskmasters, causing them to become vicious, almost inhuman in their ferocity, the fear that they might be seen as lenient intensifying their brutality.