Battle for Rome

by Ian Ross

  After the attack, the Thetis had put to sea at first light, leaving only two rough graves beneath the pines to show that anything unusual had happened there. All the way along the coast of the island of Ilva they had been prepared for another attack, the sailors armed and ready, but there had been no further sightings of the supposed pirates. Instead, off the southern cape of the island, the Thetis had been intercepted by a warship coming out from the land. Castus and the rest of the party had concealed themselves in the deckhouse, while the shipmaster had answered the galley’s summons in his thickest Corsican accent. It had been enough to dissuade them from any further investigation: the Thetis was too small, and too obviously a local coasting vessel, for the Maxentian marines to bother boarding her.

  Since then there had been no more trouble, and after their voyage down the Corsican coast and across to Sardinia the Thetis had landed the party at Olbia and sailed away again, the master and crew clearly glad to be rid of their dangerous passengers.

  Staring down from the inn window into the dazzle of sunlight, Castus saw the familiar greyish figure of Nigrinus walking along the quay towards the moored ship, with Felix trailing behind him. He suppressed a quick smile: he was one step ahead of the notary in finding onward passage, it seemed. Pudentianus and the rest of the party were lodged in a different inn a short way up the street. Since their arrival in Sardinia the young nobleman had kept himself away from the brothels and wine shops. This was home territory for him, Castus supposed. He only hoped that Pudentianus did not go too far in playing the local magnate’s son. They were supposed to be keeping a low profile here, after all.

  ‘How are you getting on with that Christian?’ Castus asked Diogenes. ‘Has he managed to convert you yet?’

  ‘Far from it,’ Diogenes said, with a wry smile. ‘In fact, I’ve been steadily undermining his beliefs one by one, and exposing them for the childish and illogical fantasies they surely are! I do believe I might be close to convincing him…’

  ‘Careful with that,’ Castus said. ‘We don’t want him too undermined; he’s got to persuade the Christians in Rome that we’re on their side yet.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I suppose so…’

  Down at the end of the quay, Nigrinus was talking to a pair of men in sailor’s clothing. Castus saw him gesture at the ship. Seagulls were whirling and hacking around the quays, and the masts swayed in the sunlight. Behind the notary, Felix stood waiting. What had Nigrinus told him? Seeing them together like that made Castus uneasy; no doubt the notary was angling to recruit Felix to his schemes.

  Dropping his gaze, Castus scanned the figures moving along the broad paved expanse of the nearer quayside. Nobody down there seemed to be paying special attention to Nigrinus and Felix. In the bright sun, the scene appeared quite peaceful; hard to imagine that a desperate war was being fought over on the mainland. Then a party of soldiers went striding past, off-duty marines from one of the warships moored on the far side of the harbour. Castus heard them singing and laughing, boisterously heedless of the civilian life around them. Frowning, he turned from the window. The less time they spent in Olbia, he thought, the better for them all.

  *

  The Fortuna Redux sailed late the following afternoon, gliding out of the sheltered harbour on the land breeze. As she cleared the headland, her hull began to roll with the motion of the deep-sea swells. Rigging wailed as the big main yard swung to the wind, and by early evening the craggy coastline of Sardinia had sunk below the eastern horizon, and the ship was sailing out of sight of land.

  There were a score of passengers aboard, most of them from Carthage. A plump lady named Magnilla was travelling with her small entourage of slaves and eunuchs; then there was a troupe of pantomime actors from Hippo Regius, and three or four merchants with their own slaves. As they felt the currents of the deep sea take them, all filed up to the shrine beneath the raised gooseneck stern and made their sacrifices for a safe voyage. The Fortuna Redux was a stout and broad-hulled bulk freighter, her hold packed with amphorae of wine, fish sauce and olive oil. There was a big deckhouse aft, with cabins for the owner, shipping agent and sailing master, and a few of the wealthier passengers: Pudentianus had secured accommodation in there for himself, Stephanus and Nigrinus. Everyone else had to berth on the open deck, or down in the stinking recesses of the hold above the slopping bilge waters.

  Clouds covered the sky, and the wind was whipping spume off the wave crests. As the light faded Castus stood on deck and watched a party of sailors rigging ropes and tackle near the stern. Others ran along the decks, hauling on the lifts and braces to draw the big mainsail up close to the yard. One of them paused for a moment and bent over the water butt beside the mainmast, drinking deeply.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Castus called to him, gesturing to the party at the stern.

  The sailor straightened up and wiped his mouth. ‘Fixing relieving tackle to the steering oars,’ he said in a slurring African accent. He nodded to windward. ‘Greasy sky, see. Feel those big swells from the south-east? Comin’ on to blow. Be a dirty night, I’d say.’ He grinned. ‘Best get yourself below and hang onto something!’

  Castus grimaced. He could already feel the deck heaving and pitching beneath him, the breeze coming in hard from the north. The sailor loped away again, but Castus remained where he was; he did not fancy spending the night down in the bilges, in the stinking rat-scurrying darkness with a pack of wailing, frightened slaves.

  Further towards the bows, Castus made out the figure of Valerius Felix crouched against the rail, clinging onto one of the main-yard lifts. Moving with long swaying strides, reaching out for support, Castus made his way forward up the pitching deck until he stood beside the man. Felix had a blanched and queasy look as he stared out over the darkening waves; clearly he had still not shaken off his seasickness. He just nodded a greeting as Castus approached. For a while they stood in silence, gazing at the rise and fall of the grey horizon.

  ‘How long since you were last in Rome?’ Castus called above the noise of wind and water, the wail of rigging and the groan of the ship’s heavy timbers. Felix took his time answering.

  ‘Twenty years, more or less,’ he said at last.

  Castus nodded. He realised that he had little idea how old Felix was. About his own age, he guessed, which would make him barely more than a boy when he had left the city.

  ‘You still know any people there?’

  Felix shook his head. ‘Not people,’ he said, with a tight grimace. ‘Places.’

  He seemed unwilling to say more. Ironic, Castus thought, that he had chosen a man even more taciturn than himself to accompany him on this mission. Once again, he wondered if the stories he had heard about Felix were true. Had the man really been a slave? And what had driven him from Rome at such a young age? Clearly there were things about his past that Felix did not want to discuss. Castus could understand that. As the soldier’s commanding officer, he had the right to demand answers, but in this unusual situation he was content to let the matter drop, for now. There were other things he wanted to discuss.

  ‘The notary was talking to you, back at Olbia.’

  Felix pursed his lips sourly, then his face split into a quick grin. Gone almost at once. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘He talked.’

  ‘And said what?’

  Felix looked at him, a knowing glint in his eye. ‘He was sounding me out,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t interested. I know his sort.’

  ‘Good,’ Castus told him, and could not resist smiling too. Somehow he still felt he could trust this man, although the gods knew he had enough reason not to.

  ‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘Back at Verona, that night the enemy commander broke through our lines. You saw those men coming after me?’

  Felix swallowed heavily. He nodded again. ‘I knew what they were about,’ he said. ‘Heard them talking, back in the tent lines.’

  ‘You could have reported it.’

  The man’s expression closed, his eyes growing dark. ‘
I never been much of an informer,’ he said. ‘Nor liked the sort that were. Reckoned I’d just follow and see what I could do.’

  Castus grunted, low in his throat, and gazed back at the sea again. This too he could respect, in a way. Felix had certainly saved his life back there, although he might have wished the man had not left things so much to chance. But he was decisive, at least, and capable of taking action.

  The noise of the wind had increased, and the Fortuna Redux was pitching heavily now, her bows bursting the water and scattering spray back along the decks. There was still a bit of light in the sky to the east, greenish and shredded by cloud, but the ship was moving into the night and the weather out there was dirty, just as the sailor had predicted.

  ‘You should go below,’ Castus said, but Felix just frowned and shook his head.

  ‘Better up here,’ he said in a choked voice.

  Castus could only agree. They said nothing more, huddled against the rail in the blast of the wind as the spray soaked them and the ship rolled and dived. Darkness all around them now, shot with flashes of moonlight, and when Castus peered out over the far rail he could make out the wave crests rolling past higher than the ship’s side, boiling white with foam. The mainsail had been furled, and the ship laboured along with only the headsail to give her steerage way. In the brief gleam of light between the clouds Castus could see the figure of the helmsman, standing rigid on the roof of the deckhouse with the big tillers of the steering oars clasped tight, the wind whipping at his grey hair.

  Every time the ship dived, a chorus of screams rose from the slaves and other passengers down in the hold. Castus did not envy them: for all the cold and wet out here on deck, at least he could see the sky and sense the motion of the waves around him. Down below, he knew, there would be nothing but lurching darkness and fear. After a few hours, the sounds of terror decreased, the people below decks stunned into silence, praying fitfully. Only the occasional despairing wail or nauseated groan rose from the hatches.

  Castus had eaten nothing since leaving port, or taken anything to drink. Now that the motion of the ship had grown more regular he felt hunger pinching at his belly. He could ignore that, but thirst was more pressing. He clapped Felix on the shoulder, gestured, then began crawling back along the scuppers towards the water butt beside the mast. When he reached it, he found the liquid slopping inside to be undrinkable, so much salt spray had got into it. Cursing, he crawled further towards the deckhouse: he had a flask of vinegar wine and some food stowed in his baggage in the narrow shelter beneath the overhanging roof.

  As he passed the deck hatchway, Castus heard a rattle and a thud from the ladder, and a figure came groping up from the darkness below. Pausing for a moment, startled, Castus watched as the man crawled out of the hatch and crouched on the deck. It was one of the actors from Hippo Regius, from what he could see; the man turned, and Castus caught the glint of his smile and the exaggerated gasp as he breathed in the fresh night air.

  Pulling himself onward along the ship’s rail, Castus reached the overhang of the deckhouse and found his bundle of belongings. He dragged out his cape, damp now from the sea spray but still dry on the inside, then found the flask of wine and drank deeply. He was just shoving the flask back inside the bundle when he heard the scream from inside the deckhouse.

  A woman, it sounded like. But immediately afterwards there was a man’s cry. ‘Murder! Help – murder!’

  Castus’s hand grasped the hilt of the shortsword concealed in his baggage and drew it free, and immediately he was moving. He pulled his way back along the wooden wall of the deckhouse, braced against the steeply tilting deck, until he reached the corner and swung himself around to the doorway.

  The door was latched shut from the inside, but Castus hurled himself against it and the thin slats burst apart. Dragging the door open, he lurched through the opening with the sword held low at his side.

  Two steps down to the deckhouse floor; partition doors hanging open in the wheeling light of an uncovered lantern. Castus took in the scene in a heartbeat: the plump lady, Magnilla, poised at an open door, her mouth gaping in a silent scream; Pudentianus peering from behind her shoulder. Opposite, a blanket-covered body with three bloodstained knife-holes. There were others gathered in the shadows, figures waking from huddled sleep to panic and horror.

  He did not see the man crouched in the shadow at the foot of the steps until it was almost too late.

  The attacker seemed to curl upwards from the floor, the knife flowing into a stabbing strike. Crying out, Castus slammed himself sideways against the doorframe. He felt the blade cut through the cloth of his tunic and rip free, then he grabbed at the man as he tried to push past him and through the door. The deck plunged suddenly, and they were thrown together as the lamp in the deckhouse snuffed out.

  Screams in the darkness as Castus tried to grapple the man, and get his sword around to strike. Stumbling on the steps, he half fell and the man writhed free of his grip and bolted out onto the open deck. Castus was at his heels, the sword in his hand.

  Wind flung spray over the rail, and ahead of him Castus saw the man running with a lurching stride towards the mast. He was thin, dressed only in a short tunic, and he still held the short stabbing knife.

  Felix was moving down the deck from the bows, a heavy maul clasped in his fist. As he reached the mast, the fugitive saw that he was trapped and turned at bay. In the moonlight Castus could see the man’s face twist into a desperate snarl. He threw a glance at Felix, then looked back at Castus. Advancing steadily, Castus kept his blade low and level; if the man tried to jump him again, he would be ready. There were others behind him too now, sailors clambering up from the deck hatch.

  The killer took one more desperate look up and down the deck, then flung himself wildly towards the rail and vaulted across it. The dark surge of water took him at once, and he was gone.

  *

  Dawn came up fiery red in the east, and the morning sun shone clear across a placid empty sea. The storm had blown itself out in the night, and now the sky was a clean-washed blue, only a trail of little white clouds along the horizon. A fine sight, but the mood aboard the Fortuna Redux did not reflect it.

  Passengers and crew gathered on deck, all of them grey-faced and weary after the disturbed night, as the sailors sewed up the body of the murdered man in a blanket and tied a ballast rock at its feet. One of the Carthage merchants claimed to be a Christian of sorts, and muttered a short half-remembered prayer over the body before the sailors heaved it up and carried it to the rail.

  ‘Should we not wait, and take the body ashore for burial?’ Diogenes asked. ‘I believe members of the sect prefer to be entombed on land…’

  The shipmaster shook his head grimly. ‘Bad luck to carry a corpse aboard ship,’ he said. ‘Besides, don’t that sort say their god walked on the water? Maybe he can walk across the waves and find himself a burial plot?’

  Without another word, the body of the Christian priest Stephanus was pitched over the side and vanished beneath the waves.

  ‘A shame,’ Diogenes said to Castus. ‘I really thought I was making progress with that man. A keen intellect, for all his erroneous beliefs…’

  Pudentianus stood by the deckhouse door, rubbing his grey face. ‘It was supposed to be me,’ he mumbled as Castus approached. ‘I was lying right next to the priest at the beginning of the night… that man came into the deckhouse on some errand – a mistake, I thought… I was suspicious then, but thought nothing more of it. If I had not crossed the cabin to, uh… to comfort the domina Magnilla, it would have been me he knifed! It would be me going over the side right now…!’

  ‘You were comforting her?’ Castus asked in a low voice.

  ‘Of course!’ Pudentianus said, his jaw quivering slightly. ‘She was most alarmed by the storm…’

  Magnilla herself stood nearby, flanked by her maids, with a scented cloth pressed to her mouth. Her eyes streamed black runnels of kohl down her cheeks, and when Pud
entianus made a movement towards her she fled back inside the deckhouse.

  The actors from Hippo Regius were extremely apologetic, at least. The killer had been a stranger to them, they claimed; he had joined them at Olbia, after one of their number had suddenly fallen sick. All seemed to believe that the death was a very poor omen for their forthcoming appearance on the Roman stage.

  The gathering on deck was breaking up now, some of the passengers slinking away below, while others slumped at the rail to enjoy the fresh air after their night’s confinement. Castus made his way to the mast; the water butt had been emptied of its brackish contents and refilled with fresh rainwater. He stooped, drank, and when he straightened up Nigrinus was at his elbow.

  ‘I assume you have your suspicions about the night’s events?’ the notary said, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Of course. I’m starting to realise that you’re not entirely as stupid as you appear.’

  Castus cleared his throat, then paced to the rail and spat over the side. Leaning back against the rail, he regarded the notary with a hard grimace.

  ‘Well, then?’ Nigrinus said, joining him. ‘Our killer was no random maniac, we must conclude. Most likely he intended to murder our senatorial friend, and thereby throw our mission into jeopardy. Without Pudentianus, we have no contact with the nobility of Rome, and no base in the city from which to operate. If you had not acted so promptly, he would probably have succeeded. Now – do you think he was one of the same party that attacked us on the beach?’

  Castus nodded. He was debating with himself how much he should tell the notary. Not much, he concluded. He would let Nigrinus make the connections himself.

  ‘So we must assume,’ Nigrinus went on, ‘that the ship you believed was following us from Genua brought these men on our trail. They must have sailed directly to Olbia ahead of us, after their failed attack on the beach. So they knew where we were going. So… we must hope that the remainder of their party have not already moved on to Rome, or our stay in the city could be uncomfortable.’