“I do not think that shall happen, Senator,” a woman’s voice said.
Every head turned to see Calpurnia emerge from the stern cabin. Her appearance sent a murmur of astonishment throughout the assembled hands. She wore a flowing blue dress, and her hair was neatly braided and crowned with a circlet of gold. She was the picture of posture and regality, looking every bit as put together as if she were departing for a day in the market.
“My lady!” Libo said with genuine concern. “You should not be here. You should be resting.”
“Thank you, Admiral, but I am fine. I am not quite as frail as you believe me to be.” She fired a look at Postumus. “I am compelled to be here. For I will not sit in my quarters while an innocent man is punished.”
“Innocent?” Postumus interjected again, the enmity in his face equal to that of Calpurnia, though he smiled and nodded to her curtly as one might show patience to a child. “My dear lady, perhaps the horror of your ordeal has clouded your head. The man was found lying beside you in the hold. There can be no doubt of his guilt.”
“You must have the wisdom of Posidonius, Senator, to come to such conclusions so quickly. I am the one who was attacked. I was there, and I say he is innocent!”
“Fortunately, my lady, your delicate heart need not exert itself with such decisions. It is quite out of your hands. The crime occurred aboard this warship, and thus, it is a matter concerning the breach of military discipline. Admiral Libo presides over these proceedings. It is for him, and only him, to declare guilt or innocence.”
“How kind of you to remind me,” she replied poisonously, and then cast a questioning glance at Libo.
“I’m afraid the senator is correct, my lady,” Libo said sympathetically, partly to make up for Postumus’s rudeness. “Your benevolence does you great credit, but naval law demands that the criminal be punished. It is in the interest of good order and discipline. You do understand, don’t you?”
“Do you now patronize me, too, Admiral?” she replied indignantly. “Of course I know discipline must be maintained. But discipline is not served when an innocent man is framed and the true villain goes free.”
“You say he is innocent, my lady,” Libo said politely, before anything insulting could issue from the senator. “Do you have any proof of that?”
“The proof of my own eyes, and my own memory. I know who assaulted me, Admiral, and it was not this man. This man tried to help me, but his chains prohibited it. Could a shackled man be my attacker? Surely, you can see the absurdity of such a notion.”
“But, my lady,” Flavius spoke up suddenly, shooting an odd glance at the senator. “The scoundrel was not shackled when he was found next to you.”
It had been an unusual outburst, and Calpurnia allowed the awkward moment to linger, pursing her lips in a small smile, waiting several long moments before responding.
“Your keen interest in the details of this affair warms my heart, Flavius,” she said derisively. “But bound or not, this man did not attack me.”
“Then you can identify the true offender?” Libo asked.
“Yes, Admiral,” she replied, never taking her eyes from Postumus, who now appeared slightly uncomfortable. She slowly raised her hand as if to point a finger at the senator, but then abruptly turned and pointed at another. “It was that man! There can be no question. He assaulted me!”
Every eye turned to look at the man she now accused. The devilish smile that had previously adorned the man’s face was now gone, replaced with surprise, confusion, and panic. Libo, too, was surprised. For the man whom Calpurnia now accused was the overseer Barca.
“Pardon my belaboring such a sensitive matter, my lady, but are you sure?”
“I am sure,” she answered without hesitation. “I saw him clearly in the light of the lantern.”
“No-no, my lady,” Barca stuttered, shaking his head. “It was not me. Not me, my lady.”
“Silence, vermin!” the handmaid snapped. She appeared ready to kill the man herself.
“But, how could it be me, my lady?” Barca stuttered nervously. “I did not see you in the hold last night. I…I was seeing to my duties last night.”
Libo saw Barca’s jittery eyes shoot a pleading glance at Postumus, and thought it very odd that he should keep looking in the senator’s direction.
“My dear lady,” Postumus said, cutting off the babbling overseer. “The light plays tricks on the eye. You were no doubt frightened out of your wits. While I’m sure you are frightened by the mere sight of this repulsive man,” the senator gestured at Barca, “there are so many like him on this vessel. How can you be certain he was the one?”
Marjanita stepped forward. “Last night, my mistress was wearing a cherished set of earrings given to her by her father. When I tended to her this morning, they were missing. This rogue must have made off with them before he fled.”
“Earrings, you say?” Libo asked, looking to Calpurnia for confirmation.
“Yes,” Calpurnia replied. “They were made of fine lapis lazuli.”
“Very well,” Libo sighed, glancing at Naevius. “I believe this can be resolved quickly, captain.”
“Aye, sir,” Naevius replied and then pointed to the front file of marines. “Go below, and search the kit of Barca the overseer.”
The marines saluted and marched down the hatchway. In the interval that followed, Libo noticed a staring competition of sorts between the short Barca and the tall prisoner. Barca smiled confidently, chuckled to himself, even cast taunting looks at the prisoner, no doubt filled with the self-assurance that the search would vindicate him. But, with each glance, Barca’s confidence began to visibly wane, for the prisoner did not appear in the slightest way concerned. He stared back at the overseer, his face set in a smug, almost amused expression, as if the two faced off across a latrunculi board and he had just played the winning move. By the time the marines trumped back up the ladder to report the results of their search, the overseer’s smile had faded completely and had been replaced with a look of dread.
Barca was now in a panic as the marines moved in, disarmed him of the baton, and bound him. The marine captain then approached Calpurnia and bowed, opening his hand to reveal two earrings of polished blue that twinkled in the morning sunlight.
“No…no!” Barca exclaimed disbelievingly. “This cannot be!” Again, he looked at Postumus, as if expecting some kind of assistance, finally pleading, “No… Senator…my lord, please…I -”
His pleas were quickly silenced by Flavius who was suddenly there and struck him violently across the face.
“Do not address the senator, scoundrel!” Flavius barked, as the bound man recoiled from the blow. “Who do you think you are?”
Barca was brought before Libo and the sentence was pronounced. A scratching noise was heard as the scribe vigorously rubbed out the centurion’s name, replacing it with the overseer’s, as casually as if he were correcting a mathematical error. Barca was practically sniveling as he was stripped of his clothes.
“Mercy, my lady,” he muttered under his breath. “Have mercy. It was not my fault. I wanted no harm to come to you.” When this drew no response from Calpurnia who looked out to sea as if he were not there, Barca cast a final pleading look at the senator. “My lord?”
Flavius moved as if to strike Barca again, but Postumus placed an arm on his adjutant’s shoulder to stop him. For a long moment, the senator stared at Barca as if he was considering whether or not to intercede on his behalf. When Naevius directed the marines to convey the condemned man to the grating, Postumus finally spoke.
“Wait, Captain Naevius.”
Libo watched with curiosity as the senator approached Naevius and the party of marines. A look of hope crossed the overseer’s face, but quickly evaporated when the senator drew a dark expression.
“Captain,” Postumus said without emotion. “It is possible this filth might further denigrate the lady’s honor as he endures the pain of the lash. Lady Calpurnia has su
ffered enough insults for one day. See to it that the rogue’s tongue is cut out.”
Naevius nodded and gestured to the marines, who quickly took hold of the overseer, one of them producing a pugio dagger.
“No! No! No!” Barca shrieked, his eyes wide with terror, his cries quickly degenerating into a perpetual dissonance of unintelligible screams.
XXI
Libo settled into the chair while Lucius stood on the opposite side of the cramped cabin, shifting his weight with the gentle roll of the ship.
“You are surprised that I summoned you here,” Libo said, pouring himself a cup of wine. “Are you not? Much more surprised than you were when Lady Calpurnia intervened on your behalf.”
“I did not attack the lady, my lord,” Lucius replied simply.
“You were facing certain death, Centurion. All of the evidence pointed to you. That lashing we both just witnessed, the overseer’s fate, might have been yours, had the lady not interceded. And yet, you did not appear the least bit concerned. You were as collected as a man preparing to bed down for the night. It was as if you somehow knew...” Libo eyed him suspiciously. “How do you explain that?”
“Perhaps ten years on campaign has dulled my fear of death, my lord.”
Lucius set his face in a stolid expression. He could tell Libo did not believe him, and indeed Lucius had given him a half-truth. While Lucius had spent many hard years suffering and witnessing unspeakable acts of cruelty on a hundred battlefields, and while those events had shaped him into the hardened warrior he was today, it had not been those experiences alone that had given him such an outward display of confidence on the brink of his own execution. Lucius had failed to mentioned the chief reason for his coolness, the event that had happened in the dark hours of the morning, after he had been apprehended and chained to the mast.
As he had sat slumped against the groaning fir column, trying to piece together the attack in the hold, and why Barca or anyone else might wish to do away with him in such a fashion, the handmaid had materialized out of the darkness. She had been cloaked in black and had moved as one with the night shadows, slithering from one dark corner to another, unseen by the deck watch, and completely unnoticed by Lucius until she was suddenly beside him.
“Do not turn to look at me, Roman!” She whispered harshly. “If you wish to live, you will answer my questions discreetly. Three weeks ago, you were in Rome, were you not?”
“I’m pleased that you remember, lass. You were dressed then much as you are now.” He then smiled and added. “But I prefer you as I saw you on deck the other night. Do you always swim in the nude?”
“Silence, dog! You will answer yes or no, or I will slit your throat here and now!”
He felt the cold steel of a blade against his neck, and nodded compliantly.
“You were aboard a ship bound for the Epirus coast,” she said. “A ship flying an orange banner?”
“Yes.”
“Do you then carry a message?”
“No.”
“Do not lie to me!” She pressed the steel deep against his neck.
“Easy with that knife, lass. I do not lie. I was assigned as bodyguard to one who carried a message, but he was killed.”
“Killed?”
“Aye.”
“And the message died with him?”
“He did tell me a few things, before he went to the afterlife,” Lucius said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “But I don’t like discussing business with the point of a blade in my gullet.”
From the long sigh she exuded he could tell that she was considering what she should do with him. While she paused, some of the pieces of the mystery behind Marcellus’s mission began to fall into place in Lucius’s mind. Lucius had seen this same woman, who now held a blade to his throat, three weeks ago, at Antony’s house in Rome. Lucius had been standing watch as captain of the guard and had conveyed her to Antony’s chamber, for she had claimed to bear some secret correspondence for Antony’s eyes alone. He had not seen her again that night, but the very next day he had been summoned to Antony’s lavish party and had been given the commission to escort Marcellus to Greece. He did not yet know how, or through what twist of the fates, that same woman now held a dagger to his throat, but he knew that the attempt to murder him and this woman’s mistress had to be connected to the message Marcellus had borne.
In the few moments of silence, Lucius sensed that the woman was indecisive. She was considering whether to cut his throat or get more information from him.
“Who have you told of this?” she asked finally.
“No one.”
“Listen to me, dog!” she said after a moment’s consideration. “You will say nothing about this message or your mission here. Understand? No matter what transpires, you will say nothing!”
He raised his hands, presenting the chains that bound him. “My prospects do not look fair at the moment, lass. My silence may be the death of me, should they question me in the morning.”
She instantly pressed the dagger hard enough against his skin to draw blood. “I assure you, Roman, your silence is your only chance to live. Say one word, and I will see that you die most painfully. Hold your tongue, and my mistress will help you.”
“Your mistress would help me, a common soldier?”
“Say nothing.” She was looking into his eyes, as if to find if there was any treachery there. Her eyes were menacing, but they also carried a natural alluring quality, one that even her rough temperament could not overshadow, and Lucius suddenly remembered what Antony had said about the hypnotic beauty of Asiatic women. “You will say nothing,” she repeated a final time before slithering back into the night.
Indeed there had been a moment that morning, as the charges were read out and the sentence nearly pronounced, when Lucius had considered using the information he guarded to save his own life. He did not know its true importance, but he suspected it might intrigue this Admiral Libo enough to spare him from the lash, at least for a little while.
The slightest perceptible shake of the head from Calpurnia had changed Lucius’s mind. He had taken a gamble, and had trusted her, and she had delivered. Barca had suffered in his place, and how he had suffered. Whatever evil the cruel overseer had meted out in his days strolling the planks between the benches, he had certainly now received his due reckoning. Lucius did not know exactly how Calpurnia had managed to implicate Barca, but he imagined the nimble woman who was evidently skilled at both stealth and swimming would have had little trouble planting the earrings in the overseer’s kit.
Calpurnia had lived up to her word, although Lucius was sure the noble lady had not expected the admiral to whisk him away so quickly. Certainly, she had expected Lucius to be placed back on the oars, which would have allowed her time to arrange a private meeting with him.
Now, as Lucius stared back at Libo, he sensed that the admiral was not in league with the Lady Calpurnia and had an entirely separate agenda of his own.
“I take it Barca did not like you?” Libo said. “Nor you him, I suppose.”
“I will not miss him, sir. Though, I’d have preferred to kill the bastard with my own two hands.”
“It puzzles me, though, Centurion. Why would Barca go to such elaborate means to frame you? Surely, had he wished to do away with you, he could have done it. He could have concocted any reason to have you flogged to death.”
“They wanted the lady dead, too, sir.”
“They?” Libo asked curiously.
“There were several of them, sir. At least three, apart from Barca. The others wore helmets, so I didn’t see their faces.”
“Three, you say?”
“I counted three, sir. Two were big, fighting men, the other was of slighter build.” Lucius decided not to mention anything about the ape-like creature. He was still not entirely convinced he had not hallucinated that part.
Libo stared at the table and seemed to consider for a long moment before looking up at Lucius again. “
You were the one I saw on the transport – the vessel that displayed the orange pennant. You were the last survivor.”
“Indeed I was, sir.”
“Why would they single out you? Unless there is some connection between the events of last night, and your mission.” Libo eyed him peculiarly. “What was your mission, Centurion? Why were you on that ship, and what in Neptune’s trident was the meaning of the orange pennant?”
“As to the pennant, I don’t right know, sir. As to my mission, all I wished to do was rejoin my legion, but I was given an assignment to complete along the way. I was to escort a senior officer to a rendezvous in Epirus.”
“A senior officer?” Libo said quizzically. “The legate that was run through by the Greek captain?”
“The same, sir. Marcellus was his name. Though, I don’t know much else about him.”
“He said something to you before he died. Did he not?”
“Yes, sir,” Lucius said.
“Something that troubled you.” Libo had evidently detected the chord of anger in Lucius’s reply.
“The whore-spawn General Marc Antony sent me on that mission, sir. Said I could rejoin my legion once I saw Marcellus to his destination. But Antony had it out for me. He’d given orders to Marcellus to have me murdered once we reached Epirus.”
“And it was Marcellus himself who told you this?” Libo asked attentively.
“I suppose he had a moment of conscience, sir, after I’d defended him to the last. Or maybe he was just delirious. Either way, I know it in my bones that he spoke the truth in those last moments, and I’ll be sure to pay a visit to General Marcus bloody Antony should I ever set foot in Italy again.”
Libo appeared to contemplate that for a moment. “Was that all the legate told you?”
“No, sir,” Lucius said with forced hesitancy, for he had expected the question.
Libo seemed to instantly detect his reluctance to say more and assumed a more congenial disposition. “You know, Centurion, you and I have much in common.”
“We do, sir?” Lucius smiled, knowing full well he was being wooed.
Rome: Tempest of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series) Page 18
