Praetorian: The Price of Treason

by S. J. A. Turney

  The four of them fell silent again, nodding slowly.

  ‘What do we do then?’ Rufinus asked quietly, and Mercator shrugged.

  ‘We throw a libation of wine over the side for Neptune’s favour and a speedy run to Pietas Iulia. Then we ride for Vindobona and Carnuntum, deliver our packages and then return home, exactly as duty requires. We swore an oath to the emperor and to the Praetorian eagle. We don’t question our orders. We just carry them out, like the soldiers we are, and hope we aren’t getting ourselves in the shit doing it.’

  Rufinus nodded. ‘I’ll certainly be happier when we’re on the road again and far ahead of those riders.’

  IX – Winds of Dalmatia

  Rufinus huddled in his thin cloak, the thicker one protecting his armour below deck and serving as a pillow for Acheron last time he checked. The breeze seemed to cut through the material like a knife through butter and he gazed with bitter respect at Dexter who stood nonchalantly next to him in just a tunic and scarf despite his years of acclimatising to the searing Aegyptian sun. The sky was a uniform mid-grey, almost exactly matching the tone of the water around them, to such an extent that he had to concentrate to see where the sea ended and the sky began. It was in truth not a long crossing from Ancona to Pietas Iulia – a single day’s hop – and Rufinus had been further out to sea when leaving Tarraco, but still, a hundred miles was enough to afford no sight of land in any direction when out in the heart of the Adriaticum.

  Especially in leaden-grey winter.

  Icarion and Mercator were at the other side of the ship, discussing something in great depth. Dexter seemed to be mentally somewhere out there in his own little world, oblivious, despite his physical presence. Rufinus sighed and shivered, but reminded himself that at least he was standing at a rail rather than flattening his balls against a hard saddle with every rise and fall of a difficult horse. He should be grateful for the small things.

  ‘Gods, but that’s a relief,’ he muttered as the wind suddenly dropped, leaving a quiet lull that felt considerably warmer.

  Something struck him as odd for a moment, though he couldn’t immediately say what it was. He concentrated. The wind had gone completely and in its place was a strange, serene calm. There were no seabirds crawking overhead, but then they were far too far out to sea for such creatures anyway. The only sounds were the usual eerie creaking of the ship’s timbers, the hiss of the water as the vessel cut through it leaving a churning white wake, and the steady rise and dip of the oars driving them onwards, the sail hanging limp in a windless sky.

  The silence. Something about the silence.

  The sailors had fallen silent.

  A low keening sound issuing from below deck told him that Acheron felt it too. That was Acheron’s nervous noise – something you didn’t hear often, but which was worth paying very close attention to when you did.

  Rufinus rubbed at his furrowed brow and turned to the trierarch’s deputy, Coponius, who currently held the massive twin steering oars. The man looked as though he were expecting to be trampled by a bull, but didn’t know where it was coming from. Rufinus muttered a placating comment about the fading wind again, but the officer paid him no heed, his eyes darting this way and that, expectantly, his face slightly upturned as though sniffing for wind. The young guardsman felt the hair rise on the back of his neck in preternatural warning as Coponius cleared his throat and shouted, his voice cutting across the deck like a call to battle.

  ‘Trierarch?’

  ‘I know,’ Donnus shouted back. ‘East, you reckon? The bura?’

  ‘Most likely. No point in taking the sail up ‘til we know, though.’

  Dexter had turned now, returning from whatever mental meanderings had occupied him. Mercator and Icarion had fallen silent and were looking on, expectant.

  ‘Ship oars!’ came the bellowed cry from the trierarch, and in a perfectly choreographed move, every rower brought his oar inside the vessel, each man helping those around him to stow the long timber paddles along the length of the hull so that in mere heartbeats the ship began to slow, the sail hanging limp for want of a breeze and the oars withdrawn.

  Rufinus leaned across toward Coponius.

  ‘What is it?’

  The sailor merely waved him into silence, peering off into the east as though trying to slice through the interminable grey with his gaze. Slowly, the breeze began again, this time coming from their direction of travel, snapping the lazy sail and further arresting their momentum.

  ‘Storm,’ Coponius said quietly.

  Rufinus frowned. He’d never seen the sea so calm. ‘Storm?’

  Another sailor nearby nodded. ‘Thunderstorm. Bad out here. They roll off the Dalmatian hills and down across the water, brought by the bura – the north-easterly wind. They usually dissipate before they reach the coast of Italia.’

  ‘But if it’s a thunder storm, why haven’t we heard…’

  His voice trailed off at a crack of thunder that sounded alarmingly close.

  ‘Where did that come from?’

  The sailor, who had hurried over to gather up a loose line, glanced at him as he worked. ‘Following breeze hid the sound and the haze hid the storm. Wind’s changed, so it’s bringing the tempest now. Novices get ruined out here. Gotta know what you’re doing in the northern Adriaticum.’

  ‘Get those sails furled now!’ bellowed the trierarch, and the men leapt to work, hauling on ropes. As if the man’s shout had been a cue, the breeze suddenly blossomed into a full wind that bellied the sail with a loud crack and made the ship lurch to one side like a child’s boat in an aqueduct channel. Rufinus was thrown against the rail and for a heart-stopping moment felt the treasury-sealed package beneath his cloak slip and move. Heedless of his own stability and safety, he used both hands to secure the package and push it back deep. From what Mercator had explained, if he lost that package he might as well throw himself overboard anyway.

  ‘Hairy shitsticks,’ grunted Dexter next to him as he spun with the lurch and his lucky phallus brooch fell, spinning, into the churning grey below. As the ship juddered once more and then settled for a moment, Rufinus turned toward the bow, one hand on the treasury package, the other on the rail.

  The trierarch and Coponius both began to bark out orders in a constant string and sailors were up and about in a swarm, securing lines, furling the smaller foresail and tightening each tholepin in the oar-loops. Beyond them, past the mast and the rows of benches, past the prow with its painted designs and deadly ram, the world seemed to have changed in the blink of an eye and Rufinus wondered for just a heartbeat whether they were sailing off into the maw of Hades himself.

  The misty hazy grey had parted like a veil of fog and a churning, roiling mass of black and pewter was moving toward them to envelop the ship, the waves beneath it bucking and slewing like a bowl of water carried by a hopeless drunk.

  ‘It’s a big one,’ growled Coponius, hanging on to the steering oars as though they were his children. The next crack of thunder came and this time it was almost on top of them. How had it come up so quickly and unexpectedly? A shaft of dazzling white arced down from the black mass and into the water, the point of impact hidden from view by the rolling waves, each higher than the last, all far higher than the ship’s saxboard.

  In an almost hysterical moment, Rufinus remembered muttering under his breath at the sheer quantity of good wine Merc had poured over the side in honour of Neptune as they left Italia. Now, he was regretting not having bought an extra jar for the sea god. It was all too easy for a man who’d spent most of his adult life in the mountains or in the great city to forget how powerful Neptune really was when you were busy trying to survive his divine realm. Maybe they should have gone the whole distance and held the traditional bull sacrifice?

  ‘Shit, shitty-shit shit,’ Rufinus’ whispered, his eyes widening as he saw the front of the ship suddenly drop as though they were sailing over the edge of the world. Ahead, he could see a wave that rose like a cliff in
the heights of the Alpes, the white tips like the god’s own sea horses, their legs churning, dancing along the crest. The guardsman felt his stomach suddenly drop deep into his bowels which, conveniently, seemed about to make plenty of room for it.

  The keening whine from below decks had become a low rumble as though the great Sarmatian hound were warning off the storm. Rufinus wondered for a moment whether to bring Acheron up top, but decided quickly against it. The poor beast would be better in the dry down there than skittering around the deck in the bucking waves.

  Rufinus braced himself. Clearly, that enormous surge was about to crash down on them, and when it did there would be little left of the bireme and its crew but floating shattered timber and a lot of bobbing bodies. And yet somehow another wave had hit them from the fore-port, lifting the bow again in the face of that behemoth.

  The sudden jolt of a side-swipe sent many of the crew staggering and falling and a couple of screams announced either injuries or men overboard, though in the darkness and confusion Rufinus couldn’t have said which, especially as he had to let go of the priceless package and grip the rail with both hands to stop himself going over.

  Then the rain came, driving down in sheets, battering them and turning the deck into a gleaming, slippery nightmare that took two more men over the side even as Rufinus righted himself, the hair plastered down over his forehead making it difficult to see. Neptune’s dazzling white trident stabbed down from the clouds once more, spearing into the sea in search of their ship in the roiling black, and Rufinus felt panic begin to set in.

  This was not like battle. In a fight, no matter how desperate, your chances of survival depended on your skill and your wits, and you could prepare, organise, react and even regroup in order to overcome difficulties.

  This was simple divine execution on a mass scale. Men were dying at the whim of the sea god and Rufinus could do nothing but hold on desperately and hope the others managed to make it through. Across the rail from him, Coponius yelled something in a shrill voice that was drowned out by another crack of thunder. The guardsman glanced across to see the ship’s second struggling to maintain his grip on the steering oars in the churning water. There was a horrendous groan and as Rufinus peered over the edge he could see one of the pair of long oars starting to bend slightly. There was a splintering noise and as another wave struck, the lower half of the great oar sheared off and spun away across the water to be lost to sight almost instantly.

  Again, Rufinus’ stomach knotted and froze as he fell against the rail and realised that the ship’s prow must now be pointing up toward the sky, since gravity was pinning him against the rear rail and he was looking across at the sea beneath them, rather than down.

  ‘Help me,’ bellowed Coponius, but Rufinus couldn’t move. He was frozen to the rail. Next to him Dexter gripped tight too, his eyes squeezed shut as he muttered prayer after prayer under his breath. Fortunately, Rufinus realised that Coponius hadn’t been talking to him, and he was relieved to see Mercator and Icarion stagger across the deck and grab hold of the remaining steering oar, helping Coponius keep them on course as far as that was possible.

  ‘It’s the name,’ shouted Dexter suddenly. ‘Call a rose a lily and what do you get?’

  Despite the desperate circumstance, Rufinus found himself frowning in puzzled fascination at his odd friend’s words. ‘What?’

  ‘The name! Poseidon. We prayed to Neptune, but over in Dalmatia they still call him Poseidon!’

  Rufinus felt his frown deepen to the same tone as the clouds. Could a god be so vengeful over so small a thing? After all, weren’t Poseidon and Neptune the same? Did wine sour because you called it vinum in Athens instead of krasí? His musings were rudely interrupted as the direction of gravity shifted on the rail once more and the horizon, such as it was, dropped suddenly from above his head to below, almost under the ship as the bow went down again and the stern shot up out of the water. Another crack and flash accompanied it and Rufinus was struck by enough spray to drown a donkey, hitting him so hard it ripped one hand free of the rail and threatened to send him overboard.

  He was suddenly aware of Coponius shouting at him and struggled to hear over the deafening storm.

  ‘Help… rope… rail… sink…’

  He had no idea what the man meant, and only hearing every third word gave him no clue. Releasing the steering oar to Mercator and Icarion for a heartbeat, the sailor pointed desperately. Rufinus turned and his stomach lurched again. The foresail had somehow come down once more and was flapping around madly. Many of the free crewmen were trying to secure it as it repeatedly bellied and cracked, throwing the ship back and forth so that Rufinus was jerked this way and that at the rail. Bad enough that the ship was rising and falling front to back with such force and gradient without it going strongly side to side as well. Ships didn’t stay upright very long when pushed too hard from the side – it didn’t take a lifetime’s experience at sea to realise that. Even as men tried to secure and furl the smaller foresail again spars and loose ropes struck sailors, breaking arms, winding them, throwing them over the side and into the churning waves.

  But it was not to this new nightmare that Coponius was pointing. Closer to hand, a lone sailor was struggling to retie a line that held the main sail’s top spar in position. Even as Rufinus watched, the rope slipped painfully through the man’s sodden, freezing fingers and the spar jerked slightly, trying to spin away. If that happened, then it seemed likely that the other ropes would come loose and the sail would unfurl. And it that happened in these conditions, the ship was clearly lost.

  Rufinus was staggering across the deck a moment later, reeling to the side as another wave sent the trireme lurching off to the left. He grabbed the rail and began to pull himself along to where the sailor struggled. Dexter was close by, his deep, odd voice continually invoking Poseidon as he came along.

  The sailor turned, staggering, as another wave thudded into the side, and suddenly he was holding the rope for dear life rather than trying to secure it. Rufinus ran over and grabbed hold of it just below the man’s grip. The cord was slick with rain and slimy with blood where it had torn the flesh from the sailor’s hands as it whipped through them at speed. Dexter seemed to have disappeared at the last battering wave, and Rufinus prayed he had gone down among the benches and not over the side. The sailor spun and caught Rufinus’ gaze, and the young guardsman felt the spark of recognition. Fecus – the veteran of the Thirtieth Legion, his tattoos gleaming wetly and the same look of snarling hate plastered across his face.

  Rufinus tried to ignore the man’s apparent bile and hauled on the rope, pulling it back toward the cleat at the ship’s side. Working together under the baleful glare of Neptune and the equally spite-filled gaze of Fecus, the two men hauled the rope under the metal and pulled until the muscles stood proud from their flesh and the veins stood proud from their muscles, finally coiling the rope around and beginning to tie it off.

  As Rufinus pulled the cord ever tighter and the pair looped the end and cinched it, the ship dipped again and both men were forced to grip the rail to stay upright. Despite everything, Rufinus heaved a sigh of relief. At least one disaster had been averted. Rubbing his rain-soaked neck he glanced up at the now-secure main spar, and then back down with a satisfied smile to Fecus…

  …who hit him full in the face with a heavy, wooden tholepin, ripped from the oar-loop at the ship’s side.

  Rufinus’ world burst in crimson pain. His nose had broken, but that was the least of his worries. The heavy wooden club had struck him between the eyes with a very measured blow and it felt as though a horse had stood on his head. He knew he was staggering around, his limbs splaying out as though they were made of floppy wet linen. He felt he was probably falling, but couldn’t quite work out which way was up. Something square filled his vision and then everything went white and then black and then red again.

  And then a leering face was in front of him. He tried to do something but even his brain s
eemed not to work, let alone the body it controlled.

  ‘Fucking Praetorians ended my career, shit-balls!’

  Fecus was above him with that heavy pin in his grip again, raising it for an overhand blow. Rufinus should be able to react to this. Fighting in the pugilist arena was what he did best. No one could out-tactic him in a boxing match. And he’d taken more than a normal man’s share of blows to the head in his time, too. But for some reason he couldn’t even think. What a state to get in, Refinnn…

  He frowned in bafflement. What was his name again?

  He watched with passing interest as Fecus brought the wooden club down toward his head for the killing blow. The strike never came. Instead, the burly former legionary gave a brief squawk of alarm and disappeared over the side of the ship, where he vanished from sight in the gloom. Rufinus could do nothing but stare in confusion as the aggressive shape of Fecus was replaced by the concerned form of Dexter.

  ‘Head like a melon,’ the strange southerner grinned and was suddenly leaning down and grasping Rufinus, lifting his floppy form as though he were a child’s doll. Rufinus tried not to giggle as his friend settled him across the shoulders and, gripping him with one hand, began to slowly make his way back to the stern with the other whitened fist gripping the rail, stepping carefully from bench to bench.

  There was one hair-raising moment when a high wave came over the side and washed the pair of them heavily, threatening to send them spinning across the benches and away. Only Dexter’s impressive grip kept them in place. Of course, Rufinus could only make out parts of what was happening, his eyes seemingly unable to follow the commands of his brain and showing him unhelpful things like a man’s foot and a slick series of wooden boards. Yet he felt nicely comfortable.

  As Dexter dropped him to the relative safety of the stern rail and slumped down next to him, Rufinus tried not to laugh. Someone had given him a drink somehow amid this nightmare. It must be mulsum, or a good thick eastern wine, judging by the consistency.