Rufio scratched her under the chin and smiled at her wink of contentment before he went to observe Valerius leading the men in their morning weapons drill.
“How did Arrianus ever meet the height requirement?” Rufio said as he came up beside his optio.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Valerius answered with a smile. “A well-placed bribe.”
Rufio watched the short but very tough soldier burn through his drill. “He seems especially energetic today.”
“He’s boiling inside. He lost a senator’s ransom in a dice game.”
“Again?” Rufio said in exasperation.
“It wasn’t the money. Beakless, that rat turd, publicly humiliated him. Just for fun.”
“Beakless?”
“The gubernator. Didn’t you notice he has a chunk missing from the end of his nose? Bitten off in a fight.”
“What did he say?”
“That Arrianus was just an Italian dwarf and could never beat a man of the sea. He did everything he could to goad him. Called him the degenerate spawn of a greasy whore. Of course, Arrianus didn’t tell me this. I got it from some of the others.”
“These sailors are endearing, aren’t they? What did Arrianus do?”
“Nothing.”
Rufio would have trusted Valerius with his soul, so the skepticism in the centurion’s eyes was out of character.
“On my honor,” Valerius said. “He just walked away.”
“Why?”
“Because of you.”
“Stop feeding me from the end of a pin.”
“After what happened at the bath house, he won’t disobey you on this again.”
Rufio smiled and looked back at Arrianus thrusting and sweating. “He’s a good Roman.”
Rufio turned away. He saw Salario and Beakless talking in front of Salario’s cabin near the stern. The look on Salario’s face was not reassuring. Something was amiss.
Beakless left abruptly and disappeared down a hatch into the hold.
“Get the tribune,” Rufio said to Valerius. “Ask him to meet me at the stern.”
Rufio followed Beakless down a ladder into the dark hold, rank with the reek of mold and rot and stagnant water.
The sailing master seemed to be checking the sturdiness of the racks holding the amphoras.
“Are we expecting trouble?” Rufio asked.
Beakless ignored him and kept at his work.
Rufio sloshed through the black bilge water toward the gubernator.
Finally Beakless turned and straightened up. He was about a half-foot taller than the centurion.
“Tell me about the dice game.”
Beakless smiled, proudly displaying five brown teeth. “I won.”
“Why did you humiliate my soldier?”
“He’s a weakling.”
“Mocking a man in front of his comrades is as vile as pissing in his face.”
“I know that. You arrogant Romans should learn the feeling of piss. I feel it every day.”
“You hate your life?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Should I weep for you?”
Beakless said nothing.
“I’d never commit that kind of crime,” Rufio said. “Never ridicule a man before his men. I wouldn’t even do it to you.”
Like a scorpion bolt, Rufio’s fist drove deep into the gubernator’s stomach. Foul breath exploded from his lungs and he buckled like a snapped tree. Three more times Rufio’s fist slammed him. Beakless was vomiting now and sank to his knees and finally collapsed into the bilge water.
“Never steal a man’s pride,” Rufio said with just a hint of exertion. “Even if you hate him. Never.”
“Tell him,” Rufio heard Crus say to Salario as he joined them in front of the cabin.
“We have trouble,” Salario said. “One of my men just told me he overheard someone in a popina in Ostia asking about our cargo.”
“Go on.”
“I think we’re going to be attacked.”
“Not pirates?”
“Yes.”
“I thought Pompeius wiped them out fifty years ago. Swept the seas with an iron rake.”
“He did. But no vermin are ever totally exterminated. There are still some desperate savages who’ll kill without a thought.”
“We have over four hundred fighting men on this ship,” Rufio said in a dismissive tone. “What does it matter?”
“It does matter,” Salario said. “A pirate ship is small and fast. They have rowers besides sails. We cannot outrun them. They’ll appear on the horizon and stay back to see if we furl our sails in submission. When we do, we’ll be helpless. If we don’t surrender the vessel, they’ll dart in and rip open our belly with the bronze ramming plates on their prow.”
“What would they gain by sinking us?” Crus asked.
“They don’t have to sink us,” Salario said. “They know the threat is enough.”
Rufio folded his arms and drifted toward the edge of the deck. He gazed out at the water. His men had finished their weapons drill, so now the only sound was the incessant creaking of the giant corbita. He stared at the sea for several minutes.
“Your gubernator is down in the hold,” he said, turning to Salario. “He isn’t feeling well. Offer him some wormwood wine and tell him I want to speak with him.”
Salario hurried off.
“Have you seen Bellator?” Rufio asked Crus.
The tribune gestured behind him.
Rufio turned and saw the engineer coming aft. The old soldier was as sensitive to trouble as a dog to distant thunder.
“What is it?” Bellator asked.
“There’s a pirate ship out there,” Rufio said. “It wants our vessel. If we don’t submit, it’ll split open our bowels and send us to Neptune’s maw.”
“Submit?” Bellator said with a laugh. “Very entertaining.”
“Is there a hidden language you two are speaking?” Crus said. “Isn’t this very serious?”
“Of course it’s serious,” Rufio said. “But we’re serious men.” He looked at Bellator. “I think we should greet them with a bird.”
The engineer’s fleshy face broadened in a grin. “A raven?”
“My favorite fowl.”
“I’ll get together with the ship’s carpenter. We can have one in an hour.”
“I’ll speak with Beakless. It’ll need some fancy sailing on his part, but I think he’s the man for it.”
“He’s a surly lout.”
“Maybe to you,” Rufio said. “But he and I are on the best of terms.”
18
OPPORTUNITY IS NOT EASILY GAINED BUT IS EASILY LOST.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Pirates are coming. The seamen are near panic. They feel helpless. I have never seen such terror in men’s eyes. Yet I have no fear. I am surrounded by the bravest men on earth. Any one of them would dash a woman’s fear. Hundreds of them make fear impossible.
I asked Rufio if he had ever seen pirates.
“Only nailed to crosses,” he said to me. “We crucified four in Tyrus many years ago. They endured two days pinned to those planks. I wish their agony had lasted a week.”
He speaks with such hatred of them it would frighten the dead.
“Without mercy, without honor, without souls,” are the words he used to me. “They slaughter with no restraint and die with no shame.”
When he speaks of pirates, even the Suebi recede into the background of his hatred.
“You’re the key to everything,” Rufio said to Beakless. The two of them sat with Crus and Salario in a circle on the deck near the master’s cabin. Neko had tapped the Etrurian wine at Bellator’s insistence, and now the Egyptian passed around cups of the finest liquid the gods had ever allowed mankind to savor.
“Without your skill,” Rufio said to Beakless, “we’ll all die a horrible death.”
“No finer gubernator sails the Great Sea,” Salario said.
“Good.” Rufio looked at Beakless’
s chalky face. “You’re as pale as a fish belly. Are you over your illness?”
“Yes.”
“Be certain. Only then can we be partners.”
“Partners?”
“Men in crisis are always comrades. Minor stomach troubles count for nothing.”
The hint of a smile in Rufio’s eyes clearly startled Beakless. He was staring with the naked fierceness unique to men of the sea. Yet he could hold it only briefly. Then he, too, smiled back.
“Comrades,” Beakless said in tribute to the special bond shared by tough men in a hostile world.
“You have a plan then?” Salario asked.
“Always.” Rufio smiled. “Though my plans don’t always work. We’ll test this one in combat.”
“As far as I can see, we’re completely at their mercy. And they have none.”
“Roman soldiers rely on no one’s mercy.” He turned back to Beakless. “As soon as their ship appears, furl your sails in surrender. Let them approach. But here’s the important part—don’t let us drift. Keep a delicate hand on the steering oars. Make sure our ship stays pointed in the direction they’re coming from. Can you do that?”
“With my eyes closed and my left big toe on the oar stick.”
“Excellent. They have to come up alongside us. Not perpendicular to us.”
“I don’t know that word,” Beakless said.
“This.” Rufio made a “T” with his hands. “They must come up along our beam, not cross our bow.”
“Easily done.”
“Then what?” Salario said to Rufio, unable to conceal his skepticism.
“We’ll board the ship and take it.”
“That simply?”
“Nothing worth doing is simple.”
“How will we do it?”
“You won’t do it. None of your crew is to fight. The men of the Second Cohort will give them a taste of Roman steel.”
“I thought our steel was made by the Celts,” Crus said in a gentle barb.
Rufio smiled. “Now why spoil a daring venture with a tiny detail?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Salario said, staring at the massive wooden plank.
“I’ve never even heard of anything like that,” Beakless said.
“Then you’ve neglected your history,” Rufio answered.
The ship’s carpenter and two helpers hammered away under the direction of Bellator.
“During the first war with the Carthaginians, those savages were much better seamen than we were.” Rufio inspected the carpenters’ handiwork as he spoke. “They were as lethal as sea monsters at sending our men to the bottom. But we knew we could face them down, sword to sword. So we turned their deck into a battlefield.”
The boarding bridge was about twenty-five feet long and six feet wide. Yet its size was secondary to its strange terminus. Fastened to the end at a right angle was a huge iron spike.
“That’s the secret,” Rufio said, pointing to the newly sharpened tip gleaming in the sun. “The raven’s beak.”
Salario examined the bridge more closely.
“We’ll hoist it on a mast amidships,” Rufio said. “When the pirate ship sails up next to our beam, we’ll let it fall. The beak will bite into their deck as deeply as the Kraken’s teeth. We’ll board the ship and fight on the deck like Scipio’s men on the plain of Zama.”
“Won’t the pirates see the plank?”
“Of course,” Rufio said. “But they might as well be blind men trying to read the entrails of sheep. They’ll have no idea what they’re seeing.”
Salario looked up at Rufio and back again at the bridge, then wandered off as though lost in thought.
“He looks ill,” Rufio said.
Beakless nodded. “He is. A sickness of the heart.”
Rufio waited for him to continue.
“The ship that stalks us—he thinks he knows who the captain is. There are so few pirates left, he’s probably right.”
“And?”
“An arrogant criminal called One Eye. He captured Salario’s son’s ship. Tortured all the officers and drank and laughed while he did it. Then he pushed them over the side with the point of his sword. The pirates laughed like fools and watched the men flounder until they sank. They released the rest of the crew on the coast of Africa. A few made it back to Ostia. That’s how Salario learned about his son.”
Rufio gazed at Salario standing alone at the stern and staring out to sea. Then he turned to Bellator.
“Almost done?
“Close. Then we’ll build the mast. We’ll put railings on the bridge so nobody slides off. I’m not tempting Fortuna. Nobody has used one of these ravens in two hundred years.”
“It’s so ancient it’s fresh. Like you.”
Bellator tried to scowl but failed. “It’s like the old days,” he said with a grin. “By the gods, Quintus, this feels grand!”
19
ARMS ARE OF SMALL VALUE IF THERE IS NO WISDOM IN THIS COUNTRY.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Rufio has spoken with the other centurions. They are ready. They respect him very much, though all five are older than he is. Words mean nothing to a centurion. Deeds are all. The flash and polish of fine metal is only that. These men speak with steel. They and their centuries fought like a six-headed beast at the Hill of Scorpions. Nothing can cut that bond.
Crus had just completed making the rounds of the other centuries when he joined Rufio and Metellus at their allotted deck space. Paki sprawled next to them. Wine and hard cheese and smoked fish were laid out on the planks for their evening meal. Valerius was off conducting an equipment inspection.
“Tomorrow?” Crus asked, reaching for the wine.
“Very soon,” Rufio said. “They won’t delay.”
“Captives?” Metellus asked.
“Depends on circumstances. We’ll see how many are eager to die like fools.” Rufio looked at Crus. The tribune seemed as pensive as an old philosopher as he stared into his cup of wine. “Help Valerius with the inspection,” Rufio said to the signifer.
Metellus hurried off to give his friend a hand.
“How do you always know what to do?” Crus asked after Metellus had left.
“It’s an illusion I encourage,” Rufio said with a laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“I have much experience. If you confront a problem a hundred times, it’s no magic to be able to solve it the hundred and first.”
“You’ve fought pirates before?”
“No, but others have. I’m familiar with all their accounts.”
“Your library you mean?”
“I swim in the seas of history.”
“I envy you.”
“Don’t.”
“I want to be able to turn my hand to any problem with solutions flowing from my fingertips.”
“That takes decades. And much suffering.”
“I’m impatient.”
“To suffer?”
Crus set down his cup and stared off into the distance. “Perhaps.”
“Then you’re heading to the right place. Living in the desert with a pack of Judaeans is more suffering than any man deserves.”
Crus smiled. “You always set me at ease. In Gaul. Here at sea. You have a talent.”
“Even a two-legged squirrel turns up the occasional nut.”
“You like to bat me away like a cat with a kitten.” Crus seemed suddenly serious. “Don’t do it tonight.”
Rufio remained silent.
“There must be principles that guide you.”
“What kind of principles?”
“I’m not sure. . . . Lessons from all your experience. And from your readings of Caesar and others.”
“Have you read Caesar?”
“Seven times.”
“Good. If you retain one-tenth of Caesar’s wisdom, you’ll be wiser than any man alive.”
“But you must have rendered down your own experience into certain essences. Ideas you can sha
re with me.”
“Most ideas slip from our grasp unless they’ve been sanctified with blood.”
“I risked my blood along the Rhenus,” Crus said with a touch of anger. “You know that.”
“Then I guess you’re ready.”
Crus relented in a smile. “You test everybody, don’t you?”
“Test? I’m just a simple soldier.”
“Teach me now.”
Rufio stood up. “Let’s go to the bow. The evening breeze can clear our thoughts.”
The soft wind soothed them as they sailed south toward Africa and took in the setting sun off to their right.
“All soldiers who’ve smelled an enemy’s hatred have learned lessons of leadership. Or else they’ve died on the battlefield. Some have dozens of them. A few have hundreds. How many do you want?”
“You decide.”
“For a tribune? Five will be a heavy load. You might have to hold your balls in your hand while you lift.”
“I’ll take that risk, centurion.”
“Good. Five are all you’ll need. Master them and you’ll master any crisis. Even on the Senate floor.”
“Go on.”
“The first is the simplest. When a decision is necessary, always make it immediately. Decide at the outset. That’s when the greatest number of possibilities exists. As time passes, your options decline fast. Never wait so long that a decision makes itself.”
“I understand.”
“The second flows from the first. When you make a decision, execute it at once. If you decide something must happen eventually, make it happen immediately.”
“But what if you want to think about it a bit?” Crus said. “Maybe try to devise a better plan?”
“That’s nothing more than a catastrophe tugging at your sleeve. In a crisis, matters almost always get worse on their own until you intervene. That has to be countered. When a German draws his sword, your slashing with your blade today on the Nones is better than giving him a perfect thrust on the Ides.”
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