Master of Rome mots-3

by John Stack

  The tension within the chamber rose as the princeps senatus duly eliminated the first three candidates. He called for a division of the house, a physical manifestation of the vote, where each senator would move to the side of the chamber of their chosen candidate. The senators moved quickly. The men on the flanks, for the most part, remained seated, while the centre dissolved to add weight to each faction. Immersed in the centre of his group, Scipio couldn’t accurately guess the numbers on his own side, and he felt a bead of sweat snake down his back as he tried to count the numbers of the opposition. The chamber settled down once more as the last of the senators took a seat.

  The princeps senatus, with an unrivalled viewpoint, looked to each side in turn. He nodded his head and Scipio leaned forward as the speaker looked once more to Caiatinus’s side. The old man’s lips moved as he silently counted Caiatinus’s supporters, his head beginning to nod again as he neared the end of his count, as if his calculation was proof of his suspicion.

  ‘Senators of Rome,’ he announced, ‘I hereby declare that the new senior consul of Rome is Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio.’

  The chamber erupted, the members rising to their feet amidst cheers and calls of protest, even before the speaker reached the end of Scipio’s name.

  The victor remained seated, taking a moment to let the announcement soak through his consciousness. Eventually, he took a deep breath and stood up. Those around him immediately turned and spoke animatedly to his face, smiling and slapping him on the shoulder as he passed through them on to the floor of the chamber. He strode to the podium and stood purposefully behind it, his eyes staring straight ahead to a point above the heads of the three hundred senators facing him. The noise in the chamber was strident and Scipio held up his hand for silence. His gesture was quickly obeyed and the Senate came to order. Scipio paused in the silence that followed. He did not smile and his eyes remained cold. There was no feeling of joy, no spark of satisfaction, only an intense brooding sense of vindication, of a victory achieved that was fully deserved. He was once more the leader of Rome, and what would follow would be merely a reclamation of his full measure of pride and honour.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Regulus walked slowly across the main deck of the Alissar, his thoughts skipping from one subject to another, his concentration undermined by the inner voices of his conscience. He yearned for a way out of the predicament the Carthaginian commander had placed him in, or, failing that, a way to regain control of his fate. He longed for the counsel of a fellow Roman.

  There was no hope. The campaign against the Carthaginians was in ruins. Two full legions had been lost in Africa, the fleet was totally destroyed; and whereas the Punici were now able to call on reserves, the Republic simply did not possess the ships to replace her losses. Sicily had been put beyond the grasp of Rome, and Regulus was forced to concede that the proposed terms for peace were fair and reasonable, merely a demand for a full withdrawal of all Roman forces from Sicily. Given that those remaining forces were negligible, the end result of the peace treaty would be the surrender of cities that would have inevitably fallen to the Carthaginians in due course.

  And yet, despite the hopelessness of the Roman cause, Regulus could not bring himself to embrace the proposed peace treaty fully. Surrender, however reasonable, was anathema to the Roman spirit. The Republic had faced and suffered defeat in the past, but always it had fought on, never relenting until the fight was won. He looked at the ship around him and his mind skipped to another thought, one that had struck him the moment the Alissar had set sail from Carthage.

  Regulus had never sailed on an enemy galley before, and he was stunned by how different it was to a Roman galley. The ships were identical in type and design, but the Carthaginian crew operated with a level of competence and skill that Regulus had never before witnessed. They seemed to work without supervision or command, as if each man not only knew his own task, but also that of the men around him, their overlapping experience creating a fluent efficiency that put the Roman crews to shame. Regulus now believed that the ability of the lowest Carthaginian crewman would easily match the seamanship of any Roman captain and, despite his own victory at Ecnomus, he couldn’t assuage his growing conviction that eventually the Carthaginians would fully reclaim their rights to the sea, a dominion they had controlled for generations.

  Hamilcar watched Regulus from the aft-deck and realized the Roman was still struggling with some internal conflict. The fleet from Gadir had arrived in Carthage only the day before and was currently restocking for the final leg to Lilybaeum in Sicily, while the transport fleet was also undergoing its final preparations. Hamilcar had persuaded Hanno to relinquish twenty elephants and five hundred mercenaries from the Numidian campaign, and had arranged for Regulus to witness their arrival in the military port, the sight of the colossal animals giving Regulus a harsh reminder of his defeat at Tunis and the vulnerability of the legions to their power. Even the departure of the Alissar had been carefully engineered, the flagship sailing slowly past the massed galleys of the Gadir fleet, and although Hamilcar would have preferred to sail with his fleet, he had hastened his departure to Sicily in order to impress upon Regulus the inevitability of his task, the step closer to Rome merely the first leg of a journey he would be honour bound to take.

  Even in his own heart, Hamilcar knew that any peace treaty with Rome would be a charade. Only twenty-five years before, the two cities had been allies against Pyrrhus of Epirus, and a treaty had been signed wherein each city recognized the other’s sphere of influence. That was before Rome blatantly ignored its terms and invaded Sicily, a Carthaginian domain, in a treacherous act that had precipitated the current conflict. By all that was right, and given their weakened state, Hamilcar believed he could impose a harsher treaty on Rome, but he had chosen his terms on the realization that a more lenient approach would lead to a swifter conclusion.

  Carthage was fighting a war on two fronts against different enemies. This separation of its forces had already cost Hamilcar the army he had commanded at Tunis, a loss that would inevitably hamstring his efforts to finally defeat the Romans in Sicily, and one he had carefully hidden from Regulus. The key to the island was its cities, and while the most important of these were on the coast, they could not be taken from the seaward side alone. Any siege would have to include land-based forces, and so Hamilcar needed to buy time — time for Hanno to defeat the Numidians and release the army to his command.

  The war between Rome and Carthage would continue but, in the meantime, the enemy would retreat from Sicily and Hamilcar would be granted a golden opportunity to fortify the island against their inevitable return. Carthage had been ill prepared when the Romans had first invaded Sicily and had lost Agrigentum as a consequence. That mistake would not be repeated.

  Hamilcar left the aft-deck and strode over to Regulus, who greeted him with an irritated expression, as if Hamilcar had interrupted an important conversation, and he felt his annoyance rise once more.

  ‘We will be in Lilybaeum tomorrow,’ he said, in an effort to draw Regulus into a discussion that would finalize his trip to Rome.

  ‘I will need more time to make my decision,’ Regulus replied, his tone one of hollow determination.

  Hamilcar kept his expression neutral and he nodded to show his understanding, while underneath he fought an almost overwhelming urge to throttle Regulus. What concept of defeat did the Roman not understand? They were beaten; the Roman fleet was no more. What thread of reason was Regulus grasping that prevented him from accepting the benevolence of Hamilcar’s offer?

  He decided to plant one last seed in Regulus’s mind, one last piece of logic that might persuade the Roman to accept his proposal.

  ‘It has been a long war,’ he remarked, and Regulus nodded cautiously, surprised by Hamilcar’s comment. ‘I will welcome peace when it comes,’ Hamilcar continued. ‘If nothing else, it will allow my city to regain the strength this war has cost her.’

  Regulus nodded in agreemen
t and looked beyond Hamilcar as the idea began to form in his mind. The opportunity that the Carthaginian spoke of would be available to Rome too. It would cost them little, merely a couple of cities, cities that could be retaken when the time was right. Regulus unconsciously nodded as he carried the idea to its conclusion.

  Hamilcar saw the gesture and he turned away, confident now that Regulus would do his bidding and carry his terms to his Senate. Thereafter, it was only a matter of time before Rome bowed to the will of Carthage.

  ‘Hard to starboard, ramming speed!’

  The Orcus banked into the sharp turn, her deck tilting precariously, and Atticus felt the muscles in his legs contract as he fought to keep his balance. He counted off the seconds until the bow swung through a full ninety degrees.

  ‘Centre your helm,’ he ordered, and Gaius put his weight behind the tiller.

  The Orcus accelerated as the resistance of the rudder fell away. The drum beat began again, anticipating the surge that accompanied each pull of the oars through the calm water, and the crewmen on deck rocked back and forth on their haunches, many glancing to the formidable figure of the prefect standing motionless on the aft-deck, his eyes locked on some distant point beyond the bow.

  Atticus cleared his mind and let the sound of the drum beat dominate his consciousness, allowing it to fuel his undirected aggression. He breathed in the salty air, holding his breath to allow the taste to penetrate the back of his throat, and then exhaled slowly, pushing the last vestiges of air from his lungs in an effort to quell the bitter acid that clawed at his stomach.

  ‘That’s one minute, Prefect,’ Gaius said behind him, and Atticus called for all stop, allowing the rowers to ship oars and rest.

  ‘I make that turn two seconds faster,’ Gaius said, his hand now resting lightly on the tiller as the Orcus rose and fell in the emptiness of the cove.

  Atticus grunted in reply and moved to the side rail. He stood motionless once more, his eyes ranging over the coastline north of Fiumicino.

  Paullus had taken nearly every available ship when he had sailed south weeks before, leaving the remnants to patrol the sea-lanes of Rome. The Orcus had been quickly drafted in to augment their ranks. It was tedious work, better suited to reserve crews and trainees, but the crew had welcomed the task, weary after many months in hostile waters. Only Atticus remained restless, unable to quash the uncertainties in his mind. Although on this day the Orcus had been scheduled for rest and repairs, he had ordered his galley north at dawn, taking advantage of the day’s leave to further the training of his crew.

  ‘Five minutes’ rest then we go again,’ he said over his shoulder, and Gaius acknowledged the order, shouting it forth to Baro on the main deck.

  The Orcus descended into an uneasy quiet, the deck timbers creaking as the irregular surface of the water passed under the hull. Gaius stilled the sound of his own breathing and listened, almost sensing before finally hearing the sound of the rowers below deck. They were gasping for air, filling their lungs in an effort to regain their strength in the brief time allowed, their collective struggle making it seem as if the galley itself was breathing.

  The helmsman looked to his commander, wondering how much further he would push the crew of the ship before calling an end to the day. They had been training relentlessly since dawn, honing their sailing skills, the absence of a corvus on the foredeck forcing them to concentrate their abilities on the little-used offensive tactic of ramming. Gaius did not know much of the greater plans of the fleet, but he had noticed, as had all the crew of the Orcus, that the new galleys being laid down in the shipyards at Fiumicino were all without the condemned boarding ramp.

  For whatever reason, the prefect had been driving the crew remorselessly, and in the quiet of the interlude Gaius could only guess what demons the prefect was grappling with. He did not know his commander beyond their association on the aft-deck. In that arena they often thought with a unified mind, their expertise and abilities combining effortlessly, but outside it Gaius rarely spoke with him.

  The aft-deck of a galley was a small space, and on many occasions Gaius had overheard conversations between the prefect and the two men he confided in, the centurion and the second-in-command; however, that useful source of information was no longer available. The centurion was not on board. He had not returned from Rome but had sent orders to his optio to disembark the legionaries at Fiumicino, their presence not required on the Orcus while in home waters. Moreover, the prefect did not confide in Baro to the same extent as in his predecessor, Lucius. This detachment was not all the prefect’s doing, for Gaius had often heard Baro speak derisively of the commander before his promotion. Although Baro was now more discreet, it was obvious to Gaius that he was keeping his distance, and he realized that Baro’s opinion had not changed.

  He watched the prefect move from the side rail to stand once more in the centre of the aft-deck, his heading turning from side to side as he scanned the length of the ship. Gaius followed his commander’s gaze. With the abandonment of the corvus came the unspoken command to all crews to fight the Carthaginians on their terms. Whatever else the prefect might have to worry about, Gaius knew this problem alone was enough to explain his dark mood.

  The order was given for battle speed and the Orcus got under way, accelerating swiftly to eight knots. Gaius’s hand tightened on the tiller; although he concentrated on anticipating the commands of the prefect, one part of his mind still dwelt on his previous reflections. He glanced at his commander and unconsciously kneaded the smooth, worn handle of the tiller. Whatever lay ahead, he would follow the prefect’s every command.

  The Orcus rounded the headland north of Fiumicino as the last light of the day was waning. She moved gracefully under sail, her oars raised and withdrawn, and the crew moved sedately across the decks. It had been a long day, and many of them turned to the welcome sight of port and the hot meal and cot that awaited them there. It was an uncommon luxury for the men. While on duty the crew ate and slept on the galley, normally on the open deck, but in Fiumicino, with the fleet temporarily stood down, the men enjoyed the comforts of an established military camp.

  As the sea room diminished closer to shore, the sail was lowered and the oars extended. Again the action was slowed by fatigue and the beat was struck for steerage speed. Gaius nodded as Atticus pointed out a free berth and the galley was directed to the seaward end of a jetty. The Orcus answered all stop and lines were thrown to secure the galley fore and aft as the gangway was lowered. Baro assigned a deck watch and then dismissed the rest of the crew, the men moving with renewed energy down the length of the jetty towards the beach, while Atticus waited on the aft-deck, issuing final orders that would sustain his ship for the night before he too disembarked.

  The hollow footfalls on the wooden jetty gave way to the sound of shifting sand underfoot. Atticus leaned forward into the slope of the beach, cresting the dune at its peak as the last sliver of the sun fell below the horizon, leaving only the reflected twilight from the high clouds. Much of the military camp at Fiumicino had been transformed into solid structures of wood and stone over the intervening years, but Atticus, as a temporary visitor, had been assigned a tent, albeit one befitting his rank.

  Although his sense of direction on land was normally unreliable, he made his way unerringly through the maze of temporary streets. He walked as if in a trance, his mind pre-occupied by a dozen different thoughts, each one fighting for supremacy. He favoured those that dwelt on the problems associated with the loss of the corvus, and tried to suppress the personal issues, but they struck him at unexpected intervals, invading his concentration with images of Septimus, Hadria, Scipio and Antoninus, each one destroying the carefully constructed serenity he craved, his temper rising and falling with each round of the struggle.

  Atticus rounded the last corner and almost stumbled into his tent before noticing that a lamp was lit inside. He stepped backwards and his hand fell instinctively to the hilt of his dagger. He looked behind hi
m, cursing his preoccupation and the failing sunlight that darkened the shadows on all sides. He moved warily to the entrance to his tent, drawing his dagger as he did so, the steel blade against the scabbard sounding unnaturally loud. He pulled back the flap of entrance and peered inside, his ears alert to any sound behind him as his eyes scanned the interior of his quarters.

  A lone figure sat at the far end of the tent. Atticus recognized him immediately and visibly relaxed, sheathing his dagger as he crossed over to greet him.

  ‘Senator Duilius,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect…’

  Duilius stood up to greet Atticus and they shook hands.

  ‘I prefer to keep my meetings private when I can,’ Duilius replied, motioning for Atticus to sit on the low cot. ‘It is good to see you, Atticus,’ he said.

  The two men fell quickly into conversation, each bringing the other up to date with events. Atticus spoke at length about the campaign in Africa, giving Duilius a level of detail not found in the formal reports issued to the Senate. They discussed the storm and Atticus spoke of his prediction and warning to Paullus.

  ‘The man was always a fool, even before he left Rome,’ Duilius replied. ‘It is no surprise he remained one right up until the time of his death. Nevertheless, his recklessness has cost the Republic dearly.’

  Duilius focused the conversation on the exposed weakness of the corvus, his questions incisive, revealing the level of knowledge he had retained since he commanded the fleet. Atticus ventured his own conclusion, supporting the abandonment of the device; he noticed that Duilius did not oppose his view, as if a consensus had already been reached, even at the senator’s level.