by R. W. Peake
I did, and he shook his head as he replied, “That is not what Malorix told us. He said that if we accepted less water, we would be released when we reached land. He did not say anything about releasing us in our own lands, or what you were asking in return for our freedom.”
I could not stifle a groan or putting my head in my hands.
“That fucking idiot,” I muttered. To Ivomagus, I said, “Well, I can see why you wouldn’t believe him, and why you wouldn’t be eager to just be dumped on land somewhere where you might be in just as much danger and remain slaves, or worse.”
Ivomagus did not say anything for a span of time, studying me carefully, and I suppose that is what prompted me to turn to Alex, who had been leaning against the column that bisected the cabin.
“Alex, you know that cup of wine we have left?” He nodded, and I indicated Ivomagus. “Pour it for him.”
My clerk was clearly surprised, but he obeyed readily enough, moving to the small locked cupboard, taking out the amphora, then pouring the contents into a cup, which he handed to the Parisii.
When he peered down at it suspiciously, I could not stifle the surge of irritation. “Oh, Pluto’s balls, man. Do you think I keep a jug of poisoned wine just waiting for a chance to use it?”
He did look embarrassed, inclining his head in thanks, then lifted the cup to his lips, and I saw his eyes widen in surprise at the taste of the dark liquid, which I assumed was only because it had been so long since he had last tasted it. The Parisii clearly liked it, because he drained it in one long swallow, aside from two thin streams on either side that dribbled into his beard.
It was only after he set the cup on the desk that he asked, “What is this drink?”
“What is it?” I asked, surprised. “It’s wine. And,” I admitted, “not very good wine.”
“So that is wine,” he mused.
“You mean your people don’t have wine in your lands?” Alex asked.
Ivomagus shook his head. “It is forbidden to us. It has been since before I was born.”
This was so interesting and unusual that I forgot the larger subject, and I asked, “Any idea why?”
“Because wine entering our lands means that Rome is entering our lands,” he answered, though he looked a bit uncomfortable.
“Like the Belgae,” Alex commented.
“That’s right,” I remembered, although whether it was from my great-grandfather’s account or Caesar’s Commentaries I could not recall. I could not help myself, and ignoring Ivomagus, I grinned at Alex as I said, “Not that it helped them. They’re a Roman province now.”
“We,” Ivomagus said stiffly, “will never submit to Rome.”
“Well,” I shot back, “right now, we Romans are your best chance for you and the rest of your men to draw breath as free men, Ivomagus. But,” I pointed at him, “only if you can convince your men that we’re telling the truth.”
I could see this angered him, but he said evenly, “Now that I know the full details, that will not be difficult.”
With that, our business was concluded, and I escorted Ivomagus back to the compartment. I confess that I was quite pleased with myself, and while Ivomagus spoke to the other slaves, I pulled Cador and Motius aside.
“You need to keep that idiot Malorix away from me the rest of this voyage,” I told them, then explained what had almost caused a bloody riot.
“He has always been next to useless,” Motius admitted.
He was about to add something, but there was another uproar, except rather than shouts of joy or relief, it was the same tone of anger that had started everything. This time, however, it was Ivomagus who looked shaken, and we quickly learned why as the three of us gathered around the Parisii.
“What’s going on?” I almost had to shout this.
“I told them what was truly happening,” he answered, without hesitation. “But then I was asked about the other slaves, the ones who are not Parisii, and what was to happen with them.”
“They’re our property!” Cador protested. “It is none of their business what happens to them!”
“Tell them,” I interrupted, “that we’ll release them as well. But,” I added, “they’ll be on their own on your island.”
“Centurion!” Motius was every bit as perturbed as Cador. “Cador is right! Giving up the Parisii is the only thing that makes sense so that we have a chance to return home, but not the rest of them! It will ruin us!”
I cannot say I was unsympathetic, but only to a point, and that point did not go very far.
“You’ll be ruined even worse if you’re responsible for losing two Centuries of the 1st Legion, including one of their Cohort commanders,” I reminded them. “If that’s what it takes to get these men back on the benches and rowing, that’s what we’ll do. We’ve already wasted too much time with this.” Looking over the heads, I addressed Ivomagus. “Tell them that I agree to their terms. We’ll release those slaves who aren’t of the Parisii tribe when we’re safe. But,” I held up a warning hand, “that’s as far as I’m going to bend, Ivomagus. Do you understand?”
There was a brief hesitation, but then he nodded before turning back to address the others, and this time, the roar of noise was one of joy, and that was all I waited for. As I passed by Saloninus, I told him to let the men sheathe their gladii, then send them up above to change places with their comrades. Hopefully, I thought, that will be the last of the problems until we get to land.
As the time where we expected to see land drew nearer, the tension naturally increased, but in a way, our misery helped dull the edge a bit. I was certain I had never been thirstier than I was for the last day, as the oars dipped, stroked, lifted, recovered, and dipped, over and over, but never seeming to move us. The sea was still and glassy; Motius had been correct in his prediction that it would be as hot and as windless, although many of the men swore that it was worse than the day before. Honestly, I think that while it was the same as the day before, we were simply more parched, and therefore more miserable. Men had given up even attempting to amuse themselves, choosing instead to sprawl out on the deck during their time above or swing gently in their hammocks. I was certain it would not be a popular decision, but I ordered that when it was the time for my men to sit on a bench and row, the slaves would be allowed the use of the hammocks in order to give them a better quality rest. To my shock, the men did not object, although they did not look happy about it.
It was Gemellus who summed up the collective mood, explaining, “We’ve already caught all the vermin from them we’re going to, and we need them just as much as they need us to survive. Besides,” he shrugged, “if letting one of them sleep in my hammock means he’s able to take a few hundred more strokes, it’s worth it.”
Another disadvantage of not having the higher vantage point offered by the perch on the mast was that we would not see land sooner, but that was more than just an inconvenience, which Motius explained.
“It will mean we have to get much closer to the coast so that we can recognize the landmarks that are on the map, and there may be all manner of dangers that are not marked on it.”
“What kind of dangers?”
“Sandbars,” he answered my question, extending one finger, followed by another, “rocks, exposed reefs, and the wrecks of other ships. And,” he finished, “pirates.”
“Pirates?” I exclaimed. “I thought you said the Britons don’t have the ability to sail the open sea.”
“They don’t,” Motius agreed, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder in a generally easterly direction, “but the Gallic tribes all up and down the western coast do. The Morini in particular, but the Menapii are not much better.” Before I could reply, he went on, “But, this close to the coast, the ships of the Britons, while they are much smaller, are also very, very swift, and they have many of them. If they see an opportunity, they will not hesitate to try their fortune.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” I said sourly. Returning to the original wa
rning, I asked, “How close do you think we’ll have to be?”
“Just to see the land,” he answered, “perhaps ten miles. Unless,” he did offer, “I am very wrong and we are near the white cliffs. But I do not think I am. To sight the landmarks we need?” He thought for a moment, then said, “About half that distance.”
His mention of white cliffs triggered a memory, except this time I did recall where I read it; my great-grandfather had talked about how they had seen them as Caesar was leading their fleet to a landing spot, but I knew that was much farther south. Motius left me then, and I sat there, vaguely aware that I had stopped sweating, which I knew was not a good sign.
Motius’ navigational calculations turned out to be almost perfect, but it was Ivomagus who actually proved to be most valuable because, not surprisingly, he knew this area of the Briton coast better than Motius, although he told us he had only been in a boat on the river that created the estuary that he called the Abis (Humber).
“But,” he assured us, “I have heard men talking about finding it when approaching from the sea. If we are north of the Abis and in Brigantes territory, we would know because there are hills in their lands that are in sight from the sea, and we will need to head south. If we are south of it, we will know it because the water changes color, and there is a point of land that sticks out partway across the river that is not visible if we come from the north.”
I suppose seeing my blank expression was what prompted Cador to offer, “When some rivers empty out into the sea, they carry dirt that the water has absorbed, and you can tell if the water looks more brown than blue.”
“And,” I addressed Motius, “you know we are somewhere in the right area of this river, but not whether we are north of it, or south.”
Motius shook his head, his face grim. In some ways, sighting land, which had occurred a watch earlier, whereupon we allowed the men onto the deck to see for themselves, created more problems than it solved. One did not need to have any experience in such matters to see that every man aboard that ship, slave and free, was at the end of their collective tether. In simple terms, we could not afford to be wrong; if we were already north of the Abis, then heading north searching for the river’s mouth meant putting us deeper in Brigantes territory, and the same held true for the opposite direction, though not with a danger from the Brigantes, but the Iceni. We stood, silently, and I am certain they felt the weight of this decision as much as I did.
“What do you think?” Motius addressed this to Ivomagus, and I had noticed a subtle but unmistakable shift in how the Parisii was treated.
He was not really a slave, yet he had not attained his freedom, and I saw the strain of that pressure in his face, and the thought ran through my mind, he has to know that if he sends us in the wrong direction, not only would every Roman be a dead man, he and his fellow tribesmen would as well, except that my boys will tear them to bits before they die of thirst.
Finally, he took one last careful look along the coast, which to my eye appeared just as flat as the northern plains of Germania, and I do not know if in this last look he saw something that drove his decision, or he simply decided to throw the dice and hope they came up Venus and not Dogs.
“We head north,” he said at last. “I have never seen our lands from this point of view before, but it feels as if we are in Parisii lands, and the Abis is north of us.”
Motius leaned against the steering oar, the bow of the boat nudged about until the coast was on our left side, then the Hortator began beating out a rhythm to get us moving again. It could only be charitably called a normal rhythm, but we were at least in motion, and the faint breeze finally began to sharpen. It did help a bit, but with every stroke, the tension increased, as one of the remaining crewmen actually climbed up onto the prow, the highest point of the ship without the mast, clinging to it while searching for the sign we were near the Abis. Cador allowed Ivomagus to remain above but instead he chose to go be with his comrades below, leaving me and the two seamen standing on the rear upper deck.
I know how odd it sounds, but this was the first moment that a thought struck me, and I turned to Motius to ask, “Did you ask Ivomagus if his people will have what we need to replace a mast?”
To my intense relief, Motius nodded.
“Yes, he said that while this size and style of ship is unknown to their shipbuilders, they can replace a mast.”
It was only later that we realized it had never occurred to us to think about whether a member of the Parisii royalty would know a fucking thing about ships.
There was perhaps a third of a watch of daylight left when we reached the river’s mouth, but it was not until after dark we were far enough upstream for the water from the river to not be mixed with seawater, but before we began filling the barrels, I asked Ivomagus, “How far upstream is the nearest village belonging to your people?”
“Perhaps two more miles. Why?” he asked curiously.
“How many people live there?” He frowned, then finally said, “No more than two hundred people, Centurion. But why do you ask?”
“Because I don’t want my men getting sick from drinking water that’s filled with your cac,” I answered, and for some reason, this seemed to offend him. Ignoring this, I explained, “Two hundred people isn’t very many, it’s true, but my men are already weakened as it is. Still,” I gazed across the river in the falling light; it was a bit more than a mile wide at this point, “I don’t think we need to row upstream.” Pointing to the opposite bank to Motius, I said, “Let’s get closer to that bank before we draw our water.”
The delay was not long; if you had asked any of us, and I include myself, we would have sworn on the black stone that it took at least a third of a watch to cross that river. It was true that the current was strong this close to the sea, but I doubt it took half the amount of time we thought. The men were almost impossible to control, behaving much like livestock that have been deprived of water who smell it ahead and go stampeding away, and it finally took me retrieving my vitus, which I had not used once on the voyage, before I convinced the men that we were still Roman Legionaries. Regardless, it was a noisy affair, and now that Ivomagus was back on the upper deck, I noticed how he kept glancing nervously at the northern bank about two hundred paces away, which I felt was sufficient to put us out of range of any archers.
“We haven’t seen anyone on that side of the river,” I offered, but he gave me a scornfully amused look.
“Centurion, both my people and the Brigantes have been aware of our presence since before we entered the river’s mouth.”
He said this with such confidence that it irked me, if only because I had made sure to have several of my men who were abovedeck to keep their eye on both sides of the river and they had reported no sign of movement.
“How can you be so certain?”
“My people always have someone along the river entrance, watching the northern bank for the Brigantes to attempt a raid. And,” he added dryly, “I imagine that the Brigantes do the same to us.”
When explained like that, I felt somewhat foolish, so I returned my attention to the process of dropping water barrels attached by a rope over the side, while men were being allowed to bring their cups from their mess kits to dip in and drink it. Which, of course, meant that the barrels were being emptied almost as fast as we could fill them. The only men not allowed on deck were the slaves, and it was at the suggestion of Ivomagus, which I found surprising.
“I know most of these men well, Centurion,” he assured me. “Even before we were captured, I at least knew them by face or name and some I knew well. And,” he pointed to the opposite side of the river, where his homeland was tantalizingly close, “if we give them a chance to do so, the sight of our home would be too much, and they would be willing to throw themselves into the river and try to swim across.”
“But the current is too strong, and it’s too wide,” I pointed out.
“Centurion,” he turned to look me in the eye, �
��imagine if you were in our position. We have been slaves, rowing this ship for almost three years now. And, while Vellocatus,” I do not know why, but I was surprised that Ivomagus knew his name, “was not cruel, whenever our feet touched dry land, as seldom as it was, we were always put in chains. And,” his face twisted into a mask of helpless rage, “while Vellocatus may not have been cruel, the same cannot be said for that dog Malorix.” Shaking his head, he finished, “I have little doubt that several of my…companions would like nothing better than to kill Malorix, then leap over the side and take their chances trying to escape. Those who don’t drown, your men would undoubtedly kill.”
This was certainly true, and I made no further comment about it. Finally, the first barrels were lowered down the hole in the bow of the ship, and if the Brigantes were not aware of our presence, the shouts of relief and happiness that carried through the oar holes certainly did the job.
With one of our most pressing needs satisfied, the question I posed was, “Now what?”
“Now we wait until sunrise,” Ivomagus said. “That will be more than enough time for the lord who rules in my brother’s name to assemble his men to come to the village.”
He mentioned the man’s name, but I do not recall it, and I was more concerned with the men that this lord would be bringing anyway. That, I thought, we’ll face tomorrow. We were still hungry; the last of the shared rations had been distributed that morning, but just the idea that our ordeal might be coming to an end, or at least begin to end, did more to restore morale than anything besides the water. While I was not overly concerned, I did set a guard on both decks, while the men who were abovedeck were wearing their segmentata for the first time in almost two weeks, with their shields, but no pila. I prowled above and below until the midnight watch, then retired to the cabin, where all Alex could offer me was a cup of water, my first. It was a point of pride that I refrained, although I did try to not be ostentatious in my refusal, but when Alex offered the cup, instead, I snatched the pitcher from his other hand and drained it. As far as water went, it was not good; muddy, and I could feel the grit against my teeth…but it was the best I ever tasted.