The Archimedes Stratagem

by Gavin Chappell

  What also gave him hope was the realisation that they were too far from Alexandria for Arctos to send a messenger to his fellow conspirators. Or did he? For all Flaminius knew, the man had as efficient a signalling system as the legions, and could send a message south to Alexandria at lightning speed. Then the assassins would know when to strike, when the emperor’s galley would enter the harbour. At least Arctos had no idea that Flaminius was aware of the situation.

  Gravel crunched beneath his sandaled feet as he took another turn up the path. If only he could get away, maybe intercept the emperor’s galley, tell him to turn back… But it was hopeless. Now the rebels knew when Hadrian was going to visit Egypt, and everything was lost. And it was Flaminius’ fault.

  No, he would have to escape. He could not sit idly by when he knew what the consequences of his foolish actions would be.

  He strode on down the path. He was at the front of the house now, in another garden where ivy clad statuary rose from amidst lush vegetation. In the distance were reed banks and beyond them the blue flash of water. There were buildings down there, some kind of small port. Could he find a boat, sail out to sea, make some attempt to get away? It might be hopeless, but anything was better than this aimless pacing. He had to take some action, however futile, or he felt he would explode.

  He glanced about him. This part of the garden was empty. A long carriage drive led through it, but otherwise the place was thick with undergrowth. He looked back towards the house. Blind windows stared unseeingly back at him. He could see no one looking out from them, no one in the garden either. Or was there? A dark figure stood on the terrace, apparently watching him. But even as he looked, the figure turned and vanished.

  Then there came a flare of light from a window on the second level. Flaminius scanned the surroundings. An answering flare came from somewhere out of sight over the horizon. A ship at sea? Or another island? It must be some kind of hydraulic telegraph.

  Arctos’ people were sending signals. And that could only mean one thing. Flaminius turned and bolted.

  After a tense journey through the overgrown garden he reached the park wall a short way down from the gates. It was high, but not so high he couldn’t jump up and seize the top, haul himself up and—avoiding the broken fragments of pot sticking up out of the cement to deter intruders—plummet down into the bushes on the far side.

  He peered out from behind a screen of leaves. Fields and woodland met his gaze. No one was visible. He started running.

  He ran as fast as he had ever run, as fast as Pheidippides, ducking down low, peering about him, then running on. The whole place was strangely quiet, deserted, if it was truly the estate of a magistrate. At last he came to a reed choked shore where birds called and wheeled above. It seemed like the area had been untended by man since Deucalion was a boy, and he saw no sign of the harbour buildings he had noticed earlier. Then something came into view through a gap in the reeds—a jetty jutting out into the water. Flaminius squelched his way towards it.

  Turning a corner he found a small cove between him and the jetty and the reed huts that stood beside it—warehouses, perhaps. He was just debating trying to swim across the inlet or follow it round if the water was too deep when he saw a boat lying at anchor. No one was aboard, no one was about. The wind sighed among the reeds.

  Flaminius waded out to the boat and climbed aboard. It was no kind of sea going craft a cursory examination revealed, but perhaps he could paddle across to another island of the archipelago and then find a ship bound south. But there was little chance he would reach the city before the emperor.

  Casting off he began paddling down the inlet. Soon they had passed the shores of the island and green water stretched in all directions, but he thought he saw another island on the shimmering distant horizon. He paddled towards it.

  Even as he did so, he felt water lapping at his toes. Looking down he saw what his brief survey of the vessel had not shown him—a sizeable hole in the hull now letting in water at such a rate that even as he looked the boat was submerged but for the gunwale. Gritting his teeth, Flaminius slipped off his tunic, slid over the side and trod water.

  The island he had seen was still a long way off. The one he had escaped from lay close at hand. He would have to go back and find a better kept vessel. He started swimming.

  Drenched in water he dragged himself onto dry land and lay there panting, the bundle of tunic in his left hand steaming slightly in the sun. He had kept his sandals and his belt wrapped up in it but jettisoned everything likely to drag him down. He was weary, though, and he lay there for some time trying to get his breath back before making another attempt.

  The mud squelched with the footsteps of approaching men. He rolled over and came up in a fighting crouch, his bundle gripped as if it was a weapon. Three of them, men who had taken him prisoner in the garden. They stood looking down at him, spears levelled.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ asked their bearded leader.

  —21—

  Flaminius offered his interrogator a tired grin. ‘Just thought I would go for a quick dip.’

  The bearded man shook his head. ‘You won’t get anywhere by swimming,’ he said. ‘The magistrate, he seems to like you. But I don’t trust you. Oh, he’ll hear all about this.’ He gave a look of disgust. ‘Get your clothes back on,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a gymnasium. And then you’re coming back to the villa with us.’

  ‘Your master could teach you a few lessons in civility,’ Flaminius commented, squeezing out his clothes as best he could and dressing hastily. ‘Preferably with the lash. Come on, then.’ He led his captors in the direction of the villa.

  He was still steaming gently as he stood before Servius Arcadius in his office, and a slave was called to sponge up the water that dripped from his tunic.

  ‘I understand that you are eager to get back to Alexandria,’ said the magistrate—Arctos. ‘But embarking on the open sea in a holed boat? Very rash. It’s many days’ journey.

  ‘After I left you to walk in the garden, I sent a signal out requesting a galley be despatched here. It will take you to Alexandria as fast as the wind permits.’

  Flaminius’ eyes narrowed. ‘Using a hydraulic telegraph?’ he asked.

  Arctos nodded. ‘You’re familiar with such devices? They have their limits, but I know of no other way of communicating over long distance. Unless your Egyptian magician could help!’

  ‘I don’t think that would be very likely,’ said Flaminius, sitting down at Arctos’ invitation. Did the man guess that Flaminius knew who he was? Quite possibly not. He did not know that Flaminius had seen his signet ring on either occasion. If Flaminius had not received the training of an imperial agent, which stressed attention to detail, he would never have realised that this white bearded man was the same person who had concealed his features behind a gladiator helmet.

  Flaminius glanced at the men who had brought him back, the Thracian and his fellows. Were they all gladiators? He didn’t recognise them, but they were big enough and tough enough, and he wouldn’t have liked to have met any of them in the arena. Escaping from them would be impossible. He would have to await his opportunity.

  ‘May I offer you some more wine?’ Arctos asked.

  Flaminius accepted gratefully, and the drink had restored him. In fact, he felt quite giddy. It was potent! If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it unmixed wine.

  ‘Let us talk a little more about this plot,’ Arctos said, sipping at his own wine, then placing his goblet on the table. ‘You say that the legion is at its greatest strength in the Thebaid? What kind of presence does it have in Lower Egypt?’

  Flaminius shook his head. ‘That was the way matters stood when I left,’ he said. ‘Even if they get word of the emperor’s assassination, they will have a long journey downstream before they can confront the rebels.’ Arctos was fishing for more intelligence, but what else could he say?

  ‘That is terrible,’ said Arctos. He sounded sincere. Again Flamini
us wondered if he had misidentified this kindly old man. He glanced quickly at the signet ring. ‘Why are the empire’s forces concentrated in such a distant area?’

  ‘Because that was the area where the most trouble was to be found,’ said Flaminius. He remembered Britain; the concentration of forces on the northern frontier led to a revolt in the south that had resulted in the burning of Hadrian’s rebuilt city of Londinium[6]. ‘Now that the province is under water due to the inundation of the Nile, it will be almost impossible for the cohorts to reach Lower Egypt in time.’

  ‘Do you think the rebels will seize control of the grain shipments?’ Arctos asked. ‘Starve Rome into submission as did Vespasian of Blessed Memory?’

  Flaminius sighed. ‘That seems to be the plan,’ he said. ‘And unless I can get there in time…’ A thought struck him. ‘Your hydraulic telegraph,’ he said. ‘Could we use it to send a message?’ He had almost forgotten that Arctos was an enemy.

  But the venerable senator shook his head. ‘The hydraulic telegraph is sadly limited,’ he explained. ‘The system is based on stock messages. For example, my message was “Send a ship” coupled with “At once.” The system, alas, is not sufficiently sophisticated to send any message more complex.’

  Flaminius sipped at the strong wine.

  Was Arctos trying to loosen his tongue? Of course the hydraulic telegraph would be useless. Even if it had been, he must have been mad—or half drunk—to think Arctos would help him.

  ‘Then that ship had better get here as soon as possible,’ Flaminius said, supressing a yawn. He glanced up at the skylight. It was getting dark.

  It had been a long and confusing day. He asked for a bed for the night.

  Half an hour later he lay on a bunk in a well-furnished chamber on the east side of the building, but he was wide awake. The room was large and opulent but, placed as it was on the highest floor of the villa and at the end of a long corridor down which he would have to pass on any escape attempt, it was effectively a prison. However, there were benefits to being so high up, even though escape down the side of the wall would be impossible—opening the window gave a grandstand view of the gardens and the land beyond, even as far as the harbour. There was a boat there, being readied for embarkation. The vessel was quite small, more like a river craft than a sea-going vessel.

  Now that Arctos had the information he had so dearly sought, he had no reason to keep Flaminius alive. The tribune had to make his escape before they came to kill him. The last attempt had gone poorly. But he had to try again, for his own good—and the good of the empire.

  As he lay there planning out his next move, someone started trying his door.

  —22—

  Flaminius sat bolt upright, the covers falling away from his fully clothed form.

  As soon as he shut the door behind him, he had searched for some way to lock it, but although there was a keyhole there was no key, inside or outside, and he had resorted to propping a chair up against the doorknob. Now that chair was bending like a Scythian bow as someone shoved the door remorselessly open. The chairback snapped, the door burst open, fragments of chair flew across the room and Flaminius leapt onto the floor, hands outstretched.

  Standing in the open doorway, eerily under-lit by the oil lamp he held in one gauntleted hand, was the bearded servant of “Servius Arcadius” who had taken him prisoner in the garden. He seemed surprised to see Flaminius awake, on his feet, and fully clothed.

  This seemed unfair. Surely it was Flaminius who should be surprised by this night-time intruder. And yet he wasn’t.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked politely.

  The man put the oil lamp down on a shelf, gripped a short sword in his gauntleted hand and swung it at Flaminius.

  That would have been the Roman’s last sight this side of Hades if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to fling himself at the bearded man’s feet. Grovelling like a Parthian genuflecting before the King of Kings, he wrapped his arms round the man’s ankles and hauled him off balance. The man crashed into the doorjamb and his sword went flying. Flaminius flung himself across the floor to seize it but even as he did the man was already there. His foot came down on Flaminius’ outstretched hand, stamping cruelly so that the Roman could hear his bones grating together.

  He groaned with pain and snatched his hand back, rolling backwards into the side of his bed. The man leaned down to retrieve his sword. Flaminius found the temptation altogether too great and kicked his enemy in the base of the spine. The man staggered forward, the crown of his head connecting with a bone cracking crash with the wall, and then fell flat, leaving a smear of dark blood on the fresco.

  Flaminius stood panting for breath, absently massaging his trampled hand, suspiciously observing the prone figure of the bearded man as he lay motionless. Was he putting it on? Lulling Flaminius into a sense of false security? The sword lay half a cubit from his gauntleted hand. If Flaminius tried to seize it, would his enemy come to life, snatch it up, try to stab him?

  The man still wasn’t moving. Flaminius took the chance to get his breath back. Whether it was a ploy or not, he would make the most of this lull in the fight. But his conscience panged him. He couldn’t wait around here while the fate of the empire hung in the balance.

  He took great satisfaction in stamping his foot down on the man’s outstretched hand. No reaction. Either the bearded man was a stoic who would have made Zeno wince, or his ghost was waiting obol-less in the queue for the ferryman of the Styx. Flaminius snatched up the sword. As he did he saw that the man’s face was stuck to the floor by blood. He tried to roll him over, grabbing at the first thing that came to his grasp—his beard. It came free from the man’s face and Flaminius almost fell backwards. Recovering his balance he stood there staring stupidly at the unsightly tangle of blood and hair.

  False. It was a false beard. The bearded man was not a bearded man. He had been wearing a false beard. For some reason, this baffled Flaminius more than anything else. He dropped the false beard, crouched down, took the corpse by the shoulder, and heaved. It rolled over limply, and in the flickering light of the oil lamp Flaminius recognised its beardless face. His own face creased into a scowl.

  ‘Brutus…’ he muttered. He glanced at the gauntlet on the corpse’s right hand. ‘I should have known…’

  The Sicanian gladiator had been a prominent figure in Arctos’ rebel camp deep in the Nile Delta[7], one of the few of Arctos’ followers to escape, along with the two gladiators who had been Arctos’ bodyguards. Were they here too? Well, Brutus was going nowhere now, he could join Camilla’s wandering shade. A pity. Flaminius had sworn to himself that he would avenge the gladiatrix’s death. This accidental demise was not enough to atone for Brutus’ crimes.

  Gripping the stolen short sword in one hand, the oil lamp in the other, he departed the room.

  A short sword wasn’t his chosen weapon. A cavalryman by training, he preferred the longsword, but he hadn’t wielded one since leaving the Thebaid. All the same, it felt good to have something in his hand, something that could do damage to anyone who tried to stop him. But no one came.

  He wandered opulent passageways and pillared hallways, searching for signs of life without success. The lamplight flickered and flung long, ominous shadows across empty chambers where couches and tables stood in solemn silence, and the only eyes that returned Flaminius’ inquiring gaze were the painted eyes of statues.

  Were these stern-faced men and women frozen in marble Arctos’ ancestors? He wished he knew more about the history of Roman families—he might have recognised them and that would tell him which clan Arctos came from. No matter, he had seen the man without his gladiator helmet: he would recognise him if he saw him again, whether it was in the Nile Delta or the Roman senate house.

  Maybe the next time he saw Arctos’ face it would be stamped on a coin. But no. If Arctos succeeded, Flaminius wouldn’t live to see the first minting of the new emperor’s coins. It was even possible he wouldn’t outlive the n
ight.

  But he met no resistance as he paced the pillared halls. The place was deserted, as if everyone had gone to Baiae for their holidays. He remembered the boat he had seen in the harbour. Were they moving out? But if so, where?

  As he turned to go, he saw something lying on the desk. He had halted in the office where “Servius Arcadius” had first spoken to him. All was in shadow except where the light of Flaminius’ oil lamp fell upon the marble of the desk.

  It was empty of papyrus or pens, but sprawling in the middle was what Flaminius first thought to be a small dead animal. In a flash he remembered Brutus, still face down in the chamber above. Placing the lamp down on the desk he picked up the object.

  Another false beard. This one white and voluminous. Arctos’ beard.

  So he had still been in disguise when Flaminius was speaking to him. There went all hope of recognising him in Rome—except there was his signet ring.

  Speaking of which, something else on the desk glinted in a glimmer of starlight. Flaminius snatched it up. The ring! Had that been false, too? He studied it closely, then dropped it back on the desk with a grunt of disappointment. It was not the ring he had seen on Arctos’ finger.

  A thought struck him. He picked up the ring again and studied it. No. It certainly wasn’t Arctos’ senatorial ring with its ursine emblem. But it closely resembled another ring he had seen before. He was very familiar with that seal. He slipped it into a belt pouch.

  But he was wasting time. If he was lucky, he might find some way to escape being stranded on this remote Aegean island. He ran from the office, ran from the house.

  It was dark amid the trees as he departed the gardens. He had left the oil lamp on the desk in Arctos’ office, and now he had nothing but starlight to guide his way. The night was silent except for distant noises from the harbour. A screech owl hooted. Otherwise an eerie quiet hung over the woods, while darkness enveloped it all in a shroud. Even the thud of Flaminius’ feet was swallowed up by the silence.