She scanned her husband’s face as he read his dispatches and her heart fluttered within her. Before he told her, she knew he was being sent away at this time when she felt her life depended on him being with her. She did not consider asking him to stay. His duty was to his Emperor in his world of men. Her duty was to give him a child in her world of women. That was what he was bound to do and what her primary function was.
“I am ordered to the port of Gesoriacum in Belgica with eight soldiers. I must liaise with the Noble Quaestor Quintus Mucius and take ship to Britannia. We go to the lands of the Cantiari, clients of the Emperor. There is a map….”
“When?” she asked, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.
His wry smile was her answer; now, it was always now.
Otto seconded eight legionaries out of the Luca garrison selected by Centurion Massus.
“All volunteers sir. I know as I volunteered on their behalf; they were too shy to do it themselves. They’re all good lads, they won’t let you down.”
“And if anyone arrives from The Second Lucan wanting my troopers back?”
“I shall respectfully tell them to piss off until they can show me an order signed by the Emperor,” Massus replied.
“Thank you,” Otto told him. “I’m going to put them under your orders but let the garrison commanders in Pisae and Spedia know in case they need them.”
On the twelfth day of June, Otto said goodbye to Lollia. She waved him out of sight with a smile on her face and then sobbed as if her heart would break once he was gone. Felix looked almost as sorrowful. He had been told he was needed to help manage and defend the household. At least he could console himself with the thought that he was still of some use, in spite of his damaged leg.
Otto rode north at the head of his column with a hired four-mule wagon carrying all their kit and supplies to travel the seven hundred miles to Gesoriacum. He rode his grey gelding as he was not going to war. On the paved Roman roads with the cart, they might make thirty miles in a day, less once they were on rough tracks. Massus’ troops were not as fit as both he and they had believed. He let them take turns on the cart part of the way each day for the first few days until their feet hardened up. They soon shook down into the mile-eating pace of Roman infantry and marched all the hours of daylight with only brief breaks.
They reached their destination on the seventh day of July. Wooden buildings at crazy angles and thatched huts sprawled beside a river estuary. A featureless strand of sand and green mudflats, smelling of stale fish and rotting algae stretched to the horizon, raucous gulls swooped overhead. At low tide, the sea ended a mile offshore so the tilted and rickety jetties with boats squatting in the mud below them seemed out of place. Most of the boats were coastal traders or fishing smacks but one stood out. It was higher, fully decked and three times the length of the other craft. It hunched down on the tidal flats, kept upright by three stout wooden posts on either side. Its single mast towered to the sky, a Gallic boat; heavily built to sail the German Sea. A plank led across to the foredeck on which Otto could see a figure staring at the arrival of the legionaries. His white tunic bore a wide red stripe demonstrating that he was a Roman nobleman.
“That’ll be him,” Otto thought.
“Prefect Longius?” the stranger called. “Come aboard!” Otto clambered onto the gunwale and jumped down making the boat shake as he landed. “Greetings Prefect Longius, I am Quaestor Quintus Mucius. I am pleased to see you are here in good time. Everyone in this smelly hellhole seems to understand me but I cannot make out a word they say. Perhaps you will do better….”
At that moment a hatch in the foredeck flew back. The skipper and boat owner emerged into the daylight. He was a thickly bearded man with immense arms and hands tanned by a lifetime of salt spray, wind and sun. He nodded and looked over at the legionaries unloading and stacking their gear. He watched them keenly for a while, turned to the two Romans and began to speak. Otto thought the quaestor was right, this man was incomprehensible but as he listened, straining to make sense of what he was hearing, he began to pick out that it was a form of Latin. A Latin spoken in a guttural accent with little attention to grammar, full of idiom and the seafarers’ patois. Otto replied in his German dialect. It was close enough to the local Belgic for the skipper to understand. He smiled broadly showing unexpectedly good teeth and answered Otto in his native tongue. Otto translated for Quintus.
“He says he’s happy to have you aboard but needs to know what baggage and how many men and animals you have.”
“Oh, is that what he was trying to say? This voyage was booked by shipping agents so he should have been told. However, I have four mules and my horse, a secretary, a clerk, two servants and my valet. The usual chests of clothes and effects, a portable desk and chair, saddlery, tack….”
Otto explained to the skipper who seemed troubled and responded with a long speech.
“He says he cannot carry both our parties. His vessel isn’t big enough. His brother has the twin of this one and can bring it up on the next high tide. He suggests that you and your people go with one of them and I and my men set out with the other. He told me if we leave together, we should be able to keep in sight all the way; the boats are the same size and carry the same amount of sail.”
“Sounds like a neat way of doubling his charter fee to me,” “Quintus said eyeing the skipper suspiciously.
“I know nothing about sea voyages so I’m prepared to take him on his word,” Otto told him.
After a pause, Quintus sighed and gave in. “Tell him to find his brother and fetch his boat over for us. I still think this is sharp practice, mind.”
They walked up to the inn together, the file of legionaries behind them. Their kit had been loaded on deck under a tarpaulin in the skipper’s care. Otto had paid off the carter who was not happy. It was one thing to spend twenty-five days on the road with eight soldiers and a mounted officer, quite another to return alone. He asked if they would pay him a retainer to stay in Gesoriacum and wait for them but he was told that was not possible. He glumly began to enquire around the town for a convoy leaving within the next few days he could join, hopefully with a load of freight.
“I hope you enjoy eating fish, prefect, because you are going to be very hungry if you don’t. It is all they seem to serve. Fish, bread, brick-hard cheese and ghastly vinegar they have the nerve to call wine.” Quintus warned.
That is all there may have been for him but there was sausage and stewed pork for Otto, simply because he could ask for them in a language their waitress understood. He shared with Quintus. They sized each other up, sitting at opposite sides of the table over dinner.
Quaestor Quintus Mucius could not keep up his pose as a haughty nobleman for long. His fussy, bureaucratic but fundamentally good nature showed through very quickly. Otto liked him. He seemed a decent, straight-dealing sort of man. As for the praetor, he had been a little patronising towards Otto at first, mostly because he was intimidated by him. He had done a little discreet research into his companion on this mission to Britain. Otto had the reputation of a brutal killer, largely as a result of gossip inflating some of his exploits on the Rhine border. He had anticipated a sort of grunting Germanic gladiator and had been pleasantly surprised. By the end of their meal, they were beginning to forge a friendship.
“Why do you complain about the smell of fish when you drench all your food in Garum?” Otto teased.
“Garum is piquant.”
“Well that’s one word for it.”
“What has shocked me in the short time I’ve been here is the tides,” Quintus remarked. “Thirty, forty feet! Why can’t they go just a little up and down like in Our Sea?”
Otto could not tell him, but the walls of water that built and receded twice daily were impressive on this flat coast. At first, when the tide began to make, a low, white line of surf moved sedately inland. Soon it built to a rush of grey-brown water that rocked the beached boats and finally lifted them free o
f the grip of the land. Within three hours, they were floating level with the jetty in twenty-five feet of water. For two hours, all was calm until the ocean at first sneaked away then rushed back into the deeps carrying its water with it and the keels stuck in the gluey silt once more.
The skipper’s brother brought his craft alongside the jetty using four long sweeps which could be used to manoeuvre the craft in harbour or if the wind died. Not only was his boat the twin of the first one, the brothers bore a very strong resemblance to each other. Unlike their boats, they were not twins; Otto had asked.
They explained the loading procedure to Otto. The first one would carry the praetor, his people and baggage plus his horse and two of the mules. The second was for Otto and his solders, his horse and the other mules. With the additional weight of the men’s lorica segmentata armour, weapons and Otto’s parade armour, the weight would be roughly equal. They would load just before the highest point of the tide and sail on the ebb which would help them out into the deeper waters. Of course, this could only be done on a day when the wind was in the right quarter. Gallic sea-boats were true sailing-craft, not equipped with banks of oars like Roman galleys.
They waited for three days. A sailor had been detailed to tell them each day if they would be embarking. Once he had told them they would not, they had time to fill. Quintus told Otto the full details of their mission and showed him the Emperor’s gift. They walked around the town. They rode a little in the countryside. They talked and their friendship grew.
On the fourth day as they sat over breakfast, their sailor put his head around the door. “We’re going now,” he called over to them and hurried down to the waterside.
Both vessels had a crew of four in addition to the master. They were practised in the art of stowing cargo, acting as one and needing no orders. “Like a well drilled legion,” Otto thought. They put bags over the horses’ and mules’ heads and passed a broad band under their bellies to support them while they were hoisted by a winch. With dangling heads and legs, the animals were lowered through a midship hatch into the dark maw of the hold. The passengers could stand or sit near the steering oar, one half on the port side, the other half to starboard. If they got in the way, they would be sent below with the livestock and the baggage, whether they liked it or not. Otto relayed these instructions.
“How long will the crossing take?” he enquired.
“Depends on the wind,” the master answered.
“If the wind is favourable?”
“Depends on the currents.”
Otto realized that superstition forbade the man to say more, so he went to the side, spat into the sea and made the sign against bad luck. The skipper nodded his approval. The sailors loosed the mooring ropes and pushed away from the jetty with the sweeps. For a few moments they drifted until the sail was rattled up and made fast. The boom swung over, the sail filled and they felt the chuckle of the seat under them as they gained speed. In a surprisingly short time, the jetties were far-off spidery black lines and soon lost to sight. The distance between Gesoriacum and Dubrae on the Cantiari coast is twenty-three miles in a straight line. But boats do not sail in straight lines. They zig-zag across the face of the ocean, tacking and falling off, always responding to the often-competing thrust of wind and current. The ebbtide had helped them leave the Gallic shore but now it was pushing them south and west down the channel while the sails and steering oar were fighting the vessel a little north of west. After an hour, no land could be seen either behind or in front. The skipper had made this voyage in both directions countless times and so had his brother. They now relied on the colour of the sea, the play of the forces on their hull and the strength of the wind on their cheeks to find their safe haven.
The dirty brown of the silt laden estuary water had given way to a deep green with indigo highlights. Small waves peaked out of the surface to fall back in a hiss of white bubbles. The fat-bellied sail was taut. Their vessel slid along with almost no pitching or rolling under a sky mottled with small white clouds like the hide of a grey seal. The skipper stood at the steering oar with his feet braced apart on flexed legs glancing from the rigging to the sea, making constant, fine adjustments to their course. The boats were within hailing distance but not so close that they might accidently collide side-on if a high wave caught one of them. A school of porpoises arced out of the water and fell back, heading fast down channel. The two helmsmen saw them at the same time and shouted across, waving and pointing them out; they did not like what they saw. A quick look behind showed that no gulls were following them. There were none to be seen under the whole inverted bowl of the sky; another ominous sight. The steady wind, a point or two south of east dwindled to the softest breeze. The boat began to wallow in the gathering procession of waves bearing down out of the north with a rising current of air following after them. Black and yellow clouds mounted in the north-eastern sky. It grew darker and deathly cold. The inky line of a squall tore towards them with flashes of lightning and the roll of thunder heralding its arrival.
Everyone was ordered below. The sailors closed the hatch over the heads of the frightened legionaries in the stygian hold lit only by the feeble glimmer of an oil lamp resting in a metal bowl to contain spills. On deck, the sail was furled until only a scrap was left to give them steerageway. The crew huddled under the forepeak gunwale hanging on to the shrouds. The helmsman lashed himself to one of the steering oar supports. He brought his vessel about until her stern was against the rollers. As the frigid northern wind mingled with the warm summer air, rain cascaded down destroying visibility.
The main force of the storm hit like a sledgehammer, sending the first of its mighty waves to smash across the deck. They could do no more than to run before it. Behind them lightning flickered but now they were hurtling blindly over the sea with no way of knowing how far they were from the land with its ship-killing cliffs and reefs.
In the hold, men and animals were thrown from side to side. Otto ordered the legionaries into the wooden stalls to brace their shoulders between the timbers and the animals. The horse and mules risked being battered to death or their legs broken if they fell in the narrow space. The men were terrified. Not a single one of them had been on the ocean before. Few Romans were good sailors. They eyed the unpredictable waters with suspicion and employed Greeks to man their war-fleets. Now the soldiers stood, shoving into a beast to hold it upright in the gloom with the drumbeat of the waves smashing against the hull and the wind howling outside so loudly they could not think, let alone speak to each other. The lamp tipped over in its basin and went out. Hour after hour they rushed onwards in a version of lightless Hell; unseen demons shrieking and crashing all around them in seemingly never-ending torment.
Otto woke with his head resting on his gelding’s flank. He had fallen asleep on his feet but something different had roused him. He did not know what it was and then he realised. The noise had dropped. He was no longer aware of the boat juddering as the waves tried to destroy it in its headlong flight. He heard bare feet slapping on the deck overhead. The hatch was lifted and a grinning face lit by a lamp leaned in.
“Do you want to come up or are you happy where you are?” one of the seamen shouted down.
Otto and the soldiers scrambled up the short ladder and stood under a starry sky with a half moon shining down on them. The sea was calm. A gentle warm, breeze began lift the chill from their cramped limbs.
“What happened to the storm?” he asked.
“A sudden blow will soon go is what we sailormen says, general,” the man replied flashing a grin.
“Greetings to you,” the skipper called from his position at the steering oar. “Alive alive-oh?”
“I believe so,” Otto replied. “Where are we?”
“See those lights ahead? That’s a little Belgic port. We’re making our way in. If my brother’s not there already, he’ll be along by and by.”
“So we are back where we started…” Otto said.
The sk
ipper laughed and repeated what Otto had said for the benefit of his crew. They all guffawed.
“No, sir, not that you’d know, being a landsman as you are. The Isle of Vectis is behind you over your left shoulder and we’re coasting into the Belgic part of Britain. Dubrae is to the north and east of us; we overshot it in the storm. But at least we’ve made landfall with no loss or damage,” he explained cheerfully.
“You seem to have taken it very calmly; we were nearly shipwrecked and…” Otto told him
“Hear that boys? Nearly shipwrecked the gentleman tells us!” he shouted to the crew then spoke to Otto once more. “Such things happen to men who make their lives on the face of the sea. No point getting upset about it. Won’t be the last time, of that I’m sure. But here we are, safe and sound.”
The crew edged the boat carefully towards the port. The sea was choppy with low, short waves, the result of the storm in the channel. They would subside in a day or two, provided the weather stayed fair. They moored against the jetty with a gentle bump in the early hours of the morning after fourteen hours at sea, twelve of them in the hold. The passengers gratefully shared the seamen’s rations of hard bread and smoked fish before lying on the deck wrapped in their cloaks. The fresh air was sweet and the stars above a blessing but a greater blessing was the gentle rocking of the deck; no longer leaping and plunging like a mad horse.
Otto slept a long and peaceful sleep to be woken when the sun was high by the sounds of the busy port. He opened his eyes to see a herring gull roosting on the gunwale above him. It stared down at him with a speculative expression. Otto moved his head, the bird decided he was not edible, shrieked and took to the air. Rowing boats bustled to and fro about their mysterious maritime affairs, fishing smacks that had been kept in port by the bad weather set sail. Men busied themselves alongshore with ropes and nets, others loafed, calling down to their mates afloat, enjoying a warm and cloudless morning ashore for a change. A few lounged in shadowy places, purposefully watching the activity but with no apparent reason to be there.
Knight of Rome Part II Page 27