The Encircling Sea
Page 20
The Harii may have spotted their ship and rowed out in boats to attack. Duco said that they had plenty of the little native craft, captured when they took the island or taken from fishermen. Yet if small boats had gone to the ship, surely they would have sailed it back to their harbour rather than burning it. It made more sense that the trireme was already here, back from the trip to Hibernia. They were fast ships and the pirates might have followed a different course and missed the worst of the storm that had struck them so hard. Cniva and his men had then seen their ship. Once again Ferox had to wonder why they had not captured it. The obvious answer was that they had burned it because they had learned about the party on shore. It was a message that there was no escape and no hope. That meant that the enemy was coming, and so they must work fast and keep a good lookout.
After a while the lady called to one of the Batavians and took him to a store of baskets in the tower, explaining that the grey- haired woman had told her about them. Once she learned that the attackers meant her no harm, the woman seemed glad to be free of her old masters and was making herself useful. Ferox had the baskets filled with stone and began another barricade just a pace or two in front of the entrance. This one was smaller, and would not cut across the entire causeway, because at some point the defenders of the first line would have to give way and they would need to retreat. They had plundered stone from the walls of the house without a roof and from the animal pens around the base of the main tower to help with the main barricade and now more was stripped away for the second. Ferox kept a couple of the baskets aside and had men selecting good round pieces suitable for throwing to take up to the top of the tower.
Ovidius appeared, greeting the lady warmly with a chaste kiss on each cheek. Ferox felt a flash of envy at even this slight contact.
‘I have assured the Lady Sulpicia that her family are all safe,’ he said, as Ferox walked over to them so that he could inspect the work from that side.
‘At least Marcus is too young to know what is happening,’ she said. ‘And it is some comfort that dear Claudia is there. She will be as kind to them as if they were her own.’
Ferox wondered whether the poet had told her about her husband.
‘I must pray that the prefect is safe,’ she went on, smiling as they murmured sympathy. ‘As pirates go, these have not been so cruel as captors as you might expect. I think they will have released him. There is purpose in all they do. This Cniva has a shrewd look about him, apart from when he flew into a rage. Then he was a monster. I can only hope the shrewd man prevailed and he has released my husband.’
‘We all hope that, lady,’ Ferox said, and meant it.
‘They were cruel only to the slaves.’ Sulpicia Lepidina gave a brittle smile. ‘A fault that is not confined to pirates and bandits. They used the girls hard – so hard that one died of the treatment and poor Aphrodite has suffered much. I have told her to eat and get some sleep. I hope that she can.’ Once again they both murmured their sympathy. Sulpicia Lepidina watched them expectantly, waiting for more. ‘I fear that you are hiding things from me,’ she said. ‘I am not a fool, and know that this rescue may prove temporary. How much hope do we have?’
Ovidius glanced sidelong at Ferox. ‘This is your field, not mine.’
‘We are alive and they no longer hold you,’ Ferox began. Her eyes studied him, daring him to insult her by hiding the truth. ‘It really depends on how soon Aelius Brocchus and the others arrive.’
Her head tilted slightly, her eyes showing approval of his candour. ‘And how long will that be?’
‘A day or two, perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘In truth, it is hard to say. It depends on how soon the message reached them, and then on the vagaries of wind and sea. Their journey might take days or even weeks if everything goes wrong. We have to hold out for as long as we can.’
‘And if they do not come?’ There was just the slightest tremor in her voice.
‘We take as many of these mongrels with us as we can.’
Sulpicia Lepidina laughed, throwing her head back so that her hair shook. Men stopped their work and looked up in surprise. Then they all grinned, even the hulking and silent Falx.
‘Spoken like a true Roman,’ the lady said. ‘Thank you for your honesty. There may be one cause for encouragement, though. Throughout this ordeal they have treated young Genialis with something akin to reverence. I do not believe that they would willingly harm him.’ Ferox hoped that she was right. ‘Now, I shall see if there is anything I can do to help inside.’
‘My lady, I should be most grateful if you would take charge of our provisions.’
‘Hmm,’ she sniffed. ‘Even in battle a man expects a woman to run the household.’ She laughed again. ‘Of course, centurion, it will be my pleasure.’
After she had gone, Ovidius shook his head. ‘There are some rare people who make you feel as if you are so crude and vacuous, and yet make you love and admire them all the more at the same time.’
Ferox nodded. ‘I had better get back to work. Before long I’ll get half of them to eat and rest. We had better keep the rest awake for a while. Don’t want them to surprise us by turning up early.’
Longinus insisted on being one of the men who kept the first watch, and Ferox was glad because he knew that he could trust the former rebel. He had a couple of Batavians, along with Probus and Falx. Ferox wondered whether the merchant might try to take his son and slip away into the night, but decided that they had nowhere to go.
‘If you will take my advice, sir, you go and get some food and sleep,’ Longinus spoke in that tone ordinary soldiers reserved for giving orders to their superiors.
Ferox smiled. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘But first I want to look in all the odd corners of this place.’ He went inside, wondering why the tunnel now seemed a lot shorter than when they had charged into it. On the ground floor, Brigita was practising cuts and thrusts with a sword taken from one of the dead guards. Ferox realised that he had not given any orders about their corpses, but could see no sign of them, so hoped they had been taken out and dumped on the shore.
‘You use that blade well, noble lady,’ he said. ‘I am glad that you are safe.’
‘It could do with being heavier at the point.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact. ‘And the grip is clumsy, but otherwise it will serve.’ She sliced down as if slashing at an opponent’s chest and stomach. ‘I hear my husband is not high king.’
‘No, he is not.’
‘He would not have been a great king,’ she said in the same flat tone. ‘But I would have been a great queen.’
‘You are still young.’
Brigita spun around, jabbing with the blade and stopping it an inch from Ferox’s face. He did not react, and stared at her with mild interest.
‘I will fight with you when they come,’ she told him, and it was a moment before he realised that the words were in Latin. All the time she had understood what they were saying and hidden her knowledge, for her speech was clear and choice of words fairly good, apart from the small ambiguity, for it could be taken to mean that she would fight against him.
‘As you wish.’ Ferox did not relish the prospect of trying to stop her. ‘But I am leader here, and I must command.’
She withdrew the sword. ‘So be it.’
Ferox went past her to an alcove at the far end. It was covered by a blanket, so he pulled it aside and found what he was expecting. Stone stairs curved upwards inside a hollow in the great outer wall. It was dark, but not so dark that he could not see his way and the soft light was that of the night sky. He caught a hint of salt in the air, and realised that somewhere up ahead was an opening to the air. He followed the stairs, his feet echoing softly, the passageway curling around with the shape of the tower as it climbed. He came to where he thought he must be level with the first floor, wondering whether there was an entrance, but found only solid wall. It amazed him that anyone could make so huge a building without mortar, let alone the concrete that allowed the Romans to bu
ild so many miracles. For a few paces, the stairs became a level corridor, and he wondered whether the workmen had needed this while they were raising the tower. Once before, he had climbed a similar stair in another tower far away, and that had become smaller and smaller as it climbed higher, until a man could only go along it if he crawled. He pressed on, and there were more steps, but like that other tunnel the roof was getting lower. Ducking his head, Ferox climbed around another great curve. Up ahead the stair turned sharply and then stopped. A couple of paces ahead there was a solid wall apart from a narrow tube down which came faint starlight. He could go no further.
A footstep sounded faintly behind him. The sound was soft, on the edge of hearing, and if he had not stopped he probably would have missed it. Ferox turned, as slowly and gently as he could. There should not be any danger, for he could not believe that any of the defenders had survived, and he had certainly not passed anywhere where a man could hide. The steps came closer. They were slow, tentative, like someone who was nervous or trying to be silent. He waited, hand on the pugio in its scabbard, for in this confined space it would be hard to use a sword.
Whoever it was halted, breathing softly, waiting before taking another step. A dark shape came around the corner and he let go of the dagger’s hilt and grabbed it with both hands, pulling it to him. The person was short, soft hair against his chin.
Sulpicia Lepidina gasped and looked up. ‘Barbarian,’ she whispered, and then touched her finger to his lips. Her other arm curved around his waist. Ferox held her tightly, even though this meant pressing her against his mail cuirass. He leaned down and they kissed, her lips soft and yielding. ‘We are at the end of the world,’ she whispered. ‘Who can judge us here?’
Ferox kissed her again, and they spoke no more.
XX
A HORSEMAN CAME just after dawn and stared at the tower for some time, before riding away. The corpses of the defenders were laid out in a line beyond the causeway, and when he had found out they were there Ferox had wondered about telling his men to hide them. There was not really any point, since the barricades were there for all to see.
It did not matter, and when morning came he had other things to worry about. Encouraged by Sulpicia Lepidina, the slave girl Aphrodite had eaten some stew and then gone up onto the raised floor to sleep. When the lady had gone to rouse her this morning, she found her dead, stabbed through the heart, dried blood all over her bedding.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Sulpicia Lepidina asked him when he arrived, summoned by the commotion. She looked pale, although not as white as the bloodless girl. There was a cruel echo of the other time they had made love, for the day after that they had found another murdered slave. Ferox thought of Ovidius’ comments about gods with a black sense of humour.
Nobody had been seen climbing the ladder to the raised platform, but then most of the night people had been asleep or outside on guard.
‘Was she violated?’ Ovidius asked. Ferox could see no sign of it, although the poor girl had been forced so many times by her captors that it was hard to tell, and at least it offered a motive. He did not really know any of the Batavians apart from Longinus, but the latter had vouched for them all when they were chosen and that was good enough for him. He could not believe it of Vindex and his men, or of the northerners, for all their grimness. Ovidius seemed unlikely, Bran too young, and he could not think of any reason for either of the women to kill the slave.
That left Probus and Falx, and it was easy enough to believe the gladiator capable of any cruelty, but hard to believe that he had sneaked up without being noticed. People tended to be very aware of the huge man wherever he was. Probus also seemed unlikely, for what would he gain? The man was rich enough to take pleasure with as many slaves as he wanted. The same was true of his son, but Ferox remembered Genialis trying to rape the girl all those months ago. He thought of the delight the youth had shown when he stabbed the Red Cat’s son to death. There was also the archer who had ambushed him. From what Duco said such a skilled horse archer was unlikely to have been one of the pirates. On the other hand, there were surely plenty of former cavalrymen among the employees of the merchant and his son. The boy might easily have promised one of them a rich reward to revenge himself on the centurion for not giving in to his every whim.
Sulpicia Lepidina said that the lad had been well treated by their captors. Ferox wondered whether that had extended to letting him rape the girl. That might explain why Genialis was on the first floor when they stormed the tower, and not chained up with the other captives. The boy had been more nervous than sullen since they had arrived, and Ferox had assumed that this was because of the hard glances shot at him by Segovax and his brother. Most of the time he kept close to his father. Ferox wondered about saying something, but he had no proof and for the moment he needed Probus and especially his bodyguard. Now that the horseman had seen them, it would surely not be long before Cniva and his men arrived.
Ferox put the Red Cat and Bran on top of the tower. They were there to keep watch in case the pirates did what they had done and sent men to scale the wall and get in through the top. Ovidius insisted on joining them. ‘I’m not much use with a sword, but I believe that I can throw a stone and sometimes hit what I want.’ Ferox agreed, and added Genialis because it got the youth out of the way, and perhaps the sight of him would deter the attackers from anything too bold.
The others were split into three groups. Ferox led the first, with Duco, Segovax and two Batavians. They would make the first stand at the barricade. Longinus led the second group, with the other three Batavians and Falx, who would wait by the entrance and the smaller wall there. Vindex, his scouts, Probus and the queen waited in the tunnel as reserve. Brigita had donned a mail shirt, one of those captured from the defenders, and under it had a man’s tunic, which left her legs bare from the knees down. Her long hair was platted into a pigtail, like the ones the northerners wore, but she had coiled some of it up so that the bronze army helmet, also taken from the dead sentries, was not quite so loose.
‘Well, she certainly frightens me,’ Vindex said. ‘That and other things.’ He sucked, baring his big teeth, making his face even more horse-like than usual.
‘Thought you were a married man,’ Ferox replied.
His friend shrugged. He was sitting in the tunnel and running a stone along the edge of his sword. ‘Still a man,’ he said. ‘And you know a funny thing about that? Well, about you.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t know, do you? You really don’t. Although I must say you look happy this morning.’ The Brigantian seemed to leer knowingly, but his face was made to leer and in the shadows of the tunnel it might be no more than his imagination.
‘I am happy,’ Ferox said. ‘It’s morning, and we are still alive. I can’t promise that will be true by the end of the day, but we may as well make the most of it.’
‘All right, don’t tell me, and don’t ask?’
‘Ask what?’
‘My wife’s name.’
‘Haven’t I asked you that?’
‘No.’
A call came from out on the causeway. ‘No time now,’ Ferox said, and ran out, dodging past the smaller wall and heading for the main one.
Half a dozen horsemen were on the shore. Their ponies were various shades of brown, and they wore silver and bronze scale or iron mail armour, but everything else about them was black.
‘That’s Cniva,’ Duco said as the centurion reached the men on the barricade. He was pointing at a rider who was a little ahead of the others. The man was small, narrow shouldered, and his black beard and hair were streaked with grey. He did not look much, but looks were so often deceptive, and Ferox did not doubt that he was a killer. The question now was whether he was also a talker, and would try to persuade them to give in.
Behind the horsemen a file of soldiers appeared over the crest of the low ridge. They came four abreast, marching in step and in silence like a regular unit. Bronze helmets g
leamed dully in the morning light, their mail shirts looked grey, and both were bright against the black tunics, trousers, and oval shields painted black. Even the shafts of their spears were painted in dark colours. At the head of the column a man carried a vexillum, its ornate and highly polished spearhead glittering above a plain black flag.
One of the Batavians, a tall man with dark brown eyes and a broken nose, spat over the barricade. ‘Cheeky buggers,’ he said.
Ferox grinned, and adjusted the cheek pieces of his iron helmet with its tall, transverse feather crest. He counted some two hundred men including the riders, which meant that there were likely other pirates to come. A glance back at the tower showed Ovidius and the others on top, looking all round as they were supposed to and giving no warnings of other threats.
The column wheeled to the right, processed along the ground a little back from the shore, and then turned into a line four deep.
The tall Batavian applauded mockingly. The other auxiliary trooper laughed nervously. Segovax rubbed the mail shirt he had been given after they took the tower, but his face was impassive. Duco was breathing deeply, sucking his lips back over her teeth. All of them had helmets, mail, a shield – three of them the plain black of the pirates – a sword and a good spear. They waited.
Cniva kicked his horse and walked the beast on to the start of the causeway. Here it comes, Ferox thought and waited for the boasts, threats and offers of mercy. The horse did not like the look of the stones and the water lapping softly against it as the wind blew across the island. It tried to shy away, and the pirate leader held the reins ruthlessly to keep it there. He began to whistle, softly at first, but growing louder and stronger, and he raised his arm to point at them, ending with a snap of his fingers and a wave. He went silent, glaring at them, and even at this distance his eyes burned with a dangerous hatred that reminded Ferox of the Emperor Domitian in one of his most murderous moods. Then Cniva turned away, and trotted back up the gentle slope to join his foot soldiers.