The dark swell stretched in all directions, easily capable of hiding a vast host of raptor galleys waiting for them. Agrippa swallowed nervously, clenching and unclenching his big fists as he paced the deck. To the south, the island of Sicily lay across his course, a mass of land and tiny coves that was said to shelter the enemy fleet. His hope was only to come as close as possible before dawn. After that, his new weapons and tactics would succeed or fail. His men had trained continuously, but Agrippa knew they could not yet manoeuvre as easily as veteran crews. He wiped sweat from his forehead as the new ships raised sails into the breeze. His galley eased forward with the rest, the only noise the hiss of water passing under the prow. Sicily cupped the toe of Italy at the far south and they had almost two hundred miles to go. Agrippa continued to pace, picturing his maps in his mind. For all his hopes, he’d been tempted to refuse battle and take his fleet to the east coast where Octavian was crying out for ships. With just a little luck, Agrippa knew he could have beached the fleet further south for a day, then passed the heel of Italy the following night, perhaps before Sextus Pompey even knew he was in those waters. It would have been the right decision if Pompey hadn’t split his fleet and taken a hundred galleys of his own around the heel. The news Maecenas had brought had changed everything.
Under twin blockades, both the major coasts of Italy were closed to trade. Rome was already close to starving and the siege could no longer be endured. It had to be broken. Agrippa felt the responsibility weighing heavily on him. If he failed, Octavian would be bottled up in Rome for years, forced to negotiate or even surrender to the forces of the Liberatores. There was no second chance, Agrippa knew. It all came down to Octavian’s faith in him.
Forty-eight galleys raised sails into the night wind, but Agrippa could hardly see them. The danger of white sails being spotted had led to his men colouring the sheets with the madder herb, dipping them again and again in huge vats until they were a rusty brown that would not reveal their position to anyone with half an eye out to sea. The sails were the colour of dried blood, but they served their purpose.
‘I have a good jug here,’ Maecenas said, clinking it against a clay cup to make his point.
Agrippa shook his head, then realised Maecenas could not see the gesture.
‘Not for me. I need to be sharp now we’re out.’
‘You should have been a Spartan, Agrippa,’ Maecenas said. ‘I find good red wine merely relaxes me.’ He poured a cup, cursing softly as some of it spilled onto the deck. ‘That’s for good luck, I suppose,’ he said, drinking. ‘You should get some sleep, if sharpness is important. At least the sea is calm tonight. I’d rather not face a watery grave while heaving my guts out over the railing.’
Agrippa did not reply, his thoughts on the galleys all around him. Maecenas did not seem to understand how much of the venture rested on him. Every modification he had made, every new tactic, was his. If it failed, he would have wasted half a year of hard work and a fortune that beggared belief – as well as his own life. His ships were well enough hidden in the night, but the dawn would reveal them to hostile eyes. He did not know whether to dread or welcome the moment they caught sight of the first hostile galley surging towards them.
Vedius was shaken from sleep by Menas, his second in command. He came awake with a grunt, trying to roll over on his bunk and flailing at the man’s hand on his shoulder.
‘What is it?’ he said blearily.
He’d spent so long sleeping on deck that the tiny cabin reserved for a captain seemed an incredible luxury. The mattress may have been lumpy and thin, but it was much better than stretching out under a tarpaulin in the wind and rain.
‘Signal light, sir,’ Menas said, still shaking him.
The man was a legion officer and Vedius sensed scorn behind his carefully neutral manner. Yet he was at Vedius’ command, for all his pretensions and legion honour. Vedius slapped the hand away. He sat up fast and struck his head on a beam, cursing.
‘Right, I’m up,’ he said, rubbing his crown as he clambered out of the tiny alcove.
In the darkness he followed Menas, climbing a short ladder to the deck and the light of a dim lamp. Vedius stared into the distance to where his subordinate was pointing. Far off, on the peak of a mountain, Vedius saw a gleam. The system was that their watchers lit a bonfire at night when they saw anything moving at sea.
‘Someone’s making a night run,’ Vedius said with grim pleasure.
It had to be a valuable cargo if the captains and owners were willing to risk losing their ships on some unseen rock. He rubbed his callused hands together at the thought, making a whispering sound. Visions of gold or chests of legion silver filled his imagination, or better still, the young daughters of some fat senator. With Lavinia on board, Sextus held women only briefly for ransom, but he was not there. Vedius had been without female companionship for a long time and he grinned into the breeze. Willing or not, the whores of Sicily were nowhere near as exciting as the thought of a Roman virgin in his cabin for a few days.
‘Take us out, Menas. Let’s pluck a few fat Roman birds for the pot.’
Menas smiled uncomfortably. The coarse tavern fighter repelled him, but the Senate had given men like Vedius the fleet, the true eagle of Rome, and he could only obey and hide his disgust.
There was no need to be cautious, with the western coast sewn tight. Menas took hold of a horn on his belt and blew a long note across the waters. Eight galleys formed their small group and they were moving almost as soon as they heard the note, their captains ready as soon as the bonfire light had appeared on the peak. In turn, they blew their own horns, a droning chorus that would carry to the next cove and alert the crews there to follow them out.
Vedius felt the wind freshen against his face as the rowers below dipped their oars and the galley began to accelerate. There was nothing like the feeling of speed and power and he could only bless Sextus Pompey for introducing him to it. He rubbed his jaw, feeling an old ache. He owed Sextus everything since the young man had rescued him and given him a purpose when Vedius had been little better than a fighting drunk. He told himself Sextus would never have beaten him if he’d been sober, but the broken jaw had never healed right and Vedius had lived with pain ever since, every meal a misery as it crunched and clicked. The Roman noble had been at his back for years, but for this night, Vedius was alone in command. It was a heady feeling and he loved it.
‘Half-speed!’ he shouted, then he called for a drink to help him shrug off the last of his sleep. One of the Roman legionaries offered water and Vedius laughed at him.
‘I never touch it. Wine feeds the blood, lad. Fetch me a skin!’
Below his feet, the rowing master heard and the drumbeat grew faster. The rowers who had been asleep on their benches shortly before put their backs into it with expert ease. The galleys headed out to sea in tight formation, lunging faster and faster to be first at the prizes ranging on the deep water. They left the island of Capri behind them, a hundred miles north of Sicily.
Agrippa was squinting into the darkness, seeing and losing again the point of light that had appeared in the distance. The night sky had turned around the Pole Star, but dawn was still hours away and he could not understand who might be lighting fires on the hills of Capri as his fleet sailed past in the dark.
‘I need information, Maecenas!’ he said. He thought his friend shrugged, but in the darkness, he could not be sure.
‘No one knows where the enemy fleet is,’ Maecenas said. ‘We have clients on Sicily and every island along this coast, but they can’t keep us informed with no link back to land. You’re running blind, my friend, though I think you have to assume that fire is not just some herdsman warding off the cold.’
Agrippa didn’t reply, his own frustration rendering him mute. The island of Capri was a great dark mass on his right shoulder as he came south, with just one point of light on the highest peak. He strained his eyes into the distant dark for any sign of galleys coming out to hi
t them.
‘I didn’t plan for an attack at night,’ he muttered. ‘My crews can’t use the grapnels if they can’t see the enemy.’
‘Sometimes the gods play games,’ Maecenas replied lightly.
He sounded supremely unworried and his confidence helped Agrippa to find calm. He would have replied, but he saw something out on the deep water and leaned right over the rail, turning his head back and forth as he tried to make sense of the blurring shadows.
‘Don’t fall,’ Maecenas said, reaching out to grab his shoulder. ‘I don’t want to find myself in command tonight. You’re the only one who understands how it all works.’
‘By all the hells, I see them!’ Agrippa said. He was certain of it: the vague shapes of long galley hulls.
‘Cornicen! Blow three short!’
It was the signal to form up on the flagship and he had to trust that the galley crews knew it meant to follow him. Agrippa snapped half a dozen new orders. The sea was like glass, but he needed light for everything he had planned to do.
Maecenas watched with studied calm as the sails came down and the great oars were lowered into the water. Agrippa’s galley slowed and wallowed, then picked up speed once more as the oars bit and began the rhythmic movement that would push them much faster through the waves. He felt the increase and despite himself he smiled. Around them, the small fleet did the same, all pretence at subterfuge forgotten as the captains yelled their orders.
The lull had brought the enemy galleys closer, though Maecenas could see the white foam from their strokes better than the ships themselves. His throat seemed to have gone dry and he filled another cup for himself, tossing it back.
‘We’ll run south along the coast until dawn,’ Agrippa said. ‘Gods, where is the sun? I need light.’
In the distance, he could hear drums pounding as the galleys came lunging in, faster and faster. His own crews moved to half-speed and then the captain ordered it higher, notch by notch, as they tried to stay clear.
‘They can’t keep going like that, not for long,’ Maecenas said, though it was half a question.
Agrippa nodded unseen in the dark, hoping it was true. He’d had his crews running miles around the lake for months. They were as lean and fit as hunting dogs, but the labour of heaving on oars was exhausting even for men in the peak of condition. He had no idea if the hardened legion galleys Sextus Pompey commanded could simply run his fleet down and ram them.
‘So why are you here?’ Agrippa said. He spoke to break the tension before it suffocated him. ‘I mean, here on the ships.’
‘You know why,’ Maecenas said. ‘I don’t trust you on your own.’
Even in the gloom, they could both see the other man’s teeth as they grinned together. The sound of oars and drums seemed to grow every minute and Agrippa found his heart was racing like prey running from a wolf pack. The wind roared around his ears, making him turn his head back and forth to hear the enemy.
‘Why really?’ he said louder, almost shouting.
As far as he could tell, the enemy galleys were almost on them and he tensed for the first crash of bronze rams into wood. There was no pretence of navigation any longer. The rowers below just heaved and pulled, putting every ounce of strength into each sweep.
‘The same reason you are risking your neck in complete darkness!’ Maecenas shouted back. ‘For him. It’s always for him.’
‘I know,’ Agrippa called back. ‘Do you think he knows how you feel?’
‘How I what?’ Maecenas yelled incredulously. ‘How I feel? Are you seriously choosing this moment, with our lives in the balance, to tell me you think I’m in love with Octavian? You pompous bastard! I can’t believe this!’
‘I just thought …’
‘You thought wrong, you ignorant great ape! Gods, I come out here to face brutal enemies with you – on the sea, no less – and this is what I get? Octavian and I are friends, you great hairy shit-pot. Friends.’
Maecenas broke off as a thunderous crack sounded somewhere close. Men screamed and splashes followed, but the night was like black ink and they could hardly tell where the sounds had come from or whether it was one of their own crews drowning in the dark.
‘You and I will have words about this when it’s over!’ Maecenas snapped. ‘I’d call you out with blades right now if I could see you, if you weren’t the only one who knows how these galleys fight.’
In the face of his appalled indignation, he heard Agrippa laugh. Maecenas almost struck him.
‘You’re a good man, Maecenas,’ Agrippa said, his white teeth still visible in the darkness.
If Maecenas could have seen him, he’d have been worried at the great cords standing out on Agrippa’s neck and chest, every muscle and sinew drawn tight in fear and rage at the enemy. Agrippa was manic, unable to act with enemies all around him and no way of knowing if he’d be drowning at any moment. Talking to Maecenas had helped a little.
‘I am a good man, ape. And so are you. Now please tell me we can outrun these galleys.’
Agrippa looked east, praying for the first light of the sun to appear. He could feel the galley creaking and stretching under him, a thing alive. Salt droplets sprayed across the deck, stinging his face with cold.
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.
Vedius stepped back from the prow of the galley, trying to see into the plunging blackness. Whoever was out there, they had a lot of ships. There had been a moment when he thought he’d fallen into some sort of trap, but then they’d run, their oars scything through the sea and churning it into white froth. He’d ordered full attack speed and closed the gap quickly on the strange, dark vessels running free before him. For a brief time, he called for ram speed. The galleys skimmed across the calm waters, driven as fast as they could go. He knew the rowers could not keep the brutal pace for long. Ram speed was the final surge of acceleration before striking an enemy, a hundred heartbeats at most before they had to fall back. His head came round in a jerk when he heard some sort of crash, but he could see nothing and the men below were already failing.
‘Ease back to half!’ he roared. He heard the falling horn note drone out, but there was still a bellow of fear behind him as one of his ships came close to ripping the oars off another.
Vedius turned to one of his archers.
‘Do you have pitch arrows?’ he shouted.
‘Yes, sir,’ the man replied.
Fire was not the tool it might have been at sea. The lumps of pitch and tar-cloth on the points robbed the arrows of decent range. In a close battle, Vedius had used them before against merchant ships, but mostly when the fighting was over and he had orders to burn them to the waterline. Wooden galleys moving at speed were soaked in sea spray from one end to the other and the arrows often extinguished themselves in flight or were quickly smothered when they hit an enemy deck. Even so, he gave the order and watched as two men brought up a small brazier filled with hot coals. They treated it like a precious child, terrified of spilling the coals on a wooden ship. The arrow flickered yellow at the tip when the archer touched it to the brazier. In the red glow, Vedius watched in fascination as the man bent his bow and sent it soaring up and forward.
They all watched the path of the shaft. For an instant, Vedius thought he saw oars moving in the dark like the limbs of a crab or spider before the arrow hissed into the black sea.
‘Another. Use a dozen or so, one at a time. And vary the direction. I need to see.’
The bright points rose and fell again and again, giving just enough light for Vedius to make a picture in his mind. There were dozens of galleys out there, though he still could not count them. They too had eased back to half-speed, enough to keep them out of range of anything he could send in their direction. Vedius looked east, searching for the wolf-light that came before the dawn. For a time, he had wished Sextus were there to see this great prize, but in his absence Vedius’ confidence had grown and now he was content to be in command. When Sextus heard, he would know his frie
nd had not let him down when it mattered. His galleys had spread out in a great net of ships, chasing down the prey at speed.
Vedius felt his ship lurch and cursed aloud as they lost way. He could hear urgent shouting down below and growled to himself. One of the rowers had burst his heart or simply collapsed, fouling the oar and knocking the rest out of sequence. It happened occasionally and he knew the oar-master would be quickly among them, heaving the body out while the oar lolled and shoving in one of the soldiers to take his place.
The galley slowed as the other oarsmen took the chance to rest, pleased at even a moment’s respite. Vedius let out a short bark of laughter when he felt the oars bite again and the speed increased. He had never ridden a horse into battle, but he assumed it felt much the same, with the enemy fleeing before him and the sun about to rise. His fleet plunged on through the wine-dark sea and he felt the excitement rise in him as he realised he could make out the prow under his hand. The sun was coming and he was ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dawn came quickly out at sea, with no mountains or hills to block the first rays. The sun appeared first as a burning thread on the horizon, gilding the waves and revealing the two fleets to each other. Neither found much to please them. Agrippa swallowed nervously when he saw how badly outnumbered he was, while Vedius had not expected anywhere near that number of ships.
As soon as the sun’s light cast away the dark, Agrippa was roaring new orders to his ships and running up flags. His captains had been forced to memorise a new system so that the enemy galleys would not be able to read his signals. It was with a grim satisfaction that he squinted north and watched the enemy commander send up flags he knew very well. It was another edge, that he could see what they intended and react just as fast as they could. Against so many galleys he needed every advantage he could get.
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