The two men began to walk along the lake’s edge. Maecenas could hear the shouted orders to the rowers on the glassy surface. His friend had taken the idea of unlimited funds to heart, so much so that Octavian had sent Maecenas south to see what was costing so many millions each month. From what Maecenas could see, that sum would only increase.
‘I have spotted a flaw in your plan, Agrippa,’ he said, grinning to himself. ‘You have your secret fleet and I can see you are training legionaries to use them. Yet there will be a small difficulty when it comes time to take them out to sea.’
Agrippa glowered at him. ‘I am not an idiot, Maecenas. I know the lake has no access to the coast.’
‘Some men would consider that a problem for an ocean fleet,’ Maecenas observed.
‘Yes, I can see it amuses you. But the coast is only a mile away and I chose this lake carefully. I have unlimited numbers of labourers. They will build me a canal to the sea and we will float the ships out.’
Maecenas looked at him in amazement.
‘You think it can be done?’
‘Why not? The Egyptians built pyramids with thousands of slaves. I have surveyors out preparing the route. One mile, Maecenas! That is not too far for men who have laid a thousand miles of road.’
The noise of hammering grew as they approached the construction site. Men carrying bags of tools trotted everywhere, pouring with sweat as they worked in the sun. Maecenas whistled softly as he looked up at the closest galley. He had never realised how big they were before. Eleven more in various stages of completion stretched into the distance. He reached up to the oak beams that held the main length of a galley keel. The air smelled of fresh-cut wood and he could see hundreds of carpenters on the ladders and platforms that allowed them to reach any part of the ship’s structure. As he watched, a team of eight men held a beam in place, the ends slotting together so that one of their number could use a hammer to knock in a massive wooden peg as wide as his arm.
‘What are you paying the men?’ he asked.
Agrippa snorted. ‘Twice what they could earn anywhere else. The master carpenters are on three times their usual wage. Octavian told me I had a free hand and the most important thing was speed. That does not come cheaply. I can build his fleet, but the costs are high if he wants them quickly.’
Maecenas looked at his friend, seeing the weariness but also the pride. Agrippa had wood shavings in his hair and his cheek was white with sawdust, but his eyes gleamed and he was sun-browned and healthy.
‘You are enjoying the work,’ Maecenas said, smiling.
Before Agrippa could reply, they both heard a carriage approach, rattling down the road that led the ten miles to Neapolis.
‘Who’s that?’ Agrippa said suspiciously.
‘Just a friend. He wanted to see the ships.’
‘Maecenas! How can I keep this site secret if you invite your friends to see what I’m doing? How did he even get past the guards on the road?’
Maecenas flushed slightly.
‘I gave him a pass. Look, Virgil is a poet and he knows how to keep secrets. I just thought he could write a few verses about this place.’
‘You think I have time for poets? Will you be bringing painters and sculptors out here? This is a secret fleet, Maecenas! Send him back. He’s already seen too much just by being here. I see he has a driver. Well, I’m keeping him now. I’ll put him on the payroll with the others, but no one leaves until spring.’
‘I’ll take Virgil back myself then,’ Maecenas replied.
They both watched the poet step down, staring around him at the massive structures. There was dust in the air and Virgil sneezed explosively, wiping his nose with a square of expensive silk.
‘Over here,’ Maecenas called to him. His friend saw the two men and waved briefly, walking towards them. ‘Look,’ Maecenas murmured to Agrippa. ‘He really is good, and Octavian likes him. He’s already famous in the cities. It will not hurt to be pleasant to such a man. He’ll make you immortal.’
‘I don’t want to be immortal,’ Agrippa snapped. ‘I want to get this fleet built before Sextus Pompey starves the country to death.’
The man who approached was portly and short, his face framed in black curls. As he came close, he sneezed again and moaned softly to himself.
‘I swear, Maecenas, I thought the air here would be good for me, but the dust is very unpleasant. You must be Agrippa, the genius shipbuilder. I … am Virgil.’ He paused, visibly disappointed when Agrippa just stared blankly at him. ‘Ah. I see my small fame does not precede me out here. Never mind. Maecenas has told me you have some sort of new design for the galleys?’
‘Maecenas!’ Agrippa said in disbelief. ‘How many more have you told? At this rate I’ll have Pompey’s fleet waiting for me when I come out.’
Maecenas looked embarrassed, but he held up his hands.
‘I told him a few details to catch his interest, that’s all. Virgil understands not to say a single word to anyone else, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Virgil replied immediately. ‘Poets know many secrets. In any case, I suspect I am not long for this world. I grow weaker every day.’
He blew his nose with great energy and Agrippa looked irritably at him.
‘Well, I’m keeping your driver,’ he said curtly. ‘Maecenas will take the horse team back to the city with you.’
Virgil blinked. ‘He’s exactly as you said, Maecenas. Stern and Roman, but built like a young Hercules. I like him.’ He turned to Agrippa. ‘So, given that I have already seen your fleet in the making, will I be trusted with a tour?’
‘No,’ Agrippa replied, barely holding his temper in check. ‘I am busy.’
‘Caesar said I should look over the detailed plans, Agrippa,’ Maecenas said. ‘I choose to have Virgil with me to make notes. You have my word he is trustworthy.’
Agrippa raised his eyes in frustration and guided Maecenas a dozen paces further off, too far for Virgil to overhear.
‘He does not strike me as a … manly sort, Maecenas. I have heard those kinds of men cannot be trusted. They gossip like women.’
‘What men do you mean?’ Maecenas asked innocently.
Agrippa blushed, looking away.
‘You know what I mean. At least tell me he is, you know …’ his throat seemed to choke him as he forced the words out, ‘… a giver, not a taker.’
‘You’ve lost me now,’ Maecenas said, though his eyes gleamed with amusement. Agrippa would not look at him.
‘A sword, not a scabbard! Gods, I don’t know how you say such things. You know what I mean!’
‘Yes, I do,’ Maecenas replied, laughing. ‘I just wanted to see how you would phrase it. Virgil! My friend here wants to know if you are a sword or a scabbard?’
‘What? Oh, a sword, definitely. Good Roman steel, me.’
Agrippa groaned. He glowered at both of them for a long moment, but he was proud of what he had created by the lake and part of him wanted to show them.
‘Walk with me then,’ he said.
He stalked off immediately and Virgil shared a grin with Maecenas as they followed him. Agrippa reached a ladder and climbed up it, stepping from platform to platform with the ease of practice. Maecenas and Virgil came after him at slower speed, until they were looking down on an unfinished deck. Parts of it were still bare of planking, so that they could see right down to the rowing benches below.
‘I tried four corvus bridges rather than the usual one at first. The result is at the bottom of the lake – it made the galleys top-heavy. I’ll still adapt a few, as it allows me to pour men on board an enemy ship, but if the waters are choppy, they’re just not stable enough. I still have to find a way to make the numbers tell.’ He glanced at Maecenas for understanding, but his noble friend just looked bewildered.
‘The rowers will not be slaves, not on these ships. Each one will be a swordsman, chosen by competition from Octavian’s legions. I’m offering twice the normal pay to anyone who can win hi
s place. In terms of fighting men, we should outnumber any of Sextus Pompey’s crews by three to one at least.’
‘That is an edge,’ Maecenas admitted. ‘But Pompey has two hundred galleys at his command. You’ll need something more than that.’
‘I do have more than that,’ Agrippa said sourly, looking at Virgil. ‘If I show you this, I want your oath you will die before speaking of it to anyone. It’s been hard enough keeping my workers from vanishing back to the city and spilling details to every listening ear.’
‘Once more, you have my word, on my honour,’ Maecenas said. Virgil repeated the words seriously.
Agrippa nodded and whistled to one of the men working on the deck.
‘Bring the catapult up,’ he called.
‘Catapults are nothing new,’ Virgil said a little nervously. ‘All the fleet galleys have them.’
‘To shoot stones, which miss more often than they hit,’ Agrippa growled. ‘Accuracy was the problem, so I worked around it. They have nothing like this.’
Under the orders of the carpenter Agrippa had called, six more men brought up spars and ropes from below. As Maecenas and Virgil watched, they began to assemble a machine on the deck, hammering a circular platform into holes in the oak planks, so that it would be steady even in a storm. Onto that, they slotted cast bronze balls with pegs of the metal that fitted into slots cut for them. When another wooden circle was attached, they had a platform six feet across that could rotate easily, even under weight. The rest of the catapult was built on that foundation with the speed of long practice.
‘I see a grapnel there …’ Maecenas began.
‘Just watch,’ Agrippa said.
The catapult was wound back against bending iron spars, a miniature version of the scorpion bows legions used. Yet there was no cup to hold a heavy stone. A huge iron grapnel with four bent spikes was slotted into place and tied to a mound of coiled rope. The men below looked up for his signal and Agrippa dropped his hand. All three of them jerked as the weapon leapt and the grapnel shot into the air, trailing a snake of rope with a whirring sound. It soared up for a hundred paces before dipping down and striking the soft earth below.
Agrippa looked pleased as he turned to the two men.
‘A stone can miss or skip over the deck and drop into the sea. The grapnels will fly right over the enemy ships and catch on the wood. They’ll try to cut the ropes, of course, but I have copper wire laced into the cords. There will be three of these on each deck and when they fly, the men will drag the galleys quickly together. The corvus bridges will go down and we’ll be on board before they can organise a defence.’
Maecenas and Virgil were nodding, but they did not seem impressed.
‘You’ll see,’ Agrippa said. ‘The ships on the lake have the new weapons fitted already. I was going to test them today before you arrived to waste my morning.’
He turned and yelled an order over the lake to the nearest galley as it practised fast manoeuvres. His voice carried easily and the captain acknowledged with a raised hand. The rowers backed oars, bringing the galley into range of the one pursuing it. Maecenas and Virgil both turned in time to see three ropes and grapnels soar out from the deck, right over the other galley, so that they stuck fast and held. Teams of legionaries took hold of spars on a capstan, reeling the ropes back like a fishing line as they shoved against footholds on the wooden deck.
‘Now you will see,’ Agrippa said.
The ropes had caught the opposing galley at an odd angle. As they grew taut, the opposing crew rushed over to the side where they expected the attack. It unbalanced their ship, which tipped suddenly and violently so that the deck became a slope. More men slid to the lower side, yelling in panic. The oars on one side raised out of the water and on the other the rowers thrashed in panic as the lake came pouring in. Before Agrippa could roar another order, the galley turned right over with a huge crash of water, revealing the shining curve of its hull.
Maecenas swallowed nervously, knowing he had just witnessed the drowning of two hundred men or more. Even those few who could swim would be hard-pressed to escape as the cold waters poured in. Down on the lake, the first galley crew sat still and stunned at what they had done.
He looked at Agrippa and saw his friend caught between horror and delight.
‘By the gods, I thought …’ He shouted for the galley crew to seek out anyone in the water and wiped sweat from his face.
‘Did you know that was going to happen?’ Virgil asked, his eyes wide in shock.
Agrippa shook his head. ‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘But this was never a game. I will use anything, take any advantage I can get.’
On the lake, the galley was surrounded by hissing bubbles and they could hear the faint cries of drowning men, still trapped with dwindling air in the rowing deck. Against the odds, some of those inside had struggled out. They bobbed up to the surface, thrashing and yelling, trying desperately to stay afloat long enough to be rescued.
‘I need another twenty million sesterces to build the canal to the sea,’ Agrippa said. ‘I will get Caesar the galleys he needs and I will destroy Sextus Pompey, whatever it costs.’
‘I’ll see it reaches you,’ Maecenas said, his usual cheer absent as he watched men drown.
Octavian raised his hand and the other bids stopped instantly.
‘Four million sesterces,’ he said.
The auctioneer nodded and put aside the sealed ownership papers for him to pick up after the sale was finished. No other bidder would risk the displeasure of a consul and triumvir, though the Suetonius estate was a good one, with river access and a fine house on a hill near to Rome. It adjoined another property Octavian had inherited from Caesar and he could not pass up the chance to increase his holdings. Still, it felt a little odd to bid on properties he had caused to come onto the market. Ten per cent of the final price went to whichever citizen had handed over the proscribed owner and there had been appalling scenes since the lists were published, with mobs breaking down the doors of named men and dragging them out into the street. On more than one occasion, only the head of the man had been used to claim the reward.
The Suetonius estate was unfortunately not one of those. The senator had vanished immediately after the consular elections and Octavian had every spy and client in his employ searching for news of him, as well as the other Liberatores still alive. In his absence, the Suetonius estate had been confiscated and the bulk of the proceeds would go to training and preparing new legions.
‘The next lot is a country villa by Neapolis, originally owned by Publius Casca.’
Octavian knew that name, one of two brothers who had managed to elude those hunting them. He had heard a rumour that the Cascas had thrown themselves on the dubious mercy of Sextus Pompey, but he could not be certain. He had no desire to bid on their property at that time, but he waited even so, to see how much silver would be coming into the war coffers.
The bidding began weakly as wealthy men in the room tried to guess whether the consul and triumvir would take it from them at the last moment. Octavian felt their eyes on him and shook his head, turning slightly away. The bidding increased to a rapid tempo then, as the estate in the south was renowned for its vineyards and farmland. There was still money in Rome, Octavian thought. His task was to gather as much of it as he could for a campaign that would need an even greater war chest than the one Caesar had collected for Parthia.
He rubbed his eyes wearily as the price reached four million sesterces and most of the bidders dropped out. Agrippa’s secret fleet was proving to be an appalling drain on the state finances, but he could see no other choice but to pour more silver and gold into the ships. Without a fleet, the legions he controlled with Mark Antony were effectively useless. The price of bread had already tripled and though many of the citizens still hoarded much of the silver Caesar had given them, he knew it would not last much longer before they were rioting again, just to eat. Octavian shook his head at the thought.
The
bidding came to an end at six million, four hundred thousand. He made a gesture to the auctioneer, who paled when he saw it, thinking it was a late bid. Octavian shook his head again and gestured to the batch of sealed papers that represented the estate he had bought. They would be sent on to one of his city houses, the funds disbursed by one of the hundreds of factors and servants working directly for him. The men in the room relaxed visibly as he left.
The auction house was high on the Quirinal hill and Octavian barely noticed the lictors who fell into step with him as he walked down towards the forum. The new senate house was almost complete and he had agreed to meet his co-consul Pedius at the temple of Vesta to oversee the laying of the final stone. Rome bustled around him as he made his way down the hill and his mouth quirked as he recalled previous times when he could hardly move for cheering crowds. They did not cheer him that day. He shivered as he walked. The air in Rome was growing colder as the year came to an end. In all ways, the new spring seemed very far away.
As he reached the forum, the sense of the energetic city all around him increased. The open space was filled with thousands of men and women on the business of Rome, from the administration of a thousand trading houses, to senators and specialists in law discussing every topic, many of them with crowds listening. Rome had been made and remade on words and ideas before swords and it still felt young, just as he did. The senators were not isolated from the citizens, at least at certain times each month. They walked among the crowds in the forum and listened to requests and appeals from those they represented. Anything from a problem with a neighbour to a murder charge could be brought to them, and as Octavian walked, he saw Bibilus deep in conversation with a group of wealthy merchants only slightly slimmer than himself. Like Octavian, Bibilus had increased his holdings during the proscription auctions. There was no doubt he had men in the room Octavian had just left, bidding on his behalf for the choicer properties.
Bibilus saw the stern lictors passing by and his cold eyes sought out Octavian walking in the centre of them. Despite his gains, Octavian knew there was no truce there, not from him. It was because of Octavian that Mark Antony had returned to the Senate with more power and fewer restraints than he had enjoyed before. Octavian could feel Bibilus’ dislike from a distance and he let it warm him. Bibilus did not call a greeting, preferring to pretend he had not seen him pass by.
The Emperor Series: Books 1-5 Page 200