by Jack Whyte
As far as I could estimate from our vantage point, the Roman-built craft—what other type could it be, I asked myself—had more than thirty oars in each of its double banks, which amounted to one hundred and thirty or forty sweeps. From the length of the sweeps themselves, it was obvious that at least two men, and possibly three, would be required to manipulate each blade, indicating a crew of four hundred or so oarsmen. In addition to those, I knew there would be warriors responsible for attack or defence when the ship was moving, for Roman biremes were mainly ships of war, constructed for battle and intended as moving fortresses, so that they carried a military force as well as a naval force.
Who could these people be, I wondered, and what was their purpose? It was evident at first glance that they had an urgent purpose; the energetic nature of their activity bespoke it. But even as I watched, the activity died down and altered. Now there was a definite and unmistakable movement of people towards the ship, and they began pouring up the two steep gangways in a living tide.
"They're making ready to leave." The voice belonged to Rufio, who was standing closest to me.
"You think so?" I asked.
"They're leaving. Whatever they were loading, the job's complete. They'll be gone within the hour."
I accepted his judgment completely. "Then we must stop them and negotiate passage."
"Hah!" His laugh was more of a bark, harsh and derisive. "I doubt you'd want to bargain with those people, Commander."
I threw him an ill-tempered look. "Why not?"
"They're carrion eaters. Pirates. They'd gobble us up and not bother spitting out our bones. We're twelve against five hundred."
"We're not against them, Rufio. We are a source of potential revenue to their captain."
"Aye," he grunted a laugh. "We are that." But then he caught himself and looked at me as if he thought me mad. "Commander," he exclaimed, his tone outraged. "They're pirates, they'll take our revenues and all else we have and kill us all, can't you see that?"
"I can see the possibility, but it's a risk we're going to have to assume. You could be right. On the other hand, this is too good an opportunity to pass up. We'll approach them cautiously, but approach them we must, my friend, and we don't have much time. Tell the herd boys to stay here with the extra mounts until we wave them down. Let's go!" This last was a shout to the others, and I waved my arm high to urge them on as I dug my spurs deep and aimed my horse downhill at a run on the shortest route to the outskirts of the town, leaving Rufio to make sure that the boys remained behind.
It was a hard gallop, but in less than a quarter of an hour our horses were clattering through the paved streets of the deserted town, veering abruptly this way and that to avoid the haphazard piles of debris with which the thoroughfares were littered. At one point the entire street was blocked with great piles of masonry and rubble, so that we had to swing right, along another, and ride for several blocks before we could turn back again towards the waterfront. Now we rode among warehouses, most of them wooden and in a state of collapse, but eventually we broke out of the buildings and emerged on the broad, cobbled roadway that ran the length of the long stone wharf. In the time that had elapsed since we left the hilltop, the ship had moved away from the wharf and was now manoeuvring in the deep water of the river channel about thirty paces from where we emerged, its oarsmen swinging it completely about, almost around its centre point, so skillful was their work, to point downstream towards the sea. Dedalus, who rode close to me, had a brazen horn, and now he blew it wildly to attract the attention of the crew aboard the craft.
Our appearance brought consternation on board the bireme and among the group of forty or so men who had remained behind on the wharf to watch the vessel pull out. As we left these behind and galloped along the wharf, keeping abreast of the vessel and waving to attract attention, I saw intense activity on the raised stern platform, where a cluster of men seemed to be arranging themselves in some form of disciplined order. Then, as my disbelieving eyes adjusted to what they were seeing, a blizzard of arrows came winging towards us. I heard a horse scream and a man shout in alarm, and then a hideous clatter told me that one of my men, at least, was down. No sooner had I heard the sounds than a mighty bang exploded against my helmet and I felt myself wrenched sideways and falling, seeing the cobbled street rushing up to meet me from between my horse's hooves. Somehow, instinctively, I managed to check myself, my right hand clutching the horn of my saddle by some reflex and my bent left leg, its foot jammed in the stirrup, absorbing the weight of my falling body. Germanicus veered left, dragged by my weight, and came to a halt, and I managed to haul myself partially upright before falling to the ground. There was confusion all around me now, pierced by the wicked whistle and crack of hard-shot arrows striking stone, a sound I had not heard in years. Someone came running and grasped me beneath the arms, then dragged me into a doorway before lowering me to the floor and running out again. I lay there for some time, shaking my head to clear it and regain my senses, and then I rose to my feet and ran outside, only to find myself alone on the wharf.
"Merlyn! Get back inside!" someone yelled, and I threw myself back into safety again as two arrows smacked into the wall behind me, one of them shattering with the force of its impact. The next time I approached the doorway, I did so on my belly. The big bireme was stationary in mid-stream, its decks lined with bowmen. In the water behind it, two small boats, each sculled by two men, were feeding ropes up to the stern of the larger vessel. As I watched, the ropes were pulled aboard, dragging the ends of two much thicker cables behind them. I heard the clacking of winches, and then the bowmen lining the sides disappeared, followed shortly afterwards by a groaning sound as the great oars were lowered into the water again. A drum struck up a steady cadence, and the bireme began to move downstream. Behind it, attached to the two massive ropes that were now almost taut, drifted two barges, low-sided, flat-bottomed, ugly craft of shallow draft; no more than floating platforms for the hauling of heavy cargo. As the bireme pulled away I stood up again and stepped back onto the wharf. Immediately, an arrow sought me out, falling short and almost spent. They were moving rapidly beyond bowshot and I began to look around me, calling to the others. A dead horse lay to my right, about thirty paces from where I stood.
Quintus was the first to emerge, from a doorway only a little farther down the wharf from where I had Iain. He was staunching the blood flowing from a cut on his nose with the edge of his short cloak. As he appeared, others began to come out from the various places they had sought safety. I began counting them quickly.
"Was anyone hurt?" I asked Quintus.
He shook his head, wiping his nose again and sniffing to clear his nostrils of blood. "No. Metellus went down just before you, but it was his horse took the arrow, not him. He's unconscious, but not injured apart from that. Then you went down and—" He looked at me and stopped speaking abruptly, gazing at me with his head slightly tilted, his eyes on the space above my head, then he stepped towards me, grinning through the mask of blood on his face. "Well, I'll be . . . Let me look at that. Take off your helmet."
I undid my chin strap and pulled off my helmet, which he took from me, holding it up for everyone to see. "Hey, fellows, look at this!" When I saw what he was holding, my whole body chilled. An arrow had pierced the metal framework of the crest on my helmet, and was now lodged there exactly by its centre, the flighted and the barbed ends projecting equidistantly on either side. The matched tufts of alternating black and white horsehair of the crest itself seemed undisturbed. And then I witnessed one of those phenomena that can occur only in moments like that. Completely oblivious to the fact that they had all been in mortal peril only moments before, my men all crowded around to marvel at the sight of the arrow in my helmet as though it were the greatest wonder in the world. I watched them in amazement for long moments before my good sense reasserted itself.
"That's enough of that! Give me that helmet. Where are the horses?"
"In there," De
dalus answered, nodding towards the large doorway of the nearest warehouse. "They're all safe—save for Metellus's."
"Good, then bring them out, please, and let's remember where we are." I snapped the shaft of the arrow and pulled the longer part out through the hole in my silver crest-mounting, leaving an eye-shaped aperture. "Those people tried to kill us, and there was a large group of them still standing on the wharf to our right when we swung left to follow the ship. They're not going to be any more friendly than their fellows were. How is Metellus?"
Donuil came out of the warehouse as I asked the question. He was carrying his helmet under his arm and rubbing his eyes. "Metellus is fine, Commander. He's just come to his senses. He can't stand up yet and his head hurts, but he doesn't appear to have broken anything and he won't die on us.
I noticed that Quintus had stepped away from the others and was standing alone by the edge of the wharf, staring downriver to where the bireme and its trailing barges were now mere dots. lie was still mopping at the blood on his face. I stepped to his side.
"How is it, your nose?"
He sniffed again, hawked, and spat bloody sputum into the water. "Ach, I'll live, Commander. Self-inflicted wound. I banged it against the hilt of my sword when I dismounted in a manner I'd flay my recruits for even thinking of. It'll clot in a while. I'm a bad bleeder, the medics tell me. Once I start, it takes some time to stop."
I turned and gazed back to where the remaining group of men had been, at the far end of the wharf. There was no sign of them. "Well, as soon as you are mobile again, mount up and follow us. I'm going to see what happened to those people left behind, and to see if I can discover what kind of cargo they were towing in those barges." I called to Dedalus and Donuil, telling them to assemble the others and have them at full readiness, then I went to find my own horse in the darkened warehouse. Germanicus seemed none the worse for his escapade, and as I pulled myself up into the saddle I saw Quintus preparing to mount his own horse. I stopped him and ordered him to stay behind with Metellus, whom I could see sitting in the shadows against the wall, shaking his head and resting his elbows on his upraised knees, obviously still disoriented. Quintus looked for a moment as though he might object, but then thought better of it and moved to lower himself down beside Metellus.
When the others were all mounted, I assembled them in a defensive formation, Donuil, Dedalus and I riding in front, with the water on our left and the other six strung out behind us to the right, each man half a length behind the man on his left and carrying his shield on his right arm in anticipation of attack from the buildings in that direction. Nothing moved in front of us as we proceeded cautiously to the far end of the dock, where we had last seen the men. There was still no sign of them. The cobbled roadway ran directly to the gabled end of a stone building and vanished beyond a massive pair of wooden doors the full width of the street. The interior was dark and windowless, the only light a sharply lined wedge spilling inward from the doorway. I held up my hand and drew my horse to a halt, wishing I had thought to bring my bow with me, and we sat there gazing into the huge shed. On my left, Dedalus hawked and spat.
"Are you thinking about going in there, Commander?"
I did not look at him. I was almost sniffing the air, searching for threat, attempting to define the danger my instincts told me was there. "I think we have no choice, Ded."
"Hmm. Well, at least you have a choice of who goes through that whoreson door first, and it won't be you."
Now I glanced at him. "Why not? It's my place, and who's to prevent me?"
"I am. The first man through that door will draw whatever fire is in there. He'll be stone blind, silhouetted against the light and ridiculously outnumbered. There must have been thirty, forty men in that group we saw."
"At least." I could not contain the smile his threat of insubordination had stirred in me. "So what do you suggest we do?"
"Oh, we have to go in; no argument about that, but there must be at least one other doorway . . . an entrance. This is an exit."
He was right. The doorway we were facing had but one function: to allow the goods held inside to be brought out for shipping, or to allow access for unloaded cargo. There was no other way on or off the wharf at this point. The entrance to the first side street lay some thirty paces behind us.
"So we should find the other entrance."
"Aye, or entrances. Then we can hit all of them at once. Let's turn about and ride back the way we came in. Once we're out of sight, we can stop and send half the men to ride around to the other side of the building. If there are only two entrances, we'll go five and five. If there are more, we'll divide ourselves up to fit, and by that time we'll know at least the size of the building, 'cause there's no telling from here."
"You're right. You agree, Donuil?"
Donuil, however, was not listening. As I spoke to him he kneed his horse forward and rode to the edge of the wharf, looking down into the water, about the height of a tall man below the edge. I followed his gaze and saw an empty barge of the type that had been towed behind the bireme. It was long, wide, ugly, flat-bottomed and empty, of no interest or use to us.
"Donuil?"
"I agree with him completely," he said over his shoulder. "I wonder what they ship in these things?"
"Anything they can load and tow. Come on, let's fall back."
We withdrew in order, alert for any signs of movement in the buildings we were passing and as we went I was greatly relieved to see Quintus and Metellus riding to join us from the warehouse where we had left them. They were double mounted, Metellus riding behind Quintus with his arms around his waist. His face was ashen and he looked exhausted, but he seemed firmly seated. When they joined us, I could see that Metellus was far from well. His face was vacant, his eyes staring, and he did not seem to be aware of any of us.
Quintus shook his head at me. "He's badly shaken. I think he must have landed on his head when he hit the cobbles, but he'll be fine once he can lie down and rest for a while."
I said nothing, returning my attention to the business at hand. We reached the junction with the side street and I stopped and again explained our plan. We would proceed up this street to the first cross-junction, I told them, then four of us would remain there while the other six turned left again and rode to the rear of the waterfront warehouses to look for the other entrance or entrances to the farthest one. If the exploratory group were attacked, they would turn at once and head back to rejoin us. If they were cut off from us somehow, both groups would converge on the point of attack. It was the best we could do, since it was inconceivable that we should simply turn around and ride away, leaving the field uncontested before this aspect of it had even shown any signs of dispute.
Those signs of dispute, however, materialized immediately upon our arrival at the junction of the cross-streets, just as we turned left but before our group had any opportunity to split: a hail of arrows poured down on us from attackers concealed on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. Fortunately for all of us, our assailants were so jumpy, and so intent on remaining safely hidden, that none of those first missiles found a target. Before they could launch another volley, we had swung our mounts around again and were spurring them back out of the junction, swinging left once more, headed now directly away from the waterfront and the dangers it contained. I cursed the narrowness of the streets, because for several moments there was utter confusion as ten horses tried to enter a space that would permit no more than three abreast. From my position at the rear, time seemed to slow down as I waited for the first arrows to strike among the massed bodies struggling to pass through the small entrance. But suddenly they were through and I was the only one remaining in the open junction. I put my spurs to Germanicus and followed them.
Donuil and Dedalus were directly ahead of me, both of them reining in to wait for me. I waved them on and crouched down in my saddle, feeling my horse's stride lengthen as he settled into a flat run, and I quickly caught up to them. As I appro
ached, angling my mount into the space between them, I could see that they had fallen about twenty lengths behind the others. The air thundered with the clatter of iron shoes on cobblestones. And then suddenly, with absolutely no warning, a man leapt out into the road from a doorway ahead of us, swinging some kind of enormous axe. It took Donuil's horse from beneath, in the outstretched neck, and killed it instantly. I had almost drawn level with them, my horse's head between the rumps of theirs, and the attack had occurred and was over before I could react. I had a blurred image of Donuil's horse crashing to the ground in a spray of blood, of Donuil himself flying over its head, and of the killer whirling nimbly away, back into the safety of the doorway from which he had sprung.
I swung my own mount around, hard, whirling my sword backhanded and uselessly at the killer, and then I was falling, too, my horse rearing and screaming as his hooves trampled his downed companion, kicking wildly in its death throes beneath him. I kicked my feet free of the stirrups and landed on my hands and knees beside the chaos of their thrashing bodies, smashing the fingers of my right hand between the cobblestones and the hilt of my sword. Above me, the killer sprang out again, his blood-covered axe upraised to cleave me. I let go of my shield and threw myself sideways to my left, scrambling with the speed of desperation to remain clear of the horses, and landed against the opposite side of the doorway that had hidden my attacker, just as his axe struck sparks from the stones of the road beside me. Then, scarcely aware of what I was doing, I braced my left arm against the frame of the doorway and launched myself at him, my body fully extended, stabbing my long-bladed sword like a spear into the softness beneath his rib cage. I felt no impact as my blade took him, but saw his eyes widen in surprise, then he released his axe handle and clutched at my blade with both hands. I jerked it free, slicing through his hands as I rose to my knees, and saw another man rushing at me from the passageway behind him. Before the newcomer could reach me, I was on my feet again, waiting for him. I brushed aside the short spear he thrust at me and killed him with a single, two-handed chop to the join of his neck and shoulder. Neither man had worn armour.