Avenger of Rome gvv-3

by Douglas Jackson

  Valerius pushed his way through the crowd and knelt by Aurelius’s side. The captain’s face had taken on the colour of old parchment and already bore the unmistakable stamp of death. He saw immediately what had happened. Aurelius must have been lifting the spear to throw when the arrow pierced his lower right chest, angling its way up towards the heart. They had torn away his tunic and there was very little blood, but the point was buried deep, with only a short span of shaft and the feathered fletching showing above the bruised flesh. Each laboured breath was accompanied by a hoarse groan and small frothy bubbles of red that clicked as they burst on his lips.

  The captain opened his eyes and beckoned Valerius nearer. His voice was the merest whisper and the Roman had to lean close to hear what was said.

  ‘East,’ Aurelius gasped. ‘You must go east. Judaea. Settlements by shore. Plenty of them. Cronos is a good seaman, but a poor sailor. He will want to go south for Egypt, because it is easier to run before the wind and a storm is coming. But by the time you get there water will be short, and unless Fortuna favours you, all you will find is desert.’ He closed his eyes and drew in a long, agonized breath. For a moment Valerius thought he was dead, but even though the captain was drowning in his own blood he had one last message to impart.

  ‘Good crew, but keep the women out of the way. Shouldn’t allow women on ships. Bad luck. Pour a libation for Poseidon and give his knee a rub for me. He has never let me down.’ A smile flickered on his lips, he sighed once, and was gone.

  No funeral oration dispatched Claudius Aelius Aurelius to join his beloved sea god. Four sailors carried him to the side and weighted the body before consigning it to the depths as was their custom. In the nervous silence that followed, Valerius called Tiberius and Cronos to the steering platform. By now the wind had risen to a low howl and the sky was dark, though it could only be mid-afternoon. He addressed the helmsman. ‘With Aurelius gone, you are the man we depend on for our knowledge of the sea, Cronos. What is your understanding of our situation?’

  Cronos frowned. He was a heavily built man with well-muscled shoulders from working the big steering oars, but he had a petulant mouth and a truculent, almost dismissive demeanour. Valerius had had little contact with him during the voyage, but he seemed capable enough. Perhaps the sullen attitude could be explained by the sudden change in his responsibilities. A fine seaman, but no sailor, Aurelius had said.

  The man looked up at the brooding sky as if measuring their chances. ‘We were a day’s sailing from Cyprus when we first sighted the pirates, but we have been driven far south off our course. By now we are at least two days from land and must keep the wind at our back. This,’ he gestured at the sky, ‘is Poseidon’s punishment for taking women on board without sacrificing to him first. If we do not placate him, the god will whip up a storm above and below and when the time is right he will rise from the depths and drag us all to his lair.’

  Valerius felt Tiberius’s eyes on him. ‘Then we will make a libation to him at the appropriate hour and ask his forgiveness.’

  ‘A few drops of olive oil or wine will not be enough to placate the god for this insult.’ Cronos glowered. ‘If we are to survive we must make a suitable gesture. I have spoken to the crew. We should make a gift of one of the women.’

  Tiberius stiffened and his hand strayed towards his sword, but Valerius only nodded, as if he understood the crew’s concerns. He lowered his voice and laid his hand on the seaman’s shoulder. The physical gesture was reassuring, almost friendly, but the fingers closed like a claw, digging into the flesh, and the words that accompanied it held all the threat of a drawn blade. ‘I want you to understand, Cronos, that whatever you and your friends believe, I command here and I would sacrifice every one of the crew before I would allow harm to come to the general’s daughter or her women. Let it be known that if there is to be a sacrifice I plan to be generous, and storm or not the ship’s master will be first over the side.’

  It took time for the words to sink in, but Valerius was satisfied to see the man go pale beneath his sun-scorched skin.

  ‘We will not sail with the wind at our backs,’ he went on. ‘We will turn east, for Judaea, where there is more likelihood of making landfall close to some community who can supply us. In the meantime, I want all food and water to be placed under guard — Tiberius will organize it — and we will ration its use.’

  Cronos bristled at the order, but he had no choice but to accept. Valerius saw the hatred in his eyes and knew that before long it would be reflected by the whole crew. Sailors were superstitious by nature, and if Cronos told them the storm had been caused by Poseidon’s anger and the presence of the women he would be believed. Pouring a libation wouldn’t be enough, unless the winds died down.

  Instead, they worsened.

  Two hours later Valerius stood beside the steering platform whipped by spray and soaked to the skin. The steersmen battled to keep the Golden Cygnet on an easterly heading, but time and again her hull rang as it was battered by a big wave from the flank and she took a lurch southward. The winds had redoubled in force to a full gale and Cronos ordered the curtained awning on deck to be dismantled before it was torn away. Now he studied the cloth sail with anxious eyes as it rippled and cracked because of the angle of the wind across its surface.

  ‘If we don’t run before the storm we will lose it, tribune.’

  Valerius reluctantly nodded his agreement. Clearly, Aurelius had never envisaged a tempest of this magnitude. The largest of the waves carried a terrifying power. Each time one struck, the whole ship lay over so that anything not secured cascaded across the deck. If they carried on with their eastern course there was a danger they might capsize. An unceasing bellow like an orphaned bull calf’s filled the air, so that even a shouted conversation became difficult, and every so often a rainstorm swept out of the darkness with the sound of arrows striking a cohort’s shields. Time meant nothing in this whirling vortex of wind and water. At one point Valerius’s senses told him he should sleep and he huddled in his sodden cloak jammed between the steering platform and the ship’s side, but fear, discomfort and the constant motion denied him the oblivion he sought.

  Daylight brought little respite. If anything, the winds strengthened, shifting at the same time so that Cronos believed they were now being driven east. All through the long day Valerius watched the seaman and his exhausted crew fight to keep the Golden Cygnet afloat, cursing at his own impotence. Around nightfall the motion of the ship subtly changed, and he could feel her wallowing beneath him as if she was trailing an anchor. A shadowy figure crawled out of the darkness and Tiberius shouted something into his ear. He had to repeat himself three times before Valerius worked out that he was wanted below. Together they staggered across the pitching deck just as the next rain shower arrived, driven horizontally so that every giant drop stung like a slingshot against exposed flesh. Tiberius hauled open the hatch and Valerius felt a surge of relief as they slipped below and away from the incessant howl of the wind.

  His respite was short lived.

  When he reached the base of the ladder he was up to his knees in water that surged and foamed with the motion of the ship, the disturbance intensifying the bitter stench of decay, bodily ordure and fresh vomit. The torment of the wind was replaced by the incessant creaking of the ship’s planks and a tortured rending as some piece of cargo worked itself to pieces. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom an almighty crash shook the whole ship, instantly followed by the terrified scream of a panicking horse and a series of smaller thunderclaps.

  ‘Your slave Serpentius is with the horses. They are kicking their stalls to pieces, but that’s not the worst of it.’ The ship reeled beneath their feet and something huge and pale sailed past Valerius and crashed into the side with enough force to make him wonder that the hull hadn’t been stove in. ‘Some of the timber cargo has worked its way free,’ Tiberius explained in a voice that was an eye of calm amidst the echoing clamour of the hold. ‘The crew are securi
ng what they can, but there’s still enough loose to shake the ship to pieces unless the storm dies down.’

  He led the way to where the sailors had erected a temporary cabin for Domitia and her women. Valerius realized he’d been so busy and so exhausted during the past few hours that he’d forgotten the other passengers. Only now did he understand the agonies they had suffered as they lay here in the pitching bowels of the ship, battered physically and mentally in a groaning, waterlogged chamber that must have felt more tomb than sanctuary.

  ‘I’m not sure how much more of this they can take,’ the young tribune said. ‘They’re being very brave, but…’

  Somehow they’d managed to light a small oil lamp and Domitia held it aloft to identify the intruders. All the patrician arrogance had vanished. She was just a pale, frightened face — more child than woman — in the flickering yellow glow of the flame, her expensive cloak stained by the vomit that dribbled from the corner of her lip. Yet the dark eyes still contained a reservoir of pride and defiance, as if Domitia Longina Corbulo had vowed to go to her death undefeated by the elements. She sat on a couch, just clear of the stinking bilge waters, the cloak encircling the slave girls who huddled at her side. Tulia lay with her head in her mistress’s lap, eyes closed and her face a deathly shade of green.

  ‘My lady, I apologize for your discomfort, but I…’

  Domitia raised her head and his heart lurched as he saw how close to collapse she was. It took her a second to recognize him and her voice was barely audible above the noise of the storm. She managed a bloodless smile. ‘I’m sure you are doing everything you can, tribune. We understand that our fate lies with the gods now.’

  He shook his head. ‘The ship was built to withstand these conditions. It will be unpleasant for a time, but we will survive.’ Even as he said the words the gods were laughing at him.

  She frowned. ‘I believe the water is rising faster than before.’

  ‘The lady is right,’ Tiberius cried. For a moment Valerius was almost overwhelmed by the troubles which threatened to overwhelm him. The women’s situation among the darkness and the filth was unspeakable, but on deck they would be exposed to the driving rain and the knife-edge of the gale. He considered trying to create some sort of shelter, but knew it would be torn to pieces within moments. But what choice did he have now? In the seconds he had taken to consider it, the water had risen another inch. Serpentius appeared in the doorway with a question in his eyes. The horses? It would be a release, but something stopped him from agreeing.

  He shook his head. ‘We’ve no time. Tiberius, get your men to carry Tulia and the girls on deck. Serpentius, help me with the lady Domitia.’

  He reached out a hand, but an almighty crack from the deck above froze everyone in position.

  XI

  Valerius was first to react. ‘Get them out.’ He raced for the hatch and looked up to see that the big linen sail had split and was now hanging in long, streaming tatters that flapped and cracked like a slaver’s whip in the fierce wind. The Golden Cygnet was now at the mercy of the waves, which were already turning her side on to the storm. If that happened it could only be a matter of time before the ship was battered into splinters.

  A shout alerted him and he ran up the steps and across the lurching deck to where Cronos and three other sailors wrestled with the great steering oars.

  ‘Take my place,’ the captain ordered. ‘Our only chance is to get her stern on to the wind again.’

  Valerius took the thick wooden shaft under his left arm and heaved with all his might as it kicked against his body. A flash of lightning split the night sky and he saw a huge wave approaching the side and braced himself. It broke over the deck in a foaming white surge just as Tiberius emerged from the hatch with Domitia’s freedwoman. Valerius shouted a warning that was lost on the wind and when he looked again the young tribune was clinging to a wooden stanchion as the wave receded around him. Tulia had vanished as if she had been plucked from the deck by the gods.

  Cronos reappeared with two lengths of thick rope and with shaking hands quickly fixed the steering oars in position. Gradually, Valerius felt the motion of the ship steady as the action of wind and water on the paddles brought her bow round so that her stern was to the waves once more. He ran to where Tiberius still floundered.

  ‘Serpentius?’

  Tiberius shook his head with a look of stunned bewilderment. The hatch was a few paces away and Valerius waited until the next wave that battered the stern broke across the deck before he dashed to open it. Serpentius stood unsteadily at the bottom of the ladder with blood masking his face and the women holding him upright.

  ‘He fell when the wave hit us.’ Domitia’s dress clung to her body beneath the cloak and she was shivering, but her voice was calm. ‘I think he is only stunned.’

  The general’s daughter ushered her girls up the ladder and Serpentius groaned as Valerius helped him follow. When they emerged into the wind and rain they saw Domitia and her slaves huddled in the lee of the ship’s stern where most of the crew had taken cover, and joined them there.

  Cronos stood by the steering platform peering into the murk ahead.

  ‘What can we do?’ Valerius shouted.

  ‘Pray,’ the steersman mouthed.

  ‘Food and water?’

  Cronos laughed. ‘You really believe we’ll survive long enough to be hungry?’

  ‘Better to be prepared.’

  The seaman nodded and put his mouth to Valerius’s ear. ‘Take Julius. He’ll show you where the spare water skins are stored. Fill them all. Don’t worry about the food. If we need it we’ll find it.’

  Valerius beckoned to the tall sailor, who reluctantly struggled to his feet. Together they fought their way back to the hatch and into the hold, where the water was now waist deep. Julius muttered to himself as they inched their way through the darkness, but he never missed a step and steered Valerius past trouble until they reached the butts. The first they tried had been contaminated by seawater, but the second was sweet, if musty with age. They filled twenty skins and took them to the deck, where Valerius stored them at Cronos’s feet and placed one of Tiberius’s men to stand guard over them.

  Despite the loss of the sail, the wind and the waves continued to drive the ship forward at astonishing speed. More than once he feared the ship would pitch sideways and broach, but the twin steering arms stabilized her course. ‘Now we must endure and survive,’ Cronos said solemnly, and reached up to touch the figure of Poseidon.

  The lookout in the bows must have been asleep or blinded by the spray, because the first warning of disaster was the sound of the foot-thick oak mast snapping just as the ship crashed to an abrupt halt and twisted side on to the waves. Valerius was thrown helpless across the deck and smashed into the ship’s rail, where he lay for a moment feeling strangely detached as Cronos, who must have been on the steering platform testing the oars, was catapulted screaming over his head into the darkness. In seconds, the deck became a chaos of panic-stricken, wailing shapes who screamed all the louder when the next wave smashed into the ship’s exposed side. The snapped mast saved them, or perhaps Poseidon approved of Cronos’s sacrifice. It had fallen forward across the bow and was still attached to the ship by a tangle of ropes. Crossed by the spar that had held the sail, the twenty-five feet of oak acted as a sea anchor and when the next wave struck, instead of capsizing the Golden Cygnet, it threw the stricken ship on its axis with the stern closest to a shore which was just visible as a faint fluorescent line of breaking surf four or five ship-lengths away.

  ‘Valerius?’

  Serpentius’s shout was just audible above the screams and the smash of the waves. He picked out the Spaniard in the crush of people in the centre of the deck. ‘Here,’ he called. A shadowy figure detached itself from the dark mass, dragging a second, smaller figure with him.

  ‘Take your hands off me. I will not go without my girls.’ Domitia struggled against Serpentius’s wiry strength, but he pulled h
er effortlessly to Valerius’s side.

  ‘The slaves are with Tiberius,’ the Spaniard said, bracing himself against the rail as another big wave crashed sickeningly into the bow. ‘We need to get off the ship before the sea smashes it to pieces. If that mast goes, we could only have seconds.’

  Valerius ran to the side and as a flash of lightning lit the far horizon his heart quailed at the rush of brown water churning past the hull. The ship’s bottom appeared to be sitting on sand, which gave him hope, but the power of the waves would knock anyone who tried to escape that way off their feet and suck them under. The stern showed more potential. Here the wave line was broken by the ship’s mass and there was a chance that at least some might escape.

  With his knife, Valerius cut the ropes holding the steering oars and Serpentius retied them so that they dropped over the rail into the area of relative shelter in the lee of the stern.

  ‘Can you swim, lady?’ Valerius demanded.

  Domitia shot him a startled look. ‘I was taught as a child.’

  ‘Then get ready.’ She hesitated only for a moment. It was clear that if she took to the water in her long stola of fine wool she would drown in seconds. She dropped her cloak and began working at the ties of the dress. The outer garment fell to the deck to reveal a short tunic of filmy material which, in the rain, clung to her body like a second skin. Her slight frame shook with the cold and Valerius picked up the cloak to cover her, taking her in his arms at the same time to provide her with the warmth of his own body. He felt her start and thought she would break away, but she only moved a little closer. For a moment he was torn between a burning need to keep her safe and the greater responsibility he had to the surviving crew of the Golden Cygnet.

  ‘We don’t have much time.’ Serpentius’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  ‘You go first. I’ll lower the lady Domitia down to you. See, there, that line of white? The beach will be just beyond. Make your way there and I’ll join you when I can.’