by Peter Tonkin
*
‘Name, rank, vessel, cargo and last port you cleared,’ snapped the tribune, clearly unimpressed by the lack of respect with which he was being treated.
‘Seuthes, trierarch of the trading vessel Charybdis anchored out there in the bay. Mixed cargo – largely because some grasping bastard taxed us of half our hold-full of grain in Rhodes. Last port of call Lemnos. Why, what is it to you, Roman?’ He said ‘Roman’ in much the same way as he might have said ‘cockroach’.
‘I’ll tell you what it is to me,’ snapped the tribune, his hand on his sword as his patrol squared up behind him. ‘This is a war-zone. Haven’t you heard? The Alexandrian whore Cleopatra has been out in Mare Nostrum with an Egyptian fleet and her people could still be abroad. When our fleets came south, fearing the Egyptian navy was ready to sail, the Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian managed to send eight legions into Macedonia under the command of Lucius Decidius Saxa and Gaius Norbanus Flaccus which have only just been driven back to Amphipolis, outflanked by our fleet under Legate Tillius Cimber. Brutus and Cassius are on their way here – but Antony and Octavian will also be here soon enough. You don’t just sail around here willy-nilly and feast your crew on whatever beach you fancy. It’s too late for me to inspect your papers now but if you do expect to do any business in the port tomorrow you had better report to Legate Cimber and me first with all your passes perfectly in place and properly stamped. We’ll be in the harbourmaster’s office waiting for you.’ The tribune turned away, then turned back. ‘And you,’ he said, pointing to Artemidorus. ‘You look vaguely familiar. Who are you?’
‘This is my hortator oarmaster Olorus,’ said Seuthes. ‘Finest voice this end of the Inner Sea when he sings the celeuma rowing song. Why? D’you think he’s one of Cleopatra’s captains or Antony’s spies trying to creep up behind you with his gladius ready to go up where you Romans like it best?’
The tribune stood staring at Artemidorus for a heartbeat longer. The centurion really thought Seuthes had gone too far and they were going to spend the night in the cells. But no. The pompous soldier simply shrugged off the insult. And all at once Artemidorus realised that Petipor, his brother and a dozen of the largest crewmen had managed to come back ashore and were standing silently behind their captain now. ‘Tomorrow,’ snapped the tribune. ‘The harbourmaster’s office. All your papers up-to date and proper.’ He turned on his heel and marched back into the shadows he had come from. His soldiers followed him with impressive precision, as though marching in one of Caesar’s triumphs. Good move, thought Artemidorus as the next boat-full of Charybdis’ massive crewmen arrived on the sand behind him.
‘Who was that bastard?’ demanded Seuthes as soon as the soldiers were out of ear-shot. ‘What was his problem?’ His tone made it clear that he did not expect an answer to either question.
But he got one. ‘His name is Pacruvius Antistius Labeo,’ said Artemidorus. ‘He has the reputation of being even more punctilious than Cato – and more brutal than Minucius Basilis. Though he’s not a brutal drunkard like Tillius Cimber’s supposed to be. He was one of Caesar’s most avid murderers, though it was Cimber who pulled Caesar’s toga down, exposing his neck and shoulders to the other murderers. The pair of them managed to escape Mark Antony’s prescriptions and are now senior officers in Brutus’ army. Labeo was seconded to the XXXVIIth when they changed over to the so-called Liberators’ command last year. The last I heard, Brutus was thinking of making him Legate like Cimber. Which is why he has a hornet up his backside in the meantime.’
‘So. You know the pair of them,’ said Seuthes, wide-eyed at the depth and detail of his castaway’s knowledge. ‘Does Labeo really know you?’
‘Our paths have crossed during the last couple of years and occasionally our swords. The longest meeting we had and the closest look he got at me was when I was in disguise, carrying messages between Antony and Brutus, Cassius and Cicero when they were up in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill in Rome while Caesar’s body was lying in Pompey’s Theatre, still warm.’
‘And what was this disguise?’ wondered Seuthes.
‘I’d grown a beard.’
v
‘He wants to see you,’ said Seuthes next morning when he and Getas the pilot returned from the office of the havenator harbourmaster and their meetings with the Roman tribune and legate. The three of them were in the captain’s cabin, the only quiet place aboard the busily stirring ship. Charybdis had entered the harbour of Thasos early that morning on the tail-end of a falling tide with just enough water beneath her keel to clear the entrance, easing between the harbour walls and the reefs on which they had been built, signalling their intentions to the big Roman quinquireme, Cimber’s flagship, that sat outside, guarding all access. ‘And blocking the exit,’ said Seuthes, ‘if you haven’t paid your dues or done anything else that might upset Tribune Labeo or Legate Cimber.’
Artemidorus had been on the foredeck, eyes narrow, searching the town that clad the slopes of the hillsides above the docks as though he could see his enemies waiting there. When in fact, of course, they had been in the harbourmaster’s office on the dockside all along. But all he could see was the relentless industry of the legions and their slaves as they all-too obviously laboured, ant-like, to make the port a well-stocked supply base.
‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ said Artemidorus now. ‘And I’m not just thinking about myself. If Labeo or Cimber remembers me or discovers who I am for certain, then I won’t be the only one on the way to Brutus in chains, you can bet it will be you and your crew as well. Harbouring an enemy spy at the very least. Antistius Labeo is that kind of man and Tullius Cimber is worse – even when he’s sober. I’m sorry to have put you all in this position.’
‘It wasn’t you, it was Fortuna,’ said Seuthes generously. ‘But we’ll just have to work out a way of tricking them. I mean, he seems a bit sharper than Petipor, granted, but if we can’t out-think him between the three of us then I might as well go straight to Brutus and say “crucify me here and now”!’
‘Fair enough,’ replied Artemidorus. ‘But I think a couple of sacrifices to whatever gods and demigods watch over us would be a good investment too.’
‘Agreed. The rest of us are going to be busy for most of the day while the tide turns and begins to make again, so why don’t you make a sacrifice at the temple of Poseidon then get yourself to a decent tonsor. If Caesar’s murderers remember you because of your beard, then the faster you get it shaved off the better. Hang on and I’ll draw you a map that will guide you to the places you need to visit – and away from those you’d better avoid.’
‘But getting the centurion into town might prove difficult at the outset,’ warned Getas. ‘There are legionaries guarding the docks - and all over the place as far as I can make out.’
Artemidorus nodded. ‘That could be a problem whether I’m shaved or not. If Labeo is here then so is the XXXVIIth and I marched with them in Egypt when Caesar defeated Ptolemy, Arsinoe and the general Ganymedes at the end of his Alexandrian campaign. Before they changed sides and went over to Cassius and Brutus last year.’
‘That could cut either way, surely,’ observed Seuthes. ‘If you’re half the man I take you for there’ll be legionaries in the XXXVIIth who owe you a favour or two and probably their lives into the bargain.’
‘That’s as may be,’ said Artemidorus, ‘but not even you can bet on me bumping into a guard who owes me a favour.’
‘Sad but true,’ said the trierarch, busily sketching the map of the town as he spoke. ‘You’ll just have to go ashore with one of the lading teams and hope they don’t pick you out.’
Charybdis was moored to one of the inner docks, gang-planks leading down onto the jetty from bow and stern. Her oars were stowed and the oarsmen were working with the rest of the crew loading and unloading their ship. The whole place was a bustle of activity as the weather was clement and the harbour was full of vessels taking advantage of the fa
ct. Artemidorus joined a team led by Getas. They were taking cargo ashore to stock local warehouses – to be replaced by the kind of items Seuthes planned to sell in Neapolis. None of which – by good fortune – were of any interest to the military stock-pilers. The centurion was in the middle of a tight little team, carrying an amphora of wine which was light enough to swap easily from one shoulder to the other but large enough to hide his face from anything other than the closest scrutiny. He made it past Labeo’s guards with surprising ease, handed his burden to Petipor who was happy to carry an amphora on each shoulder, and vanished down the nearest alleyway.
*
Seuthes’ map guided Artemidorus unerringly to the market square and the temple of Poseidon behind it. The only complication came in the form of the legionary patrols that appeared at unexpected moments in unlooked-for places. Even so, the centurion was able to make his way to the temple unmolested where he kept his promise and made an expensive sacrifice of a young stallion. The creature, which he selected from a menagerie at the rear of the building and handed over to the priests to be offered to the irascible and unreliable god, was pure white, just like those that pulled Poseidon’s own sea-borne chariot.
Then, his purse a good deal lighter, he went in search of the tonsor Seuthes suggested, though the state of the captain’s own beard made him think twice about the recommendation. Under normal circumstances he would also have visited the baths but there was too much to do, too little time, and the risks were too great.
Seuthes’ tonsor was surprisingly good given the state of the trierarch’s beard, and by late morning a newly-shaved Artemidorus was following the captain’s map in reverse, working his way back to the ship. When he reached the market square, however, he was distracted by the aroma of frying sausages coming from a taberna opposite the temple of Poseidon. The tavern was busy but he managed to get a table to himself at the back of the room, looking out past a long bar backed by a pair of ovens to the bright rectangle of the open doorway. A slave girl came and took his order – sausages, bread with oil and salt, and wine. As he waited for the food and drink to arrive, he looked around the place. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, just a busy establishment well patronised by men who looked like locals for the most part and, as was to be suspected he supposed, one or two patrons who were clearly off-duty legionaries.
The wine arrived first, a sweet lesbian that went straight to his head and time consequently began to pass more quickly than he calculated. The food came, a platter of steaming loukaniko Greek sausages flavoured with leeks and orange. Slowly, sensuously, he began to eat as though this was a feast presented by the famous gourmet Lucullus. He ate slowly, literally enjoying every single mouthful, as though he had all the time in the world. Until, quite suddenly, there was a man standing at his table, the bulk of his torso and shoulders blocking the light from the door. Artemidorus looked up. His visitor was a soldier, armed, wearing badges that identified him as a legionary of the XXXVIIth legion. His face was vaguely familiar. ‘You need to move, centurion,’ he said. ‘Your name and description are all over town. One of the others has gone for Tribune Labeo. Word is the tribune wants your head.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You pulled me out of quicksand in the Nilus’ delta during the battle of Alexandria.’
‘I remember,’ said Artemidorus as his world slammed back out of the dream-like and into reality. ‘And thank you,’ he said as he rose to his feet. ‘Is there a back way out of here?’
‘Its behind you, Centurion, past the latrines and down the hill to the harbour. You’ll need your wits about you to get past the guards on the dock gates.’
‘Then I’d better leave the wine. And the sausages. You’re welcome to all of it, legionary. And thank you again.’
vi
‘There you are,’ said Getas as Artemidorus came down the main road toward the docks. ‘We’ve been looking out for you. We’re all loaded up and ready to go. You’ve been away so long that the tide’s beginning to rise quite rapidly.’
‘You’re not the only ones looking for me now,’ answered Artemidorus. ‘I only got in here by the skin of my teeth. I’m afraid the word is out. I’ve been recognised by several men of the XXXVIIth. Labeo and Cimber must know who I really am by now and they’ll have a good idea where I am as well.’ He said all this as he ran up the forward gang plank and no sooner had he arrived on deck that the pilot waved to the captain and the oarmaster who started bellowing orders. Charybdis’ mooring ropes came aboard closely followed by the crewmen who had released them. Followed in turn by the gang planks themselves hauled in by teams of sailhandlers as the oars were pushed out gently on the port side to ease the long hull away from the dock.
And not a moment too soon. The legionaries guarding the main gate came running up. ‘Stop!’ shouted their leader. ‘Stop in the name of the Republic!’
‘Stop in the name of Marcus Junius Brutus more like,’ snarled Seuthes. ‘And that’s not going to happen!’
But before the oars could be properly deployed, a second squad arrived beside the first, this one led by Labeo himself, arriving hot-foot from the harbourmaster’s office no doubt. ‘You have aboard Centurion Iacomus Artemidorus,’ he bellowed. ‘Of the murderous self-styled Triumvir Mark Antony’s staff. Antony’s liaison with the whore of Alexandria the self-styled Queen Cleopatra. Come back and hand him over at once or I will impound your vessel, arrest you and your crew and see you all crucified before the week’s out!’
‘You can do all that,’ said Seuthes under his breath, ‘if you can fucking fly! Otherwise you’re just shooting the breeze you pompous son of a bitch! Can we deploy oars yet, Olorus?’
‘Oars out,’ came the answer from below.
‘As fast as you can then,’
‘Attack speed,’ shouted Olorus and the pausator began to beat the rhythm on his drum while the oarmaster began to sing the celeuma rowing song which the oarsmen echoed lustily, pulling together as the beat dictated. They sang in Greek, but the rhythms were the same as the Roman songs familiar to Artemidorus who hummed along as he watched the approaching harbour entrance tensely. ‘Heia viri nostrum reboans echo nostrum heia…’
But the harbour was by no means empty. Vessels of varying size, design and function were moving all over the place, each one focussed on her own business and paying scant attention to the retired warship hurling itself amongst them, accelerating to attack speed from a standing start.
‘Getas,’ called the captain, ‘try and avoid ramming any of these scows.’
‘I’ll do my best, captain! But they’ll have to cooperate by getting their fat beams out of our fornicating way!’
Seuthes fell silent and Artemidorus stood beside him, equally quiet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of light, then another. He turned his head, leaving the captain and the pilot to look ahead and find them a clear way out of here. Up above the harbourmaster’s office there stood a skeletal tower he hadn’t noticed before. And there was someone up there now, flashing some kind of signal out to sea.
And, as he realised what was happening, he saw the signal being answered from the mast head of the huge Roman quinquireme as it pulled into position to block the harbour entrance.
*
‘I see him, the lumbering great Roman bastard,’ grated Seuthes.
‘We’re trapped,’ said Artemidorus. ‘Surely he’s like the stopper in an amphora.’
‘Depends on how far he’s willing to go,’ said the captain.
‘Well,’ said the centurion, shading his eyes, ‘he looks well-armed. There are slings, scorpions and ballistas on the foredeck. Not that he’ll need to deploy them. If we go anywhere near him he’ll just ram us. And there’s no room to get past him as far as I can see.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure he’d risk a full-on attack. The harbour’s not just packed with Cimber’s supply ships – it’s also full of captains who have been taxed to the limit of their patience by these bastards. It won’t
take much to spark trouble, and I bet your friends Tribune Pacruvius Antistius Labeo and Lucius Tilius Cimber know that, in spite of all their arrogant patrician ways. Especially if Labeo’s looking to impress Brutus with his abilities so that he gets promoted to Legate. Charybdis is well known in these waters. If the Romans go too far then they might well start a little local war.’
‘Which might well turn into another Xanthus,’ warned Artemidorus. ‘The only people other than Romans who walked away from that, remember, were walking to the slave markets.’
‘It was Xanthus that started all this bad feeling,’ countered the captain. ‘the wiser heads among the murderous scum have to know that. Brutus and Cassius are shaping up to take on Antony and Octavian. They don’t want to be distracted by us as well. No. If things go wrong here, Labeo’s career goes down with us.’
‘That’s a nice theory,’ said Artemidorus. ‘Let’s hope we don’t have to test it to destruction.’
Seuthes said nothing, simply glancing back at Getas as he and the huge brothers guided the speeding trireme through the last of the vessels in front of them heading unerringly for the harbour mouth. And the enormous quinquireme flag- ship positioned precisely to block it.
There was a movement on shore away to Artemidorus’ left. He looked over and back. Labeo’s squads were double-timing along the dockside, hurrying out onto the harbour wall. Artemidorus looked at where they were heading, trying to work out what they were up to. The barrier ended in a square section surrounded by a low castellated wall, a bit like a short stout fort with sets of stone steps on all sides reaching down to the water. Those that were regularly immersed by the rising and falling tide, all covered with slimy, slippery green weed. Rising above the top level of the tower was a skeletal extension with a ladder up the side that led to a fire-bowl, obviously used as a lighthouse; a column of smoke rose above it, dissipated by the breeze. There was no doubt that the soldiers were heading for this tower but Artemidorus could see no reason why they should. He remembered how he had looked at the harbour mouth as Charybdis entered this morning. The wall and the stubby fort stood on an outcrop of natural rock that sat ten pedes feet or so beneath the surface, depending on the tide, and reached another twenty or thirty yards out to the edge of the deep channel in the centre of the harbour entrance. The only reason he could see for putting soldiers there was in the expectation of picking up and arresting anyone swimming ashore if the quinquireme did in fact ram Charybdis. He went cold at the thought.