by Peter Tonkin
With another glance around to make sure he was unobserved, the spy ran up onto the Liburnian and moved through the shadows to the foredeck. The containers beside the onager were of various dimensions. He knelt to examine them and then took one of the smallest, which was the size of a little melon with a short wick protruding from the top of it. He hefted it, feeling its weight and the sluggish motion of the liquid inside it. Then he returned to the pier with it in his hand. He turned back and walked along the pier listening to the creaking of the dry boards and the restless stirring of the water beneath them. If he had been in charge, both of the vessels moored here would have had guards aboard them but he could see why the Casca brothers, Labeo and probably Cimber were so confident that they didn’t need to bother. They controlled not only the town of Neapolis but the harbour, the islands closest to it and all the sea-lanes between here and Egypt. Their lines along the River Gangites to the north were well-nigh impregnable and their armies, led by Brutus and Cassius, were close at hand. Their only enemies nearby were hiding behind their defensive walls in Amphipolis and – as yet – there was no sign of Antony. It was a situation where overconfidence was a very real danger. And one that he could make good use of.
Artemidorus walked up to the little cart. ‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Stiff and sore,’ answered Voadicia.
‘Can you walk?’
‘I suppose so,’ she answered.
‘Good. Climb down here and lend me a hand. We’re just about to go to war and I’ll need your help.’
*
Together they went through the contents of the cart until they had sorted out the food and drink from the couriers’ saddlebags. They hesitated for a moment, waiting for Felix to return and he came clattering down the stairs almost at once with a list of vessels getting ready to depart. None, however, ready to sail tonight. Artemidorus sketched the outline of his plan in a whisper as he slid the axe into his belt at the back. Felix nodded his understanding. The three of them picked up the food and drink, then, pretty well laden, they walked over to the barred door into the guardroom. Artemidorus hooked it with one foot and pulled it wide enough for the three of them to enter. The guards had stopped playing dice as they approached and now they half rose, clearing the table in anticipation of the approaching food and drink.
‘A gift,’ announced Artemidorus, ‘from the men of the Twenty-Seventh legion.’ He began to put what he was carrying on the table as the guards stood, back and watched, bemused. Felix and Voadicia began to pile what they were carrying on the table as well. The table was nowhere near as big as the one that had contained it two nights ago. Still with a few items in his right hand, including a container about the same size as a small melon, Artemidorus, fussily, began to move the big four-flame lamp with his left hand to make room for the last of the food Felix was trying to put down. But his movements were uncharacteristically clumsy. The lamp slipped out of his grasp and fell to the stone-flagged floor where it shattered. The oil spattered and spread but the wicks stayed alight for a few vital heartbeats. The melon-sized canister also fell and, rather than shattering, it exploded. The room suddenly smelt of pitch. The flames that would have been drowned by the olive oil, burst back into life as the blazing liquid from the canister hit them and the fire began to spread.
The guards skipped back in confusion, their attention exclusively on keeping their feet out of the blazing liquid. Felix and Voadicia added to the confusion. The table went over. Piles of dried bread and meat added to the combustibles on the ground. The legs of tables and chairs, spattered with pitch, began to smoulder as the fire intensified. The guards, understandably, made for the exit, shepherded by Felix and Voadicia while Artemidorus, who no-one was watching, took his axe to the padlock on the cell door. Four brutal strokes smashed it free and Artemidorus swung the door wide. ‘Quintus! Ferrata! Hecate! Hercules! To me!’ He called.
The legionaries he had summoned led the others of Artemidorus’ lethal crypteia out into the flickering firelight of the room. There was no time for exclamations of surprise, for explanation or discussion. ‘Shields, swords and helmets hanging against the wall,’ he snapped, gesturing towards them. That was all that was required. As the members of his squad ran round the blazing puddle to the hooks on the wall and armed themselves, the Egyptian captain and his officers came out of the cell. ‘Get to your ship,’ ordered Artemidorus in Greek. ‘It’s not guarded. We’ll watch your backs and give you time to get ready to sail.’
Outside the burning prison, everything was a confused bustle. The guards had worked out what was going on but they were effectively unarmed and lacking leadership, so they stayed well clear of the fire and the escaping prisoners alike. By the time anyone thought to organise them, they found themselves confronted by their own shields and swords in the hands of some very competent seeming legionaries. They hesitated again, while, behind the Roman legionaries, the Egyptian crew also made a bid for freedom.
As the Egyptian oarsmen followed the sailhandlers and the officers out of the prison and onto the dockside, Felix and Voadicia climbed onto the wagon and guided the horse to the inner end of the pier, where it stopped, too nervous to proceed. Voadicia climbed stiffly down, looked around, relieved to see that the guards were still a disorganised group on the far side of the reassuring wall of shields Septem’s associates had erected with almost magical speed. She took the reluctant animal’s cheek strap. Together they moved forward as the first of the Egyptians streamed past – the pier just wide enough to accommodate the cart and a couple of crewmen side by side. Once past the Egyptian gang-plank she stopped and waited, still holding the nervous horse’s head. Felix clambered down, reached into the back of the cart and pulled out the reticulated bow that killed Marcus Caldus and its equally lethal companion. ‘Wait here while I see if any of the Egyptians can use these,’ he ordered, and ran back towards the gang-plank onto the Egyptian vessel. Uncharacteristically, disorientated by the speed and violence of events, she obeyed, staring vacantly around.
The guards perfectly understood what was happening now, but were helpless to do much about it. There were men up in the harbourmaster’s office but they too were unarmed. Only the optio and his gate guards were in any position to deal with the matter but as they came streaming onto the dock, Artemidorus' little command, their stolen shields linked together in a solid wall, began to fall back in good order, protecting the crew’s backs as promised. Their helmets, shield-bosses and sword-points glittering in the brightness from the burgeoning flames filling the prison guardroom.
And that was what was going on – and promising to be the backbone of an easy and successful escape – when Praefectus Alae Vedius Pollio and his men from the Twenty-Seventh legion arrived.
iv
It seemed to Artemidorus for a few moments that the gods had been playing a cruel game with him. They had allowed him to assess how dangerously overconfident his enemies had become without taking into account how badly things might fall out for him and his companions if Fortuna stopped smiling on them. And now she had. Whether or not the Praetorian patrol that passed them on the Via had reported them was no longer of prime concern. Apparently Voadicia was right and at least one of the would-be robbers left dead along the way must have been known to Pollio. Therefore Pollio was quite possibly running the gang of robbers and murderers himself. The inn-keeper had probably summoned the praefectus to view the bodies, choosing Pollio especially if he was involved in the murderous racket too. Then he would have described two soldiers and an androgynous woman, all apparently heading back towards Neapolis. A woman all too familiar to the praefectus. Then more reports would have started coming in from nearer at hand. From suspicious bathers in the tepidarium of the municipal baths who knew Pollio and his escaped slave. From Diocles, the medicus to the Twenty-Seventh, reporting to the prefect of cavalry that there was a woman with saddle-sores in the hospitium near the harbour gates. And the tavern-keeper in the hospitium happy to tell the prefect where his three s
trange guests had gone to.
The only element in Artemidorus’ favour was that Pollio thought he was chasing two centurions and an escaped slave. Two swords and some eel-fodder. He had brought a group of burly legionaries with him – maybe two contuberniae tent units. Sixteen men to add to the half-dozen guards and the optio gate-keeper’s men. Thirty, counting the men from the harbourmaster’s office. Many of them armoured but not armed. None of them used to working together under one command, except for Pollio’s men.
As the last of the Egyptian crew scurried onto the pier, Artemidorus himself took control. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Form up on me. Three shields each side.’ Within a heartbeat, Artemidorus was standing at the centre of the shield wall. He wore a mail shirt but no helmet. He had a sword at his belt but he still carried the battle axe in his right fist. ‘Close in,’ he growled, drawing his gladius with his left. ‘Then start to fall back, slowly and steadily. They don’t appear to have slings or bows so it will be simple sword-work if they close on us.’
An instant later he was almost completely protected by the shields of the crypteia members beside him – Quintus at one shoulder and Ferrata at the other. Beyond them stood Kyros and Hercules, and beyond them Notus and Furius. They formed a serious barricade nearly twenty feet wide and, as Artemidorus had already observed, the pier towards which they were retreating was as wide as the Fabrician Bridge – eighteen feet. Once they were in place, he calculated, there would be no way round them – only through them or over them. Like Horatius Cocles and his two companions, keeping the Bridge against the Etruscan ruler Lars Porsena, Tarquin the Proud, last King of Rome and their army.
Pollio was motivated by rage as well as by his duty to arrest or kill the slave-bitch, the escapees and those who had aided them. He took command without thinking and proceeded to deploy his troops, such as they were, still without much thought. ‘Attack!’ he bellowed. ‘Get them before they escape!’ His men obeyed automatically forming a long line the better part of forty feet from end to end and moving forward, swords out and faces grim.
‘They won’t be staying in that line for long,’ growled Quintus from the heights of his battle-hardened experience.
*
He was right, thought Artemidorus with a wry grin. At first Pollio’s men moved forward across the stone harbour, the ends of the long line closing in to encircle Artemidorus and his men. But the instant that the crypteia stepped back onto the boards of the pier, Pollio saw that he had miscalculated. The outer men in his encircling line would fall into the water if they proceeded. Only the eight in the middle were in any way effective, as they followed Artemidorus and his men out onto the narrow jetty.
Pollio was no fool. Taking control of his rage, he began to think more strategically. Swiftly, he formed the men he had brought with him into a double line. A wall of shields eight men wide, supported by another line also eight men wide a step or two behind them. He ordered the optio’s men to form a third row and took up his command position in the centre behind them. By the time they were all in position, he was on the creaking boards himself.
‘That’s more like it,’ said Quintus with grudging approval. ‘Proper battle formation. Now let’s get on with it.’
Pollio’s three-line unit followed the carefully-retreating file of Artemidorus’ men step by step down the pier but in spite of the orders being shouted by their commander walking safely at the back they showed no intention of attacking. Artemidorus risked a quick glance over his shoulder. The Egyptian’s forward mooring line was secured to a wooden bollard a couple of feet behind him. ‘Slowly,’ he growled and as soon as the line around him obeyed, he stepped back and to the side, swinging his axe with brutal force to sever the mooring rope with one blow. Immediately the ship stirred and they picked up a little speed again, walking backwards beside it.
But, like Quintus, the man at the centre of Pollio’s front line was eager for action. Artemidorus’ move to cut the mooring rope gave him the opportunity he needed. He pushed his shield into the tiny gap between Quintus’ and Ferrata’s that had been occupied by Septem, thrusting past the edge of his scutum with his gladius, Ferrata just managed to turn the point with his shield and Artemidorus stepped back into position to find his attacker over-extended. Knocking the gladius aside with his own blade, he brought the axe in his right fist down onto the top of the soldier’s out-thrust shield and twisted it. The blade bit deep into the curved wood and pulled it aside for an instant. Artemidorus’ left-hand gladius flashed up into the gap, slicing into the arm-pit exposed by the movement of the shield. The wounded man stumbled back, choking, blood pouring from his mouth and his side, spattering his companions. As he fell to his knees, the man behind him stepped into his place. The shield-walls closed again.
The Egyptian vessel’s side rose above their heads now, oar-holes agape, at shoulder-level, deck-rail reaching higher still. The creaking and groaning it made as it stirred against the pier almost drowning the quiet bustle of bare feet as the oarsmen ran to their posts.
‘Time’s running out, Septem,’ said Quintus. ‘We can’t retreat any further than the gangplank onto our ship. You can’t be the only one having fun. We’ll all have to push back and start some hot work any moment now. We’ll need to clear them right out of the way if we’re going to get safely aboard ourselves.’
‘Patience, old friend,’ said Artemidorus quietly. ‘Remember, they can’t outflank us. But we can outflank them.’ And even as he spoke, a pair of arrows hissed down off the Egyptian’s fore deck, each one finding a place in an enemy face. The inner victim dropped where he stood, shot through the eye. The outer took an arrow through his cheek, under the flap of his helmet, that scraped past his cheek-bone and came out for a finger’s length beneath the lobe of his ear. He screamed, stumbled and plunged out of sight over the edge of the pier. There was a splash, a gurgle and he was gone. He had hardly died before two more shafts sped out. Another man in the leading line dropped and one in the now exposed second line behind him. Suddenly there was no-one to step forward into their places. Pollio’s command hesitated.
‘Five down,’ said Artemidorus. ‘Time to push back.’
The unexpected attack with the arrows had caused consternation if not panic amongst Pollio’s men. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to rob them of their momentum, so that when Artemidorus and his crypteia pushed forward with all their might, gladii stabbing ruthlessly round the edges of their shields, Pollio’s six-man front row yielded. Another pair of arrows whirred down, but the soldiers of the Twenty-Seventh were expecting them now and kept their shields high. The problem was, however, that they could either use their shields to hide behind or they could use them to push forward with. Not both at the same time. The seven-man second row began to yield as the men in front were forced back by the weight and power of the advancing crypteia. The first of Pollio’s men to lower his shield and push back received an arrow straight through the bridge of his nose that buried itself deep in his head. The noises he made were loud and disturbingly inhuman – until Quintus mercifully blooded his blade by cutting the howling throat. The men of the Twenty-Seventh began to give way, despite Pollio’s bellowed orders. They gave ground grudgingly but still they refused to break. ‘Tough buggers,’ growled Quintus, looking for another throat to cut.
‘What’s it going to take to make these bastards turn tail?’ gasped Ferrata, pushing forward with all his might, determined to keep up with the giant Hercules beside him.
‘Wait,’ rasped Artemidorus. ‘We’ve one more trick to try.’
*
From somewhere behind them came a creak followed almost immediately by the bang! of wood striking leather padding: of the catapult’s arm hitting the cross-piece of its frame. Something came from the Liburnian’s foredeck, flew low over their heads and smashed onto the stone dockside behind Pollio. The instant that it shattered, it burst into flames and the fire flowed up towards the harbourmaster’s office, threatening to join the flames in the prison.
<
br /> ‘Artillery!’ chuckled Quintus. ‘Now that’s what I call a game-changer!’
Pollio’s command froze.
‘They’re wondering if we can lower the aim enough to put one of those onto the pier behind them,’ said Ferrata.
‘Or even to put one into the middle of them,’ nodded Artemidorus. ‘Burn them and their escape route both at once.’
‘Unless they decide to chop their way through us and get hold of the catapult for themselves,’ said Quintus, sounding almost wistful at the idea of the fighting that would entail.
‘They wouldn’t stand a chance,’ rumbled Hercules. ‘Unless they retreat, they’ll only have one choice: frixorium frying pan or flamma fire.’
There was a heartbeat more of hesitation, then a second canister flew overhead and exploded on the stonework even closer to the pier. The message was clear: run or burn. Pollio’s men broke, their commander perfectly positioned to lead the retreat.
As their enemies ran, Artemidorus led his men up the gangplank and onto the Egyptian vessel, shouting to the crew not to release the stern line for a moment more. Then he ran back to look at the Liburnian’s forecastle, just in time to see Felix leading Hecate and Voadicia away from the catapult and down onto the pier where the horse and cart were waiting patiently. The women each took hold of the horse’s cheek-strap and, as Felix joined them on the driver’s seat to pull the reins, they turned the horse and guided the wagon up onto the Egyptian vessel’s deck.
‘A couple of final gifts from us to them - just to make everything certain,’ said Felix as he jumped down. He reached into the back of the cart and Artemidorus realised that a good number of the catapult’s lethal canisters were now piled in there. Felix straightened with one in each hand. Voadicia produced the smouldering slow-match with which they had ignited the two that they had fired from the catapult and lit the wicks of those in Felix’ hands. Immediately, he hurled the melon-sized canisters, one after the other. The first sailed onto the foredeck of the Liburnian and the second fell onto the wooden boards just beside the Roman vessel’s gangplank. Both exploded into flame. The dry boards of the pier caught fire at once. Artemidorus chopped the stern rope free as the Egyptian vessel’s captain bellowed to his oarsmen to push them clear as fast as possible. As the vessel eased sideways into the relative safety of the harbour, the first of Felix’s canisters set off the other ammunition piled beside the catapult on the Liburnian’s foredeck which burst into vivid sheets of fire with a deafening roar.