John Roberts - The Princess and the Pirates

“I don’t doubt Harmodias has been doing exactly that every year. What about Gabinius’s house?”

“It’s about a mile south of town on the coastal road. It’s built near the beach and has its own little wharf.”

“That’s convenient.”

He sighed. “What are you planning?”

“Tonight we are going to pay the illustrious general a little visit. We’ll go by water. That way nobody will see us leave through one of the city gates.”

“Just you and me?”

“We’ll take Ariston. He’s a good man in a tight spot, and besides, he can row, which neither of us can. Go find him and send him here. Then get some sleep. We may have a long night ahead of us.” He sighed again as he went to do my bidding. He knew better than to argue. Sometimes he acted more like my caretaker than my slave, but I suppose he had to look after his own well-being. After all, where would he find another master as sweet tempered and reasonable as I?

An hour after sundown, we got into the skiff. The three of us wore dark tunics, and Hermes and I wore soft-soled sandals. Ariston, as usual, was barefoot. He had also covered his startling, blond hair with a scarf. He set to the oars in near silence, having already expertly muffled the tholes with scraps of cloth. We crossed the naval harbor and slid among the ships in the commercial basin as silently as an eel gliding along the surface. As we passed Cleopatra’s yacht I saw lights burning in her little cabin. On deck, her crew went about their tasks as silently as we.

Not for the first time, I wished I could trust the princess, but I knew all too well how foolish it would be to do so. In so many ways she seemed like a civilized human being: cultured, staggeringly well educated, high-born, and charming beyond all common understanding of the term.

She was also an alien, an Orientalized pseudo-Greek, and the royal progeny of centuries of incest. On top of that she was a willful child and, should she become queen, might well remain a willful child all her life. Such people are supremely dangerous. They are mercurial, self-centered, and usually lack a conscience, as the rest of us understand such things. No doubt she believed herself to be something of a goddess. Even if she was my staunch ally and supporter at the moment, she could easily change her allegiance the next day, should the mood take her.

Once past the harbor mole, Ariston began rowing hard, pulling us southward with long, powerful strokes. The moon was nearly full, and I remembered that the Aphrodisia would commence upon the full moon. Curious, I thought, that Aphrodite’s festival would be governed by the moon, which is the realm of Diana, or rather Artemis, since we were in Greek territory. But then, Aphrodite was a sea-goddess here. Perhaps, in the days of the world’s youth, the gods and goddesses were not so strictured in their aspects as they have become since men began raising temples to them.

“Should be near here somewhere,” Ariston said in a low voice, after he had rowed for the better part of an hour. I scanned the shoreline for the wharf. Even as I looked, I saw a flame making its way from the beach out onto the water. It was someone bearing a torch, and it looked as if he was walking along a jetty. At the end of the structure, the flame began waving back and forth. Behind and above this vision, a line of perhaps ten more torches appeared, spaced evenly to illuminate what had to be a path or stairway leading from the wharf to the bluff above, where I judged the general’s house to be.

“Now what-” I barely got the words out before Hermes gripped my shoulder.

“A ship!” he said, in an urgent whisper. Immediately, Ariston shipped his oars and turned to look.

“You have better eyes than mine,” I said. “Where?” But then I heard it: the steady, two-note piping of a hortator setting time for ship rowers. A low, shadowy form slid across our line of sight perhaps half a bow-shot ahead of us. I could just hear the low call of the poleman in the bow calling out the depth.

“A penteconter,” Ariston reported, this being a ship with only a single bank of oars, much favored for raiding and smuggling. It has a limited cargo capacity but needs only half the crew of a Liburnian.

“Think they’ve seen us?” I asked him.

“Doubt it. Approaching shore like that, in the dark, all eyes are straight ahead.”

“But they’ve got a light to bear on,” Hermes said. “Doesn’t that tell them they’re on course?”

“They’ll take no chances,” he replied. “Ships get nightbound on the water sometimes, and people ashore light false beacons to lure them onto the rocks so they can take the cargo. Coast guards will do the same thing to lure smugglers in. They’ll feel for rocks and keep their hands on their swords until they’re safely tied up and sure of whom they’re dealing with.”

“Ariston,” I said, when they were past us, “bring us to shore just to the north of that wharf. I want to work my way close to them. Can you beach us without being heard or seen?”

“Depends on how alert they are.” I saw the flash of his teeth in a quick grin, then he had the oars out and was turning us, pulling for shore. The noise of the muffled oars seemed loud to me, but doubtless could not have been heard ten paces away.

When we nudged the shore, Ariston sprang out and held the prow steady against the light surf. “We’ll have to pick it up and carry it onto shore,” he said. “They’ll hear if we drag it.” So Hermes and I took off our sandals and climbed out to either side. The boat was much heavier than it looked, and I felt the strain from my belly to my chest as we heaved it onto the gravelly beach.

“What now?” Hermes asked, as we sat to put our footwear back on. “We weren’t expecting a visiting ship.”

“We weren’t expecting anything,” I reminded him. “We came out here to see what was to be seen, and this is it. If, as I suspect, these are his pirate friends calling on him, this may be all I need to put an end to Gabinius and his schemes.”

“You’ll just walk in and arrest him?”

“Let me worry about that. Ariston, wait here with the boat. If we’re running when we return, start dragging it to the water as soon as you see us.”

“If you say so, Captain.” He seemed disappointed to be missing out on the fun.

Hermes and I set off. After our nighttime scouting expeditions in the Gallic forests, approaching the wharf was child’s play. We moved quietly, but the sound of the sea covered any noise we might have made. The surf of the sea is feeble compared to the roaring waves of the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but it makes sufficient sound to mask lesser noises.

By the time we reached it, the ship was secured to the wharf. I could see by the light of the moon that it was riding high, so it was not here to discharge cargo. Even as I had this thought, I saw a line of men making their way up the torch-lined path. At its top I could now see an imposing house upon the bluff, its white marble making it seem to glow.

I could make out a mutter of voices and wanted mightily to be able to hear what they were saying. The only way to do that was to get closer.

Sizable shrubs grew almost down to the water, meaning that this area was goat-free. That suited my purposes to perfection, allowing us to work our way nearer until we were almost beneath the wharf. At the spot where I was able to get the nearest, its walkway was just above the level of my head. Men were now returning from the house, laden with what appeared to be weighty bags on their shoulders.

“This will make for an easier voyage back,” said a rumbling voice. “She’s been wallowing from being so lightly laden.” The language was Latin and the accent was Roman, or very nearly so. There are subtle nuances by which you can tell the speech of a City man from one raised elsewhere. He sounded like a man of the better class, but from one of the nearby towns, not Rome itself. The accent was familiar, but I could not place it.