Jack Ludlow - The Sword of Revenge

‘There is one of the leaders who Hypolitas says will never agree. The others will do as he tells them.’

‘He is?’ asked Lucius.

‘The man who commands the army, a Celt by the name of Gadoric. Apparently, he’s as venal as the rest but he hates Rome too much to ever agree to a truce.’

‘Then Hypolitas must be rid of him.’

‘He would rather we did that,’ replied Cholon. ‘He cannot be seen killing his own when he is promising them all a better life.’

Lucius nodded. ‘That is fitting. Roman blood has been shed. It will quieten some of those who wish to protest if we take some revenge. The other terms?’

‘A show of force, especially ships.’

‘Titus and my son are arranging that.’

‘He intends to be acclaimed and wishes to be treated with all the honours due to a client king.’

‘The other leaders?’

‘The future King Hypolitas seemed to care little for them. He spent most of his time telling me what kind of villa he required, how many servants and the size of his annual stipend, which is substantial.’

Lucius smiled, his thin face lighting up. ‘The landowners can pay it and they can afford to, especially people like Cassius Barbinus. Perhaps it will still his tongue and make him treat his slaves properly.’

‘They’ll squeal, Lucius Falerius. Their income will be dented already by the reforms you propose to introduce.’

The other man’s face was wreathed in smiles, which made more prominent his already well-defined bones. ‘Let them squeal, Cholon. That is a spectacle I will certainly enjoy.’

Marcellus’s only experience of the sea had been the short crossing from Italy to Sicily on a cargo ship, but this was different. He and Titus, at the head of a makeshift fleet, having received a bare set of instructions from his father, were now sailing south round the island. Most of the ships were merchant galleys commandeered against the wishes of their owners; they were aboard a proper trireme, its three banks of oars manned by fighting men, which had been fetched round from Brindisium, taken from its normal duty of subduing piracy on the eastern trade route.

He loved it; the rise and fall of the waves felled Titus from the first day, but not Marcellus. The smell of the salt water, the feeling of unlimited space, the way that the ship steered when he was given a turn at the great sweep that stuck out from the stern, lifted his heart. He had a turn on an oar, eliciting some admiration from the other rowers for his stamina and for his determination to keep up, though the effort left him an exhausted heap on the deck. Marcellus was back as soon as he recovered, keen to master the art and progress to the peak of efficiency achieved by those who manned the ship.

With the wind dead astern, and the great square sail drawing taut, they sighted Agrigentum just after dawn on the third day. The master, at the request of a slightly green Titus, cleared the ship for battle, taking in the sail and sending all the rowers to their stations. The man at the drum started to beat time causing the sleek trireme to edge forward and as the tempo increased the rowers strained harder, increasing the strokes without ever losing their rhythm. The catwalks above the rowers’ heads were lined with soldiers, the first shock wave in an attack, who would be joined by those below once the need to manoeuvre had passed. The trireme head-reached the accompanying merchant ships with the water flying in a great spray over the prow.

They could see the few vessels in the harbour, grain ships, which the defenders had spread across the mouth, the sides lined with heavily armed men, which would be precious little use against the weightier Roman ships, Quadremes and Quinqueremes, built for close combat rather than ramming. But Titus and Marcellus were in a trireme and the master felt it was his duty to point out some of the limitations inherent in such a vessel. They were aboard a ship built for speed, whose prime method of attack was to ram the enemy, then board, but they were alone, so any conflict would be costly. He pointed instead to another galley, busy laying a wooden boom. The insurgents were using a wide beamed merchant ship to lower great tree trunks into the water, attached to each other by stout chains. Titus, eager for a fight, and dying to assault the enemy’s main strength, nevertheless deferred to the captain, who brought his trireme round a touch, so that the bows were aimed directly at the ship laying the boom.

The men aboard her were not soldiers and the galley, of a type used to transport stone, was slow to manoeuvre. As they realised that they were the intended victim, they abandoned their task and tried to turn for the inner harbour, well aware that they were ill-equipped to withstand an attack. The other rebel galleys, which had already pulled in their anchors, took some of the men off the deck to man their sweeps. Marcellus saw the rows of oars swing back and down, biting into the water, sensing the strain that was being exerted to get these ships into motion. They rose and fell, and the water began to cream down the sides as the ships got under way.

‘We should haul off, sir,’ said the master, who had not foreseen this development. ‘We cannot take on such heavy odds.’

That did not please Titus, who, at the prospect of action, seemed much improved. ‘If we can prevent them laying the boom it will make any future attempts on the port much easier.’

The master, a grizzled sailor with a tanned, weather-beaten countenance, shook his head fiercely. ‘If we ram that ship we’ll be stuck in her when the others come up. We won’t last two minutes against all those soldiers. I decline to risk my ship.’

Marcellus was looking at the galleys, on course to intercept. He did not see Titus’s eyes on his back, did not know that the legate, who had the power to command this grey-haired sailor, decided against an attack because he had no wish to risk the only son of Lucius Falerius Nerva.

‘Very well, Master, you may decline the action.’

The sailor was aware that he had displeased Titus, who was certainly powerful enough to break him, and not knowing the legate, he was unaware of his innate fairness. It could be the beach for him if he did not do something to salvage his reputation.

‘Be a pity to without giving them something to chew on, sir.’

He called out a series of orders, bringing the trireme round on a converging course with the nearest of the grain ships. Marcellus, in the bows, watched closely as the distance between the galleys shortened. He ran back along the catwalk and begged for a spear, grabbing it eagerly and heading back, past the waiting soldiers, into the bows. Titus opened his mouth to order him below, but he said nothing, suspecting that the boy, close to his first taste of real battle, would probably ignore him. They were nearly on them now and the leading grain ship edged round to avoid being rammed, the side crowded with armed men, spears at the ready. That was when the master gave his order, reasonably sure that no one aboard the vessel he was attacking had ever seen a trireme in action.

The drum beat faster and the speed of the Roman ship increased slightly so that they were closing on their enemy rapidly. The first javelins started to fly, falling into the water between the ships as the master, leaning on the sweep, aided by men hauling on ropes, yelled another command that had the drum beating an almost continuous tattoo. Marcellus saw the oars beneath him disappear inboard and the trireme swung round. With perfect timing, the other oarsmen first raised their oars out of the water, held them for a second, them dipped then again. Their action brought the trireme in close to the grain ship, running alongside, and the prow took the first enemy oar almost immediately.