John Stack - Ship of Rome

Walking alertly from the sea, Septimus surveyed the frenzied activity on the beach, activity he had ignored on his way down to the water. His eyes scanned left and right, taking in the full vista of the construction site. As his gaze brought him to the south end of the beach, he spied the Aquila tethered to one of the wooden piers. As always there was activity on deck and in the rigging. Septimus smiled as he imagined hearing the raised voice of Lucius barking orders to all on board to make perfect the already impeccable galley. Septimus pricked up his ears and tried to single out the voice but it was lost in the cacophony of sound on the beach.

Septimus had noticed the galley on previous occasions, the first time prompting him to run down to meet Atticus and ask him if any news had been received in Ostia regarding the Carthaginians. The camp was all but cut off from the outside world now that security had been increased in the wake of the defeat at Lipara, and Septimus, like everyone, relied on infrequent seaborne news from Ostia.

Strapping his armour back on, Septimus decided he would call on the ship that evening if she were still in port. It would be good to see Atticus again, an opportunity to put their argument behind them over an amphora of wine. He looked forward to spending a night on board the Aquila after four weeks of sleeping on land. He smiled at the transformation his predilections had undergone in just under a year. He had always considered himself a land animal. Now, in contrast, he was beginning to think he would never feel at home anywhere except on the deck of a galley.

After a moment’s hesitation, Atticus decided he had to try. He quickly turned around and re-entered the consul’s tent. The optio inside looked up in surprise at the unexpected return.

‘I need a gate pass,’ Atticus said simply.

The optio looked doubtfully at the captain, knowing that passes through the camp’s security checkpoints were not given lightly.

‘Please wait here, Captain,’ he said, and turned to walk into the recesses of the elaborate tent to find the consul’s private secretary.

Atticus tapped his feet impatiently as he waited. Duilius had dismissed him only moments before, after six long hours, with orders to return at noon the next day. The unexpected eighteen hours of leave were probably the only opportunity Atticus would get, and so he prayed his request for a pass would be granted. In the time allowed he could have sailed back to Ostia; however, once there, he would be faced with the same security. Given he had just met with the consul in private, Atticus reckoned his odds were higher if he requested a pass now.

The personal secretary, a former centurion and camp prefect, emerged from the rear of the tent. He looked Atticus directly in the eyes, as if he were trying to find some level of subterfuge in the simple request for a pass.

‘The consul has agreed to the granting of a pass,’ the secretary said, his voice revealing a reluctance to accept Duilius’s magnanimous treatment of the young captain. ‘I just need to know your destination, for the paperwork.’

Atticus nodded, smiling at the bureaucracy that infused every aspect of military life.

‘Rome,’ Atticus replied, ‘the Viminal quarter.’

The secretary noted the information and handed Atticus a small scroll.

Atticus immediately left the tent and headed for the camp stables. Using the security pass as a mark of urgency and importance, he requisitioned a horse and rode south from the camp, intersecting the Via Aurelia ten miles short of the city.

The evening was drawing in as Atticus breached the Servian Wall surrounding the city. At sundown the gates to the city would be closed and locked until dawn the following morning, the age-old practice a precaution against a surprise night attack. Atticus stopped the first citizen he encountered within the city walls, asking the man for directions to the Viminal quarter. Atticus’s route took him through the Forum Magnum, the central plaza still alive with activity even as the sun was sinking into the western sky. The fading light had prompted the lighting of torches in the porticoes of the temples, and the whole area seemed sanctified, a fitting earthly realm for the gods represented in the marble statues that looked down on Atticus as he passed. He paused at a statue of Venus, the goddess of love demurely covering her nakedness behind enfolded arms. Atticus reached out and touched the plinth, his lips forming a silent prayer to the goddess for assistance in his search.

Atticus reached the Viminal quarter as the streets darkened around him. Looking up, he could see the tops of the tallest buildings still bathed in muted sunlight, their walls reflecting slanted rays that temporarily saved the streets from complete darkness. With only the family name of the house to guide him and an entire quarter to search, Atticus sensed the hopelessness of his task. Soon it would be dark; Septimus’s earlier warning about night-time predators made its way to the forefront of his thoughts.

The street-side traders were locking up their stalls for the night, their actions rushed after a long day of work, the promise of home spurring their haste. Atticus stopped many in their task as he asked for directions, his questions answered in hurried dismissive tones and gestures. The people moving in the street were becoming mere shadows when Atticus spotted a tavern offering lodgings and a stable for his mount. He walked towards it; the leave had afforded him an unexpected opportunity and he cursed his inability to take advantage of it. As he passed two house servants his mind registered their conversation. The mention of a name caused him to turn around, the sudden movement startling the two women.

‘Did you say your mistress was Hadria?’ he asked, his looming figure in the dark causing the women to hesitate.

‘What of it?’ the smaller woman demanded, her voice signifying her advanced age while her tone spoke of a woman who deferred to few.

‘I’m looking for the house of Capito, for a woman named Hadria.’

Atticus’s entreaty was met with silence, the suspicious expressions of the two women masked by the darkness.

‘We are servants in that house,’ the woman replied finally, her hand pointing out a doorway not fifty yards from where they stood.

‘Can you take a message to your mistress?’ Atticus asked, trying to make his voice sound friendly and unthreatening.

‘I will pay you for your trouble,’ he added, handing a bronze dupondius to the smaller woman, her hand closing on the coin, feeling its weight and shape.

‘What message?’ she asked.

‘Tell your mistress that Captain Perennis awaits her message in that tavern,’ he said, indicating the building almost directly across the road from Hadria’s aunt’s house.

The woman nodded, the gesture almost lost in the nearly pitch-darkness. The two hurried away and Atticus made his way to the tavern. He hoped the message was ambiguous enough to forestall any gossip amongst the servants, knowing that Hadria would want to keep any meeting secret.

Atticus banged on the door and an innkeeper opened a small, face-high hatchway in the stout wooden door. Atticus asked for lodgings and, after a brief moment when the innkeeper looked beyond Atticus into the darkened street, the door was opened. A stable lad was called to take Atticus’s mount, and a young boy ran fearlessly out into the street to guide the horse away to a nearby enclosed courtyard. After the darkness of the street, the oil-lamp light of the tavern was warm and inviting. The atmosphere was subdued, with only four other guests in the spacious room. Atticus ordered an amphora of wine and some food and then settled down in a corner to wait. The whole idea had been ambitious, a goal set on the hope that Hadria had returned to her aunt’s house in the city, that he would be able to find the house and that she would be willing to see him. He thanked Venus for the good fortune that had carried him thus far.