Masters of the Sea Trilogy: Ship of Rome, Captain of Rome, Master of Rome

‘And you,’ Hadria replied demurely, her gaze penetrating, unnerving.

She broke the link and danced around to sit beside her mother as all retook their seats, the mood lifted further by her presence.

Within half an hour the conversation turned trivial, the topics lighthearted as Septimus regaled his sister with tales from his time away. Hadria sat with rapt attention as her brother spoke, her gaze never leaving his, her questions infrequent yet incisive, the perfect listener. Septimus held her gaze and the two-way link allowed Atticus to watch Hadria surreptitiously from the corner of his eye. He studied her closely, his eyes picking up every detail of her profile, his senses overwhelmed by her beauty. The thread of lighter conversation brought Atticus back into the group and the discussion drifted on into the late afternoon.

The evening ended with Salonina announcing the lateness of the hour, her hand held out to Hadria as a gesture for her daughter to accompany her from the room. Hadria groaned playfully and jumped off the couch in one fluid movement. She kissed her father and brother on the cheek before bidding goodnight to Atticus, the simple politeness accompanied by a broad smile.

Atticus returned the pleasantry and watched Hadria leave the room. As he turned back, Septimus and Antoninus began to talk once more of the legions in Sicily, the older man expanding on a thought he had developed over the previous hours.

*

Atticus rose early the following morning and walked through the atrium of the house into the main dining room for breakfast. The four members of the Capito family were already there talking animatedly in a tight circle around the low table. They did not immediately notice Atticus’s arrival and so he was free to observe them unawares. For a family that spent a considerable time apart they were very close and, judging from the occasional laughter and the smiling expressions of all, Atticus suspected that the conversation between them was light and inconsequential, typical family talk that touched on the details of their daily lives.

Atticus’s eyes rested on Hadria in the group before him. She was wearing a pale blue stola that set off the colour in her eyes perfectly and seemed to accentuate the fairness of her skin. She was listening to a story being told by her father and she laughed and clapped at his punch-lines, her joy infectious, her parents laughing with her.

‘Atticus!’ she called, noticing her observer for the first time. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

For a heartbeat Atticus noticed an intriguing look behind Hadria’s radiant smile, a lingering touch to her gaze that spoke of something beyond affection, a look that heightened his awareness of the most beautiful woman he had ever met.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_8f46f8e6-bf43-57fb-bbaa-cd7316cf2968)

‘And so, my esteemed colleagues of the Senate, I now call for a vote on my revised proposal, I call for a division of the house to settle the matter.’

Scipio sat down and surveyed the crowded chamber with inner disgust. The senators were having mumbled conversations with those around them at this new call to vote. Scipio had estimated that it would take a week for the Senate to decide on a course of action to defeat the Carthaginian blockade. He had been wrong. The debate was now in its tenth day and the seemingly endless rounds of debate and voting, over ridiculously minor points, had frayed his patience to a thread. On the fifth day the Senate had finally decided that a fleet was needed. The following two days had been taken up with a decision on the size of the fleet and two days after that on how the fleet would be financed. Only now were the senators debating the command of the campaign.

The leader of the house banged his gavel on the lectern and called the assembly to order.

‘Following the senior consul’s submission and the aforementioned views of the junior consul, we will now divide the house. All those in favour please move to the eastern wall, those against to the western.’

Scipio remained seated in the front tier, his position in front of the eastern wall a call to all his supporters to rally to his side. Scipio inwardly scoffed at the term ‘supporters’. He had spent the past ten days cajoling and subtly bribing half of them in an effort to gain their backing. Only a tiny minority of them actually voted in line with the conviction that their actions were in Rome’s best interest. Only a tiny minority of them had that courage. The rest of them needed to be led like cattle.

In the centre of the chamber, Gaius Duilius stood abruptly. Scipio watched him like a hawk. Of the three hundred individual votes of the Senate, only two really counted in this debate, Scipio’s and Duilius’s. The direction of the junior consul’s turn would decide the matter, one way or the other. Scipio watched the man’s calm exterior, hating him anew. Duilius had thwarted his proposals at every turn, but always through intermediaries and always with a subtle, clever approach that never really jeopardized any proposal as a whole. In this way important decisions like the one to build the fleet were made, but Duilius had chipped away at Scipio’s propositions, undermining his authority at every turn. Scipio had needed to give ground each time, including this last proposal on leadership, and so he watched with the bile of hatred rising ever further in his throat as he waited for Duilius to react, unsure if he would be able to control his actions should the junior consul vote against him this one last time.

As the tension in the chamber reached breaking point, Gaius Duilius turned.

From the beginning of the debate ten days earlier, Duilius had believed in the fundamentals of Scipio’s approach. The fleet was needed, of that there was no doubt. Given the Carthaginians’ superiority in naval skills, the fleet would need to outnumber any force the Punici could put to sea. Simple logic that needed no debate. The city would need to fund the building of the fleet from the public coffers, and taxes would need to be levied to make up any shortfall. Again this fact was irrefutable. And yet Duilius had challenged Scipio on each occasion.

The exercise had been expensive, but necessary. Duilius needed to show Scipio that he could hold up his ambitions indefinitely in the senatorial quagmire if he did not give ground on the most important proposal, that of leadership of the fleet. The debates had been taxing and the individual votes tedious but now, as the members of the house stood up to vote, Duilius felt real power surround him. He had always known the motivation behind Scipio’s proposals, the thirst for power that drove his actions – as it did Duilius’s; and, as the entire Senate chamber looked to see which way the junior consul would turn, Duilius felt the power of Rome in his hand.

Scipio had amended his proposal on leadership. He had had to. Scipio would indeed go to sea with the fleet and he would be the overall commander, but Duilius would sail too. The junior consul would take the vanguard and would be tactical commander of the fleet, while Scipio would have strategic command, the senior consul’s position in the rear of the fleet giving the illusion of safety that the Senate demanded. Duilius had engineered the debate to highlight this compromise to Scipio and the senior consul had accepted, each man knowing that once the fleet was out of sight of Rome and beyond the Senate’s gaze, the power struggle would start afresh. But now, on this day and at this time, Duilius was ruler of Rome and he savoured the sensation.

Duilius turned and walked towards the eastern wall, his supporters immediately following to leave a forlorn minority of twenty senators on the other side of the chamber. The men of the Senate cheered at this final decision, this conclusion to their debate, the tension of the previous ten days released in a moment of shared relief. Scipio stood and was surrounded by senators who slapped congratulatory hands on his shoulders and back, as they did for Duilius, the two men seen together as the joint saviours of the Sicilian campaign, an accolade Scipio had planned as his own. The senior consul walked towards Duilius through the press of cheering senators and magnanimously offered his hand in a show of shared responsibility for the battles ahead that would be faced together. Duilius took the hand and the crowd cheered anew. The expressions of both men were expansive, both reflecting the thrill of the moment and atmosphere of the crowd. Both expressions were only skin deep. As their eyes locked only an astute observer would have seen the momentary exchange. For Scipio and Duilius the surface solidarity hid the challenge that had been thrown down and accepted. From here on the glory of Rome would take second place to the power struggle that the Carthaginian blockade had ignited between them. Both men knew that there could be only one ruler of Rome.

‘No, no, no, Gaius,’ Lucius argued, ‘we can’t rely on every helmsman having your skill. Any new ships built will be sailed by, at best, fishermen and traders.’

‘Even so,’ Gaius countered, ‘the ram is still the best way for a raw crew to defeat an experienced one. There’s no way we can teach the legionaries to board properly within a reasonable time!’

Atticus looked on in silence, allowing the argument to draw out the full opinion of both men, their knowledge and experience vital if a solution was to be found. The three men sat in the enclosed main cabin of the Aquila, the trireme resting against her ropes at the dockside of Ostia.

Atticus had remained at the Capito home for three days in total, his own departure coming two days after Hadria’s, the insistent calls from her aunt compelling her to return to her house in the Viminal quarter. The lack of news or orders from the Senate had chafed Atticus’s patience and he had arisen on the third day with an overwhelming urge to see his ship. On arriving at Ostia he had put every waking hour and all his energy into the Aquila. The entire running rigging had now been replaced, as had the mainsail, the replacements drawn from the extensive stores of the military camp that serviced the dozen ships of the Ostia fleet. The rowers had been brought up and housed in the slave compound behind the castrum and the slave decks had been thoroughly cleaned. Even now slaves were diving beneath the galley, removing barnacles and limpets from the hull. Once cleaned, the galley would be a half-knot faster at her top stroke.

The three senior sailors of the Aquila had been discussing possible tactics for over an hour, the captain playing devil’s advocate to the second-in-command and the helmsman. Each time the two men agreed on a point, Atticus would counter their solution, finding a chink in their logic that would set the two men talking again. They had discussed every possible approach and how the Carthaginians might respond to any move. Having seen the Punici in action twice, the three men had little doubt of the calibre and resolve of their foe. Every possible scenario finished with the same conclusion, the same imbalance: experience.

A new Roman fleet would be crewed by inexperienced men, civilian sailors and legionaries used to fighting on land. Inexperienced sailors meant that ramming would be a near-impossible tactic, the manoeuvring skills required taking months to perfect, the combination of angle and speed needing to be precise. This was especially pertinent since the Roman craft were of a lighter design and would be unsure of penetration if the angle was off by more than ten degrees. Over ten degrees it was likely that the ram would simply deflect off the heavier Carthaginian hull. The call for ramming speed also needed to be exact. Too late and the ship would lack the necessary momentum; too soon and the galley slaves would be spent after the first couple of encounters; it was likely that any large-scale confrontation would last for hours.

The ability to manoeuvre alongside for boarding took considerably less skill: the angle less important, the speed only needing to be sufficient to overtake the opponent. The three men had all agreed that traders, and even fishermen, could be taught enough to master the simple manoeuvre within a week at most. The problem of inexperience now shifted to the legionaries. To train them as marines would take several months, the ability to board successfully and in sufficient numbers vital in the first minutes of any attack. Once on board, they would be without their favoured four-foot scutum shields and their years of training as land-based fighting units would count for naught, armed as they would be with a hoplon shield along with their gladius.

‘Gaius, Lucius,’ Atticus interrupted, trying to bring the discussion back to its centre, needing to forge ahead, ‘we’re all agreed that the sailing crews can be taught how to manoeuvre for boarding but not for ramming in the time we have.’

‘Yes,’ both men replied.

‘And we’re also agreed that our legionaries cannot be taught to board and fight using the traditional methods in the time we have.’

‘Yes,’ both men said again, this time Lucius sighing as the discussion circled around the obstacle.

‘Right. We need to concentrate on solving one of the problems only. I think the solution to the sailing problem will be harder to find, so I suggest we concentrate on the boarding issue. We need to find a way of getting our troops onto the enemy decks in sufficient numbers and with their scutum shields. Once there they’ll be unstoppable.’

‘Once there …’ Gaius said, as he put his mind to the task.

The cabin became silent again as all three men applied themselves to the problem. They were still without a solution an hour later when a messenger knocked on the cabin door.

‘Messenger approaching,’ Domitian called from the courtyard. The senior servant turned from the main gate and ran into the atrium of the Capito estate, repeating his call as he ran. Septimus heard the call in the smaller enclosed courtyard at the rear of the compound, where he had been practising his swordplay. He threw the wooden sword to the ground and strode through the house, meeting Domitian halfway.

‘Messenger approaching on horseback,’ the foreman said.

Septimus nodded and brushed past him. As he exited the front door of the house, the mounted praetorian guard entered through the main gate. He spotted Septimus and cantered towards him.

‘I have a message for Centurion Capito and Captain Perennis of the Aquila,’ he announced.

‘I am Centurion Capito. Captain Perennis is at the castrum of Ostia,’ Septimus replied.

The praetorian guard nodded. The other messenger, sent directly to Ostia, would find the captain. The mounted soldier looked Septimus up and down, the man before him wearing a sweat-stained tunic, the black dishevelled hair giving him a wild, untamed look. He didn’t look much like a centurion. Bloody marines, the guard thought.

‘My master, Senior Consul Scipio, orders—’

‘Get off your horse and deliver your message properly,’ Septimus interrupted, his voice hard, having noticed the unconscious look of disdain creep onto the guard’s face before he spoke. The guard hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, the underlying menace of the command triggering his instinct as a soldier. He dismounted.

‘My master—’

‘Properly!’ Septimus interrupted again, his tone like iron. ‘You’re addressing a superior officer, soldier. I’ll give you one last chance to get it right.’

Septimus drew himself to his full height. At six foot four inches he stood half a head above the guard. The praetorian fully believed that he was in mortal danger, even though he was armed and the centurion before him was not.

He adroitly stood to attention and saluted, slamming his bunched fist against his metal breast-plate, his eyes now fixed dead ahead in regulation fashion.

‘Beg to report,’ he began. ‘My master, Senior Consul Scipio, orders you to attend his town house immediately.’

Septimus waited a moment in silence, a part of him still debating whether or not he should strike the guard for insubordination. The praetorian seemed to sense the centurion’s thoughts and instinctively braced himself for the blow.