good or bad, believers or not; he makes no judgement because he died to redeem us and was resurrected after three days to show us that death can be beaten.’
‘I didn’t notice Faustus beating it,’ Magnus observed.
Sabinus glared at Magnus. ‘Death is not just physical.’
Vespasian stopped short of making a flippant remark as he saw the depth of conviction on his brother’s face.
‘That looks to be our ship,’ Sitalces said, defusing the tension. The Thracian royal standard flapped in the wind on the mast of a huge, bulky, moon-lit quinquireme, rocking at its mooring on a swell that was substantial, even within the harbour.
Relieved that the theological discussion had been curtailed, they hastened along the deserted quay to the quinquireme’s guarded gangway.
‘Sitalces, you big old bugger,’ the guard captain called as they approached, ‘we didn’t expect you to be on time; not that we’re going anywhere in this weather.’
‘I’d have thought that the trierarchus would be the best judge of that, Gaidres,’ Sitalces replied, dismounting and slapping the guard on the shoulder. ‘What makes a foot-slogger like you think you’re qualified to make such a nautical judgement?’
‘I’m not a foot-slogger any more, I’m a marine and well qualified to make nautical judgements; I base them upon the amount of praying the old man’s doing, which is a lot since this wind got up,’ Gaidres said with a grin. ‘Come on board and hear it for yourselves. Tie the horses up, I’ll have someone feed them; we can see to them in the morning.’
‘This weather will deteriorate,’ Trierarchus Rhaskos said, looking up past the mast to the night sky that had started to fill with scudding clouds. ‘This wind is forewarning us of Zbelthurdos’ wrath. He is coming; he rides to hurl his lightning-bolts at us and soon we’ll hear the thunder of his great horse’s hooves and the howling of his faithful hound.’
‘Do you mean there’s going to be a storm?’ Vespasian asked testily. How much talk of gods did a man have to endure in one evening?
‘Yes, when Zbelthurdos is angry a storm usually follows,’ Rhaskos replied, scratching his woolly grey beard, which, set under his short-cropped, grey hair, gave Vespasian the curious impression that his head was on upside down. ‘We must placate him. I shall prepare a sacrifice; one of your horses should do the trick.’
‘You are not sacrificing our horses to your gods,’ Sabinus stated categorically. ‘They-’
‘They’re army property,’ Vespasian put in quickly before his brother offended anyone by denouncing the Thracian gods in favour of Mithras.
‘Mine is the property of the Queen,’ Sitalces said. ‘I’m sure that she would be pleased to offer it for sacrifice.’
Vespasian was not so sure but knew enough about the consequences of insulting the Thracian gods to keep his doubts to himself. Rhaskos looked pleased. ‘Good, that’s settled then. You have a prisoner, I believe?’ He turned to where Rhoteces lay struggling on the deck between Magnus and Artebudz. ‘The Queen asked me to construct a special cell for him; you’ll find it on the oar-deck. Gaidres will show you down, he’s been assigned with ten of his men to guard the prisoner.’
‘Drenis and I will, er… sort out the horse,’ Sitalces said to Vespasian as he turned to follow Gaidres. He nodded his assent; Sabinus snorted.
They followed Gaidres the fifty paces down the length of the huge ship, Magnus and Artebudz dragging the bound priest between them by his arms. The deck creaked and heaved below their feet and the wind whistled past the vibrating stays supporting the mast. The two brothers were already starting to feel the ill effects of the sea by the time they reached a hatch at the bow of the vessel. A waft of human excrement and urine hit them as they made their way down a ladder on to the oar-deck.
‘Smells like we’re in the shit again, sir,’ Magnus remarked from the top of the ladder as he passed the unwilling Rhoteces down to Artebudz and Sabinus.
Vespasian’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of a few weak oil lamps and his mouth dropped open in shock as he made out the forms of scores of rowers asleep over the oars that they were chained to. The Thracians, unlike the Romans, used slaves to power their ships.
‘How do you maintain discipline down here?’ he asked Gaidres, astounded.
Gaidres shrugged. ‘They’re all chained hand and foot and can’t go anywhere. Besides, they all know that if they make trouble they just go over the side and we replace them with one of the spares we keep down in the bilge.’
‘Yes, but if a slave has so little to live for then he has nothing to lose. That’s why we use freemen; you can trust them to all pull together and not try and sabotage the ship, because if they stay alive they get citizenship after twenty-six years’ service.’
‘Look, don’t ask me, I’m just a marine; I don’t know the whys and wherefores of it all. And don’t go feeling sorry for the bastards either, a lot of them are captured pirates getting a taste of what they’ve meted out to others.’
‘I don’t,’ Vespasian muttered, looking around incredulously. ‘I just worry about my safety on a ship powered by slaves who don’t care if they live or die.’
‘It’s no wonder you never became a sea power,’ Sabinus observed. ‘You must have been too busy worrying about what’s going on down with the slaves to be able to concentrate properly on winning a battle.’
‘Well, that’s how it’s always been done and I don’t ask questions. Come on, the cell’s this way.’ Gaidres opened a small door, ducked and stepped through.
Vespasian and Sabinus followed him into a small, danksmelling cabin. By the faint light of the moon, streaming down through a grating in the deck above, Vespasian could see an iron cage, five feet high, wide and deep.
‘Bring him in here, Magnus; Artebudz, get one of those oil lamps,’ he said as Gaidres started fumbling with a key.
With the help of the small amount of light provided by the lamp, Gaidres managed to get the key in the lock and the cage door swung open. Inside were a set of manacles and leg-irons attached to the cage by heavy chains.
‘I’m going to take the gag off,’ Vespasian warned Magnus and Artebudz, who both had a firm grip on the priest. ‘Watch out for his teeth, they’re nastily sharp.’
As the gag came off a gobbet of phlegm flew into Vespasian’s face. He punched Rhoteces in the stomach, causing his head to fall forward; Magnus and Artebudz’s firm grip preventing him from doubling up.
‘Now listen, you little shit,’ Vespasian growled, ‘we can do this the easy way and you don’t struggle as we chain you up; or the hard way, which will involve you waking up with another crack in your skull.’
Gasping for breath Rhoteces lifted his head, his vicious eyes glaring with hatred; he contorted his weasel face into a snarl, baring his filed, yellow front teeth. His mouth was uneven, unhealed from where Asinius had slit it nearly four years previously.
‘It doesn’t matter which way we do it, Roman,’ he hissed. ‘This is futile, none of us will get to Rome; you because you will all die on this voyage, and me because my gods will bring me back alive to Thracia without ever setting foot in that accursed city of yours. This I predict by the will of Zbelthurdos whose anger you have incurred by seizing me. I curse this voyage in his name; this ship will never reach Rome. ’
A shrill whinny pierced the air and then was suddenly cut off, followed almost instantaneously by the sound of a heavy body collapsing to the ground.
Rhoteces’ snarl turned into a lopsided leer. ‘Zbelthurdos has heard the curse. But it’ll take a lot more than a horse to expiate the insult to my gods; Roman blood is what will be needed.’
Vespasian slammed his fist into the priest’s face, flattening his nose. He slumped, unconscious, between Magnus and Artebudz.
‘The hard way it is then,’ Vespasian said, walking past Sabinus and out of the cabin.
PART III
