Scipio would once more take his rightful place as the most powerful man in Rome.
CHAPTER SIX
Lentulus, the master shipbuilder, stroked the threadlike grey hairs of his beard as he listened intently to the debate raging around the table. He glanced at the Greek sailor at the head of the table, recalling the crucial elements of his report, and looked down at the notes he had made, at the brief scribbled words and crude diagrams that represented his initial thoughts.
He glanced at the sailor again, remembering when he had first met him years before. In many ways he was the same man; still tall and lean with an intense restlessness that often infected those around him — as it did Lentulus’s apprentices now — but in other ways he had changed. The scar on his face was an obvious difference, but Lentulus noticed more subtle changes. His previous openness had been replaced by wariness, and his eyes now seemed to search beneath the skin of every man he looked at, as if trying to discern their inner thoughts.
‘We have to try and rebalance the design,’ an apprentice said, and Lentulus’s thoughts returned to the conversation.
‘We can’t,’ another said. ‘If we counter-balance the weight of the corvus on the stern, then the draught of the ship will be compromised.’
‘You’re ignoring the increased ballast of the quinquereme,’ the first said. ‘The corvus was originally designed for a trireme. The larger ship can take the weight.’
‘It can’t,’ Lentulus interjected, and he looked to the Greek sailor. ‘Tell us again, Prefect, about the Strenua and how she foundered.’
Atticus restated what he had witnessed. As before, the four apprentices were enthralled by the report, particularly when Atticus described the speed at which the galley had been lost in the storm.
‘It is not a question of weight,’ Lentulus said in the silence that followed. ‘It is one of balance.’
He stood up and began to pace one side of the room, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. He began to explain his conclusions, partly for the benefit of those in the room, but also to clarify his ideas by voicing them aloud.
‘Neither the original trireme of the Roman coastal fleet,’ he said, ‘nor the Tyrian-styled quinquereme of the Carthaginian fleet, which we adopted, was ever designed with the corvus in mind. Each was built with a finely balanced hull; a balance the dead weight of the corvus corrupted.’
‘But we addressed those concerns when we adopted the corvus,’ one of the apprentices contested. ‘It was built within the design tolerances of the galley. Perhaps the fault lies not with the ship but with the crews and their seamanship.’
Atticus’s eyes darkened. ‘So you believe the crews are to blame for their own deaths?’ he growled.
The underlying violence inherent in Atticus’s words was not lost on the apprentice, but he held his ground, not wanting to lose face in front of his master.
‘I meant no disrespect, Prefect,’ he said, a slight tremble in his voice. ‘But the design cannot be wrong. It was rigorously tested.’
‘Your designs were tested in the confines of coastal waters,’ Atticus argued. ‘They were never fully tested in open seas, or in battle, or in a storm. Those sailors you speak so ill of lost their lives proving that point.’
Chastened by Atticus’s words and his conviction, the apprentice looked down at the table. Atticus continued to stare at him, his impulsive annoyance refusing to abate. The apprentice was a young man, no more than a boy, probably little older than Atticus himself had been when he’d joined the navy, and Atticus suddenly realized his anger was not directed at the apprentice but at himself. He remembered the day he had rushed to this very room with the seeds of the idea that would become the corvus. How he had stood before Lentulus and expounded on his plan for a boarding ramp, and how he had been filled with pride when that idea had become a reality and been proved in battle at Mylae. Although it seemed a lifetime ago, it was but a few years, and Atticus conceded that he had hidden that memory from himself to suppress his own culpability, knowing he had once been the greatest advocate of the corvus.
‘The prefect is right,’ Lentulus said, taking control of the meeting once more. ‘In our haste and hubris we ignored the fundamental attributes of a galley, ballast and balance, and we failed to fully appreciate the effect the boarding ramp would have on those.’
The apprentices nodded in silent agreement and Lentulus dismissed them from the room with instructions to begin work on finding an answer to the problem.
‘So you believe there is a solution?’ Atticus asked.
Lentulus looked to the initial thoughts he had sketched out. ‘No,’ he replied after a pause, ‘not if we need our galleys to compete with the speed and manoeuvrability of the Carthaginians.’
‘We cannot fight the Punici on their terms, we need the advantage the corvus gives us,’ Atticus said, his defence of the boarding ramp sounding treacherous in his own mind.
‘We may not have a choice, Prefect,’ Lentulus said, pacing the room once more. ‘Everyone in Fiumicino knows how and why the fleet was lost. Already crews are refusing to sail on any galley with a corvus, and with good cause. They will not, and we cannot, take the chance of such a loss occurring again.’
The conversation continued, but Atticus found it impossible to focus. He had been back in Rome over a week and this was not the first time he had had this argument, albeit with other men. That the master shipbuilder had asked for his report in person was evidence of the enormity of the problem the fleet now faced, trapped between the opposing forces of the Carthaginians and the weather, one threat calling for the retention of the corvus, the other for its rejection.
The meeting ended an hour later and Atticus left the barracks at Fiumicino to walk down to the shoreline to clear his head. The slips and scaffolding that dominated the beach were quiet in the noon heat, and he picked his way through them, the soft repetitive sound of waves crashing on the black sand allowing him to calm the voices of frustration. He turned his back on the beach and found his horse in the stables of the barracks, mounting it in one fluid movement as he set off for the city, his thoughts now focusing on the evening ahead, a smile creeping on to his face in anticipation. Hadria’s father had returned to Rome and it was finally time for Atticus and Hadria’s love to emerge from the shadows.
Regulus cursed as his foot caught a loose stone and he had to throw out his arms to regain his balance. The squad of soldiers escorting him did not check its pace, and Regulus was forced to trot for a half-dozen steps to regain his position in the centre of the formation. He looked up the hill to his left, to the citadel commanding the summit, comparing it to the descriptive reports he had read since he had first arrived in Africa. None of them had captured the essence of the fortress, its sheer brute size coupled with its daunting position, and Regulus was left to wonder how Carthage could fall with such strength at its core.
The squad led him to the quayside, and the traders and merchantmen crowding the docks opened their ranks to allow the soldiers through, the conversations continuing around the obstruction until it passed, voices raised in languages Regulus did not understand. He kept his eyes front, ignoring the baleful stares of the few who deduced his nationality, their incomprehensible curses lost in the clamour.
The commercial docks gave way to the military harbour, and again Regulus took the opportunity to observe it closely. The military harbour was circular in shape, with a raised island circumscribed by a lagoon at its centre and an outer perimeter quay. Boathouses covered every available space and, of the two hundred available berths, Regulus counted a dozen rams jutting out of occupied spaces, the extended claws of the beasts within.
At the far end of the harbour was a barracks house; the squad passed through the arched entranceway to a small courtyard inside. On three sides of the courtyard open doorways led to inner corridors and rooms, but on the side facing Regulus each door was heavily bolted, the metal turned green from exposure to the salt-laden air. The commander of the squad stepped forward alone to the middle door and wrenched back the bolt with a single pull. He turned to Regulus and motioned him forward.
‘You have thirty minutes,’ he said.
Regulus was puzzled but he stepped forward into the darkened room. The door closed behind him and the bolt was slammed home once more.
His eyes were immediately drawn to a small opening high on the opposing wall, which allowed in a pitiful
