Hostage to Fortuna

that asan excuse to remain on the deck, spending most of my time on theraised deck at the stern, although on the opposite side from thesteering oar. While I tried not to be obvious about it, I doubtMotius was fooled that he was the one I was watching the mostclosely, but fortunately, Cador clearly thought he was the targetof my suspicion. After about a watch, I concluded that Motius musthave been able to hide his true feelings and intentions towardsCador to the point that Cador did not notice anything unusual. Idid observe that the cut rope had been removed, and I wondered ifthis was something Cador had done or whether he had any concernthat Motius had noticed it. Regardless, there was no overt sign oftrouble, and I slowly relaxed, moving down on the main deck tocirculate among the men. When it was the turn of Mus and Gemellusto come up on deck; the rations were never left unattended, andTetarfenus and Herennius had been up first, I walked over to them.Honestly, Mus probably should have been on one of the ships withthe wounded because of his leg wound, but he convinced me that hewould not be a burden, and I was a pliant audience. I did ask himhow the leg was, but he waved it off.

“Barely feel it, Pilus Prior,” heassured me; I knew he was lying, but I saw that he knew that I wasnot buying it, and it was just one of those things men do notmention. Probably to change the subject, he asked in a lower toneof voice, “Sir, how fucked are we? I mean, really?”

I should have known, so I only had myself toblame, and perhaps I felt a need to unburden myself, because I didfeel badly about hiding the truth, and it did not make it easierwhen I could see that a large number of my men did not believe me.Yes, as I have learned from reading both my father’s and mygreat-grandfather’s account, and have seen firsthand, there aretimes when the best service a Centurion can do for his men is hidethe truth, but I found I did not like the taste, and I doubt I everwill.

Taking a breath, I decided to throw thedice, though I did begin with a warning. “If I hear one rankerutter a fucking word that makes me think you two ran your mouths, Iwill pitch you overboard, do you understand?”

I was pleased to see that my tone convincedthem and they believed I was sincere, and I will say that in themoment I was, but I proceeded to explain the series of events, theaccidents, and the errors that led to us being bobbing about onlythe gods knew where, with only the knowledge that as long as wecontinued rowing south, we would reach land eventually. They tookit better than I thought they would, although I could also see theywere deeply troubled, not that I could blame them. It was Gemelluswho brought something up that I had never thought about, though Ishould have.

“What’s the ration situation with theslaves?”

Truly, I did not know whether to laugh,curse, or cry, because I realized that this was yet anotherassumption on my part and was something I needed to talk to Cadorabout, and I had just turned towards the stern when a ragged choruscame up from the opposite direction. Since it was not in unison, orthe same language, it took a heartbeat for me to understand.

“Sail! I see a sail!”

The call came from some of my men who hadclimbed up to the raised deck on the bow, and one of the crewmenwho was always posted there. Since I was already heading thatdirection, I broke into a run to the stern, climbing the ladder towhere Cador, Motius, and one of the other crewmen were standing,shielding their eyes and looking in the direction the lookout onthe bow was pointing. It was only that moment that I realizedsomething; I had taken for granted having the advantage of heightthat comes from keeping a lookout posted on the small platform atthe top of the mast. When you do not have a mast, your range ofvision is seriously limited, and while like all land dwellers, Ihad always thought of the sea as being essentially flat, it isanything but, something that was brought home to me as I copied thecrew and strained to look off the left quarter of the bow.

“There!” I recognized Motius’ voice,and I turned to see where he was pointing, but despite looking inthat direction, I still did not see it for severalheartbeats.

Once I did, I understood why it wasdifficult to see, and it came from a couple of causes. The firstwas what I mentioned, that rather than being flat, the surface ofthe sea is more like a gently rolling terrain of small hills, oneafter the other, the difference being that the hills are constantlymoving. The second, and ultimately the one that gave us our firstwarning of trouble, was that the sail was not the white of a newsail, the dirty gray of an old one, or even a brown one as someleather sails are. It was a muted color; I can only describe it isas a greenish-gray, but what mattered was its effect, because itblended almost perfectly with the water surrounding it.

Walking over to Cador and Motius, I saidaloud, “I know that none of the ships in our fleet had a sail thatcolor. Do you recognize it?”

They exchanged a glance, but it was Cadorwho answered first.

“While I do not recognize thatparticular sail by the color, Centurion, I can tell you by the cutof it that it is not from a ship belonging to any of the Gallictribes.”

“How can that be?” I asked,puzzled.

After all, I reasoned, we were headingsouth, this ship was coming from that direction, and the nearestland in that direction was somewhere in Gaul, so it made sense tome that it had be some tribe.Maybe, I thought suddenly, we’re just farther west than either ofthem thought we were.

It was left to Motius to answer, “The onlyships that use a sail of