All I can say in my defense is that I hadnever heard the word “pirates” roaming anywhere near the Germanicor Gallic coast, so it took longer for this to register than itshould have, although still I was not all that worried; yes, I hadtwo under-strength Centuries, but I felt certain that simplyarraying some of them on the deck armored and with their shieldswould dissuade the most ambitious pirate ship.
“Another sail!” Then, even before wecould react, “Two more!”
I know that is pointless to speculate, butgiven what lay in the future, I have wondered if we had the mastand the ability to see farther that the height of it gave us, if wecould have come up with something a bit better than what we wereforced to do. Before a count of fifty could elapse, we wereconfronted by six ships, arrayed in a semicircular arc that,putting it simply, had us outflanked on both sides and blocked ourpath, but it was Motius who reacted quickest.
“Hard about! Brace yourself!” He wasshouting this even as he threw himself against the steering oar,and the rear of the ship slewed sideways. To Cador, he bellowed,“Tell Mandus full speed rhythm, now!”
I cannot fault how quickly Cador moved,vanishing below even as I was forced to grab the railing that linedthe upper deck as I felt the ship tilting under my feet. It took acouple of heartbeats for the sudden shift in direction at the sternto start swinging the bow around as we began our attempt to escape,and once it felt a bit steadier, I hurried over to Motius.
“What do you want us to do? Should Iarm the men and make them ready to repel boarders?”
He looked at me in surprise.
“Have any of your men fought fromshipboard, Centurion?”
“No,” I admitted.
“It is not the same as a fight onland,” he explained, although his eyes never left what I took to bethe most proximate threats, the two ships that had been to our mostimmediate right, or to the west who were only then beginning toreact to our sudden turn in their direction. “If you armor yourmen, they are as likely to go down to the bottom when they try toleap onto their ships. Do they know how to fight without it?” Myinitial reaction was to snarl at him that of course they knew howto fight no matter whether they wore their segmentata or not, but Motius was not through.“Those shields you carry are too big as well. There is just notenough room.”
There was another lurch then, but Ihad heard the sudden increase of the Hortator’s drum an instant before, so I wasprepared for the resulting acceleration. The pause gave me time toconsider Motius’ words, and while I did not like it, I could notdeny that he was right; my men would be willing to fight, but atwhat cost to them? I had already lost a fair number againstArminius, and while I prayed that our wounded had made it throughthe storm and might even be safely back at Ubiorum, I was facedwith the idea of having to rebuild two Centuries from just ahandful of survivors.
“Then what can we do?”
“I have an idea,” he replied quickly.“But first, we need to try and get some space.”
Because of our relatively low vantage point,I could only see the sails, but I was informed by Motius that theships pursuing us had at most two banks of oars. Under normalconditions, this would have given us an advantage, for the simplereason that three banks of oars are better than two, but this waswhere the loss of our mast negated that advantage. Thankfully,Motius’ almost instantaneous reaction seemed to have caught what weassumed were pirates by surprise judging by how the bow of our shipsuddenly seemed pointed at a spot outside the oncoming path of theoutermost ship.
Encouraged by this, I commented, “It lookslike we’ll be able to outrun them.”
The look he gave me was scornfully amused,and he shook his head.
“No, Centurion, I have bought us sometime, but that is all. They are going to catch us beforenightfall.”
It was not so much that I doubted him,because just in the short watches of our deeper association, he hadimpressed me, but I could not hide my skepticism.
“How can you be so sure?”
Rather than respond verbally, he pointeddirectly ahead, but I mistook his intent, because I looked beyondthe prow of the ship, and seeing only water, I shook my head.
“We have no mast, Centurion,” he saidquietly. “And no matter how hard we whip those slaves below, theyare men, and they will tire. And,” he allowed, “the same is truefor our pursuers, but…”
“They have sails and the wind at theirbacks,” I groaned, and Motius simply nodded as he kept his eye onthe nearest ship, which was now off our left side, and to myinexpert eye, it appeared as if the bow of their ship was more orless even with our stern.
Now that I understood, I saw that he wasright. As matters stood, this ship, the one closest to us, couldclose on us or keep up with us, but could not do both. By closingthe gap to get closer to us side by side, they would end up what Icould only guess would be several furlongs behind us. Motius hadchosen to flee in a direction where only part of the force of sixvessels even had a chance to catch us…until our crew becameexhausted. It was as I was thinking about this that it came to me,so I walked closer to Motius to offer my idea because there weretoo many of my men still up on deck, and although their attentionwas on our pursuers, I still did not want to risk it. He listenedattentively, but his reaction was not what I anticipated; no, I didnot expect him to shout for joy and hail me as Imperator, but I wasnot prepared for him to only rub his chin, frowning in thought.
“That,” he finally said, “sounds likeit might work,” I was about
