When I turned to look to Saloninus, I sawVitruvius already on the bench, and in the same posture asMinucius, which meant it had worked. Barely perhaps, but it worked,which was what counted, and two more of our men, both from theFirst Section from both Centuries were already standing at thesecond bench on either side. The first slave on my side was not sofortunate, because while his comrade avoided being struck by hisbody, the man was unable to break his fall and he struck his headas he tumbled all the way to the bottom of the ship. I was onlyvaguely aware of this, noticing there was movement down in thebottom, but it was not important enough to distract me as Iexplained the process again, then Saloninus and I counted down andmy ranker dropped down onto the footboard, except this time, theslave, having seen what was expected, and I suppose not wanting tosuffer the fate of his unconscious comrade, who never woke upagain, slid off his bench in the right direction, while my rankerreplaced him. I suppose it should have occurred to me that, as themen, both Legionary and slave, saw what needed to be done, theprocess would go more smoothly each time, meaning that I wassurprised when we reached the last bench.
The second row was a bit more complicated,and we learned very quickly that dropping down from the mainwalkway was riskier, so for the second row, we had our men lowerthemselves down onto the beam that served the top row I mentionedearlier. Once this was worked out, it went as smoothly as the firsttier, but when it was time for the third, we learned that bothMotius and we officers had been correct about the lowest benchbeing the hardest, it was not because we were wrong about the ideathat one man could manage at least a stroke on his own. Honestly,it was so simple that I was ashamed we had not thought of it, and Icould tell by the look on Saloninus’ face he felt the same way.Replacing a single man sitting on a bench is straightforward, if abit tricky to do, but what happens when there are two men sittingside by side? We had replaced everyone else by having the slaveslide towards the walkway, but that was impossible with the lowestbench, for the simple reason that there would be a body in the way,whether it was the original rower or one of my men who replacedhim. Finally, we decided that we would use the method accidentallyintroduced to us by the first slave, who had been dragged out ofthe way to keep him from being underfoot, except that we would beprepared for it by putting one of the slaves who had been relievedstanding in the bottom of the ship to catch the man closest to theside of the ship and help break his fall. Once the man on theoutside was replaced, the second man was replaced in the manner wehad used for the other two rows. Then, it was done, and Saloninusand I found ourselves standing at the stern, on the very lowestlevel, and our tunics were as soaked as if we had just been fishedout of the water, but now we were faced with another problem.
“Where do we put the slaves to letthem rest?”
I did not realize I had said this aloud, butwhat was worse was my realization that we had not thought this farahead. Normally, the slaves on the top two rows used their benches,where they were forced to sleep on their backs with their legsdangling over the edge, although I had seen some who were shortenough that they could curl up on their side, while one man on thebottom row dropped down to the bottom, but none of that that waspossible now. However, as pressing as it was, I was still moreconcerned about our larger situation.
Turning to Saloninus, I tried to soften theblow by grinning as I said, “I’m sure you’ll figure out something.I,” I was already clambering up the ladder that brought me back upto the walkway, “have to go find out if we still have a chance toget away.”
Chapter Two
I was surprised to see how the sun hadnot seemed to drop all that much when I reached the upper deck,although I did pause for a moment to bring in a few large breathsof fresh air; it is a funny thing, but once you are in a place thatsmells as foul as the main compartment of a trireme packed with filthy slaves and onlyslightly less filthy Legionaries for a length of time, you cease tonotice it. The fresh air also helped clear my head and revive mesomewhat, but when I clambered up to the upper stern deck, I wasdismayed to see that our pursuers were still gaining. However, whenI expressed this to Motius, he was unconcerned, and he explainedwhy.
“With their sails, their oarsmen aresaving a little energy, so they will be able to maintain this pacefor a bit longer. But then,” at this, he did take his attentionaway from the sea ahead to glance at the sun, “they will startfalling back, and we have less than one of your watches left
