I must have moved my head, because the nextthing I recall was hearing Alex’s voice as he shouted, or at leastit sounded like it, “Thank the gods! Gnaeus! Gnaeus! Can you hearme?”
“Yes,” I snapped; even as I did so, Iknew how I sounded, but it felt like Alex had just plunged awlsinto both of my ears. “You don’t have to yell.”
I opened my eyes just in time for his faceto thrust into my vision, close enough that I could see nothingelse but his broad smile, which made me feel more ashamed for myoutburst.
“What happened?” I asked him, and thegrin vanished as if it had never been there.
“The mast,” he explained. “Somehow wegot turned sideways so that the waves were coming from the side,and the force of the water was so much that it snapped themast.”
I felt myself frowning because it did notseem to make sense, and I countered, “If we turned sideways to thewaves, how did we not capsize?”
“That,” Alex answered immediately, “iswhat everyone is asking. But,” he used a hand to indicate what Irealized now was the cabin, where I was in my hammock, “as you cansee, we didn’t.”
“Maybe we did, but we’re in Hades andDis is just toying with us,” I grumbled, though I did not reallymean it.
Frankly, I was relieved; we were alive, andis there anything more important than that?
“So, what does Vellocatus say?” Iasked. “We can still move under oar power, can’t we?”
I got a hint by the sudden change in Alex’sexpression, although he clearly decided that honesty, howeverbrutal, was the best approach.
“Vellocatus is gone,” he told metersely. “He was swept overboard.”
This did not make sense to me and Iexclaimed, “But I saw him! He had a rope tied around his waist, andit was tied to the railing! There’s no way he would have been sweptaway like that.”
I cannot say that Alex became evasive, yetthere was something…vague about the way he answered.
“Cador said that the rope snapped, andbefore he could do anything, Vellocatus was gone.”
I was about to argue the point, but evenwith the sharp pain in my head, I also realized it made no realdifference, at least in the moment.
“So Cador is in command now?” Alexnodded, and I asked, “And when do we get to Ubiorum? Did we getblown off course?”
Now my defacto cousin—at least this is how I think ofhim—looked everywhere but at me, which prompted me to reach up andgrab him by the arm, not hard enough to make him wince, yet enoughto make him aware I was serious.
“What happened? What aren’t youtelling me?”
“Nothing!” he protested, but heobviously saw this would not be enough, and he amended, “At least,not much. Cador is being…closemouthed about it.” He took a breath,then said, “All I can tell you is that I’m pretty certain hedoesn’t know where we are.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, that got memoving, but when I began by swinging my legs out of the hammock, Ihad to stop, gasping from the shock of pain in my head from thesudden motion. It might sound odd, but this was the first momentwhere I thought to reach up and touch my head, or I tried to, myfingers instead encountering a heavy bandage.
“What happened to me?” Idemanded.
“I didn’t see it happen,” he replied.“I just heard. And,” his mouth turned down, “when I felt the mastcome down, I left the cabin. That’s when I found you.”
I moved more carefully, and while standingerect on the deck made my head hurt, it was bearable, although Istill took my time to collect myself. The first thing I noticed washow stable the wooden deck felt compared to how it was rolling andpitching during the storm.
“Have you talked to Saloninus?” Iasked Alex. He nodded. “How are the men? What’s thesituation?”
“Nobody got pitched overboard ordied,” he replied, “but we have six men who broke something.”Before I could form a response, he reached over to the desk,picking up a wax tablet, opening it up to read from it. “Two menhave a broken arm; one left and one right, both from the First,Servilius Caepio of the Sixth Section, and Vibius Potitus of theThird Section. Laevinas of the Eighth Section broke his ankle. Inthe Second Century, Lucius Fidenus of the Second Section broke someribs, Capito has a broken jaw.”
“That’s going to make playingthe cornu difficult,” Icommented, but when Alex did not seem to appreciate the humor, Imisunderstood why, because it had nothing to do with myformer Cornicen.
“The last one is Atellus of the TenthSection.” His expression turned grave, but I understood why when hesaid, “He broke his back and can’t feel anything below hiswaist.”
I am certain I do not have to explain thatthis is essentially a death sentence, especially for a ranker inthe Legions, because the chances are very small that they have themoney to hire someone or buy a slave to attend to their needs. Andin the case of Gaius Atellus, it was an even bitterer blow becausehe was one of the solid men of the Second Century; even in myrelatively short time commanding the Second, I had seen enough ofAtellus to know his quality and his value to the Century. As I hadlearned from my father, there are a core group of men in any givenCentury who are the bedrock for the rest of their comrades, the menthose comrades come to when they are in need, and who they look tofor guidance in hundreds of small ways. Now that I had heard Alex’sreport, I realized I could not put it off any longer, so I walked,somewhat unsteadily, to the door. When I stepped into the space, Icame to a stop, gaping up at the buckled decking running along theleft side of the ship, but it was the jagged and splintered holejust a foot from the opening at the ladder that at least partiallyexplained how I was knocked unconscious.
Obviously seeing where I was looking, Alexexplained, “When the mast fell over, the crosspiece broke free andcrashed through the deck. A piece of it splintered off and hit youin the head.
