spewing up the rest of the oarsmen despite anything the officers could do. The coxswain's drum could be heard banging furiously over the shouts.
Gaius clutched the agent's wrist in a grip that made the older man wince. 'Aulus!' the young courier cried, 'what are they doing? We're all right! We're not sinking!'
Got a hundred seamen who'd argue with you, Perennius thought. He was not quite bitter enough at his friend's incipient hysteria to say that out loud, however. Everyone had his own terror. Gaius had hidden his own so well in the past that when it broke out, it was the most irritating, a trusted prybar that suddenly snapped.
Perennius' eyes wandered toward the heap of canvas. It covered the ballista and perhaps the shards and coals of the amphora which had held the fire. Unbanked, scattered, the coals must have gone out by now. Must have. 'Whatever it is,' the agent said in a voice that reserved judgment, 'we'll deal with it.' He used his free hand to release the other from his protege's grip. There was nothing clearly useful to be doing. Even the sailors, once they had swarmed from the rowing chamber, only milled around on deck babbling prayers. 'Blazes,' Perennius muttered, and he climbed down the ladder that had just passed the rowers upward.
When the agent had jumped down to get the fire and oil, the belly of the ship had been full of men and sound.
Now the only men were two officers, the coxswain and Leonidas himself. They were stumbling forward, over the litter of broken benches and the oar handles which swung slowly as the waves levered at their blades. That flaccid creaking was not the only sound below, however. There was also the gurgling rush of water.
The Eagle was decked at about her normal full-load waterline, a little more than two feet above the keel and bottom-planking. There was no proper hold. The liburnian's only cargo was her rowing complement on its two-tiered benches. The bilges had filled within hours of the ship's return to the water, because her seams had opened during the years she was laid up. After the hull planking had swelled, that dangerous flow had subsided to a seepage that kept waste in the bilges wet enough to slosh and stink but which no longer threatened the life of the ship.
The oar deck stood in water forward. The flow was not only in sheets through started seams, but also in an angry geyser around the cook's stores. Part of the bow must have been staved in. The Germans whose flesh had greased the outer hull would shortly have their revenge.
'Pollux, captain!' moaned the coxswain, 'we are sinking. Pollux, how could you ram us into them when you knew the hull was rotten as punk? Oh, Castor and Pollux, favor a seaman who - '
'Shut up!' snarled Leonidas. The Tarantine still wore his sword. Its sheath had worked around to his back like a shagreen tail. 'We'll rig the sail over the bows to slow the leaking, then we'll pull for shore. Land can't be more than just over the horizon.'
Water gurgled and curled at his insteps. It was well up on Perennius' shins. The agent could see that the bottom rung of the companion ladder was about to go under.
The coxswain broke. His sandals splashed, then squelched, as he ran toward the aft hatch along the upper tier of benches.
'Well, what else can we do, then?' Leonidas screamed at his retreating back. The captain turned, cursing in polyglot. Then he sprang past Perennius and up the ladder. The agent could see the tears in Leonidas' eyes.
Perennius climbed the ladder after the captain, but only in a physical sense was he following Leonidas now. The agent recalled how blithely he had bounded up and down through the hatchway less than an hour before. Well, the almighty Sun knew the same two inches of iron could have stiffened more of him than one thigh.
Leonidas was giving loud orders and gesturing at the sail with his sword. He seemed to have drawn the weapon to cut entangling cordage, but the gestures became increasingly brusque as men ignored him. A deck crewman, then two others, moved to help. The bulk of the crowd now on deck was rowers. On duty, they had had too little contact with Leonidas to respond to him as an officer when they were shaken with panic.
Both Gaius and Calvus waited at the hatch for the agent. They bent together, each supporting Perennius beneath one elbow and lifting him back on deck smoothly. If you can't have two good legs, the agent thought wryly, be a cripple with friends. Blazes.
He put a hand on the waist of either man and shooed them ten feet down the deck where there was less congestion of men working or babbling in fear. 'Sestius!' he called, knowing that when the centurion joined, Sabellia would come also. The agent did not want to use the Gallic woman's name, did not want to think about her - did not want her to become separated.
Sestius strode to them promptly. He had been lending a clumsy hand to Leonidas and his sailors. The centurion's face was flushed even darker than usual. 'Sir,' he said, 'we're going to wrap the sail over the bow like a bandage. That'll stop the water coming in until we can make proper repairs on - '
'At ease!' Perennius said sharply. Blazes, they were all coming loose. Maybe he was himself and he just didn't realize it. Sabellia watched from beyond the centurion's shoulder. Her hand was tight on her knife hilt, another response to tension when its cause was unapproachable. 'We're going to leave the ship, now,' the agent said to the faces bending close to his. 'We're going to use this grating - ' he touched a boot to the wooden grate displaced from the forward ventilator - 'as a float, and
we're going to kick it and paddle it along all night if we have to until we reach land.'
Both Gaius and Sestius started to speak. 'Aulus, we can't - ' blurted out with, 'Sir, the sail will - '
Both reactions were expected. 'At ease!' Perennius snarled. He glared at the two military men. By god, he might not be able to lead men or organize them, but he could damned well make a small group listen while he spoke! 'We can do it, and we are going to do it,' he said fiercely to the panic which did not quite rule Gaius' face. 'Because the whole hull is cracking, and that sail isn't going to do a damned thing for the big hole in the bow anyway. Now, get your armor off and your boots. Move!'
The order gave both men what they needed, a raft of hope on which their minds could float. Only Perennius himself had to worry about their real chances of paddling a fucking grate the gods knew -
'Land seems to be about seven miles off, Aulus Perennius,' the bald man said. 'The currents are a question, of course, but I was raised for strength - ' he smiled - 'as you know.'
'Blazes, we're going to get through this,' the agent said. Gaius and the centurion were fumbling at buckles. Their fingers were swollen by the shock of recent battle. 'I said we would, didn't I?' Gods, Calvus had learned to smile like a human; and he, Aulus Perennius, was making jokes about his own sense of duty. 'What is the land?' he asked aloud. 'Cyprus or the mainland? I haven't much cared in the past so long as the seamen were satisfied; and I don't think this is the time to ask.'
Two of Leonidas' men had dropped over the side. They were clinging to the hawsers they would try to run beneath the keel. The stern of the Eagle swung in the breeze. It rose noticeably higher from the sea than did the bow, so that it caught more of the wind now that they were not under sail.
'I don't know either,' the traveller said. He gestured westward again. 'The - heat of the air currents rising shows that there is land, but I don't know which land. I have many abilities, Aulus Perennius, but not many skills. Strength doesn't make me a trained warrior, and seeing farther into the - seeing light when others cannot, let me put it that way - doesn't teach me geography.'
'Help me,' called Sabellia.
Sestius and the agent reacted with equal cold-eyed promptitude. 'Mine, by the Lord,' muttered a seaman in Syriac. Perennius rabbit-punched him, spilling the man down on his side before he could snatch at the amphora Sabellia was trying to raise through the ventilator.
The crew was expected to buy their food each evening when the ship was beached. There was a quantity of emergency stores, however, grain and wine, for times when they made land after dark or a storm prevented proper foraging. Those stores were still stowed below between the benches. The fact had been forgotten by men to whom the rowing chamber had become a place of fear and rising water. While the men of her own party were preoccupied, Sabellia had slid down through the vent and had manhandled free an amphora of wine. Sheer determination did not, however, give her the strength to lift the awkward five-gallon container over her head unaided.
'Take the jar,' Perennius said to the centurion. There was already a movement of men toward the container. Some crewmen started to slip below to get their own. Leonidas cried out in fury. The agent ignored him. He bent at the waist, offering his left hand to Sabellia when Sestius had snatched the amphora up by its ears. With her weight on his good leg, Perennius lifted her. He shouted, 'More wine below! Enough for all of us!' Under his breath, he added to the man and woman, 'Now, let's get the hell out of here.'
The sea was growing darker now. The sky was still clear and seemingly bright, but the individuals of the
