Legionary(7)

Why will you not allow me to forget? Must I do more for you?

Only a stinging spray of saltwater offered any form of reply. He took off his helmet, shaking the water from the black plume, then smoothed at his grey-flecked peak of hair. He turned from the prow to look over the deck and his men. Their faces were untroubled. They jibed and joked. They still had the gift of the soldier’s skin, he thought. That tough callus that grew over a legionary’s heart soon after his first taste of bloodshed and loss. They might need it, he thought, the dark cloud of the missing escort galley still hovering in his thoughts.

At that moment, his gaze fell on a lone figure at the stern. Pavo. The young optio had been a mere recruit only a year or so previously. Crucially, he had been one of the few that had survived the treacherous events in the time since. He noticed that Pavo looked to the eastern horizon, lost in thought like a reflection of himself only moments ago. The young optio toyed with the bronze medallion hung around his neck. Gallus knew of the lad’s conviction that the piece was some link to his father.

‘Aye, we all seek answers,’ he muttered to himself. Realising he was close to smiling, he gripped the idol of Mithras tightly once more, tucked it away in his purse and grimaced, turning to face forward once again. ‘Perhaps the east will offer us both . . . ’ his words trailed off.

Squinting and shading his eyes from the sun, he saw something in the waves between their fleet and a limestone cove on the coast. It was a liburnian – a swift vessel with a solitary mast and a single bank of oars. The sail was sun-bleached and dyed with red, vertical stripes. There was something splashing, thrashing wildly in the vessel’s wake. The crew seemed to be crowded around the stern, cheering and whooping. Gallus frowned and then his nose wrinkled as he saw what they dragged behind the boat. A man, bound at the wrists. His body was stained red with wounds, and the crew were throwing cuts of bloody meat into the surrounding water. The man’s distant screams were harrowing, and Gallus soon realised why. Dark, shining humps split the water’s surface near the thrashing man. Then fins and thrashing tails. Next, the surface erupted as a blacktip shark burst from the depths. Its jaws stretching wide to reveal a ridged, pink throat lined with dagger-like teeth. In an instant, the jaws clamped down upon the tethered wretch. This cut the screaming short as blood pumped into the air and the water turned crimson. A cheer erupted before another poor soul was led up to the stern of the vessel. His wrists were shackled, and he wore a blood-spattered, off-white tunic hemmed with purple – legionary issue. The man puffed his chest out in defiance and spat some curse at his captors, drawing raucous laughter from them. The crew pulled in the rope from the sea and looped the frayed and bloodied end around the man’s shackles.

‘No! Pirates?’ Felix said, sidling up next to him.

‘Aye, Cretans, I’d wager. And that,’ he stabbed a finger at the crippled hull of a Roman bireme dashed against the rocks near the edge of the cove, pirates scurrying across its remains to salvage its cargo, ‘was the escort vessel we were supposed to meet in Rhodos.’ He nodded to the man in chains at the stern of the liburnian. ‘And that poor bastard,’ Gallus continued as the crew kicked the shackled man from the ship and into the sea, ‘is the last of her crew.’ Blood spray and tortured screaming followed, and both men looked away, sickened.

‘Look, there’s another liburnian,’ Zosimus added, stabbing a finger between Gallus and Felix, pointing to the cove. Sure enough, hidden by a protective arm of rock, another of the nimble pirate warships rested, its bow anchored on a stretch of white sand.

Gallus’ skin prickled. Centurion Quadratus’ trireme was far behind – barely a dot in the western horizon, and they could not risk facing these two light and lithe pirate liburnians alone. He sucked in a breath to give the order to turn round, but another cry cut him off.

‘Mithras, they’ve seen us!’ Noster shrieked.

A lone figure high up on the seaborne liburnian’s mast was waving and crying out, one hand pointing right at the Roman trireme. The men on deck instantly leapt into action, rushing to man the oars and adjust the rigging. Likewise, the train of men on the shore of the cove dropped their cargo and rushed to the beached liburnian, readying to launch it.

Gallus’ eyes narrowed on the liburnian as it tacked round under oar until the wind filled its sails. At once, the oars were withdrawn and the nimble vessel cut through the waves, headed straight for the lone Roman trireme. He glanced to the gradually growing form of Quadratus’ ship – still too far away to aid them, then swept his gaze across his men, meeting the eyes of every one of them.