“Whatever you say, Senator.”
“Why didn’t you draw armor and a better helmet? The men will take you for one of the sailors.”
He smiled crookedly. “Wear a bronze shell that’ll drag me straight to the waiting arms of Poseidon if I go overboard? Not buggering likely. If I have to swim for it, I want nothing on me I can’t get rid of before I hit the water.”
“At least a decent shield then,” I suggested.
“This is the best combination for a deck fight: a little shield and a dagger or short sword. Anything bigger just gets in the way.”
“You’ll want a bigger shield when we come under arrow fire,” I insisted, nettled by his confident expertise.
“Don’t you know how to avoid arrows in a fight?” he grinned. “How?”
“Just get behind someone else.”
I gave up. “You’re the pirate.” This made me remember why I’d hired him. “How do they fight when they take a ship?”
“I wouldn’t call it fighting. More like a sheep killing. But just in case, they’re ready for one. Tangling with a fighting crew like this, they’d start with a few arrows—not many good archers among them—then javelins when the ships are in range.”
“Will they grapple?”
“Not with us. They’ll be trying to get away, remember? No loot to be had on these ships, just a bunch of them killed if they win and the survivors crucified if they lose—no incentive to come to grips in that prospect. If they have to fight, most will be armed like me. If any wear armor, it’ll just be a piece of hide hung from the neck to cover the chest and belly, maybe a plain helmet that gives them plenty of air and vision, not the bronze buckets some of your marines wear. If we grapple them, they’ll try to board first, and they’ll fight like the Furies,” he made a gesture to avert the evil one may expect from speaking that dread word, “because that’s the only way they’ll come out of it alive.”
“And if we catch them on land?”
“For a shore raid they may use heavier weapons and armor. Some of them have fought in the armies and know how to do it right. But on shore, if it looks like they’re losing, they’ll think maybe they can run and hide. They may not fight as desperately.”
“What real advantages do they have?”
He thought for a moment. “First off, numbers. You have four Liburnians. They have six to ten most times. And, ship-for-ship, their numbers are still superior because every man aboard’s a fighting man. Rowers and sailors are all armed, and all fight when boarding time comes. Your corvus and Roman boarding tactics may tip the balance, but maybe not.”
“Because their leader is a Roman and knows what to expect.” He nodded. “Spurius. He’d’ve made a good skipper in the old days when we were a floating nation.”
“Tell me about him.”
“I’ll tell you what I know, but it’s not all that much. I wasn’t close to him, not even in the same ship. I saw him on shore from time to time and sat in on the councils. Pirates aren’t organized like a navy, you know.” He spread his nostrils and took a deep breath of the sea air. “It’s a band of equals and everyone has a say. The leaders are just the toughest fighters, the best sailors, or the ones who are smartest about finding prey and getting safely away with the loot.”
“Which of those was Spurius?” I asked, fascinated by this look into a life so foreign from anything I was used to.
“Well, he’s no great seaman, as you might expect, being a Roman. But as a fighter he’s qualified to go up against the best of them, toe-to-toe, and come out with his enemy’s blood on his sword and none of his own on the ground.”
“That’s praise, coming from your mouth.”
He smiled with satisfaction. “I was taught young, and I was taught right. Anyway, some say Spurius was a Roman deserter who threw in with Spartacus and got away before the end came. I don’t know about that.”
“How old would you judge him?”
“About forty would be my guess.”
I thought about it. “The Slave War began in the consulship of Clodi-anus and Gellius twenty-one years ago and ended two years later. It’s conceivable, if he deserted as a young recruit. Anyway, go on. Tell me what he looks like.”
“Tall for a Roman, about your height, but wider built. Strong as an ox and quick as a cat. He wears a full beard and lets his hair grow long. Maybe he doesn’t want to look like a Roman, with your clean-shaven faces and short hair.”
“I don’t suppose you’d know how to distinguish our regional accents? It might help to know if he’s from Rome itself or some other part of Latium.”