“Cheer up, Senator,” Ion said, reading my expression. “You still have your ships and your men. You’ve lost nothing but a little reputation, and you didn’t have all that much to begin with.” I sensed that he meant this kindly, but it galled me anyway.
“Why,” I said, “didn’t the rowers notice the ships were getting heavier?”
“I intend to find out. Soon as I get a look at the hulls, I’ll tell you.” Cleopatra was rowed ashore in her golden skiff, and slaves carried her onto the beach so she would not get her golden sandals wet. If she had some cutting remark prepared, she changed her mind when she saw my face.
“Gabinius did this to me,” I said to her.
“How?”
“He invited my sailors and marines to the funeral banquet, then he sent men to sabotage my ships while they were deserted. He is in collusion with Spurius. For all I know, he could be Spurius! All it would take is a wig and a false beard.”
“That is far-fetched,” she protested. “But collusion, perhaps. But why?”
“Any number of reasons, simple profit being the most obvious. He likes to live well, he has a minor army of thugs to pay, and he had a bad reputation for extortion when he was a governor. Even Cicero couldn’t get him an acquittal, so that has to say something.”
“Gabinius strikes me as the sort of man who would simply kill you if you displeased him.”
“Perhaps he’s learned subtlety out here in the East. He wants to dishonor me and perhaps humiliate my family in the process. Maybe he’s planning to go over to Pompey.”
Her eyebrows rose. “More Roman politics?”
“It gets more complicated than this, believe me. With me out of the way, he might get the Senate to appoint him governor of Cyprus. Then the island would be his to loot. It will do until I can think of a more plausible reason. But whatever the reason, Gabinius was the only man with the means. He used his friend’s funeral banquet to send me out to sea with a hung-over crew rowing leaky ships.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it is true. What will you do now?”
“First, I have to assess the damage. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the ships can be made seaworthy quickly. You may have to go back to Paphos for supplies.”
“Why don’t you go with me?”
“No, I’ll not return without my ships and my men. He’ll be waiting at the harbor with a smirk on his face. Just say publicly that my ships struck submerged rocks and have to be repaired. He’ll have to go along with it or admit his complicity.”
“Kings do more foolish things to save face. I shall do as you ask.”
Ask, I thought. So much for her being my subordinate officer.
An hour later Hermes and Ariston returned. They had seen no one save a few goatherds, and the goatherds had seen only other goatherds in the last year or more. So I had the men down arms and set to unloading the ships. This done, we dragged them ashore. Ion winced at the sound of the keels grating on the stony beach.
“Neptune will not forgive me for treating good ships like this,” he lamented. Then he examined the hulls. With a blunt finger he began prying a sodden mess of fibers from between the siding planks. He carried a handful of the repulsive stuff to me and held it up.
“This is goat hair, just like we use to caulk the seams, only they’ve mixed it with wax instead of with pitch. It’s waterproof for a while, but hard rowing and the ship working softens the wax and it gives way all at once. That’s what they did, and that’s why the rowers didn’t notice. It wasn’t a slow leak. All the seams gave way at once. It’s a miracle we didn’t just sink immediately.” In disgust he hurled the loathsome mass out to sea. “They scraped out my careful caulking with gouges and replaced it with this. We’ve a job ahead of us, Senator.”
“So it’s just a matter of recaulking the hulls? That sounds simple enough.” I looked at the animals on the rocks. “Goat hair should be no problem anyway.”
“You wouldn’t have any pitch on you, I don’t suppose?”
CLEOPATRA RETURNED TWO DAYS LATER with the needed supplies, which turned out to be considerable. I learned that you don’t just take handfuls of pitch and slap the ugly stuff onto the hulls. It has to be heated in pots first, and that takes firewood. The place where we were stranded turned out to be as denuded of trees as the Egyptian desert beyond the pyramids. Once heated, it must be mixed with goat hair and stirred, then taken out with special, paddle-shaped tools and worked carefully into the seams of the wood, then pounded in with wooden mallets. After all that, the entire hull must be sealed with a coating of pure pitch, without the hair. It takes a lot of pitch and a great deal of work.