Master of Rome. John Stack

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СКАЧАТЬ moved to the side of the deck and rubbed his hand across the rail, his fingers finding and tracing the outline of a crack in the weathered pine. Eighty galleys saved. Over three hundred lost, amongst them the Concordia. Atticus scowled darkly as he observed that the majority of the surviving ships were Carthaginian galleys captured at Cape Hermaeum, the absence of a corvus giving them a vital advantage during those first chaotic minutes when the squall line overtook the fleet.

      The storm had lasted for four long hours and, by the time it had finally ended, the sea had claimed close to a hundred thousand men. It was a staggering figure, and Atticus could not grasp the amount, a figure twenty times the population of his home city of Locri.

      ‘We’re ready to sail, Prefect,’ Baro said, and Atticus turned and nodded his assent, his eye drawn to the open welt on Baro’s face. As the second-in-command turned away, Atticus unconsciously fingered the scar on his jaw line, tracing the old wound as he had the crack on the side rail of the Orcus. His hand fell away as he saw Septimus approach.

      ‘We’re ready to go,’ Atticus said.

      The centurion nodded. ‘Homeward bound,’ he said, savouring the words, although there was little joy in his voice. ‘How long will it take?’

      ‘We have to take the long way around, past Syracuse,’ Atticus said. ‘A little over a week if the weather holds.’

      ‘If the weather holds?’ Septimus said icily. ‘Surely the cursed gods have already taken enough?’

      Atticus nodded, sharing his friend’s anger at Poseidon’s feckless slaughter, although his anger also ran deeply for another reason.

      Gaius called for steerage speed and the Orcus got under way, her bow turning slowly in the inner harbour. Atticus glanced over the aft-rail to the temples overlooking the city. They were magnificent to behold, built when the city was under Greek control nearly two hundred years before, and he looked to each in turn, the temples of Zeus and Hercules, the ruins of the temple of Juno, burned by the Carthaginians when they sacked the city, and finally the temple of Concordia, the goddess of harmony.

      Atticus stared at the last temple for a moment and then looked away in contempt. The storm had wiped out the Classis Romanus, but Atticus knew their fate had been sealed days before when Paullus had arrogantly dismissed his warnings. The Romans were a proud people. In some that pride had developed into a deep sense of honour – Atticus instinctively glanced at Septimus – but in others it had festered to become a deep-rooted conceit that fed their arrogance. It was this trait that Atticus had come to loathe, one he had encountered too many times in the men who commanded him.

      The shout went up for standard speed as the Orcus cleared the lines of anchored ships and the galley sped towards the mouth of the harbour, the swell increasing as the protective headlands gave way to the open sea. Atticus looked to the four points of his ship, the sky clear on all horizons, and he ordered the course change, committing Orcus to the journey.

      Ahead to the southeast lay the coast of Syracuse, and beyond, to the north, the Straits of Messina. Once clear of the channel they would sail with Italy on their flank and their destination dead ahead, a city built on the pride that defined its people and ruled by men who had chosen one or other of the roads from led from that virtue. Given the grave news that the Orcus was carrying, of the destruction of the fleet, Atticus knew, as the senior surviving officer, he would have to stand before the leaders of the Republic. With Regulus in Carthaginian hands and Paullus in Pluto’s, he could not know who awaited him in Rome.

      Scipio remained seated as the debate ended, and for a moment his view was obscured by the senators around him as they stood up and moved to the floor. They began to congregate in small groups, the junior members gravitating around the senior, nodding sagaciously as their mentors made obvious points regarding the loss of the army in Africa. Scipio leaned forward and watched Duilius leave the chamber alone, noting his rival’s purposeful stride, the inherent determination and independence that set him apart from the verbose, inconsequential men of the Senate.

      Scipio respected that characteristic in his opponent, for it was one he believed was central to his own survival and success; looking out over the floor of the Senate, he silently mocked the lesser men in the chamber, men who grouped together for mutual sponsorship and confidence. Scipio had long ago realized that the Roman Senate was essentially an assembly of individuals. There were no permanent party lines, and even the current factions would be transitory at best, alliances of convenience forged by members of the Senate to serve their own needs.

      Scipio had no allies, only confederates, temporary accomplices he used to achieve his own personal agenda – and therein lay the true test of his ability to deceive. These men were never his equal, but if handled incorrectly former accomplices could become enemies, their hostility unleashed at the discovery that they had been used as the means for another’s end. Regulus was one such man, a senator Scipio had raised from obscurity to senior consul, but in a moment of unguarded fury he had revealed his motives and Regulus had defied him.

      On the day Scipio vowed to avenge Regulus’s betrayal, he also swore to learn from his mistake, and his subsequent control of Paullus’s nomination and election had been meticulous, the senior consul never realizing the true identity of his patron. Scipio’s plan had been simple: to topple Regulus, remove him from command of the expeditionary army and replaced him with Paullus, but the proconsul enjoyed significant support in the Senate, his victory at Ecnomus trumpeted at every opportunity by his former junior consul, Longus, a pawn of Duilius. So Scipio’s efforts in Rome had been thwarted.

      He had thereafter engineered the vote to send Paullus to Sicily, hoping the new senior consul, free from the immediate restraints of the Senate, would forcefully wrestle the initiative from Regulus; but again he had been frustrated as Paullus continued to timidly defer to the Senate’s will.

      Now, however, Fortuna’s wheel had turned. Scipio’s impassive expression hid an inward smile as he observed the worried faces of his fellow senators, their anxiety creating a palpable tension in the Senate chamber that fed Scipio’s satisfaction. They bemoaned the defeat of Regulus, but Scipio saw it only as a victory: Paullus had finally been granted the opportunity to intervene directly in Africa, to stamp his authority on the campaign. The senior consul had grabbed it with both hands in a belated display of courage and conviction.

      For the first time in months, Scipio was confident that his underlying plan was moving forward once more. If Paullus could conclude his tenure with a victory over the Carthaginians, then the faction that bred him would be strengthened, and consequently Scipio would be a step closer to his ultimate goal. He had chosen Paullus carefully, selecting a man with the right balance of ambition, arrogance and nescience and, although for a time Paullus’s timidity had disappointed Scipio, it now seemed the senior consul was rising to his expectations.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Atticus stood on the foredeck of the Orcus as the galley cut a path through the teeming waters of Ostia, his gaze ranging over the entire harbour. The sight never failed to overawe him, the multitude of ships competing for space, the sprawling docks consuming the cargo of each vessel as fast as it could be unloaded, the traders frantically trying to feed the insatiable appetite of the city twelve miles away.

      The trading ships came from all corners of the Mediterranean, the origin of many of them easily distinguishable by the type of craft or the men who sailed them, while others were more anonymous, bireme galleys and sailing barges that were common to every port. Despite the war, the traders recognized few boundaries, and some of the ships that were docking in Ostia had sailed from ports in the Carthaginian Empire only days before, bringing untraceable cargoes that were swiftly exchanged for the faithless denarius. The Roman authorities had СКАЧАТЬ