The Emperor Series Books 1-4. Conn Iggulden

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       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      Marcus looked out onto the Mediterranean Sea and breathed in the warm air, heavy with salt. After a week at sea, boredom had set in. He knew every inch of the small trading vessel and had even helped in the hold, counting amphorae of thick oil and ebony planking transported from Africa. For a while, his interest had been kindled by the hundreds of rats below the decks and he spent two days crawling to their nests in the darkness, armed with a dagger and a marble paperweight stolen from the captain's cabin. After throwing dozens of the little bodies overboard, they had learned to recognise his smell or his careful tread, retreating into crevices deep in the wood of the ship the moment he set foot on the ladder below.

      He sighed and watched the sunset, still awed by the colours of the sinking sun out at sea. As a passenger, he could have stayed in his cabin for the whole journey, as Renius seemed determined to do, but the tiny, cramped space offered nothing in terms of amusement and Marcus had quickly come to use it only to sleep.

      The captain had allowed him to stand watch and he had even tried his hand at controlling the two great steering oars at the back, or what he had learned to call the stern, but his interest soon paled.

      ‘Another couple of weeks of this will kill me,’ he muttered to himself, using his knife to cut his initials into the wooden rail. A scuffling noise sounded behind him, but he didn't turn, just smiled and kept watching the sunset. There was silence and then another noise, the sort a small body might make if it was shifting for comfort.

      Marcus spun and launched his knife underarm, as Renius had once taught him. It thudded into the mast and quivered. There was a squeak of terror and a flash of dirty white feet in the darkness as something scuttled deeper into shadow, trying too hard to be silent.

      Marcus strolled over to the knife and freed it with a wrench. Sliding it back into the waist sheath, he squinted into the blackness.

      ‘Come out, Peppis, I know you're in there,’ he called. He heard a sniff. ‘I wouldn't have hit you with the knife, it was just a joke. Honestly.’

      Slowly, a skeletal little boy emerged from behind some sacking. He was filthy almost beyond belief and his eyes were wide with fear.

      ‘I was just watching you,’ Peppis said, nervously.

      Marcus looked more closely at him, noticing a small crust of dried blood under his nose and a purple bruise over one eye.

      ‘Have the men been beating you again?’ he said, trying to make his voice friendly.

      ‘A little, but it was my fault. I tripped on a rope and pulled a knot undone. I didn't mean to but Firstmate said he would teach me to be clumsy. I'm already clumsy, though, so I said I didn't need no teaching and then he knocked me about.’ He sniffed again and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a silvery trail.

      ‘Why don't you run away at a port?’ Marcus asked.

      Peppis puffed his chest out as far as it would go, revealing his ribs like white sticks under his skin.

      ‘Not me. I'm going to be a sailor when I'm older. I'm learning all the time, just by watching the men. I can tie ever so many knots now. I could have retied that rope today if Firstmate woulda let me, but he didn't know that.’

      ‘Do you want me to have a word with the … first mate? Tell him to stop the beatings?’

      Peppis turned even paler and shook his head. ‘He'd kill me if you do, maybe this trip or maybe on the way back. He's always saying if I can't learn to be a sailor, he'll put me over the side some night when I'm sleeping. That's why I don't sleep in my bunk, but out here on the decks. I move around a lot so he won't know where to find me if he thinks it's time.’

      Marcus sighed. He felt sorry for the little boy, but there was no simple answer to his problems. Even if the first mate were quietly put over the side himself, Peppis would be tortured by the others. They all took part and the first time Marcus had mentioned it to Renius, the old gladiator had laughed and said there was one like him on every ship of the sea. Even so, it galled Marcus to have the boy hurt. He had never forgotten what it was like to be at the mercy of bullies like Suetonius and he knew that if he had built the wolf trap, and not Gaius, he would have dropped rocks in and crushed the older boy. He sighed again and stood up, stretching tired muscles.

      Where would he have ended up if Gaius' parents hadn't looked after him and brought him up? He could very easily have stowed away on a trade ship and have been in just the sort of horrible position Peppis found himself. He would never have been trained to fight or defend himself and lack of food would have made him weak and sickly.

      ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you won't let me help you with the sailors, at least let me share my food with you. I don't eat much anyway and I've been sending some of it back, especially in rough water. All right? You stay there and I'll bring you something.’

      Peppis nodded silently and, a little cheered, Marcus went below decks to his cramped cabin to fetch the cheese and bread left for him earlier. In truth, he was hungry, but he could go without and the little boy was practically starved to death.

      Leaving Peppis to chew on the food, Marcus wandered back to the steering oars, knowing that the first mate took a turn about СКАЧАТЬ