“Not likely, Publius. Antony has spurned all of my previous summons. Perhaps he will obey, if I interrupt his debauchery in person.”
“There has to be another way, sir. Perhaps we could send another. One of the tribunes? A young gentleman would have a much better chance of getting through unnoticed.”
“Perhaps you are right, Publius.” Caesar sighed and watched as the bridge began to collapse in a shower of sparks. He then looked at the map, and said again, “Perhaps you are right.”
XVII
The fleet cruised quietly across the moonlit Adriatic. It was the second night at sea after leaving Corcyra. Aboard the Argonaut, Senator Postumus sat on a chair in his stateroom dictating a letter to Flavius who sat at a small desk lit by a single lamp. They were interrupted by one of the senator’s bodyguards who knocked on the door and announced that Postumus had a visitor.
"Why are you here?" Postumus said, as Barca crept into the cabin, appearing somewhat nervous.
The paunchy overseer did not answer, at first, but scanned the small cabin, as if to see if someone else might be there, hiding in the shadows.
“You may speak, man,” Postumus said, somewhat annoyed at the oaf’s anxiety. “There is no one here but the three of us. I would not have admitted you otherwise. Are you here to tell me that you have finally completed the task I asked of you? Is the centurion food for the sharks?”
“Forgive me, Excellency,” Barca replied humbly. “But the senator bad me do two things.”
“Did I now?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Well?” Postumus grew annoyed. “Have you completed both, or one, or none?”
“My lord asked me to do away with a former centurion, a man who now pulls an oar for this ship. Sadly, my lord, I have not yet accomplished this task. I have gone to great lengths to provoke him, but he is an obedient slave.”
“You are the chief overseer, man! I hardly think you need a reason to whip a slave to death. If you can’t incite him to strike you, then simply concoct some false reason to have him killed. I’m sure you know how to be rid of a slave that displeases you.”
“It is difficult, Excellency.”
Postumus eyed him. “Meaning, you want more money.”
Barca smiled meekly and shrugged. “But this is not the reason I have come to you tonight, Excellency. I come to report on the other task the senator has given me. I was to monitor the comings and goings of a certain female passenger, the Lady Calpurnia.”
"Yes,” Postumus sighed. “I asked you to keep your eyes open. What of her?"
“For the past two nights, at the changing of the watch, the lady has exhibited an odd behavior. She has descended into the hold and has remained there for nearly an hour before returning to her quarters. She has been alone on both occasions, leaving her handmaid in the stern cabin. On both occasions, no one has followed her into the hold, nor has anyone emerged after she has left. It is most curious, Excellency, and I thought the senator would wish to know of it.”
Postumus exchanged puzzled looks with Flavius.
“That is most curious,” Flavius said intriguingly. “You say no one else was in the hold with her during these times?”
Barca smiled, exposing his crooked teeth. “None of the lads will go down there, these days, my lord, lest they’ve got an armed guard with them.”
“Why is that?”
“They believe the lower deck is haunted, my lord. There have been some unexplained deaths down there, and it’s got men talking. They think it’s the ghost of old Admiral Bibulus come to collect his revenge.”
Flavius laughed out loud. “What a superstitious lot you sailors are.”
“If you say so, my lord.”
“Perhaps those superstitions will work to our advantage.”
“What are you thinking, Flavius?” Postumus asked, after seeing the calculating look on his adjutant’s face.
“I believe we may have an opportunity to eliminate all of our obstacles, Senator,” Flavius said. He then turned to Barca. “You say Lady Calpurnia does this every night, at the changing of the watch?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“So, it is likely she will visit the hold again tonight?”
“Very likely, my lord.”
“Then, tonight, you must do exactly as I say. You must take the centurion to the hold before the lady arrives. Shackle him and then leave. But before you leave, place the key to his shackles nearby, somewhere outside of his reach yet clearly visible. Is that understood?”
“Your instructions are clear, my lord.” Barca appeared hesitant. “It is just that…”
“What is it, man? Surely, you do not believe the hold is haunted?”
“No, my lord, it isn’t that. It’s just that the senator mentioned more money, and I thought perhaps -“
“You are a scoundrel, overseer,” Postumus interrupted, and then nodded to Flavius.
Flavius unlocked a chest and then produced a small bag which he tossed casually onto the table. The clinking of metal and the weighty sound lit a fire in the overseer’s eyes.
“Will that be sufficient?” Postumus asked. “There is more silver there than you might see in a year.”
“It is most generous, Excellency.” The overseer could not help but grin with delight.
“Then go,” Postumus said, dismissing him. “And be sure you do exactly as you have been told!”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“You wish it to appear as though the centurion attacked her?” Postumus asked Flavius, after the overseer had left the cabin.
“Precisely, my lord. I will take your guards with me. We shall use a dagger to kill the centurion, and then strangle the woman and leave the weapon in her hand.”
“Good. Once they are dead, we can finally clean up this mess Bibulus has made for us.” Postumus smiled.
“But, Senator, will not Admiral Libo suspect something?”
“He will, or he won’t. It makes no difference. I am convinced he knows nothing of this. When the bodies of Calpurnia and the centurion are discovered, he will certainly guess something is amiss, but you will arrange it such that the evidence speaks for itself.”
“And when we meet with Antony?” Flavius asked skeptically. “What will the admiral do then?”
“He will follow orders, like all good soldiers do,” Postumus replied assuredly. “He will do as I tell him, believing it is the will of the Senate.” Postumus then chuckled to himself as he took a sip of wine.
“What is it, Senator?”
“I was just thinking, Flavius, how ironic it all is. If all goes as planned, this half-baked scheme of Bibulus’s, which he undoubtedly envisioned would cause our ruin, might very well leave us in control of the entire empire.”
XVIII
Calpurnia crept carefully in the darkness, listening and watching. She moved along a narrow walkway suspended above the black, knee-deep water sloshing in the bilge. Above her and all around her, the ship creaked with every tilt of the rocking hull. Stacked crates, casks, and amphorae were tightly lashed along both sides of the walkway. She was deep within the heart of the ship, where light did not penetrate, where the Argonaut carried all of the stores necessary to keep a one hundred fifty foot, three-decked warship, and its seven hundred-man crew at sea for weeks on end. There was even a small pen where a dismal group of swine rooted in the dark, awaiting their turn on the butcher’s block.
The small lamp burned dimly in her hand, its light seemingly swallowed up by the black voids around her. More than once, she had been startled by the sudden appearance of a scurrying rat, whose wiry-haired shadow was amplified to ten times its normal size by a trick of the light.
She had no reason to be afraid, she kept telling herself. She had ventured down into the dark hold two nights in a row now, under the strident belief that rats were not the only inhabitants of this dank, seldom visited place. Somewhere, in the vast compartment that stretched off into the darkness before her – somewhere in one of the hundreds of cavernous chambers formed by the spine and ribs of the ship – she would find him. He had to be here. She was certain of it.