The Eagles Prophecy

'Yes, sir.'

'Come. We need to talk. In my tent.'

The prefect turned and walked back towards the gate of the fortified camp, and Cato followed. Inside the camp the rows of tents stretched out each side of the main thoroughfare. Most were the usual goatskin, but a number of them were made from linen and heavily stained and worn leather, and Cato realised that they were cut from old sails to make good those lost. Men were sitting in front of their tents, and they jumped up to salute as the two officers passed by. Cato saw the tense and worn expressions in their faces and wondered what had happened in his absence.

As they reached the tents of the fleet's headquarters, erected on a slight mound in the heart of the camp, a light breeze lifted the flaps and Cato savoured its coolness. Then the smell hit him: the sharp acrid smell of burned fat, hanging across the camp even in the faint breeze blowing offshore. Vitellius glanced round as they entered the largest of the tents, and caught Cato's puzzled expression.

'It's the funeral pyres. We cremated the dead a few days ago.'

Cato glanced up at the prefect and noted, to his surprise, that Vitellius seemed to have been moved by the fate of his men. Or was it simply the inconvenience their deaths had caused him?

The prefect grimaced. 'It was quite a sight. And there'll be more. We lost another eight men in the night. One of them didn't stop screaming right until the end. Between that and the raids we've not had much rest.'

'Raids, sir?'

'Oh, yes,' Vitellius smiled wearily. 'Our friends have kept up the pressure. Three days back they landed some men further up the coast. They've been picking off our sentries and foraging parties with slingshot. Every time I send out a detachment to chase them down, they turn and run for the hills. In fact, your friend Macro's out hunting for them right now. I didn't even have to ask him to volunteer.'

'I can imagine, sir.'

'At the same time they've tried a few cutting-out expeditions: sending in a few small boats at night to try and snatch one of the triremes.' Vitellius gestured vaguely towards the sky as he slumped down on a couch; one of the luxuries he had brought with him from Ravenna.'We've been lucky with the moonlight the last few days, and seen them in time to drive them off. But the next few nights are going to be darker. And then…' He shook his head.

Cato felt the dead weight of exhaustion and despair settle on his shoulders. The prefect had done nothing to take the fight to the pirates then. He had just sat inside the fortifications and passed the initiative to Telemachus.

'What about your plan, sir?'

'Plan?'

'To patrol the coast. Find their base.'

'That's in hand. I sent six of the triremes up the coast the day after we landed. They didn't find anything. The coast here is a mass of small islands and inlets. You could hide the Misene fleet in these waters for years without anyone discovering a single ship. It's hopeless.'

Cato kept silent and regarded the prefect closely. Vitellius was clearly at his wits' end. With the defeat at sea, and now the operation stalled on land, the situation must look bleak indeed to the ambitious aristocrat. Behind everything else that was going on lay the retrieval of the scrolls. Cato was wholly aware that his future and that of Vitellius depended on finding the scrolls and making sure that they were safely delivered into the hands of Narcissus. But whereas the prefect might suffer a fall from grace if they failed to find the scrolls, the consequences for Cato, and Macro, would be far more deadly. The prefect had to be persuaded, or provoked, into going on the attack.

Besides, Cato reasoned with himself, the stakes were high for others as well. The men under Vitellius' command needed a victory. The enemy must not be allowed to whittle them down. If the worst happened and the Ravenna fleet was defeated, then the whole of the Adriatic could be pillaged by the pirates, and it would take months to gather another fleet strong enough to defeat them. Thousands more lives would be lost, scores of ports and settlements sacked and few merchant vessels would dare to leave port. Trade, the lifeblood of the Roman economy, would be choked off; strangled just as effectively as Cato would be at the hands of one of the executioners of the Praetorian Guard. Cato winced at the unpleasant thought. Very well then, his fate was linked directly to that of Rome. For that reason he must convince Vitellius to act swiftly. For everyone's sake.

He coughed, clearing his throat.

Vitellius looked up, raising an eyebrow. 'Yes?'

'Sir, it's the scrolls. We have to get them.'

'Tell me something I don't know, Centurion.'

'Well, we can't get them if we just wait here, sir. We… you have to do something. We can't just let them bottle us up in this camp and bide their time. Right now, we must outnumber them. We have more men, more ships-'

'For now,' Vitellius cut in bitterly.'But it'll be dark tonight, and every night until the next moon. You can be sure they'll be coming back for another attempt on our ships.'

There was a sudden thrill of activity in Cato's mind. Ideas rushed to the front of his consciousness, and possibilities and the consequences of possibilities flowed in a torrent of thoughts. Very soon, he had the outline of a plan – a small plan, to be sure – but one that would wrest the initiative back from the pirates, and mark the first step in setting the men of the Ravenna fleet back on the offensive. Cato looked across to the prefect, his eyes bright with an excitement he found impossible to repress.

'Well then, sir,' Cato smiled, 'let 'em come. In fact, let's make sure they come. Let's offer them some bait they can't refuse.'

06 The Eagles Prophecy

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

'This was not a good idea,' Macro growled as he squinted into the darkness. Over the side of the ship they could hear the waves breaking gently on the shingle some distance away. The black mass of the arms of the small bay they had chosen for the ambush stretched out around them. Away from the land, the sky and sea blurred together into a forbidding gloom.

'Can hardly see a bloody thing,' Macro continued.

'That's the whole idea,' Cato replied patiently. 'It'll work in our favour. Trust me.'

Cato could just make out the weary look on his friend's face as they sat on the deck. All around them marines were sitting in strict silence against the sides of the bireme, weapons close to hand. Linen side screens had been erected around the deck to give the ship the profile of a merchant vessel. After six days' cruising along the coast the disguise had finally lured some overeager pirates. From a distance, or in the dark, the bireme would pass for something far more innocent, and tempting, as it quietly wallowed in the gentle swell.

The only signs of life were up on the beach – a handful of campfires, around which huddled the sailors from the bireme. Two men stood sentry, dimly visible on the fringes of the light cast by the fire – the same light that would silhouette the bireme from the sea. That was what Cato was counting on. Somewhere, out to sea, stood the three ships that had shadowed the bireme during the afternoon. They had been cautious enough, hovering on the horizon, no doubt suspicious of such easy-looking prey. The bireme had played its part well enough, affecting some slovenly watch-keeping before turning away from the threat at the last moment, going cumbersomely about and fleeing from the pirates as dusk fell.

The pirates too were playing their own game, having moved away as if they had given up the chase and were sailing back up the coast. Shortly before they were out of sight Cato gave the order for the bireme to head into land, steering towards the bay he had reconnoitred the day before and decided at once that it would be suitable for his trap. A concealed battery of catapults stood close to the shore at the base of each low headland, ready to sweep the surface of the sea between them when the time came to spring the ambush. Two more biremes were anchored in the shadows of a small cliff, ready to slip their cables and row into action. If the pirates took the bait there would be little chance of escape.