‘Alexander the Great once captured a pirate,’ said Prince Torismond. ‘The King demanded, “How dare you molest the seas?” “In the same way that you dare molest the earth,” said the pirate. “I molest the seas in one small ship and I’m called a pirate. If I did so with a great navy, I’d be called an emperor.”’ The prince grinned broadly. ‘That’s philosophy, that is. For what are kingdoms but great bands of brigands?’
‘Very good,’ said Aetius dryly. ‘Now define “sophistry”. ’
On the fourth morning, serenely sailing a calm sea in a gentle north-westerly, coming gradually round to north into the Aegean and losing sailpower, inshore of the isle of Melos, they saw a lone ship near the northern horizon; she was coming their way. After maybe half an hour she had come much closer, though set on a course astern of theirs. She had a big, faded sail which might once have been black but was now a light, streaked grey. One of those battered, barnacled ships that show their sailors are poor and harmless. Then she turned and came towards them with surprising swiftness, and they realised that these sailors were not of the poor and harmless variety, but contemptuous of such menial chores of maintenance as scouring a ship’s decks or keeping a trim sail. Such tasks are for slaves. These were the kind of sailors who, if their ship began to split at the seams, would simply scuttle her and take another. Meanwhile, this one was of that variety which is scruffy, grimy, and very, very fast.
Rufus stood nearby. ‘Sir, you see the other ship, too? There on the horizon?’
Aetius squinted. Damn the boy. He could see nothing. ‘Describe.’
‘Another dromond. Seems to be turning bow-on towards us… sail bellying out.’
And the wind was with them. The nearer ship was now a mile off, less. She would close on them in a few minutes.
‘We could turn south with the wind and try to outrun them – maybe reach Crete.’
Aetius did not even consider such an option.
‘Hortator, double that drum! Break your backs down there, slaves! All spearmen below the fly deck, half a side, and keep yourselves out of sight till I give the word. Bring my sword up, boy. Princes Theodoric and Torismond, to me on the poop deck – bring a few bowmen. Master, keep a steady course east. Give ’em the sun in their eyes if they try to come in behind or portside. No, you bearded Cretan loon, get below! We want none of your wretched fire-balls now. We’ll call you when the fight is over.’
The princes and their best men soon appeared on deck, buckled and helmed. Aetius’ eyes narrowed at the helmet that adorned Prince Theodoric’s blond locks.
‘What in the name of Lucifer have you got on your head?’
The rest of the wolf-lords, and Torismond, wore plain enough Spangenhelms, tall domed helmets reinforced with crossbands of iron or bronze. Theodoric, however, wore a helmet set with studs of coloured glass which gleamed from the highly polished bronze. He removed it again, looking displeased.
‘It’s an inheritance of my family, always worn by the eldest son in battle.’
Aetius took it from him without asking. ‘Very pretty it looks, too. These glass settings will really help an enemy blade get a purchase with a downard blow. Cut straight in. Very handy. Why not just take off your helmet and offer him your scalp? On your knees?’
Theodoric looked sullen.
‘This is no fighting helmet, boy.’ He handed it back. ‘Get yourself a plain iron-hat with crossbands like the rest of your men.’
‘What should I do with this?’
‘That?’ Aetius grimaced. ‘You can give it to your granny as a pot to piss in, for all I care. We’re not playing toy soldiers now.’
Torismond stifled his giggles. Theodoric returned below.
The rowers were tired and aching after two weeks at the oar, but now was the time they would have to work hardest. The wind dropped further but still the silent dromonds came on. Suddenly it seemed a cruel, flat-calm, malevolent and glittering sea. ‘Wine-dark’ indeed, thought Aetius, clutching the stern-post, watching the bosun haul the big rudder round, feeling the wind desert them. Blood-dark, more like. ‘Wine-dark’ was Homer’s lyrical view of it. Blind Homer.
The nearing vessel had a single bank of oars and a mainsail, like the Cygnus, but it boasted high parapets and a solid raised deck over the rowers to protect them from incoming missiles.
The master turned to Aetius in consternation. ‘They’ll destroy us in a missile exchange. They stand much higher, as does their sister ship coming in there.’
‘Thank God it’s no battle group,’ muttered Aetius.
‘There may be squadrons in the area,’ said the master. ‘You heard what they did on the island of Zakynthos? Sent back sackfuls of heads to their king, Genseric.’
‘We’re going to Constantinople. We have business there. I trust our rowers can still get up to ramming speed?’
‘Ramming?’ growled the master. ‘You’re crazy.’
Aetius grinned, allowing him the impertinence. He knew the score. The stately, high-sided galleys of old were always vulnerable to ramming by low, skimming Liburnians and dromonds. But those sleek wolf-ships were very vulnerable to having a huge boulder dropped onto their hull, holing them instantly. Naval warfare by dromond and Liburnian nowadays was all about keeping your distance and shooting missiles, bolts, fire-arrows – those accursed fire-pots of Alexandria. Only a madman would still practise ramming as a tactic.
‘Prepare for ramming,’ he confirmed. ‘But let ’em come in close first.’
‘Then there won’t be enough distance to get up to speed.’
Aetius did not repeat orders.
‘You think like an old legionary,’ said Prince Theodoric quietly, having overcome his sulks about the helmet.
Aetius frowned. ‘Meaning?’
Thedoric looked at him respectfully but without fear. ‘Meaning, you want to get up close to your enemy, engage face to face, looking him in the eye, and stab him in the guts with your old-fashioned gladius. You think that’s how a true-hearted man fights, and you think to do the same at sea. You want to ram and hole this pair beneath the waterline, right up close. But there are two of them, and they stand higher than us. Ram one and you will get stuck yourself. The other will come alongside and we’ll be attacked on two fronts. Each pirate ship probably carries a hundred cutthroats. My wolf-lords are valiant beyond words, but they are not superhuman. They will all be destroyed.’ The young prince braced his shoulders. ‘And I will not have them destroyed.’
This haughty, blue-eyed prince in his gold-fillet, an unsalted adolescent, offering criticism of his naval tactics…? But Aetius quelled his indignation. ‘Trust me,’ he said.
The second ship was a mile or two off now, moving in close astern. They were to be surrounded, as expected. But the Cygnus would surprise them. Never do the expected. Alchemical Alexandrian fripperies won no battles, but rather courage, discipline, and a dash of the wholly unexpected. Aetius grinned. It was good to be fighting again.
Before boarding at Massilia he had ordered a big grappling-iron and a couple of boarding-planks from the naval stores. Now he commanded them to be brought up and laid at the stern of the ship, the grappling-iron roped.
‘The stern? But we’re ramming at the bow!’
‘Just follow orders, sailor.’ He went below.
They were magnificent men but they looked terrified, these Gothic spearmen, sea-green and shaky. The massive clunk of the ram, the sounds of battle at sea, would terrify them. They were fine and powerful, but barbarian and undisciplined. Today they might die, here in these salt wastes far from home. How could a sea death be a heroic death? Food for fish. It was not the Visigothic way. They looked to their princes and this commander, this Aetius, the Roman beloved of King Theodoric, and saw that he did not have the aura of death about him today.
Prince Torismond appeared beside Aetius.
‘Trust me,’ said the general again. ‘Consider the regard I have for your father. There is no Christian king finer, and you are his sons. You are in my care.’ Would that King Theodoric cared so much for his daughter, he thought bitterly.