‘Haul for your lives if you’d live to see tomorrow!’ bellowed Aetius. Soon the Haifisch jolted against the poop of the Cygnus, which was raised up by the counterweight of the water pouring into her bows.
Raised up. Nearer and nearer to the high parapet of the pirate ship. The master breathed out slowly, his bafflement and fear at last turning into something else. The timbers of his beloved Cygnus were creaking and screaming, the poor vessel tearing herself apart at the seams, yet serving in her very death throes as an unexpected siege-engine for boarding the hooked Shark at their rear. He felt a surge of hope, and sudden admiration for this obdurate Aetius. Master-General of the West, was he? Then maybe the West was in good hands.
‘More ballast to the fore!’
A crazy order on a sinking ship under assault, but now the master understood. A couple of lithe, sun-blackened sailors scrambled below, leaping over the straining line of the grappling-rope and rolling the last barrels down the steepening incline of the lower deck. The prow sank further in the water, the ram stuck into the belly of the Draco grinding her down into the depths with it. The poop deck rose further.
Aetius grinned at the princes. ‘Think your wolf-lords can vault that now?’
Theodoric nodded. ‘No problem.’
‘Then take it.’
‘Wolf-lords!’ The old Gothic war-cry.
The magnificent warriors, needing no second bidding to escape the fetid and drowning darkness, driven by a powerful mix of fear and battle-fury, came buckled and armoured up the steps at a run, shining blades in hand. The pirates looked down in shock at this erupting tide of red cloaks and straw-coloured plumes. What in Hell’s name had they taken on? This was no ordinary ship. They would be lucky to escape with their lives.
With the ships locked together in their fatal embrace, the crew of the Draco had fallen silent and inactive. At the appearance of the wolf-lords, however, they realised that the battle was on to take charge of the Haifisch, the only seaworthy ship left of the three. In an instant they were swarming over the sides of their own listing vessel and dropping down onto the foredeck of the Cygnus, now almost at water level. They tried to fight their way up, but the deck was slippery and sloped against them. Another foresight of Aetius’. As they scrambled up, they were met by three men with drawn swords, two fair-headed adolescents and an older, grey-haired fellow with a certain look in his eyes which suggested he’d seen battle before. Soon the decks were more slippery still with Vandal blood. For a few seconds Aetius, Torismond and Theodoric manned this second front alone, swords sweeping and thrusting, cutting down the oncoming pirates with ruthless despatch, letting the slain fall back into their scrambling comrades. Then the Visigothic archers loosed arrows in from the sides, and the pirates of the Draco knew the day was lost along with their ship. Now they understood very well the temper of those they had so foolishly chosen to attack this bright summer’s day. There was nothing left for it. They threw themselves into the sea.
The handful of scrawny pirates on the Haifisch were similarly outfought. Accustomed to taking harmless passenger vessels for kidnap and ransom, or fat, wallowing cargo ships laden with amphorae of oil and wine, they were stricken helpless. No match for the fifty Gothic wolf-lords vaulting in over the high bulwarks, swords drawn, teeth bared, long hair flying. There was hardly a fight to be had, to the wolf-lords’ considerable disappointment. Though unable to swim, like most sailors, who superstitiously regard the skill as a kind of temptation to fate, the second crew, too, gave themselves up to the dark, still waters of the Aegean. Any who lingered were swiftly cut to pieces, their lifeless bodies following into the foaming pink brine.
There came a strange sound from behind, like the bubbling of a drain in a rainstorm, though far greater, more sonorous. The rumbling of some vast and nameless sea creature, perhaps. It was the Cygnus at last going down, joined prow to broadside with the Draco in fatal embrace. The masts of the two ships collapsed into each other like tired lovers. The timbers creaked, the decks were washed and swamped. From below decks on the Draco, anguished cries: the pirates had not troubled to unchain their oar-slaves. And then, amid the cries of terror and lamentation, cries of desperate hope.
Aetius glanced around. Torismond had vanished.
The slaves of the Cygnus, meanwhile, were swarming after the Gothic swordsmen to the safety of the abandoned Haifisch. Then came the sailors, then Aetius and Theodoric, and finally the master himself, kneeling only to kiss the decks of his dying ship in time-honoured tradition, before abandoning her to the seas.
Slaves were emerging above deck on the half-drowned Draco and rolling over into the water. Theodoric watched anxiously.
‘Neither you nor your brother can swim, you say?’ said Aetius.
Theodoric could not speak.
‘He’s going to have to learn today.’
The sailors pulled up the last of the boarding planks, and the little Libyan scrambled down the side of the ship, holding on by one hand and with the other slashing through the grappling-rope that still tied them to the drowning ships.
Aetius nodded admiringly. ‘If you weren’t just a common sailor, I’d recommend you for promotion.’
The sailor flashed a white-toothed smile. ‘A gold solidus will do instead, my lord.’
Aetius regarded him steadily. Then he slipped a hand inside his cloak and produced a big gold coin. He glanced down. It showed Valentinian himself, the martial emperor, dragging a barbarian by the hair. Around the rim it read, ‘Unconquered Eternal Rome, Salvation of the World.’ He flicked his wrist and the gold coin arced and flashed in the air and the sailor caught it.
‘Don’t believe all you read on it, though,’ muttered Aetius.
At the prow of their fine new ship, a less than happy sound: Nicias wailing for his vanished alchemical chests.
‘Shame,’ murmured Aetius.
And last of all, paddling through the water like a puppy, breathless and ungainly but not actually choking or drowning, Prince Torismond, Saviour of Slaves. Theodoric threw out a line and hauled him up. After that, the slaves of the Draco came scrambling aboard the heavily laden Haifisch as well.
‘This is going to slow us up,’ grumbled Aetius.
‘We’ll sell ’em at the next port,’ said Torismond, his eyes glittering excitedly. He shook the saltwater from his hair, thrilled to have braved the sea and survived.
‘And spend all the proceeds on wine and girls, I suppose? ’
The brothers just laughed.
They watched the two ships go down amid huge, slow bubbles. Further off, what pirates were still afloat circled, exhausted, or clung to broken spars. Aetius ranged over them until he settled on the long, pitiless, expressionless face of the captain. He pointed him out to one of the Visigothic archers. The captain gazed steadily back, not moving, his pale hair plastered to his gaunt cheeks, his pale blue eyes fixed on Aetius, his lips moving with the words of some ancient curse. The archer lined up his arrow and fired, and the arrowhead hit him between the eyes. His head sank back, his arms floated out beside him, and they left him there gazing heavenwards, his mouth still open, the words of the curse still on his salt-white lips.
Some of the other pirates had begun to swim towards the captured Haifisch, their last hope, but at this they realised they would be speared in the water.
Aetius sent the lookout up to the fighting-top.
The lookout pointed in a direction just south of the sun. Aetius vaulted up onto the flydeck and called to the swimmers across the water, twenty or thirty soaked and bobbing heads, ‘Be thankful we haven’t slaughtered you in the water, as you deserve!’
The swimmers listened, agony on their faces.
‘You might drown. You might fatten a few sharks. What does that matter to us? But if you swim that way,’ Aetius flung his right arm out – ‘just south of the sun as it stands now, you just might make landfall. Let God decide.’