‘Indeed. And while his pupil may lack the big man’s sheer brute power, he has a speed with the blade that you might call divine, were you to believe that the gods occasionally bestow their gifts on us mere mortals. He wears a quiet enough demeanour for the most part, but when he’s roused …’
The procurator mused for a moment.
‘So the new man behind the throne must have wanted something more from you? Something that involved your tribune?’
‘He did, and in a roundabout sort of way he got exactly what he wanted from us.’
‘And then?’
Scaurus raised his hands and gestured about him.
‘And then … here we are. Apparently we’re too valuable to be quietly murdered and forgotten about, and so instead we find ourselves sent east to deal with a problem on the empire’s frontier instead. And that feeling of envy you were expressing before?’
Ravilla looked at him for a moment.
‘Has somewhat diminished, I’ll wager, and has been replaced by one rather large question.’
The legatus smiled knowingly.
‘Which, I would imagine, is that given the rather dangerous nature of the information I’ve just shared with you, why in the name of Mithras didn’t I just fabricate some rather more anodyne story to tell you?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And you’re right to be concerned.’
He passed the procurator a scroll, the paper still sealed into a tight tube with wax bearing the imperial mark. Ravilla took it from his hand, grimaced at the seal and then snapped it, opening the message and reading swiftly. After a moment he handed it back to the legatus with a single word.
‘Shit.’
‘Indeed.’
Word spread quickly through the port city of Seleucia, as the flagship and the fleet of warships that followed in her wake appeared over the western horizon in swift and efficient succession, each fresh sighting whipping up the collective state of excitement until the entire port was alive with the news that a fleet of twenty-five warships was approaching. The men tasked with the harbour’s defence ran for their bolt throwers, pulling off heavy waxed canvas covers and going through the motions of winding the weapons’ massive bowstrings back ready to fire, while above them in the lower city’s main tower, the port’s procurator stared out at the oncoming vessels. He looked to his chief pilot, the man who did most of the actual work involved in his role, raising an eyebrow in question. The older man, approaching his sixtieth year with no sign of any urge to retire, took another long look at the line of ships advancing towards the walls of the outer port and then turned back to him with an expression that was as much of perplexity as recognition.
‘If I didn’t know better, I could swear that’s the old Victoria leading them in. I remember her from the time she escorted the imperial flagship into harbour back at the start of the last war with the Parthians. But what would the Praetorian fleet be doing this far east at this time of year?’
His superior’s eyebrows arched in surprise.
‘The Praetorian fleet?’
‘I know, it’s not likely, is it? But I could swear that’s the old Victoria …’
The procurator goggled at him for a moment before turning to his secretary.
‘Have a messenger ready to ride to the governor’s office in Antioch at my command!’
The slave inclined his head respectfully.
‘As you order, sir. And the message?’
‘I’ll know that when I see who walks off that leading ship.’
Ravilla’s navarchus had waved away the offer of a pilot with a grim shake of his head, leaving the cutter wallowing in the quadrireme’s wake.
‘No fucking easterner’s going to scrape my flagship down a harbour wall and then tell me he hadn’t realised she answered her rudder so slowly! Trierarchus, get the sail furled!’
He took the warship out in a wide arc to the west of the port, then straightened her course and guided her towards the opening in the outer harbour’s walls where the two massive moles came within fifty paces of one another, a gap seemingly barely wide enough to admit the vessel. The deck crew had furled the massive sail with their usual practised speed, leaving the oarsmen as the Victoria’s only means of propulsion. Scaurus and his officers watched with interest as the walls of the outer harbour loomed on either side of the warship, while the navarchus called out small changes to the men controlling the steering oars and bellowed for the rowers to back water, reducing the big ship’s speed to walking pace. As the gap between the two walls that enfolded the outer harbour enveloped them, he barked out a terse order, his voice raised to carry along the ship’s entire length.
‘Raise oars!’
As one man the rowers pushed the long shafts of their oars forward and downwards, elevating their blades like the furled wings of a swan, and the Victoria eased through the gap with no more than twenty paces to either side. The stub end of the wall to their left passed with a gurgle of water racing between stone and ship, while that to their right presented a smooth, unbroken surface that curled around to form the outer harbour’s southern mole.
‘Steering oars, hard left turn! Lower oars! Left-hand side – back water!’
The rowers on the flagship’s left-hand side heaved at their shafts, pulling the Victoria round to her left in a graceful turn.
‘Both sides … back water!’
The warship slowed to an imperceptible drift with three swift strokes from the oarsmen, while the navarchus stared about him at the berths available along the northern and southern moles, half of them empty, the others occupied by a variety of vessels. Making a swift decision, he pointed to a vacant section of the northern mole to their left, returning command of the ship to its captain.
‘There! Trierarchus, put us against the wall there!’
The ship cruised slowly up to the mole, sailors on bow and stern throwing ropes to the waiting dock slaves while the rowers pulled their oars inboard to avoid them being trapped between ship and quayside. As the gangplank was dropped into place, Cassius Ravilla walked up its length and stepped onto the mole’s flat stone surface, looking about him with a calculating expression as a group of men hurried out along the wall from the lower city. A middle-aged official who appeared to be their leader bowed deeply, waving an arm at the Victoria with an ingratiating smile.
‘Greetings, and welcome to-’
Ravilla raised a hand to silence him, pointing out to the north at the next ship in his squadron, which was bearing down on the harbour’s entrance.
‘My name is Praetorian Fleet Procurator Titus Cassius Ravilla. And do you see that ship? There are another twenty-three just the same in her wake, each one carrying a century of legion infantry. I need twenty-five unloading berths, and I need them now.’
The port official bowed his head again, respectfully acknowledging Ravilla’s seniority as a member of the group of senior equestrians known as the ‘best of men’, those given the empire’s most prestigious commands.
‘You’re carrying soldiers?’
A new voice interjected into their conversation.
‘The Praetorian fleet has been directed to deliver two cohorts of legionaries and myself to Antioch with all possible speed, Procurator. I’m taking command of the Third Gallic, and since I have urgent business with the governor I’ll need my horses unloaded as a matter of priority.’
The official turned to look at Scaurus, who had strolled up the plank behind Ravilla unnoticed, bowing even deeper as the splendour of his uniform sank in.
‘My apologies, Legatus, I didn’t see you there.’ He turned to his assistant. ‘Have the warships berth on the mole, unload their cargo and then pass them on into the inner harbour. We’ve all the facilities you’ll need there, Cassius Ravilla, the port was built for a far larger fleet than we maintain these days. You’ll be able to run your ships ashore and perform any maintenance with the assistance of the port’s carpenters. You do intend docking for the rest of the closed season, I presume?’