Cato 06 - The Eagles Prophecy (50 page)

‘Bring Ajax forward. Make sure they get a good view of him.’

Minucius hauled his prisoner out in front of the prefect and the escort party. He stood behind Ajax and pinned his arms back securely as he whispered in the pirate’s ear.’Don’t even think of trying to make a break for it. I’d gut you before you got ten feet.’

Vespasian stepped forward and stood beside Ajax. ‘Telemachus. We have your son! I offer you his life in exchange for your surrender, and the surrender of your men.’

There was silence from the citadel before Telemachus called out his reply. ‘And if we surrender, Roman, what then? Crucifixion? We’d rather fight you and die here, in our homes, than die on your crosses.’

‘You will die, Telemachus, one way or another. But your men will live. As slaves, but they will live - your son too - if you surrender before my men begin their assault at dawn. If you defy me, then Ajax will be crucified where I stand, and then we will take your citadel and there will be no mercy. What is your answer?’

Ajax wriggled desperately in the grip of Minucius and shouted.’Father! Don’t-’

At once Minucius punched him viciously in the kidneys. ‘Shut it, you …’

‘Roman!’ Telemachus shouted. ‘You touch him again, I swear I’ll-’

‘You’ll do nothing!’ Vespasian shouted back. ‘Nothing but what I demand. And I demand your surrender!’

There was brief pause before the reply. ‘No!’

It was as Vespasian had feared, and his heart felt heavy with the burden of all the deaths that would almost certainly result from the pirate leader’s defiance. He looked up at the wall. ‘Very well. I’ll return at dawn with your son. I will ask for your surrender one last time. I give you my word that your men, and Ajax, will be spared.’ He thrust a finger towards Telemachus. ‘Until dawn tomorrow!’

Vespasian turned away, and beckoned to Minucius to bring the prisoner with him.’Take him back to the trireme and guard him well.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Minucius thrust his prisoner ahead of him.

Ajax twisted his head over his shoulder for one last despairing glance back towards his father as the party marched quickly back to the Roman lines.

As soon as they reached the safety of the marine pickets, Vespasian strode off towards his headquarters tent, followed by his tribunes. Most of his officers would already be assembled for the briefing and would be exhausted after the day’s fighting. It would not be fair to keep them longer than was absolutely necessary, given that they would need to prepare for the morning’s assault on the citadel. Only those officers too seriously injured would be excused attending.

That included Vitellius.

As Vespasian had hoped, the tribune had been wounded in the thick of the fighting. Unfortunately the pirate had botched his opportunity and only struck the tribune’s helmet before the blade glanced off and laid open Vitellius’ shoulder. The tribune had described the incident in great detail when he encountered Vespasian on the beach shortly after the prefect had stepped ashore. His shoulder had been swathed in bloodstained bandages and the man had barely been able to stay on his feet. As Vespasian approached his tent he shook his head in bitter regret that Vitellius still lived.

Vespasian swept through the flap, and the centurions and trierarchs rose wearily to their feet as he marched through them to his campaign table and took his seat.

‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ He waved them into their seats and looked up with a warm smile. ‘Firstly, my thanks to you all for a fine performance today. I’ll do what I can to make sure that our masters in Rome recognise your valour and professionalism. Especially those who served with Centurion Macro this morning. Outstanding work.’ He bowed his head towards Macro, who shuffled self-consciously on his bench.

‘But our work is not yet over,’ Vespasian continued. ‘Telemachus and some of his men still live. That is a state of affairs I am determined to resolve by the end of tomorrow.’

The officers stirred uneasily, and some glanced at each other with slight shakes of the head. Vespasian had anticipated such a reaction, and fully sympathised. They had the pirates bottled up, they weren’t going anywhere, and in the normal run of events this would be the time to sit back and starve them into submission. Any assault on the citadel, even if it was successful, would be an unnecessary waste of lives. But, Vespasian reflected, these officers were not privy to the Imperial Secretary’s orders that the scrolls be recovered as quickly as possible, at any cost.

He cleared his throat and looked up, meeting their gaze. ‘I will offer them terms at first light. We have one useful bargaining counter - the son of Telemachus. However, I imagine that even if Telemachus would sacrifice everything to save Ajax, his subordinates will not and they’ll make it quite clear to him that surrender isn’t an option. So, an assault on the citadel looks like the most likely outcome, I’m afraid. We can’t afford a long siege. Every day that we sit out here presents Telemachus with an opportunity to work some kind of escape. He cannot be permitted to slip through our fingers. If he does then all the comrades we have lost in the last month will have died in vain.’

He paused for a moment and the thud of an onager sounded from the direction of the causeway. Vespasian nodded in that direction. ‘The bombardment will continue until dawn. I’m hoping to have breached the defences by dawn. Much of the rubble will fall into the ditch, but we’ll still need to carry faggots and scaling ladders forward. I’m not pretending that it will be easy and painless, but it has to be done. The best way to save lives is to go in hard and go in fast.’ He smiled. ‘In case any of you are sniffing at my use of the word “we”, I assure you that I will be going in with the first wave. I’ll be leading a party to find and take Telemachus alive. So I’m looking forward to this as much as you are, gentlemen.’

A ripple of laughter broke the solemn mood and Vespasian took the opportunity to end the briefing at that moment. He rose from his chair. ‘You’ll receive your orders later on.’

He was about to dismiss them when the flap at the back of the tent was drawn aside. Vespasian looked up with a surprised expression that turned to a warm smile of greeting as two men emerged from the darkness.

‘My apologies, sir,’ said Centurion Cato. ‘Have I missed anything?’

CHAPTER FORTY

The artillery crews continued the bombardment of the citadel through the night. Torches had been lit around the onagers’ position and the men toiled ceaselessly as they ratcheted back the throwing arms, loaded the rocks and stepped back as the missiles were released with a woosh and crack, sending the rocks flying invisibly through the night to crash down on to the pirates’ citadel. No lights burned on the wall to aid the aim of the Roman crews and the only evidence of the success of their efforts was the occasional distant sound of the thud of the impact and faint rumble of falling masonry. A screen of marines stood guard a hundred paces further out, in case the defenders attempted to sally out and destroy the siege weapons.

Not far behind the onagers was the fortified camp of the Ravenna fleet. Small cooking fires flickered in the darkness and the tired seamen and marines sat around them in the customary mood of quiet relief and light-heartedness of men who have survived a battle. Beyond them, along the curve of the bay, lay the dark hulls of the warships. Out to sea there were smaller craft, watching for any pirates who thought they might try to swim to safety from the citadel.

Three figures approached the beached ships along the loom of the sand. They moved purposefully towards the trireme in whose hold Ajax was being held prisoner. Two marines were standing guard at the end of the gangway leading up to the deck, and as the figures emerged from the darkness and strode towards them, one of the marines stepped forward and made the challenge.

Down in the hold, in the wan glow of an oil lamp, Centurion Minucius did not even bother to look up at the sound of the challenge. He was resting on an improvised bed of spare sailcloth laid over coiled ropes. Comfortable enough, but not so comfortable that it was possible to sleep. Which suited his purpose. He had been ordered to guard the prisoner sitting on the grating above the bilges several feet away. Ajax was chained securely to an iron ring fixed to one of the thick timber ribs of the trireme. He was not asleep, and sat brooding, nursing the hand from which the little finger had been severed during his interrogation. Minucius was watching him carefully. There would be no escape, and no suicide attempts.

Boots thudded down on to the deck and the impact of nailed soles echoed through the trireme’s hold as someone marched overhead towards the main hatch. Shadows loomed against the night sky and then boots appeared on the gangway steps as a man in the uniform of an ordinary marine entered the hold. Then Minucius saw Vitellius, together with two of his bodyguards. The centurion jumped off his makeshift couch and stood stiffly to attention. Ajax’s eyes glinted with open hostility from where he slumped against the side of the ship.

Vitellius waved his hand, on the unbandaged arm. ‘At ease, Centurion. I’ve come for the prisoner.’

‘The prisoner, sir?’ Minucius looked surprised. ‘But I’ve orders for him to stay here until dawn. Orders from Vespasian himself.’

‘Yes, well, the prefect wants him now. For questioning.’

‘In the middle of the night, sir?’ Minucius’ eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘I don’t think so.’

He stepped back towards Ajax and grasped the handle of his sword.

Vitellius stared at him, speaking in a low, earnest tone. ‘You will hand the prisoner over to me, that’s an order, Centurion.’

‘No, sir. He only leaves here on the prefect’s say so.’

The two men stared at each other, and then Minucius glanced at the tribune’s bodyguards edging out either side of him. The centurion’s sword rasped from its scabbard, and he raised the point towards the tribune.

Vitellius grinned. ‘There’s no need for that, Centurion. All right then, you’ve seen through my ploy. I need the prisoner. Now, I could take him by force. But you might harm me, or one of my men, in the process. I can’t afford that. I’m short-handed enough as it is. So I want to make you an offer.’

‘Offer? What kind of offer?’

‘To make you rich, very rich. Now, I know you could use the money. I’ve checked your records. You’re due for discharge next year.’

‘Yes. So?’

‘You’re a Roman citizen, so there’ll be the usual gratuity. You’ve probably saved enough for a comfortable retirement. You’ll live well enough, but there won’t be any luxuries. I imagine a man like you will buy into a farm, or an inn. Why not aspire to a better life, Minucius? After twenty-five years of service you deserve it.’

The centurion stared at him. Vitellius could almost hear him thinking it through, and had to struggle to stop himself smiling. Men were so simple when it came down to it. Provide them with the right incentive and it was possible to make them do anything. For some men, it was the prospect of love, or even merely sex. For others it was riches, and Minucius was old enough to know the more lasting value of money.

Minucius watched the prefect’s expression closely. ‘And what do I have to do to earn this fortune?’

‘Bring the prisoner with us.’

‘Where are we going, sir?’

‘For a little boat ride. Ajax here is going to show us a way to get into the citadel.’

‘Into the citadel?’ Minucius snorted. ‘I should have known. Stand back!’

Vitellius went to raise both hands to placate the centurion, but the bandage on his shoulder restricted the gesture. He frowned. ‘Just a moment!’

He took a pace away from Minucius, reached across his chest with his spare hand and unfastened the knot on the bloodstained banadages, then quickly removed them and stuffed them inside his tunic. A moment later the bandage from his head had also been removed and Minucius shook his head at the absence of injuries beneath the dressings.

‘Well, well.’

‘I needed an alibi,’ Vitellius explained. ‘As far as everyone is concerned, I’m recovering from injuries in my tent. That’s where they think I am now.’ He held out a hand to Minucius. ‘The deal is this. You come with us. We get into the citadel where Ajax leads us to his father’s quarters. He has something I want. It’s locked away in a small box. Ajax was kind enough to tell us that his father keeps his own private fortune close by. I keep the box and its contents and you and my bodyguards here can keep whatever treasure you can carry away. We get what we want and get back here before we’re missed.’

‘And the prisoner?’

‘Once we have what we’re after, we take him back as far as the boat, then release him.’

‘And how do I explain his escape?’

‘He picked his lock with a nail and jumped you when your back was turned. Then he slipped over the side and swam across the bay to the citadel. You’ll be discovered, alive, but dazed. My man here will make the attack on you look convincing.’

Minucius sized up the burly bodyguard standing behind Vitellius. ‘I’m sure he will . . . So what happens if you are missed?’

‘I’ve left a letter stating I’ve gone to spy on their defences,’ Vitellius smiled. ‘To redeem my honour, you understand. If all goes to plan I’ll destroy the letter when I get back to my tent. We’ve taken care of the sentries. They’ve been bound and gagged and dropped into the anchor cable locker. Of course, if we are successful, they will have to be disposed of. That will be blamed on Ajax.’