The Seven Hills (28 page)

An hour later the ship was made fast to the town's wharf and a Roman official strode into the square and up to the
house where Norbanus and his staff sat at dinner. He wore a
silvered cuirass and helmet and his tunic and cloak were blue. Romans had not used blue as a military color since giving up their navy more than a century previously.

"Servius Papirius Caldus," the man announced. "Naval quaestor of the Brundisium fleet. Which of you is Titus Norbanus?" Of course there was no question which was Norbanus, but no Roman would admit to recognizing another purely because of his splendor.

"I'm Norbanus. Have a seat, Papirius, you look hungry. I never heard of a naval quaestor or a Brundisium fleet, but times are changing fast, it seems. Is your ship truly all Roman?"

Papirius took a seat and accepted a cup of wine. "We have
a Greek sailing master and a few experienced Greek crewmen, but the rest are Italian. We'll depend on the Greeks for a while, until we've more experience at sea. I'm carrying
messages from the Senate, plus a sealed letter from your fa
ther, the consul." He looked around at the officers seated at the table, all hard-faced men wearing an unusual amount of gold. He looked at the great heap of loot before the steps, then he turned back.

"We sailed too far east at first and learned in Tarsus that
you'd already passed. Then we turned around and just followed the smoke of burning towns until we caught up with you. You certainly seem to have made your mark on this part of the world."

"We have made the presence of Rome felt," Norbanus said modestly.

"It looks like it's been fun," Papirius said. "But I think your adventure is about to come to an end. These are excellent figs, by the way."

Norbanus's eyes narrowed. "End? What do you mean?"

Papirius spat out an olive pit. "There's a big fleet of transports just been built and undergoing sea trials when I left Brundisium. They'll be coming this way to pick you all up and fetch you back to Italy. They could be sailing this way already."

Everyone looked at Norbanus, whose face had turned to
stone. "Excellent," he grated at last. "We shall be home sooner than anticipated."

"Unless," said Lentulus Niger, "the omens prove unfa
vorable to a sea voyage." He eyed his plate innocently as he
said it.

"And," Cato commented, "we are well into fall. The good sailing days are numbered." He eyed Norbanus above his cup.

Titus Norbanus suppressed a smile. These two had been loyal in the field, but they had been his adversaries in all else. But he had enriched them beyond their wildest dreams, giving them leading parts in the greatest adventure in the history of Rome. Now they were his, their fortunes committed to his.

"Of course," he said, "anything could happen."

Papirius nodded. "I suppose." He dipped a piece of bread into a pot of olive oil in which fragrant herbs steeped. "You
got word about the defeat on the Arnus?"

"We heard," Niger said grimly. "The report that came with the last ship from Rome didn't give us much in the way of details."

Papirius launched into a colorful description of the debacle. As always happened, a few survivors had made it across
the river and back to Rome in the days after the battle, so the people had a fairly clear account of the fighting to supplement Aemilius's bare-bones dispatches to the Senate. While Papirius spoke, Norbanus turned over the possibilities in his mind. It was not in his nature simply to defy the Senate. He was far more inclined to turn this annoyance somehow to his own advantage.

He was certain that there was no real rush about getting back to Italy. The defeat on the Arnus was a setback from
which Rome would need time to recover. Hamilcar was not going to attack soon. He had several months yet to continue
his march, and by the time he returned to Rome there
would have been new elections, new consuls presiding over the Senate. He did not have to please men who would be out
of office soon. Thinking of this he opened the letter from his father.

My son: I hope this finds you well and victorious. Our enemies in the Senate, most of them old family diehards, wish you ill. They are jealous of your magnifi
cient accomplishments in the East. Stay your course and pay them no heed. You will return in glory to Rome and
you will be the idol of the people. I have been working all
year to see that you will have a sympathetic new family consul in office when you return. I have called in all my political debts to win support for Gains Hermanicus. He
is not militarily ambitious, so he is quite content to
spend the next year sitting in a curule chair instead of in the field. More importantly, he is a firm supporter of
our family.

I am all but assured of a proconsular command of one of the armies being readied for the African cam
paign. My colleague, Scipio the elder, will have another. I foresee trouble with so many proconsuls in the field at
once, but there is little help for it with a war this vast.
Speaking of which, many here resent your using the title
"proconsul." It is true that you have what amounts to a proconsular command, but since you have not held the
requisite offices, there are those who whisper that you have dictatorial ambitions. When you return, I urge you to make a show of modesty and say that you assumed the
title only to encourage the proper awe in foreigners.

Do not hurry at the behest of our rivals, but do not delay too long, either. Return covered with honors and take
your place in the Senate. Long Live Rome and the fam
ily Norbanus.

Nothing much of interest there, he thought. Just what he already knew. Dictatorial ambitions, eh? He decided he liked the sound of that.

He went back to pondering what to do about this fleet
that wanted to whisk him away to Italy before he completed
his planned journey. As he thought, the first animals of the baggage train entered the town. It had grown so vast that it followed his legions at some distance. The bulk of it would have to encamp outside the small town. He would have to scour the countryside for more pack beasts and wagons to transport, his takings.

He had been wondering how he was going to get all of this loot to Italy, but now it seemed that he had sea transport on the way. This presented him with a new possibility. He had greatly enjoyed commanding his own army. Now it might be just as pleasurable to have his own navy.

A month later they were on the coast of Lycia, having made a profitable march along the coast of
Pamphylia. The Pamphylians were a half-Asiatic, barbarous people who had much finer cities than the Cilicians, but had
the same penchant for piracy. To make the situation even better, they had the temerity to try to stop the legions from crossing their territory. They mounted aggressive attacks against the marching columns, and this gave Norbanus the perfect excuse to acquire those cities for his own. In most places he installed petty chieftains as the new rulers and they pledged themselves as his personal clients.

From Pamphylia they passed into Lycia. This proved to be
an extremely rugged land, composed of the many spurs of Mount Taurus that fanned out to the sea, where many of
them formed high, wave-splashed promontories. It was im
possible to hug the coast, so they had to make their way through one mountain pass after another, and progress was slow. They were further slowed by the immense baggage
train, but the soldiers never complained when a wagon broke
down and they had to put their shoulders to the wheels. They knew it was their own wealth they were transporting.

At the mouth of the Xanthus near the Lycian town of Myra, they found the Roman fleet in the harbor.

"That's quite a sight," Lentulus Niger said with some un
derstatement as they crested a pass in the hills to the east of the little bay. The harbor was full of galleys and transports, all of them bright with new paint, their prows, masts and sails sporting Roman eagles. On the narrow, rocky beach spare sails had been employed to make marquees. Most of the ships' crews appeared to be ashore, relaxing, tending
fires or dickering with locals for livestock and produce.

"Let's go down and have a few words with them," Norbanus said. They nudged their horses into a walk and descended the hillside. Behind them came the standard
bearers, and then the rest of the army. Down below someone
shouted and pointed upward. A huge cheer rang out from the men below when they saw the standards and the dusty men coming down toward them.

Norbanus and his party rode into the shore camp amid the cheers and congratulations. They saw a sprinkling of Greeks,
but most of the men in blue tunics were clearly native Ital
ians. There were marines among them, wearing bronze hel
mets and armed with sword and spear, but without body armor. Norbanus rode up to the largest marquee and a man
emerged dressed in splendid armor and grinning broadly.

"Greetings, Titus Norbanus!" he called. "Your feat is the
talk of all Italy."

Norbanus took the man's hand. "Decimus Arrunteius;
isn't it? Haven't seen you since Noricum. In the Senate now, eh?" He dismounted, as did his officers. He remembered the family as soldierly but poor. They could rarely afford to have
more than one man in the Senate in any generation. That could work well for him.

"Enrolled last year. Now I'm
duumvir
of the Brundisium fleet. Come inside out of this sun."
Duumvir
was the old Ro
man title for "admiral," revived for the new era.

They followed him into the shade of the spread sail. Long tables had been erected and they sat on benches. Arrunteius
told them of the latest doings in Italy, and the much-traveled officers told him and the other Roman naval commanders of their adventures in the East.

When the wine had flowed sufficiently, Norbanus said:
"Duumvir,
eh? Of course, I'm sure it's an honor to have so much responsibility so young, but with your family's long military reputation, I'd have thought you'd be given an
army command." In the old days, the navy had always been
considered an inferior service, no matter how crucial it might be.

"Oh, you know how it is," Arrunteius said. "The good commands always go to the old families, no matter how distinguished anyone else might be. With everybody clamoring for officer's commissions these days, you're lucky to
get any kind of appointment. I have friends qualified to
lead cohorts who've taken appointments as centurions just to get in on the fighting. And I can't complain that it isn't interesting, whipping a fleet into shape. You've never had fun until you've tried to bludgeon a pack of Italians into being sailors. Especially if you've never been to sea yourself."

Under the bluff words Norbanus heard the edge of resentment. This was something with which he was familiar. It was something he could use.

"So you've been given the task of ferrying me and my
men back to Italy, eh?" he said, reminding Arrunteius that
he had not been given the task of battle with the Carthaginian fleet.

"Well, yes. I believe we've carrying capacity enough for
your whole force. There'll be crowding, of course, but that can't be helped."

"I have more than men to transport. Come outside with me for a moment."

Puzzled, Arrunteius took his cup and walked outside. The other officers went with them, Norbanus's looking amused, Arrunteius's puzzled. Outside, they studied the legionaries, now encamping on a field off the beach. They were lean, burned dark, and wild-looking. Their arms were perfectly kept, but their tunics were of every color and design, scavenged along their route. Clothing wore out quickly on a long campaign, and the fine tunics Jonathan had given them had long since been reduced to rags. Most oddly, many now wore their swords on belts studded with
plaques of gold and silver. Their hands and arms wore rings,
bracelets and armlets that winked gold and jewels.

"Well, they seem to have done well in your service," Ar
runteius said. "I think we'll have no trouble getting them all aboard."

"Look up there," Norbanus said, nodding toward the pass. Arrunteius followed his gaze and gasped. An endless
line of pack animals and wagons still poured over the pass to
join a huge compound next to the legionary camp.

"Is that your baggage train? I'm sorry, Titus, but you'll have to leave most of it here. We can't get a tenth of it into our transports along with your men. How much more is there?"

"I'd say about half has come through the pass now." He enjoyed his friend's gape-mouthed expression, then said, "It's not exactly baggage, Decimus. Come have a look."

They walked to the compound where the animals were being unloaded and the wagons parked in long rows. "Pick something at random."

Mystified, Arrunteius walked to a wagon and pointed to a
chest. "Open it." Norbanus ordered the wagoneer. With a
small prybar the man pried the lid from the chest. Arrunteius and his officers gasped. The box was packed with a miscellaneous heap of gold coins, bars of the same metal, gemstones
in the raw or carved and set in jewelry, pearls in endless ropes,
chains of every sort of precious metal. Their eyes dazzled.