LITMIR.BIZ

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knocking on his bedroom door.

      ‘Who is it?’ he shouted irritably, trying to judge the time from the light in the room. It was just after dawn.

      The door burst open and his senior servant, Appius, entered, followed by one of his spies from the camp, a carpenter named Calvus. Duilius rose as they rushed across the floor, their agitation obvious.

      ‘They sail today, my lord,’ Calvus said, his anxiety etched on his face.

      ‘Today?’ Duilius replied. ‘All reports said tomorrow, the fourth day!’

      ‘That was the plan as everyone knew it, the schedule that Tuditanus had kept us to and swore us not to reveal to anyone – lest the enemy become aware of our plans,’ Calvus explained, ‘but last evening as we prepared to end our day, Tuditanus himself ordered the work to continue overnight. We were ordered to stay at our posts and finish the work by firelight.’

      ‘Why was I not informed of this?’ Duilius asked, turning to Appius. ‘Why didn’t one of the other spies report this?’

      Appius was speechless.

      ‘We were all ordered to remain in camp last night on pain of death,’ Calvus interjected, ‘so none could spread the news beyond Fiumicino. I was only allowed to leave when the work was completed.’

      Duilius swore at the simplicity of the plan that had thwarted him. By forcing the craftsmen and slaves to work overnight they had pushed the schedule forward twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours that Duilius had been planning on using to arrange a ‘surprise’ inspection by him and some of the senior senators. Once at camp the next day, the fourth day, they would all see the fleet was indeed ready to sail and Duilius would pursue the offer Scipio had made in the Senate to allow Duilius to sail with the fleet when she first put to sea. That plan was now frustrated, ruined by Scipio’s simple change in the schedule. Duilius cursed his lack of foresight.

      ‘Shall I saddle your horse?’ Appius asked.

      At first Duilius did not hear the question, furious as he was at being outmanoeuvred.

      ‘What?’ he asked, his mind still not in the moment.

      Appius repeated the question.

      ‘No,’ Duilius said, realizing that to turn up in Fiumicino alone without senatorial backup would be useless, his rank as junior consul second to Scipio’s.

      Duilius dismissed the two men and began pacing his room. He forced his mind to quiet so he could examine the problem from every angle. There was no solution; nothing to stop Scipio making his triumphant entrance into Ostia. Duilius might have won the first round in the Senate when he forced Scipio to back down over the command of the fleet, but the senior consul had won the second, a round that would give Scipio the backing of the people of Rome.

      ‘Today?’ Lucius said, disbelieving. He had been about to get the Aquila under way when his captain had came up to him on the aft-deck, his expression uneasy.

      ‘Yes, today,’ Atticus repeated, ‘I’ve just received the orders.’

      ‘But why the haste?’ Lucius asked.

      ‘Who knows?’ Atticus replied. ‘All I can be sure of is that the trainees aren’t ready. I’m going to have to confront Tuditanus again – at least make him agree to continue the training at Ostia.’

      ‘I’ll row you ashore,’ Lucius offered, and both men strode to the main deck and climbed down to a tethered skiff. Within minutes they were on the beach.

      The activity around them seemed chaotic as the two men ascended the beach towards the camp prefect’s tent. Sailors clambered over the decks of the twenty galleys to install the running rigging of each, and the voices of the boatswains so recently taught on the Aquila could be heard shouting orders to the men who scrambled to obey. Atticus surveyed the ship closest to him and studied the near-finished arrangement of ropes. The rigging, to a casual eye, looked perfect, but Atticus quickly spotted a mistake, one that would only become apparent when the crew tried to raise sail. The boatswain had used the wrong sequence in completing the rigging and the lifting yard would foul the instant the crew tried to raise it aloft. He shook his head at the sight. The crews were simply not ready yet.

      The activity around the boat explained the sailors’ haste. In front of each galley, slaves were laying out cylindrical logs on the hard-packed sand. The logs stretched out a hundred yards in front of each ship and led down to the water line, now at low tide. The galleys were suspended two feet off the ground on a timber frame that had supported the hull during construction, and logs were now placed in the gap beneath, leaving a space of six inches. As the last logs were put in place in front of the ship nearest to Atticus and Lucius, whip cracks filled the air and the slaves, at least three hundred in total, took the strain of the ropes tethered to the galley. With a mighty effort the ship was pulled forward on her frame, the action snapping the timbers of the frame until the galley crashed the six inches onto the logs underneath. More slaves rushed forward to clear the majority of the debris, even as the galley lurched forward on its way to the water line, the gentle slope of the beach aiding its progress. Atticus could see that within the hour all twenty galleys would be at the lower end of the beach, awaiting the tide that would free them from the land.

      The two sailors of the Aquila were so engrossed by the unfolding scene that they did not notice the horsemen stationed fifty yards beyond them, the group also watching the galleys being made ready. Scipio turned to Tuditanus.

      ‘You’ve done well, Prefect.’

      Tuditanus’s eyebrow raised at the rare compliment, although he was sure not to let the senior consul see the gesture.

      ‘Thank you, Senior Consul. I have sent word to the legion’s camp to have the men made ready. The tide rises rapidly in this area, so the galleys will be afloat within three hours.’

      ‘Good,’ Scipio replied, his voice and expressions once more minimal. He calculated the time in his mind. All being well, he would be rounding the headland at Ostia before noon.

      *

      Demades stood to attention as his task was dictated to him. He was not a military man – in fact he had never held a weapon in his hand in all his forty years; however, the stance seemed appropriate given the rank of the man speaking to him. The Carthaginian admiral had arrived unexpectedly an hour before, compelling Demades to race from his residence to the Council chamber, all the while fearing the worst, unable to think of a reason why Hannibal Gisco would want to visit the tiny island.

      Lipara, which was also the name of the only city on the island, was located twenty-four miles off the northern coast of Sicily and was the largest of a group of eight islands. The island had been occupied since ancient times, primarily because of the hard black volcanic glass, obsidian, which was abundant under the soil. Its cutting edge had been prized by the inhabitants of the mainland, and the trade had made the otherwise insignificant island an important centre for commerce. The coming of iron had eradicated the trade in obsidian, but the islanders had adapted and now sold volcanic pumice to the rich inhabitants of the Roman Republic.

      The arrival of the Carthaginians two years before had originally caused great consternation to the inhabitants of Lipara, not least to their senior councillor, Demades, who saw their coming as the death knell for their trade and for the Council that controlled both the trade and government of the island. In the event, the Carthaginians had had little impact on the lives of the ordinary people, who simply switched their trading routes to serve the empire of Carthage. Never before, however, had a senior Carthaginian figure been in the city, least of all the supreme commander of their entire army and navy. It was for that reason that Demades had attended Gisco personally, one leader to another. Demades had tried to take the upper hand in the meeting – after all, Lipara was his city and he was the senior councillor – however, within a heartbeat, Gisco’s overpowering will had cowed him and thereafter he listened in silence.

      ‘I beg your pardon, Admiral, but you want me to do what?’ Demades asked as Gisco got to the crux of his plan.

      ‘I

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