Chapter IV
"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” - Publilius Syrus
I awoke with a legion armed with hammers, thumping inside my head. I became aware, as I returned to the waking world, of a rocking sensation and realised quickly that I was on a small boat. I hated boats and the sea. My next worry was that I thought I had lost my left eye. I blinked repeatedly and realised that the obscuration was due solely to dried blood.
I looked down in the half-light and realised that a cut on my head had poured blood all down my tunic. It made me also notice that I only wore my tunic, stiff with dried blood. My armour was gone.
I tried to sit up, but my hands were bound, and all I could do, was struggle weakly.
'Hey, they seem to have woken up,' a voice said in accented Greek.
'They'll soon wish they hadn't,' said a second but much deeper voice.
The second voice was familiar. I looked up and realised that the voice belonged to the corsair we had captured and taken to headquarters. Had my legs been free I would have kicked myself for my stupidity. The corsair had not died under torture and he was here. I wondered if Asinnius was involved in the plot but that seemed unlikely for I was quite sure the Centurion was dead.
Junius sat next to me and glared at our captors. Similarly trussed, he hardly moved although we exchanged glances.
'Well, what do we do with the Romans?'
'I don't know why you left them alive,' the first man said.
'We can use them to row, they won't last long and it'll save capturing two slaves at the least. Anyway, the traitor bargained for their lives. Maybe an expression of conscience,' the corsair captain grinned with humour as he said this.
The bearded corsair reached over, put a hand on my head, and smiled, exposing his stained uneven teeth.
'Besides, this one is quite pretty, I might get to enjoy having him around,' he said, to the amusement of his companion.
'Yes,' said the second man, I wouldn't mind a bit of that myself.'
I felt myself stiffen involuntarily at the hand on my head. If I could have reached, I would have bitten it.
'Enough of this levity,' the bearded corsair said, 'As soon as the Queen comes aboard we sail to Kotais. It's the nearest Armenian town and then we can ransom her.'
'I thought that we were just hired to transport her and her goods.'
'Don't be stupid. As soon as she comes aboard, we keep her goods and she becomes our property! We can sell her back to Mithradates for an even bigger price than he has paid us already. The Pontics have no navy and there is no chance of them catching up with us.'
'Why don't we just return to Chersoneses? We know we're safe there and we can then send word to Armenia. Why risk the Armenians capturing us.'
'It would take too long and besides the Great King may kill whoever we send and then we are so far away that there is little chance of even finding out for a very long time.'
'Maybe you're right. I just don't like being in hostile waters for so long.'
'Relax! What could happen?'
'The Armenian navy, that's what!'
The little boat came to a halt as the two men shipped oars. They cut the bonds on our legs and stood us up roughly. I was tempted to fight by kicking my captors but thought better of it as I believed that I would be as likely to fall overboard as they would. I now wish I had done that, but the uncertainty of our situation persuaded me otherwise. It is often so, when people are captured. If they do not know what is going to happen they do not struggle. How else could large numbers of people be slaughtered otherwise, as often occurred when our armies conquered towns and cities, despite the few guards holding them?
They hauled us up with a rope and deposited us on the deck of a ship. Two men applied manacles to our feet. It was a standard bireme with two banks of oars and a cabin aft. Below decks, the galley slaves were chained to their oars and Junius and I were quickly taken below and fettered to the benches. The smell below decks was offensive and nauseating, even compared to the streets of the Subura. Involuntarily, I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
'Don't like the smell?' a broad, squat corsair behind me said, 'You'll get used to it. If you stop rowing or row out of step you'll get used to this too,'
He cracked a whip behind my ear without inflicting any damage. It was enough for us to understand.
Junius and I were on opposite benches and we could see each other, but could not communicate. The space in which we sat was ankle deep in foul-smelling bilge water. It was contaminated with urine and excrement, for we galley slaves were not allowed to leave our oars, unless the ship docked or was hoisted to dry land.
I felt for the amulet. It was still there, hidden from view beneath the neckline of my tunic. It is an odd thing, but it gave me a feeling of relief. I hoped it would bring me luck, but this in itself seems strange, for had it not brought me the worst of bad luck so far in my life? I realise now that nothing but ill had befallen me since my father gave it to me. None of these thoughts came to me then for my own sentimentality and nostalgia blinkered me. Whenever I touched the little green stone, I thought of my father and his words, his face and his smile, as he had set the stone around my neck.
No sleep came to me that night, weary as I was. Anxiety chases sleep away and the discomfort and smells were inescapable. At dawn, the captain came down to the slave deck. The overseer was with him.
'This is Artaxes,' he said indicating the squat bearded man to his right, 'He's going to be your best friend until you die. He will keep you safe, for he has the only key to your shackles. He will punish you if you don't work and he will damage you if you try to escape. We know all about escape here and we know how to prevent it. Don’t we, Charis?' he said to no one in particular, 'Don't get any ideas.'
My head thumped and was only beginning to clear. The man next to me was a large fellow with a fair beard and long curly hair. He did not speak. He stared straight ahead into the gloom and I could have been invisible for all the interest he showed.
A large drum in the stern began to beat and I realised that we were starting to row. I pulled when my fellow pulled and rested when he did. The problem for me was that time seemed to pass almost without my noticing. During the day, the heat below decks became intolerable and a slave came round with a bucket of brackish water and ladled it into the rower's mouths regularly. The corsairs knew enough to keep the slaves alive or they would be at a standstill.
I found that my hands were blistering and becoming raw. As I looked at my hands, I felt the lash on my back for the first time. It was not as I imagined it. The whip was of leather and through my tunic; it did not cut into the skin of my back but stung. It stung enough for me to understand that there would be no breaks, no pauses just rowing. At nightfall on the first day, we were ordered to stop rowing and the rest came as a welcome relief. There was no light in the depths of the ship and I could barely make out the shape of my friend sitting across the narrow gap between the slave benches.
We were given a kind of gruel in rough wooden bowls. The smell of it was nauseating but I ate mine with relish, for I was ravenously hungry. Besides, I had eaten worse when I was in the Subura.
Artaxes came down the galley steps.
'You can rest for six hours then we move again. No speaking. I will be listening.'
I leaned across the aisle when he had gone.
'Junius!' I paused. There was no answer.
'Junius!' I whispered again a bit louder.
'Yes?' came the barely audible reply.
'We have to get out of here.'
'I know, but how?'
'How are the chains fixed?'
'Forget it, they're all passed through our manacles and then bolted to the deck.'
'Can we reach the bolts?'
'I can try.'
I heard the clink of the chains as Junius pulled them towards himself. The chain around my ankle tightened for a moment. There was the sound of Junius straining. He was a big man and stron
g. If anyone could pull up the stanchion, I felt he could. A sound behind us made him cease.
'What have we here?'
It was Artaxes. He carried an oil lamp in one hand and his whip in the other. Junius was sitting across his oar as if asleep. I sat with my head in my hands, mimicking despair and not moving.
'If I hear another sound I'll flog the first man I see moving. Maybe I'll flog one of you anyway. Is that clear?'
Silence, padding sandaled feet and more silence. The dark was oppressive but I took a chance and whispered to Junius.
'What happened?'
'It’s firmly bolted and will take time. Even if I loosen it we have no weapons and there may be other stanchions on the chain,'
We fell silent; in our state of near exhaustion, we both felt that we needed sleep, I suppose. There would be no escape that night and we both knew it. I leaned on the oar in sheer and utter weariness. My aching frame began to relax despite the discomfort. I tore a strip from my tunic and bound the raw, aching, stinging skin on my hands, blistered by a whole day of rowing and I cursed under my breath. Any opportunity to escape and I knew I would take it.
I closed my eyes and thought of better times. I touched the amulet. Mental pictures of my mother, my father and the games of soldiers with Julius the boy next door came into my head. Happier times. Recurring unwelcome thoughts then insinuated themselves. The fire and its consequences and Gennadius touching me between the legs. I pictured Quintus Cerialis in his small house, padding around in his lonely life and how scared I had been when he caught me. I shook my head involuntarily as the negative and angry thoughts began to permeate. I drifted into a deep sleep, a blackness from which nothing roused me, not even the rats criss-crossing between my feet.
I awakened to the sound of the great drum that marked the stroke and timing of the oars. Almost involuntarily, I began to keep time with the man on my right. I glanced often in his direction, but the man never looked at me and as his head never moved, I began to wonder why.
I said in a low voice, 'do you speak Greek?'
The man faced straight ahead but for the first time since they had chained me next to him, he spoke. It was a good quality Greek and the cultured accent belied the rough unkempt appearance. His speech and accent were similar to that of Gennadius.
'Keep your voice down. Artaxes hears everything. That is why he is the overseer. He has ears so long they can listen around corners!'
'I'm Aulus. I'm a Roman legionary.'
'You mean you were. You're a slave now and believe me there is no escape from these people.'
'No, I'm a Roman soldier and I will be free.'
The Greek smiled sadly.
'I too was a soldier and now look at me!'
'My name is Aulus Veridius Scapula.'
'I am Charis. I have been here for almost two years.'
'Why don't you escape? There must be a way.'
'I can tell you are just a young man. There is no escape, only rowing.'
'How can you know? There must be some way.'
The man turned his face towards me. He looked but did not see and in the gloom, I saw why Charis never looked at me. Both eyes had been ripped from their sockets. He was as blind as Charon the ferryman who takes the dead to Hades.
'This is what they did to me when I tried. I hope now only for a quick death that does not involve torture or drowning.'
I said nothing but looked straight ahead, set my jaw and continued to row. I had grim fears now of the seriousness of our predicament. My feet began to sting and I realised that I had not looked at them since I was first chained. As I glanced downward, I could see that the filth in which we all sat had already begun to irritate the skin. I looked to one side and realised with sudden revulsion that Charis had no feet. There were shrivelled stumps below both ankles. Whether they had been cut off or had become diseased by the filth in which they dangled, I dared not ask. I realised then, that to escape was an urgent necessity and not a fanciful dream, for if we waited, it might be too late, our strength and will ebbing all the time.
I had to wait until we stopped rowing for the night. I guessed that we had anchored in a bay somewhere on the southern aspect of the Black Sea. I knew they headed east but other than that, I had no real idea of my whereabouts. I did not even know how far we had sailed, for I was no seaman and sailing had always been a mystery to me.
Junius worked at the stanchion that kept us chained. He worked silently in the night. How he managed to preserve his strength I cannot tell. He was a man of power and grim determination. There was no talk, no conversation. Junius had clearly understood the importance of getting away as well as I had.
On the third day, Artaxes scrambled suddenly down the steps and shouted.
'Get your backs to it! If they board us, you'll all go to a watery grave. We'll be fighting up above and if you want to live then row!'
The sound of the drum increased in volume and speed. I was finding it harder and harder to row in time to the beat. I was lucky in that Charis had been there so long that he did much of the work and kept to time. A galley slave who failed to keep time would be punished and I had already had enough strokes of the whip to realise that punishment in that hellhole was to be feared.
The drum slowed its beat for a moment and I could feel the ship come about. The pace suddenly increased to a maximum.
Suddenly a crash. An explosive crack of timbers shattering. The ship suddenly pitched violently to one side. The slaves to my left and Junius too, were suddenly flung to the starboard side. Their oars flew in random circles as the they let go of them. Water began to cascade down the steps behind me. Junius floundered in the now diluted bilge water at my feet. He was partially suspended by his chains. I clutched my oar in desperation. I tried to stand but the list to my right made it impossible. I saw Charis unconscious in the pandemonium. The water running down from above began to deepen, washing away the stinking fluid at my feet.
I realised we were sinking and amid the screams and cries that surrounded us, I hoped desperately that someone would come down to release us. No one appeared of course and the rising water was now at my waist. There had to be something I could do. I reached down to my friend as the water level rose inexorably. We had to release the chains, but how? I mimed to Junius to pull up the stanchion.
I took several deep gulps of air and followed the chain under the water, hand over hand. Junius must have realised what I was doing and he followed. We reached the stanchion by feeling for it and it took time, precious time. Time we did not have.
We came up again for air. This time, the water was up to throat level. Both of us, working together gripped the chain. Our blistered, raw, hands began to pull and jerk.
I pulled with a strength I had never thought I could muster. The stanchion began to loosen. Maybe Junius had already begun the process in his efforts during the night. I had to come up for air. I let go of the chain. I swam to the surface of the dark and chilling water but the level now was such that I managed only a tiny gasp of air before submerging again.
We knew there would be no more breaths of air. We pulled. We braced our feet against the planks that made the narrow space between the slaves on the two sides. My lungs seemed to be bursting. I had to breathe. I knew I could not. I would not. I refused to die like this. Not like a rat in a sewer. It could not be my destiny and uncannily I knew it.
I never understood afterwards how we mustered the strength. Perhaps we suddenly released some ethereal power from the Gods or maybe it was because in our desperation, we used every muscle fibre in our aching limbs, but the stanchion came loose and with it the fixings for the three rows of slaves either side. The deck was a struggling mass of drowning and injured men, limbs and bodies obstructing our movements as we fought to get to the stairwell.
I went first and as I pulled myself up the stairs. The pounding in my head became almost intolerable. I felt a hand on my right buttock. It catapulted me upwards, for Junius clearly had no time to waste
beneath me. I could hold out no longer. I inhaled suddenly and involuntarily.
To my relief and surprise, I breathed air. Junius had followed and both of us breathed deeply, a stale unpleasant atmosphere, but it was air and it brought life to our flailing limbs. I felt my head clearing.
We were now on the upper of the two oar decks of the sinking vessel. The manacles on our feet made moving difficult. Swimming was hard. We managed to find purchase for our feet. We recovered our breath. I could see a gaping rent in the side of the vessel to my right. Water still flowed in. The list increased. We both knew the ship was sinking fast. We began our ascent to the upper deck and the chance of freedom.
I swung myself over the edge of the almost vertical hatchway. I held on with both hands. I saw bodies floating like flotsam around and below me. I wondered what to do next. The decision was made for me however, as the vessel lurched suddenly. It began to sink in earnest with a speed that surprised me.
The ship was going down not far from shore and our luck held. There were some barrels afloat as the ship went down. We each held onto a barrel, as the sinking ship drew us downwards in its wake. The barrels prevented us sinking far and we bobbed up, wearied, out of breath, but alive. We floated just long enough to gain our breath.
We struck out for the shore, holding on to our barrels, small strokes, manacled feet restricting movement. The water was cold despite the warm sun and our aching limbs were weak from fatigue and hunger.
We saw no other survivors, but did see the mast of a large ship, the size of a Quinquereme disappearing from our limited view of the horizon. The ship could have been miles away for all the difference it made to us; we were invisible to it and we could not tell whether it was Roman, Pontic, or Armenian.