“Major naval units available,” Niger repeated. He grinned bitterly. The tribune was young enough to hope that by being frank, he might be able to get word back up the line to where it might help correct the situation which he deplored. “How about jack shit?” he said bluntly. He leaned forward in his couch. “You know how quick Rome’11 start to starve if the grain supply from Africa is cut off? Weeks if we’re lucky! And that’s if nothing happens to the warehouses here.” He waved his hand in a dramatic, ring-glittering circuit in the air. “The only things to stop pirates from sailing right into the harbor and burning it down around our ears are the gods, may they continue to preserve us, and my twelve customs scows. There’s half a dozen light galleys laid up in Portus, but they haven’t been in the water since Commodus died – and I couldn’t crew them anyway.” Niger grimaced and added, “Besides which, my Marine contingent just got drafted into a Field Force legion. Now you two tell me – is that a safe state for the capital of the Empire?”
Hell, no; but it’s the state that everything else’s in, Perennius thought. Aloud he said, “I’d like to take a look at those galleys you mentioned. I’m sure something could be arranged about crews . . . and we wouldn’t need all of the ships, of course.”
Niger stood up. “You think I’m joking?” he asked. “They haven’t touched keel to water in seventy years – and Neptune alone knows when the damned things were built! But come along, you can see for yourself.” He stepped to the doorway by which he had entered. “Rufio!” he called. “Rufio!”
The attendant who had greeted Perennius initially appeared in the hallway. “Sir?” he said.
“I’m taking these gentlemen to Shed Twelve,” the tribune explained. “They want to see what passes for naval power in this wretched excuse for an age.”
As Perennius and Calvus followed him to the stand of government litters and bearers, the agent thought of how many times he had performed this basic task: checking garrisons, fortifications, or supply dumps so that Rome could better estimate the war-making capacity of an enemy. Normally, however, the agent would have been equipped with a packet of documents – forged, of course, but convincing even to a skeptic. It did not strike Perennius as particularly humorous that he was being shown Rome’s own defenses without any of the preliminaries he would have thought necessary as a spy.
“Well, here they are,” Niger said. His voice whispered back and forth between the brick walls and high roof timbers of the dry dock. “Go on, tell me it’s not as bad as you expected.”
The shed was a single building with six separate roof peaks. The troughs were supported by columns rather than by walls. From where the three men stood on the raised entrance platform, they could see all six of the docked galleys. The murky water of the harbor lapped just beyond the open front of the building, but the hulls were on dry ground. Timber baulks held each upright.
Niger had opened the shed door using a key with two large prongs to turn the wards. Now he stepped to the nearest of the stored vessels and pressed the prongs against the railing without result. Patiently, he tried a few feet further, then further yet. On the third attempt, the iron prongs sank in as easily as if they had encountered a cheese. “There,” said the tribune in gloomy satisfaction, “dry rot. What did I tell you?”
The rear platform of the shed was nearly of a height with the galley’s stern rail. The bowsprit and stern posts of the vessels curved up sharply above either end. The poop itself was raised a full deck above the planking that covered the waist of the ships. Perennius stepped aboard the nearest ship. His hob-nails echoed like rats scurrying along the roof of the shed. Though one whole side of the
building was open, its interior was hot and dry and smelled of pine tar.
“All right, these look like what we need,” the agent said. He swung himself down to the main deck with a thump, disregarding the ladder pegged to the bulkhead. “What sort of complement do they carry?”