They were striding between the ventilator grating and the starboard edge of the deck. Though the span of deck was as wide as any sidewalk in Rome, Calvus stumbled badly enough to make the agent nervous. Perennius crossed behind the taller man to walk outboard of him, just in case. The coxswain had shifted stroke to the lower bank of oars, endeavoring to exercise the raw company by thirds before trusting them to keep time in synchrony. The principle was all well enough, but it did not wholly prevent clattering and lurches of the hull as rowers caught crabs. “You noticed immediately that the companion was female,” Calvus remarked. His hand brushed the agent’s shoulder to save his balance. Gaius was directly behind them, with the couple a pace further back. Though it did not appear to matter, the traveller spoke no louder than Perennius alone could hear.
The agent shrugged. “Sestius was hiding something,” he said. “Something he didn’t want noticed. I thought he’d brought his chicken aboard. Then I saw her move, the way her throat looked – and knowing there was something going to be wrong with her . . . Well, it wasn’t chicken, it was coney.” He looked sharply at Calvus. “You knew before I did, didn’t you?”
The tall man nodded. “I didn’t realize it would matter to you. It can be difficult to know what information you want – or when I ought to give it to you.”
The liburnian was anything but luxurious. Still, the five passengers had as much privacy as one of the pair of stern cabins could give their number. Perennius opened the hatch and pegged it back to the bulkhead. Amidships, a party of sailors was preparing to hoist the mainsail under directions shouted from the poop. “She earned a berth when she pulled the knife on me,” the agent said quietly. Louder and with a gesture toward the diffident centurion, he called, “Stow your duffle, but remember this is all the shelter we’ll have if the weather turns sour, Quintus.”
Sestius stepped into the cabin between Calvus and the agent. He swung his stuffed field pack off his shoulder to clear the low lintel. Sabellia followed him with a burden scarcely smaller. Her eyes watched Perennius with wary acceptance.
“But I really don’t like to be played for a fool,” the agent repeated to the figure across the hatch from him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Dolphins ahead!” cried the lookout at the masthead, but Perennius in the prow could see that the monster approaching them was no line of dolphins. Presumably the sailor from his better vantage knew that too and had spoken in the same hopeful euphemism that caused the Furies to be referred to as the ‘Kindly-minded Ones.’ The friendly, man-aiding dolphins were traditionally bearers of good luck, while the creature now rippling toward the Eagle looked to be none of those things.
Gaius and Sestius were aft, giving the Marines their third day of weapons drill. When they broke up for individual fencing practice, the agent would join them. At the moment it was as least as important to teach the contingent the meaning of basic commands in Latin. The Eagle was west of Corcyra, the landfall intended for that evening. The liburnian was proceeding with a fair wind and a slow stroke – practice for the rowers, while the Marines drilled above them.
Sabellia, at the agent’s left in the bow, squinted and said, “That’s what a dolphin looks like?”
“No,” said Calvus, “not a dolphin. Not anything at all that should be on Earth at this time.”
“Blazes, that’s the truth!” Perennius said. He glanced around quickly to see what weapons there were that might be more useful than his sword.
The creature’s head was broader than a horse’s and was more than twice as long. Because the thing was approaching and Perennius was low enough that spray wetted him even in a calm sea, the agent could not be sure of the beast’s length. It appeared to be an appreciable fraction of the ship’s own hundred-plus feet. The yellow teeth in its jaws were large enough to be seen clearly as the distance closed. Porpoises undulate vertically. The mottled fin along this creature’s spine did rise and fall, but the body itself rippled sideways in a multiple sculling motion. It looked like nothing Perennius had ever seen in his life, and it looked as dangerous as the agent himself was.