“Drive home that peg!” the agent ordered. He thudded one warped timber against another with the point of his shoulder. Sestius dropped his burden obediently and rapped at the peg with his helmet, the closest equivalent to a hammer. Perennius grunted and lunged at the wall again. Sestius struck in unison, and the pieces of the tower locked in place. The sailors were already completing the task by dogging the bottom edges of the tower into the bronze hasps sunk permanently in the deck for the purpose.
“You pair, lift the roof in place,” Perennius wheezed to the Marines. “There’s a horizontal stud on the inside of the walls to peg it to.”
The men looked at one another blankly for an instant. Then the centurion repeated the order in Greek. With a willingness that at least mitigated their ignorance of every goddam thing, the men dropped the ballista and began lifting the remaining square of planking.
“Do you want me to raise the aft tower while you arm yourself?” Sestius asked. Perennius had stripped off his cloak and equipment belt for the exertion of erecting the tower. Sweat glittered on his eyebrows and blackened the breast of his tunic in splotches. The Centurion looked fully the military professional by contrast. His oval plywood shield was strapped to his back in carrying position. His chest glittered with armor of bronze scales sewn directly to a leather backing. The mail shirt was newly-issued, replacing the one whose iron rings were welded to uselessness during the ambush in Rome.
“No goddam point,” the agent said. “We don’t have enough men to need this one,” he added, levering himself away from the tower which supported him after he no longer needed to support it. It wasn’t that he was getting old, not him. Even as a youth Perennius had paced himself for the task, not the ultimate goal. Here his strength and determination had gotten the heavy fighting tower up in a rush that a dozen men could have equalled only with difficulty. It didn’t leave him much at the moment, but the pirates weren’t aboard yet either. He could run on his nerves when they were. “Get the ballista set up and pick a crew for it – ”
“Me?” Sestius blurted. “I don’t know how to work one of these things.” He stared at the dismantled weapon as if Perennius had just ordered it to bite him. “Sir, I thought you … I mean, these Marines, what would they . . . ?”
“Good work, Centurion,” Gaius called brightly as he strode to the fighting tower. He wore his cavalry uniform complete to the medallions of rank. They bounced and jingled against the bronze hoops of his back-and-breast armor. The armor was hinged on his left side and latched on the right. The individual hoops were pinned to one another in slots so that the wearer could bend forward and sideways to an extent. That was fine for a horseman who needed the protection of the thick metal because he could not carry a shield and guide his mount with his left hand. It should serve Gaius well here, also, in a melee without proper ranks and the support of a shield wall.
Perennius had a set of armor just like it back in the cabin, and he would not be able to wear it – blast the Fates for their mockery!
“I’ll take over with this now,” the younger Illyrian was saying cheerfully. He lifted the heavy ballista base. “You, sailor – scramble up there and take this! And I’ll need both of you to crew the beast.”
The seamen Perennius had commandeered looked doubtful, but it was toward the agent and not toward their own officers that they glanced for confirmation. Perennius nod-
ded briefly to them. “Right,” he said. “I’ll be back myself in a moment.”
“Marines to me!” Sestius was calling in Latin, then Greek, as he trotted amidships. He obviously feared that if he stayed nearby, Perennius would assign him to the ballista after all. The centurion was more immediately fearful of the hash he would make trying to use a weapon of which he was wholly ignorant than he was of the fight at odds which loomed.