Before the sighting, the Eagle had been proceeding toward her next landfall on the fair wind and a reduced stroke by all her rowers. The oars had added perhaps two knots to the three that sail alone would have offered her. Now the sea was frothing to either side under the full power of the oars, increasing the ship’s speed by at least a half despite the state of the hull and the rowers’ inexperience. In consequence, the Eagle was nearing the pirates—or the one of the pair which lay half a mile to the other’s port – that much the faster.
A seaman was scrambling down the ladder from the poop. Instead of waiting for him, Perennius gripped the poop coaming with both hands and swung himself up – waist high, then legs slicing sideways in an arc. His sword and dagger still lay on the main deck where he had been working, but the pouch he had snatched from the cabin slammed him leadenly in the ribs.
The captain was a Tarantine named Leonidas whose experience had been entirely on the smaller Customs vessels. Now he was screaming toward the mainmast. The Marine detachment was becoming entangled with the bosun and a party of seamen who were attempting some activity with the sail. Sestius was already sorting out the confusion. The centurion was leading half the small unit sternward, while the remainder stumbled toward the bow with Longidienus, their original commander.
Ignoring the tangle as a problem solved, Perennius rose to his feet in front of the captain. “Why are we sailing toward the pirates instead of away?” the agent demanded. The short question ended loudly enough to be heard all over the ship, because Leonidas had started to turn away while the agent addressed him.
The Greek seaman spun back around with a look of fury. “Do you want to take over?” he screamed in the agent’s face. “Aren’t you quite sure your orders have gotten us killed already? Hermes and Fortune, I’m sure!”
Sick despair threatened to double Perennius up. There was no unified command on the Eagle. That was his fault. It was perhaps inevitable as well, because Perennius had neither the talent nor the training for organizing other people. He could carry out a task himself or lead others if they cared to follow him; but he had never cared enough about command to try to learn why men who were not self-starters as he was seemed willing to take suicidal risks for some officers.
So the agent had command of the Eagle only by virtue of orders on a scrap of papyrus. That had increasingly little effect as death reached for the liburnian against the wind. Perennius had shown no interest in Leonidas and his deck crew, so long as they provided the transportation he required; and if the efforts of the oarsmen below were meshed effectively with those of the seamen proper, then that was nothing for which Perennius could take credit either. Now the ship was in danger, and there was no plan for how it could fight or run as a unit.
Swallowing an anger that was now directed at himself and not the captain, Perennius said, “Leonidas, I’ll do what I can to save us now, but you’ll have to tell me what to expect.”
. Behind Leonidas there were four sailors instead of the usual one, leaning their weight on the tiller which controlled the paired steering oars. The liburnian was heeling enough to the right that Perennius suspected the blade on the port side must barely be clipping the waves. The starboard oar would be providing full turning force. Leonidas gestured toward his straining men and said, “If the gods grant the wind freshens, we’ll pass to port of both of those bastards and be able to make land safely if the oarsmen hold out – as they will not.” He spat over the railing with an angry intensity which he seemed to be trying to direct away from the agent. He looked back again sharply. “No way we can keep them from stripping and burning the ship, but we can maybe get our own bums clear.”
The agent’s mouth was dry. He wished he had his sword hilt for his hand to squeeze. “All right,” he said, looking past the windward edge of the sail toward the pirate who was already more nearly ahead of them than on their port quarter. Even if a fresher breeze did add a knot or two to the Eagle’s speed, it was too late to hope that would get them clear. “Can we ram?” Perennius went on with as little emotion as possible. As if he did not know the bronze beak had not been replaced, as if he had not heard Niger’s sneering certainty that any of the laid-up vessels would crumble to dust if they struck another ship.