“I’m glad you got involved. You saved my ass,” Perennius said. He was trying to react to a problem which, as the traveller had suggested, he could not himself imagine. “All except my ass, I mean.” The agent attempted a smile.
He was more nervous at the moment about a situation he did not understand than he was about the German pirates already drawing ahead of the Eagle. Perennius knew as well as any man how to deal with the Germans. The only question that remained was his ability to do so under the present circumstances. That would sort itself out very quickly.
“I’m glad for the results, my – companion,” the tall man replied. “But when a tool begins to act in unexpected ways, one naturally becomes concerned that it may no longer be fit for the job for which it was forged.”
“Tools!” the agent snorted as they joined the motley gang of armed men – and Bella, not to forget Bella – around the fighting tower.
“Aulus, the fucking ballista’s out of action,” Gaius said as he saw the agent. “Do we have a spare skein in one of the lockers? Fucking spear took three layers out of one of these!”
“All men are tools, Aulus Perennius,” the traveller concluded softly. “The tools of Mankind.”
“Sir, the coxswain won’t give me any oarsmen,” Sestius announced, “and I think he’s grabbed everybody whole from the deck crew besides. I can arm some of his cast-offs for show – ” the centurion’s glance swept the deck amidships where oarsmen sent up with broken limbs had congregated. They knew they would get no sympathy except from each other. “Or I can go below and show him that your orders are to be obeyed.”
Perennius nodded. He was glad that Sestius appreciated that the situation might have changed since he got his orders. Battles had been lost by the determination of hard-bitten subordinates to carry out instructions despite the manifest absurdity of those instructions. “Right, use what you’ve got on deck,” the agent said. “Looks like we need the rowers most at the moment, though blazes! I’d like those other sixty Marines.”
The agent paused. He was glad to be back in the midst of bloody disaster, out of the metaphysical swamp into which Calvus kept leading him. “Gaius,” he said, “let’s look – ” his wound chewed up all the nerves on the right side of his body as he stepped toward the fighting tower.
“Blazes! Well, I’ll take your word for it, and it’s maybe a good thing anyhow.” Perennius recollected how the damage had probably occurred. “Anyhow, it kept a spear out of my back. Another spear. Take the ballista apart, look like you’re working on it, and make sure those bastards see what’s going on.”
He waved toward the Germans. They were still more than a bowshot away and well up on the liburnian’s forequarter. The German commander seemed to have enough influence with his men to keep them balanced across the deck of his ship for now. With luck, that discipline would break down as the pirates made their run in.
Gaius looked startled at his protector’s orders. “But s-sir,” he said, “we can bluff them with the ballista even if we can’t fix it. If I dismantle the thing, they’ll know they don’t have to be afraid of fire.” He peered at Perennius as if he were expecting to see evidence of a head wound in addition to the bandage on the agent’s upper thigh.
“We’re going to try something different,” Perennius said. He did not care if Gaius knew they were planning to ram, but he was worried about the effect on the others. If the Marines suddenly ran sternward for fear that the deck would lift beneath them, it might give the plan away to the pirates. And it was, despite the danger, the only plan that Perennius could imagine having even a chance of success. “We want this crew to come in just the way the first ones did.”
The eyes of the younger Illyrian narrowed, but he gave a curt nod of assent. He cursed as the latter gave him a reminder of his shoulder wound, but he got to work promptly and obviously with his wrenches.