Without speaking or even appearing to see his comrades in the water, the young Illyrian turned back toward the tumult on deck. Perennius started to call Gaius’ name again in furious despair. He was certain that he would have to climb aboard again and try to throw the courier bodily into the water – that or abandon him. Perennius was damned if he was going to abandon – but he need not have worried. He had forgotten Calvus.
The tall man stood in his attitude of concentration. The splash Sestius had made had drawn some attention but no anger, not yet. There was still wine to be looted. The sun bled through clouds on the horizon. The sight of people drifting off toward it still looked like an act of despair, not hope. Later, and not very much later from the speed with which the Eagle’s bow settled, Perennius expected a blast of rage directed at everything surrounding those who saw themselves condemned. The agent and his companions had to be well beyond missile range of the liburnian by the time that happened.
Gaius turned back and stepped off the side of the ship. He had the blank-eyed aplomb of a man who had forgotten there was a drop-off. He spluttered in the water. Perennius seized him by the neck of his tunic and dragged him to the float with an expression of relief and joy. Calvus, quiet but now mobile again, sat awkwardly on the catwalk and pushed himself into the sea. Even though his feet were already in the water, the tall man managed to make a considerable splash. The agent continued to grin as he reached out to grab Calvus’ hand. The traveller was as clumsy as a hog on ice, but by the gods! he was good to have around in a tight place.
Blazes, they all were – all his companions. If the empire were kept by no one worse … it would be kept, as it seemed probable it would not in reality.
“I think,” said the agent, shaken by reaction and the rage which was the only way he knew to combat despair, “that if we all kick together – quietly! – we can get a few hundred feet away without attracting much attention. We’ll worry then about navigating. For now, the important thing is not to catch javelins between our shoulder blades.”
Suiting action to his words, the Illyrian scissored out a kick that did not break the surface of the water. It was excruciatingly painful to his right thigh. That was, in its way, a blessing. It took his mind away from the useless-ness of his action and the mission beyond it to the only goal which had mattered to Aulus Perennius for twenty years: the stability of his world.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It became much worse after dark. While there was still a trace of light, it served as a goal toward which to kick. When even that trace had shrunk and vanished, the grating was alone with the sea and the moonless sky. Perennius trusted Calvus’ sense of direction, though he did not understand the mechanism. The others seemed to trust Perennius, though the gods alone knew why. He should never have set sail without a full complement of Marines! When he got back, he’d find the bureaucrat responsible and –
It was hard to imagine getting back to Rome, when you were thrusting at the water which surrounded you without even a horizon to be seen.
Sabellia yelped. She began splashing at the water with an arm as well as her legs. Sestius, across from her at the “bow” end, shouted, “What is it? What is it?” as the float bobbed and yawed.
The commotion subsided as abruptly as it had begun. “It’s all right,” the woman gasped. She was clinging to the grate with both hands again. They had all stopped their desultory kicking for the moment. It was a good time for another break. “Something b-bit my toe. It was just a nibble, but . . .” Sabellia did not have to finish the sentence for the others to scan the surface around them. It was so dark that no fin could have been glimpsed against the waves anyway.