“You have already lost twenty-seven valuable men to no effect,” continued Falco, whose sole audience was the figure in blue who was more powerful than all the consuls and legions of Rome. “You must not throw away more on my colleague’s hare-brained scheme.”
“Must,” realized everybody in the courtyard as the gerundive construction rolled off Falco’s tongue, had been the wrong thing to say.
Vibulenus held silent with his tongue poised, letting the Commander break the hush by saying, “Starvation is still certain enough, I suppose. Eventually. But go ahead, Gaius Vibulenus, put your plan in effect, only —”
“Yes, your worship?” said the lips of the tall tribune while his mind watched and listened to his body appreciatively from a distance. He wondered if he were going to faint.
“Only don’t spend more than twenty men on the feint, will you?” the Commander continued before he took another sip. “Perhaps you can get the locals to do it instead of your own people. Certainly we pay that lot enough. Or at least their chiefs.”
“I. . . .” said Falco as he tried to clear himself. The argument was lost, that was certain. “I —”
The Commander’s head turned. Falco could not meet the eyes which would not, in any case, have told him anything. He collapsed to a sitting position, wishing the sun were not so bright . . . wishing everyone else in the courtyard were frozen and he could hack through their throats with impunity, including the Commander and most especially Gaius Vibulenus Caper. . . .
“The attack will be real, your worship,” said Vibulenus as he alone remained standing. His viewpoint had drifted back within his body as soon as Falco sank away, but knew his heart was beating abominably fast and he was sure he was going to lose control of his tongue before he could make the necessary explanations.
Plowing on regardless like a runner who knows his legs will give way if he slackens in the least, Vibulenus said, “We need to breach the wall as quickly as possible so that the defenders can’t come up with another means of thwarting us —”
“Yes, I understand, Gaius Vibulenus Caper,” said the Commander, rising in dismissal. One of the armored toads behind him snapped the folding stool closed with enough force to threaten the frame. “Your preparations will take some time, I’m sure, so you’d best get on with them if you’re to be any use at all.”
He waved a slender, blue, deformed-looking hand. Non-coms began lurching to their feet while the tribunes tried to rise with greater delicacy.
“Sir,” said Vibulenus in a voice of such penetrating clarity that everyone paused and even Falco looked at the still face of his rival. “I’ll be leading the assault myself, sir. I think we can make the attack in safety.”
The Commander made a corkscrew motion with his free hand. “Whatever you choose, Tribune,” he said. “Just no more than twenty men. And —” he was walking daintily toward the gate of the living quarters within the blockhouse, but he paused for a moment “—see that there’s a follow-up squad at a comfortable distance. In case you’re wrong about the safety.”
The blue figure disappeared indoors. In the milling confusion of the courtyard, filled with glances and whispers, Gaius Vibulenus wondered what he did choose.
And why.
“You shouldn’t be here, sir,” said Pompilius Niger, and the flight of arrows which punctuated the statement thudded into the roof of the mobile gallery above them like rain on thatch.
“I ought to be in Baiae,” Vibulenus replied. Floating in a one-man skiff in the middle of the Bay of Naples. Surrounded by the prismatic beauty of thousands of dancing waves and covered by an open sky colored the rich blue of indigo-dyed leather.
“Watch it!” called a soldier beyond the gallery. No way of telling what he was warning about. A thud shook the footing of the men preparing to lift the heavy roof covering them, but it could have been an accident to the Roman preparations as easily as a missile flung some distance by the defenders.
The impact brought Vibulenus quivering back to the fear and near darkness within the mobile gallery, however. “You do your job, Niger,” he added harshly, “and let me do mine!”