The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 18

Devnum

“Did any of you actually see this happen, or is it just gossip?” Decius asked, causing the other men to look back and forth at each other.

“No. We agreed that it was best if we only had one man in the crowd, just in case Ramirus was watching the crowd or they detained everyone for questioning afterward, but the story we’re hearing has been very consistent. He flew clear across the courtyard. It’s unclear if he had wings or was simply gliding like a leaf on the wind, but everyone was clear that he crossed the entire plaza from a window behind the platform set up for the Emperor’s daughter to give her speech.”

“One of my son's neighbors was there, and said he fired a bolt from an arcuballista, shooting our man’s arrow out of the air. She said it landed right in front of her, almost hitting a man. One arrow had impaled the other.”

“Wings. Shooting arrows out of the sky,” Decius said, sounding dismissive. “All we’re doing is building his myth, which will make it harder to turn the people around when the time comes. You all know how bad people’s detailed memory of events is. Most of these stories didn’t start until days after it happened. If he really did sprout wings, we would have heard it that day. It’s all fairytales. It also isn’t what’s important. What we need to find out is what happened to our man. None of your gossip says anything about that.”

“Everyone started running when he fired and the Consul made his … display. The plaza was also well-guarded, and they cleared the area quickly. The only witness I’ve been able to find said that he saw the Consul standing over our man, but not what happened after that.”

“I heard his body was rushed out by the Praetorians after he was killed by the Consul.”

“Why would they rush a body out?” Decius asked. “If he was alive and they wanted to get him to physicians to keep him alive to be questioned, or they just wanted to make sure we didn’t kill him before they questioned him, that I’d understand. But rushing out a body? No. If that happened, then he’s still alive, which means we’re going to need to change everything. He could expose us.”

“We don’t know if he was alive, though. And it’s been days since he was taken. If he was alive, why have they not come for us? Ramirus’s torturers are good enough to get the locations he knew about out of him by now. No, if he was taken alive, they would already have us.”

“That’s a good point. We’re still going to make some changes, just in case. First, we … did you hear that?” Decius said, cocking his head to the side as he tried to figure out what the half-heard sound was.

He started to stand up when the door to the villa they were using for tonight’s meeting was smashed open, flying back on broken hinges and slamming against the opposite wall. Following through the broken door were almost a dozen Praetorians, moving fast in spite of their heavy segmented armor. Decius turned to run the other way, out the back door of the villa, when more armored men came through that entryway. His colleagues tried to push their way past the Praetorians and were promptly thrown to the floor, swords at their throats and rope going around their hands and legs.

“You can’t …” Decius started to say, protesting their treatment, when he saw movement from his periphery.

He’d only just turned his head when he recognized the handle of the gladius just before it smashed into the side of his head.

***

Insula Manavia

Holding a cloth over his mouth, Velius watched the large ships sail into the docks. He was looking forward to leaving this place. At the meeting the Consul had called, he’d been told that he would be leaving the death and destruction his army had wreaked on the Carthaginians soon. Valdar’s ships had done a good job of sparing the docks, which would make getting prisoners and legionnaires off the island and bringing in teams to begin repairing the damage go much faster, but they had not done the same for the rest of the city, where the Carthaginians had holed up behind their walls. Velius had offered terms for surrender, but their commander had scoffed at it, forcing Velius’s hand.

He wasn’t surprised. Word had started to filter in from the continent through Ramirus’s spies, that the Carthaginians had begun executing anyone who surrendered, from the commanding generals all the way to the lowest soldiers, and their families. It was brutal, but it insured most of them fought to the last man. In the long run, Velius was sure that policy would hurt them more than ensure victory in battle. As the Britannians expanded their reach, and the blanket of protection they could offer, the oppressive policies of the Carthaginians would make it much easier for newly taken villages to switch their allegiance, joining the Britannians instead of fighting against them.

Of course, that didn’t do anything to help the poor bastards who’d huddled behind the walls of the small town set up by the Carthaginians as a supply depot. Valdar’s ships had nearly leveled most of the city, showing the real power of the cannon. The explosive shells were the worst. The damage they did to bodies was horrifying. But until he saw them in action, Velius had not realized how dangerous they could be to cities built mostly out of wood.

Most of the city had burned to the ground, the men defending it and everyone who’d been unable to get out burning with it. The few that survived the horrific shelling and fires made it to the docks, where they huddled until the fires died down enough for the Britannian legions to close their encirclement, which had taken the better part of two days. The survivors left huddling on the docks were so weakened by hunger and exhaustion that they barely put up any fight.

He’d already seen them in action a little bit, but this was the first time Velius had seen the Consul’s new gunpowder weapons in their full glory and knew a radical shift was about to take place in the way wars were fought. With enough cannons, shield walls and phalanxes were going to be a thing of the past. His legions as they were now could stand up to thousands of spearmen slamming into them, pushing back with their large shields. But he knew that they too would crumble under cannon fire.

It was unlikely the Carthaginians would be able to duplicate their weapons for some time, at least not without getting their hands on either the Consul’s plans or someone like Hortensius, who knew how the weapons were created. What was likely was that the Carthaginian armies would change the way they fought to adapt to the Britannians’ new weapons. Velius’s mind already worked through what some of those changes might be, but he knew he would end up surprised anyway. Either way, war was going to change.

“Those are a welcome sight,” Bomilcar said, coming to stand next to him, indicating the ships slowly pulling into the docks.

“Yes. I know the men are looking forward to getting off this cursed island.”

“It’s not cursed. At least not for us.”

“Maybe not, but this entire end smells like death and burning meat. I’m not sure how much longer I can stomach it.”

“It is jarring. The Consul wasn’t kidding about the effects of his explosive shells.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Velius said.

The two men fell silent, watching officers corralling men, getting them prepared to begin boarding the ships to be shuttled back to Britannia.

After several minutes of silence, Velius finally said, “I owe you an apology.”

“It’s fine,” Bomilcar said, not looking at him.

“No, it’s not,” Velius said, turning to address the general directly. “I’ve been hostile to you since the day the Consul decided to grant you an amnesty and bring you into the councils of war. I believe my reasons were good, but I should have listened to the Consul when he told me to get my head on straight and watched the work you were doing getting us prepared without the skewed lens I was using to see through. You were right about the response we’d face here. If you hadn’t persisted and forced me to put in at least some of your precautions, we would not have been able to respond to that flank attack in time. Hell, even partially prepared, we were very close to being caught unawares if it wasn’t for your keen eye giving us time to adjust the plan. You saved a lot of men’s lives.”

“Thank you,” Bomilcar said, not changing his stoic attitude.

“Damn it, man. I’m trying to apologize here. You were right and I should have listened to you.”

“And I accept your apology.”

“Were you always this difficult?” Velius asked, turning back to the ships, a bit annoyed that he’d come halfway and the general refused to meet him there.

“If you asked the people serving under me, yes; but that was about discipline, and maintaining the chain of command. This is different. You aren’t the only one who looks at me like I am something unpleasant they stepped in, and I understand. I did lead men intent on destroying you. I’m sure that, if our positions were reversed, I’d harbor the same kind of resentment against you. You should, perhaps, consider for a moment what it’s like for someone like me, leaving everything and everyone I’ve known to serve people who might always hate me. I’m not unique in this situation. You have hundreds of soldiers who’ve agreed to become Britannian citizens, just as I have, fighting for you instead of against you. I’m certain they’ve faced some of the same prejudices I have, although maybe not to the same degree. I say that because, while I am fine with the place I have in this, you should consider the message you send them when you rail against me and my allegiances in front of the men. You are, perhaps, creating something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as these men learn the forgiveness they were promised never comes to fruition.”

“That’s a good point, and I will try to keep it in mind, but I think you might be trying to change the subject from the point I was trying to make.”

Bomilcar sighed, turned to the legate, and finally said, “Because I have no answers for you. I appreciate the apology and I will continue to try to help the Empire in any way I can, but I will never be one of you. Even the Consul, who treats me as equally as anyone I’ve met here, still sees me as something else. Other. It’s the price I must pay to make up for my previous allegiances, and I do it willingly, but I will not do it blindly.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Velius said. “Maybe one day that will change.”

“Maybe.”

***

Factorium

“My lady, it’s good to see you well,” Sorantius said, coming out of his factory to meet her.

She disliked going inside his buildings, where the very air made her eyes feel like they were on fire. Even outside, the smell persisted. She knew Ky had ordered more improvements to the building to help with worker safety, but she couldn’t imagine being around this place regularly.

“Thank you. How are your people doing since the accident?”

“It’s hard to say. The physicians tell me some should recover, but most of the men who were inside the building and close to the tank that ruptured don’t seem to be getting any better. The Consul has checked on them, I know, but I got the feeling he knows their case is hopeless. He did say it was unlikely any more will die immediately, so that’s something.”

“I see,” she said. “I’ve prayed to the gods that they recover, and will burn offerings for them.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” he said.

It was such a change after dealing with Hortensius, who was always so enthusiastic, and then coming to Sorantius, who was so muted and stand-offish by nature. She’d worked with him enough now, and seen him with others, to know that this wasn’t personal. He was like this with everyone. But it was still jarring on the days she had to work with both men.

She knew it was a sign of his focus, which was intense, and what made him so good at what he did. If the side effect was a blunt and slightly disagreeable personality, she’d live with it.

“Well,” she said, getting to the point of her visit. “I have some additional notes from the Consul for you. We discussed these in-depth when I saw him, so I should be able to answer any questions you might have.”

With Sorantius, she was back to the fiction that she’d memorized the answer to practically any question he might ask. While it had been a security risk, she was happy Hortensius had worked out her and Ky’s ability to communicate, because it allowed her to be more straightforward with him and not have to hedge everything within the umbrella of their cover story.

This was another area where Sorantius’s focus and lack of social skills were welcome. He rarely questioned any of the explanations she gave for how she knew the answers he needed. All he was interested in was any information that would make his work easier or more efficient.

“The new bleach, I think the Consul called it, is getting rave reviews from the textile and paper manufacturers, both of whom are saying it’s notably increased their productivity and made their products more reliable.”

“Good. Good,” Sorantius said, not really even hearing her.

She waited, but he said nothing else, his focus on reading the pages she’d handed him.

“That one is for a new adhesive. There are multiple uses, but one of the main things the Consul wants to use it for is to bind pages together into something he calls a book, where the pages are held between a hard outer shell, and stay together as you flip back and forth, so they’re always in the same order and don’t get mixed around.”

“That’s interesting. It does get difficult shuffling between stacks of these pages, looking for one specific item.”

“You aren’t the first to say so. He has already talked to some men and is working on setting up a process of organizing the pages by subject. He also has them producing a front page that will list where in the book you can find specific topics. It’s really quite clever.”

“Some of the other uses of this adhesive are interesting as well; but the book thing? Yes, I think that will make my life a lot easier. Although not as much as letting me keep these documents on-site like I used to.”

“We’ve gone over that,” she said, as they ended up on his favorite subject of debate. “For now, we have to be careful with our security. Eventually, we’ll be able to relax things and will be able to have copies of these here, but not while we’re at war.”

Ky actually had said they could probably do it once they got advanced enough. The gap between the Britannians and the Carthaginians was already growing, and they would eventually get to a point where, without the intermediate steps, the information would be all but useless, since it required a knowledge base they wouldn’t have. Arcuballista they could recreate right away. The same with some of the steel making changes and even the gunpowder, if they learned the right proportions of the components.

Something like the steam engine, however, was a culmination of dozens of advancements, all of which were needed to make the machine work.

“Yes, yes. Security,” he said, flipping pages.

“The adhesive is going to be helpful, but it isn’t the most important thing I’ve brought you. This is called mercuric fulminate, and requires strict adherence to all of the safety warnings, plus a new, separate building for production. This product is extremely dangerous, much more so than even the chemicals which caused the recent accident. It combusts and explodes very easily, so even a slight mishandling can cause the rest of it to go off, meaning a mistake could destroy an entire factory if we aren’t careful. Shock, friction, or even too much heat will cause it to explode. The Consul reiterated that there can be no avoiding or simplifying these safety measures. They are critical.”

“I see,” he said, reading. “What I don’t see is why you would need something this volatile. If you were to fire this out of one of those weapons Hortensius has been testing, it would explode before it ever left the thing.”

“As I understand it, its main use will be in very small amounts, used to set off gunpowder or something else. It won’t be used by itself.”

She’d had a similar question while writing this and Sophus had given her a much fuller explanation, but she thought it best for now if she kept it close to the chest. Sophus had explained the future of their military, based around something it called a rifle, and this was, apparently, a key component to making that work. She didn’t really understand all of it, but the use of a primer, which would be made using this chemical, wasn’t hard to figure out.

“From the tests I’ve seen, gunpowder is easily set off using an open flame. I watched the test firing of Hortensius’s new cannon yesterday because we were also testing these new sulfur-tipped sticks, umm, matches the Consul called them, and it worked well. I’m not sure why a percussion-based explosive would be needed for that.”

“This is more in preparation for some additional advances the Consul plans on introducing in the coming months. You know how he works. First he has to get all of the parts in production, and then he shows us how they go together.”

“I see. Well, if the Consul commands it, then we will make it.”

“Just make sure you follow the safety precautions he included. I can’t emphasize enough how important they are.”

“I will do my best, my lady,” Sorantius said.

She knew it annoyed him when people repeated themselves, since he’d once mentioned it was a way for people to show they didn’t think you were listening or might not be smart enough to understand their point, but she had done it mostly for herself. Sophus had described some fairly horrific accidents involving these explosives that ended in disaster.

She’d already lost enough of her people to accidents. Since she couldn’t stand over each worker's shoulder to ensure they were being careful, she had to settle for pestering their supervisor instead.