The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 10

Imperial Senate, Devnum

“They’re pirates,” Rotri, one of the Caledonian senators said, his face red, his finger jutting out at the five newly arrived Ulaid senators.

“Us?” Fiacha Sil Fingin, one of the new Ulaid senators said, standing up angrily. “Your people boarded one of our peaceful fishing boats, killed the crew, and sailed the boat back to Caledonia.”

“Only after they fired an arrow, missing one of our fishermen by less than a hand span. I spoke with those brave men, and they were fishing peacefully when your pirates declared that entire area theirs and threatened our fishermen with death if they didn’t leave. That arrow was proof that it was more than a threat. They defended themselves.”

“Your people had no right to be there anyway. Those are our waters.”

“Pirate.”

“Brigand.”

“Gentleman,” Lucilla said, moving to stand between them as the two men edged closer and closer. “This is getting us nowhere.”

She’d been to enough sessions of the Roman senate to know these kinds of events could quickly escalate into actual blows if the men weren’t separated. So far, the Imperial senate had been amazingly calm, to the point where she thought maybe it was her people that were the actual hotheads. Of course, they hadn’t had any major disagreements so far. In fact, most of the disagreements were between the senators collectively and her father, or at least Lucilla as her father’s representative.

“Disputes like this are bound to happen, just as you will have disputes within your own borders when various lords or property holders disagree with one another. You wouldn’t want those to come to blows every time.”

“It’s worked so far,” Rotri said, while Fiacha nodded along.

She was pleased to have the two of them finally come to an agreement on something, although she did wish it wasn’t over the idea that they could duel their way out of every disagreement.

“Well, it won’t work here. The whole point of this governing body is to work out disagreements peacefully. Duels might work between neighbors inside your borders, but if these things come to blows, it won’t be long before someone’s friends take umbrage and pull the alliance apart. Then it’s only a matter of time until the Carthaginians show up and reclaim what they’ve lost. I think we can all agree that the last thing any of us want is to give the Carthaginians that kind of advantage. We’ve all spilled too much blood getting to where we are now.”

Both men backed down, if only slightly. She wondered what they would do when the Carthaginians were no longer a threat. For now, they all had a common goal, but eventually, that threat would be gone and it would be much harder to keep tempers under control.

“Now, I think what would work best is a compromise. Clearly, we made an oversight in our agreement to form the alliance, in that we laid out the borders of each land area, but didn’t cover each country's territory on the water.”

“That isn’t the same thing,” Bredei, one of the other Caledonian senators said. “The land border between our people has existed in the same state since our grandparents' time. While many of us wanted to reclaim our ancestral homeland, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to agree to leave things as they are now. And neither of us shares a border with the Ulaid or any of the other kingdoms on their island. For their part, the Carthaginians helpfully eliminated all of their neighbors, and we’ve rounded up the rest, giving them no land borders to dispute over. This is different. Conflicts like this have existed for a long time. Before the alliance, we’d just curse the other side, bury our dead, and that would be that, because they were too far from us and we were too far from them. This isn’t new.”

“But it is something we have to deal with, unless you think allowing the alternative of letting the argument over who gets to fish where to break our alliance is worth it. I’m not ready to give my people over to the Carthaginians. Are you?”

Bredei looked to the two men who’d been arguing, and then back at Lucilla.

“I thought not. So the question is, what is a compromise that we can agree on?”

“We need to define how far out from each member's coast is still considered their territory, open to fishing or whatever else by their citizens, and how far out is open water that does not belong to anyone,” Fiacha said.

“You would suggest that,” Roti said. “Since you know the best fishing waters are a lot closer to your coast than ours.”

“Is that true everywhere around your borders?” Lucilla asked. “I remember hearing that there was also good fishing between the northern third of Britannia and where Codanus Sinus empties out into the ocean. I’m sure many Roman fishermen would like to, and probably are, working in those waters that you might prefer to be held for your people instead.”

“My lady,” Kaeso, one of the Roman senators started to say before she halted him.

“This is the nature of compromise. We all lose something but we all gain something. I’ve found that, if everyone involved is unhappy with a solution, then it’s probably the one that’s most fair. I suggest all of us think about this, look at some maps, and decide what is best for us as an Empire.”

The men grumbled but began to work, which is what Lucilla was looking for. She was surprised it had taken this long to have friction among themselves. This time, the solution was fairly obvious and the friction, while heated, wasn’t as extreme as it could have been. They would have worse to deal with in the future.

“That was well done,” Ky said from behind her.

“Ky,” she said, taking a step towards him like she was going to throw her arms around him, and then stopping, remembering where they were. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?”

“Because I thought it might make for a good surprise.”

“It is and I’m thrilled to see you, but I thought you had a lot of work to do with the legions. Checking up on me?”

“Of course not. Bomilcar and Velius can handle the legions for now. They’ve got a plan for getting the men prepared for the assault on the Carthaginian holdouts, and it will take some time. Valdar’s launching the ships today, and I need to start training him and I had something I wanted to talk to Hortensius about since I was here.”

“About the engine Sophus was telling me about?”

“Not directly, no. We’re getting very close to that, but we need one more advancement before we can produce it. I know you hate trying to draw diagrams based on Sophus’s descriptions alone, so I thought I could bring those with me to save you some trouble.”

“Aww, you do love me.”

“I really do,” Ky said.

“You’ll be staying here in town for a few days then?”

“Just today. I’ll see Hortensius and then head to the docks. Once the ships launch, I’ll leave with Valdar and his crews. After some trial runs, we’ll be going down towards the legions to conduct some large-scale trial runs with the fleet and the legions together. I should be back after that, however. I want to be here when it’s time to talk to Hortensius about the steam engine. After gunpowder, it’s probably the most critical piece of technology we’re going to introduce.”

“So you’re not even staying the night?”

“That’s all you heard, wasn’t it?”

“No, but it’s the most important part. Worse, I can’t even go with you to see Hortensius. I have to stay and make sure they don’t come to blows. When you come back for the engine, I want you for at least one night.”

“I live to serve,” Ky said, with a bow.

***

Factorium

“Consul, this is a surprise,” Hortensius said, coming across the foundry floor at a quick walk. “Are you here about the thefts?”

“No. Lucilla has kept me informed and Ramirus and Faenius have it well in hand. I’m just thankful we didn’t lose any of the more critical documents.”

“As am I. I apologize for …”

“It’s not necessary. We all knew how the documents were being stored and thought they’d be safe. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Which is what your wife keeps telling me, but they were still stolen from under my roof, so I feel responsible.”

“Which shows that you’re the right man to have here. The new security measures should be sufficient to keep it from happening again, which is good enough for me.”

“Good. I won’t lie; it’s been keeping me up late at night.”

“I know, which is why I know you did everything in your power to protect them. Like I said, we allmissed it.”

“Well … alright. Then I guess I’ll stop wringing my hands over it. So, if you aren’t here about the stolen documents, what can I do for you? I thought you rode off with the legions.”

“I did, but Valdar’s ships launch today, and I need to be here for that. It’s not for a few more hours, however, so I wanted to drop off some more plans for you. There are two sets here, one for now, and the second for you to work on the preliminary stages, but assembling it and the first run must wait until I return.”

“That sounds intriguing. I guess we should start with the part you trust me to manage on my own,” he said, giving Ky a sly smile.

“It’s not like that. The second set of plans is a huge step up in technology, and has the potential of being dangerous if handled badly, which is why I want to be here. Also, this first one is more of an innovation on a technology you already have.”

“And that sounds much less interesting, but I guess I too must wait for dessert until I have finished my supper.”

“Precisely. If you would look here,” Ky said, handing over a set of diagrams and instructions. “You’ll see it is essentially the same as the turning machine the woodworkers use for shaping large pieces of wood precisely, but it is adjusted for working with metal. You’ll also see that it has specific settings and markings to lock off at indicated sizes, so that parts can be engineered precisely. That is the key part of this. The next set of plans, and many of the plans we have coming up, require precision machining, meaning just measuring by hand or by eye is not good enough. Parts must fit tightly together and yet not catch when functioning, which is where the precision comes in. Now, I know your wood lathes, which is what we would call the turning machine you use, is muscle-powered, which isn’t good enough for the new steel you’re producing. That’s why you’ll see this first design is powered by a water wheel. This doesn’t provide the force needed for some of the thicker steel, but for the parts we need right away, it will work. Once you use this to produce the items I’ve listed on page seven, we’ll be able to get the new steam engine built, which is what is in this stack.”

Ky handed over the next stack of instructions, this one much larger than the instructions on the metal lathe.

“I’ve included the entire process of building the steam engine, as well as much of the theory behind it; however, I do not want you building this yourself. For now, just work on getting the new lathe built and work on producing the parts I indicated. I’m sure a lot of this won’t make sense until you get used to using it, after which I’m sure you’re going to have a lot of questions. I want to be able to look over each part and make sure everything is exactly to my specifications before we assemble it. Feel free to look over the plans though. When I get back from the training runs down the coast in two weeks or so, we’ll be ready to start.”

“That should give me enough time to get at least one of these built and the parts you listed made.”

“Remember, accuracy is the most important thing. We’re talking accuracy to a hair's width, not close enough by eye. It must be exact.”

“This is new to me, but I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will,” Ky said.

Devnum Docks

“Look at them,” Valdar said as the ships settled into the water.

Even from their position on the shore, the ships looked massive to Lucilla. Ky was running late, but she knew he was in a hurry to get the ships to the south for ‘war games,’ as he called them, with the legions, so she hadn’t waited to order the finished ships launched. It had happened much faster than she’d expected. She’d watched Lucan building the docks, but it hadn’t really occurred to her what it would mean when it was time to launch them. Logically, she’d known, of course, since she’d looked over the same instructions that Lucan had used to build them, but reading facts on a piece of paper or even hearing explanations given by Ky and Sophus wasn’t the same as seeing it take place in person.

The entire dockyard was right against the waterline, with a series of wooden and concrete retaining walls that angled into the shore, but ended in a clever sliding wall that involved a huge slab of concrete being lowered into cut-out divots, that became watertight as the waves pushed against it. The wall itself was significantly higher than high tide, while the area that flowed back away from the water angled down into a deep depression that allowed almost two-thirds of the finished ship to sit below the earth. At Lucan’s signal, the gate was raised and a torrent of water rushed in until the ship was floating free. The water in the narrow area pushed the ship up and clear of the bottom of the dry dock, just like Ky said it would.

It still took a combination of plow animals pulling the ship, and dozens of row boats pulling for all their might to get the ship to move forward, along with men using long poles, pushing on either side to keep it clear of the sides of the dock. Without oars, the huge ship was cumbersome and heavy, and Valdar wanted to wait to unfurl the sails until they were clear of the land, just in case a rogue gust caught them causing the ship to smash into the sides of the dry dock. The last thing he wanted was a giant hole in the side of one of his massive new ships. Once it was halfway past the sea wall, as Lucan had called it, the animals were taken away and it was left to the rowboats, with all the men pulling their oars as hard as they could, trying to get the ship to move.

It was slow going, but it worked. Only a small crew of men were on board each ship, with each of them dropping anchor well offshore, to wait for the next ship to follow. Valdar’s comments came as the last ship made it to anchor near its sisters, the three sitting like massive sea monsters; the rowboats looking tiny next to them.

“This is nothing,” Ky said. “One day we’re going to get to the large ships.”

“Large? That would be larger than even the ridiculously oversized two-decked galleys the Carthaginians have built as their flagships, and those things are barely seaworthy, not able to sail even partway across the middle sea without swamping. I’ll admit, these look a lot more stable than I thought they would just by looking at your plans, but larger? It’s hard to fathom.”

“It’s true. We are a long way from there, but I have some frigate designs I’ll give to Lucan one day that have three gun decks plus a hold. Actually, even before that, I told you these were going to be the smaller ships we’d introduce, and after this, we’d talk about some larger cargo vessels.”

“I know, but honestly, I thought you were pulling my leg. These can already easily fit five times the amount of cargo my ship could carry, and mine was designed specifically as a trading vessel.”

“True, but until now that mostly meant getting rid of all but a few oars. It’s still essentially a shallow draft ship with cargo stacked around the single mast. The ships I’m thinking of will be about twice the size of those caravels, although still notably smaller than the frigates I was just mentioning. They can carry three times as much as the caravel, although they sit a lot lower in the water, so all of the guns are on the decks, as opposed to having a row on deck and a standalone gun deck, which means they aren’t as defensible.”

“Against ships like this, maybe, but even one row of cannons is going to be enough to deal with even a fleet of galleys carrying soldiers and maybe a scorpion.”

“Probably. Their weight also means they’ve got a much deeper draft. So no more sailing up rivers and they’re going to be slow. Slow enough that, given bad wind conditions, a galley might keep up with it. If the Carthaginians got enough boats in the water, they could still overwhelm you and take your ship. Sure, you’d do damage, but you’d still go down.”

“That’s what these are for. In a year, we’ll have a small fleet of these, wiping out the Carthaginians. There won't be a vessel of theirs for days in any direction.”

“Small fleet might be a stretch. At this rate, we’ll get maybe nine built a year, and that’s with the Empire footing the bill for a massive amount of labor. Even if we spread them out evenly around the islands and down the coast of the continent, clearing the path for whatever transports we can round up or get built at the smaller ports, you’re still talking about enough room between each ship that entire invasion fleets could sail through without anyone noticing. No, we have a long way to go before we rule the waves, as it were,” Lucilla said.

She could see Ky give her a look out of the corner of her eye, but ignored it. Sometimes when Sophus would get lost in a subject, going seriously overboard on details, she actually listened. Partly so she could better anticipate Ky’s next move, or at least be less in the dark about them, but also for a moment like this, when she could be the one to surprise him for a change.

“Rule the waves,” Valdar echoed. “I like that. And yes, I might have been overstating the case a bit, but they won’t be just searching the seas blindly, will they? That’s what your spies are for, and we could put the smaller scouting vessels to use as well. It’s also not like they can just hide in deeper waters. The Carthaginians might have the largest armies anyone has ever seen, but they are shit sailors. If they get those galleys out of sight of the coast, they’ll lose half their fleet for us.”

“Maybe, but they have enough men and material that they can take those losses, and they just need one invasion fleet to get through to change everything. Especially once the legions are off on the continent.”

“I guess that means I’d better do my job.”

“I guess it does,” Lucilla said, smiling.

“Speaking of how many ships we can produce this year, we’ve had some requests,” Lucan said. “We’ve had a lot of interest in getting more of these built, and in the two new slips we started on. I’ve had several ship masters ask when some of our new ships can be purchased by private buyers. Word has trickled out about the cargo capacity of these three, which as you pointed out a minute ago, is smaller than the new designs you want built. If there’s a fair amount of demand now, I can’t even guess what it will be like when the fifth slip is finished and we start on the first of the cargo ships you want to use to move soldiers and supplies to the mainland.”

“It’s understandable,” Ky said. “I know if I was a shipmaster, I’d want a larger, faster, more seaworthy vessel. You could carry more cargo and sail more direct routes …”

“Not without the new navigational aids and charts you provided,” Valdar added.

“No, although I’m sure descriptions of some of those have already gone out and it won’t take long for an enterprising captain to draw up and sell his own charts. Still, for now, we have to put all of our efforts towards the war …”

“Are most of the interested parties Britannians or merchants who are just settling here?” Lucilla asked, interrupting him.

“A few, but there are very few Britannian captains who need ships like these. Aside from the guys who followed Valdar’s lead, most of whom became citizens based on promises of access to their ships after the war, I think, Britannians don’t do a lot of long-distance trade. Your sailors tend to stick close to the shore, and are more fishermen than traders.”

“That will change, I think,” Ky said.

“Probably,” Lucan agreed. “But not yet. So no, the vast majority are not Britannians. They’re mostly Scandi and a few shipmasters from Asia who sailed down from the northern passage or across the Sea of Serpents, after hearing from the Scandi that there’s money to be made.”

“I thought as much,” Lucilla said. “I think both of you have a lot of work to do. Those ships need to be provisioned and I believe you have both slips to finish and new ships to start.”

Both men looked at each other at the abrupt shift in the conversation, but the dismissal was unmistakable. With short bows, they each left to handle their responsibilities.

“I assume there was a point to that,” Ky said once they were out of earshot.

“Of course there was,” she said, giving him the look that he’d started to recognize as the one she reserved for stupid questions. “Working with Valdar, it’s quickly become apparent that we are lacking in skilled shipmasters. There are maybe three Romans in the entire Empire who’ve sailed anything that wasn’t primarily oar-driven and none in either Caledonia or Ériu. There is no one in the Empire who hasn’t lived under the thumb of the Carthaginian fleets, who take any ship they could get their boarding ramps on. Those that were allowed to remain on the water are all fishermen. Valdar may be putting the cart before the horse when it comes to us controlling the seas, but his instinct is right. I’ve listened to you, Sophus, and my father, enough to know that right now we have benefited from fighting on our home territory. We haven’t had to worry about supply lines or lines of communication. Our reinforcements, or at least those we’ve been able to get, have always been on hand. When we get to either Africa or the continent, that’s going to be a different story. We will need to control the seas, and to do that, we need skilled sailors.”

“And you have a plan to get them, I take it?”

“Yes, I do. Those,” she said, pointing to the ships out in the bay.

“I thought we were letting Valdar buy those when this is over.”

“We are, and it’s what’s made him an enthusiastic convert. Valdar has vision. He could see some of our other improvements and extrapolate what that would mean for ships, just based on your descriptions. It’s not hard to understand why most of the other Scandi didn’t initially follow him. It takes a rare mind to hear small details, look at inventions outside of their area of expertise, and put together a picture of what the future will bring. Most of these men believe what their eyes tell them, and that’s it. Now, though, they’ve seen what Valdar’s ships can do. They’ve been out in their fishing ships and galleys, and seen Valdar’s ships with their small collection of new sails cutting past them. They’ve now seen these new ships. I know you keep saying they aren’t that impressive, but to us, when all we’ve seen are war galleys and fishing vessels, they’re massive. The sudden demand to obtain them is real, and shows the difference seeing can bring.”

“And you think giving them a chance to buy ships will do it when they passed on it before? I get seeing the ships changes things, but enough to get over their reservations for throwing in with us that made them say no before?”

“Yes, well, partially. There might have to be some variations to what Valdar was offered.”

“And that won’t piss off Valdar, his competitors getting a better deal than he got?”

“I don’t think so. Is there a design that has the better sails and an increased cargo capacity, but is smaller than these ships?”

“I don’t know, considering our priorities, that’s kind of …”

“There are several schooner designs that would fit that capacity,” Sophus said, interrupting Ky, causing him to make a face.

“Maybe, but as I was trying to say, that kind of goes against our priorities. We have three slips now and two more that will be done maybe next month. I’m not even sure we’ll have enough transports with all five working through the summer. Diverting them to build schooners is definitely not what we need.”

“Strategically, it is a workable scenario precisely because it is unlikely the necessary transports for the invasion of the continent will be ready in time.”

“Did you fry something? That makes no sense.”

“It has already been determined that the invasion must happen before the winter, to keep the Carthaginians from mobilizing the bulk of their armies against a potential landing, which they must know is coming. It is also certain that you will not get enough transports built to carry a large invasion force efficiently. These things being true, it means that our forces will be required to use an inefficient mix of transports to cross the channel. For this plan, that is an acceptable trade-off because the channel is fairly calm and only a short distance, and the use of a large number of small ships to transport soldiers across the distance has already been proven in our future’s past, albeit in the reverse. Substituting one or two large corvettes in the process will not add significant inefficiencies into the processes.”

“Fine, so it won’t mess up our timetable, but why complicate things with smaller designs.”

“There are benefits to the schooner design, most notably speed. Their cargo capacity is smaller, but still larger than that of the largest ships currently in use as merchantmen.”

“If they are that much faster, wouldn’t that help solve some of the problems you just pointed out? That the ocean is huge and it’s hard to patrol all of it?” Lucilla asked.

“Maybe, but you’re not talking about adding these to our fleets, you’re talking about building them for private owners,” Ky said.

“It doesn’t have to be all one or the other,” Lucilla said. “We can still require some service from them, such as helping carry the legions across to the continent, report on enemy ship movement, and so on. Those that want to see some level of service, maybe doing patrol runs for the fleet, we can sell cannons to and train them to use them, much as we’re doing with Valdar. Even if they don’t, you’ve already listed numerous raw materials we need from Asia and other far-off regions. Having merchants capable of fast transport would be of benefit to us.”

“If we give up one slip to creating the schooners, how many men will that really bring in?”

“That’s the other part of it. Valdar’s been complaining for weeks that he wasn’t sure how we were going to crew his ships, based on the number of men you said he’d need. His ships needed maybe ten or fifteen men, which was one of the reasons the Scandi use them instead of galleys, which require a lot more manpower. He could put together a handful of seasoned men for each ship, but that’s it, which means nearly every ship would be crewed by novices.”

“That has always been the weakest part of this plan,” Sophus said. “While unavoidable with the resources at our disposal, these ships need to commence patrolling as soon as possible. Every record of Carthaginian movements suggests their first attempts to move armies to counter our landings will be done by sea, which makes the current timetable unfeasible. It is imperative that these ships begin interdicting any Carthaginian fleets attempting to sail up the coast. This will force the armies to march overland to oppose us, which should allow time for our forces to land and prepare defenses.”

“Which is where these ships come in. To get a spot, a captain has to commit a certain number of men to serve aboard our ships until their vessel is ready.”

“Why would they agree to put their men in harm’s way for the right to purchase a ship? It still seems like a stretch.”

“Not if you think about it. These ships are unlike anything they’ve sailed before. It works equally as a chance for their men to train on these new-style ships. They all know how dangerous the waters here can be, which is why most of them train in the Codanus Sinus which, like the middle sea, is much calmer than Oceanus. For this, however, they would have to have an untrained crew sail these new ships around Britannia, and navigate into their protected seas before everyone, including the captain, is forced to learn by trial and error. I guarantee you that if we offer them a way to learn how to sail these new vessels, with us paying their men while they are unable to earn a living, and a place in line to buy one of the fast new schooners, we’ll get sailors. More after the first ship rolls off the docks and other captains can see how fast it is. They’ll all know that in a few years’ time, the only traders able to make money will be those sailing our ships. Sure, some will try and copy the designs, but that will be a slow and very expensive process. We’ll have men and captains lined up for spots to sail with our fleet. It solves all of our problems in one go.”

“She is right, Commander. Although my projections of human behavior leave much to be desired, her suggested outcome appears to be the most likely and corrects several problems still existing in our operational doctrine.”

“And they say I’m the one with all the new ideas,” Ky said, smiling at his wife. “I like it, although I want to be clear that anyone who wants one of our ships must be a Britannic citizen. The men who want to sit on the fence, face none of the challenges or dangers, and simply profit from our war shouldn’t get access to any of these new ships. If they want to play, they have to have skin in the game.”

“An odd saying, but I get your meaning. Yes, that makes sense.”

“Good. This might work out after all,” Ky said, looking off towards the launches making their way towards the caravels.