The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 9

As he had every day, the Consul left the command tent after the three men finished going over more options and headed out to tour of the legion camps below, leaving the details of their decisions to Velius and Bomilcar.

Velius admired the Consul’s dedication to the men. He’d known many commanders over the years who preferred to sit with their finery, giving orders from afar while turning their noses up to the men who had to carry out those orders. Those men, Velius could never respect.

That left a lot of the administrative duties to Velius. If he’d had his preference, he would be down there with the Consul and leave the administration to someone more temperamentally suited to it.

As they left the tent, Bomilcar stopped him and said, “I’ll get with Faenius and have his praetorians do a survey of smaller vessels in the area, and see how many we can get. The whole idea of the last wave coming in off the smaller ships, as the front ranks engage, will all depend on how many of those ships we can get. We also probably need a few for resupply of the cannon on Vandar’s ships, since he’ll be going through quite a lot of gunpowder if he’s going to hold or even break their ranks, and we might need more cannon support once we engage, if the enemy stiffens up.”

“Enemy,” Velius said, almost spitting the word at him. “You always refuse to say their name, instead using euphemisms like enemy, opponents or targets. Afraid the Consul might remember where you came from and how fickle your allegiance is? And why do you want to go with the first wave? You’re not their commander and you have no right to lead these men into battle, men whose friends you ordered killed. Is this the chance you were looking for to escape? Maybe lead our soldiers into a slaughter on your way out.”

“Escape to where?” Bomilcar asked, not raising his voice or reacting in any way that might indicate he’d just been accused of betraying the Britannians. “There is a price on my head in Carthage, and the emperor has already had my entire family and everyone I was ever friendly with murdered. Your own agents were the ones to get that information, so you know it’s true, and yet you continue to doubt my motives for being here. I understand your anger, and it does you credit since it proves how attached you are to your men. But your men don’t need an advocate, they need a commander who keeps his head and thinks logically, instead of one controlled by his emotions. If you distrust me so much, you should bring your concerns to the Consul.”

“You and I both know that wouldn’t do any good. I don’t know how you managed to trick him, but I’m not giving you the same pass.”

“Do you think so little of the Consul? Is he so easily deceived? Or perhaps you think your judgment is better than his? Either way, for now you serve him and not the other way around. I welcome any dissent to my suggestions you might have, but once he decides which direction to go, I hope you listen to him and make the best of the situation. Unless you plan on taking up arms against him like your insurrectionists?”

“ Just know I’m watching you,” Velius said.

“If that’s what you need to do. Just try not spend so much time watching me that you trip over obstacles in front of you,” Bomilcar said and turned, leaving Velius to glare at his back.

***

Devnum

“My lady,” a man yelled, running full out towards her. “My lady.”

“Hold on,” Cynwrig said, putting himself between the running man and Lucilla, grabbing the man tightly to keep him from getting any closer.

“I have a message from Flavius Pedius Hortensius,” he said, extending a sheet of paper towards her. “He said it is urgent.”

The fact that the message was written on paper was a fair sign that it was, in fact, from Hortensius. Although the paper mill was now in full production, nearly everything it produced was needed for governmental or official use, like Hortensius, and very little of it had made its way to the open market. The pages that made it to the market were selling for exorbitant prices, even though the actual cost of producing paper was significantly lower than that of vellum, which had been the most common non-clay substance to write on before paper’s introduction.

Although Hortensius had access to as much paper as he needed, since his work was imperative to the survival of the empire, he was still at heart a businessman, and wouldn’t have used it for something like a message unless the content was imperative.

“Thank you,” she said, nodding to Modius to take the note while Cynwrig dismissed the runner.

Although she’d always disdained the section of Roman society that felt it was too good to interact with the ‘unwashed masses,’ the last attempt on her life had spooked her guards to the point that they refused to let anyone not cleared by them into her presence. They were even hesitant to let Praetorians, the empire’s law enforcement, near her if they didn’t know the praetorian personally. Unfortunately, as much as she bridled against their overzealous protection, Ky had agreed with them, and encouraged them, which had made it all but impossible to convince them that it wasn’t necessary.

She opened the folded sheet and looked it over. There were only a few words, but they were chosen well to strike fear into her heart.

“We have to get to Hortensius’s factory. Now,” she said, turning and hurrying for the palace, where they could get horses to make the ride to Factorium.

Hortensius was waiting outside the main factory, pacing back and forth when they arrived, which showed how anxious the situation had made him.

“I’m so sorry, my lady,” was the first thing he said as she dismounted.

“Are you sure they’re missing? Have you looked for them?”

“Yes. I’ve looked through the entire warehouse, even though I never remove them from my office once you give them to me. They aren’t here.”

“Which pages are missing?”

“That’s what’s strange, it’s mostly older stuff that was written on vellum from the shelf closest to the door, and not the more recent documents on my work table. There were three scrolls on the construction of the blast furnace, one on mining techniques, one on arcuballista construction, although only covering the trigger mechanism, and one on the heavy plow construction.”

“Those were all given to you back in the fall. Nothing from the later documents Ky gave you this winter on gunpowder? Nothing on the cannon or uniform weights and measures? Why that collection of documents?”

“No, none of those. I think it may have been because of where they were, and not because of their content. Everything you listed was written on paper, which we started using almost exclusively once the mill was up and running shortly into winter, and not on vellum. Although it has been some time since I’ve needed to refer to any of those documents, I believe they were grabbed because they were the closest to the door, and not specifically selected. It is why my message said I thought the documents had been stolen, and not just lost. If it was someone unfamiliar with our operations, but who had heard I stored documents in my office, those would probably be the first ones they saw, and they might not have realized the paper even had plans on them. It must have happened during the night shift. We have people here, but a lot less, so it’s possible someone could have gotten into my office, grabbed whatever they could, and gotten out without being seen if they were fast enough. If it had happened during the day, someone would have noticed them. There are just too many people here.”

“Don’t you have guards?”

“Yes, and I thought I had enough, but we also have prototypes being worked on, materials being transferred, and other things equally as important to watch over. I hadn’t assigned any to my office specifically, because it’s normally locked, and there are so many people around.”

“Did they break the lock?”

“No, but they could have forced the bolt if they knew how.”

“Damn it,” she said, looking at her feet as she thought.

“I’m so sorry. I accept full responsibility for this. If you or the Consul want to …”

“No,” she said, looking up and putting a hand on his shoulder. “We all knew how you kept the documents, and none of us saw a problem with it. Hell, I think Lucan’s documents on ship construction might just be lying around the shipyard offices, not even behind a locked door. This is my fault. The Consul left the management of production in my care. I just didn’t think about this possibility.”

“How will we get them back?”

“It’s probably unlikely that we can. If they disappeared last night, they might already be on a ship, eventually heading to Carthage or, at the very least, copied and distributed to give the insurgents or spies a better chance of getting them out of the country. No, that ship has already sailed, as Vandar says. I’m going to talk to Faenius about setting up an office here as soon as we can, where we will hold everything under guard. Until then, I will have him assign some guards whose sole job will be to keep watch over these documents in your office.”

“You should make the storage building out of stone,” Modius said from behind her. “Remember the fire at the arcuballista warehouse. If they can’t steal the plans, they might settle for trying to destroy them.”

“Good thinking. Send a man to Faenius now. He also needs to retrieve any documents given to anyone else. Lucan, the healers, Sorantius, and anyone who has any of the technical plans written up by Ky or myself. They are to be put under guard until we can figure out a more permanent solution. For the healers, Vandar, and anyone still working out of Devnum, the documents are to be held in the palace under guard. For Sorantius’s documents or any others needed here in Factorium, they are to be held in Hortensius’s office for now.”

Modius saluted, gave a look to Cynwrig, and left to carry out her orders. She was glad that Modius had come to finally accept Cynwrig and her Caledonian guards. Modius had even taken the ever-impetuous Cynwrig under his wing, placing him as the number two in charge of her detail. Even with that newfound trust, normally he would have sent one of the other Roman guards to deal with a message like this, except she and Modius knew Faenius well.

The Praetorian commander did not take well to getting commands from underlings, even if they were messages from someone who actually had the authority to give him orders, like Lucilla. It meant any message sent to the Praetorian had to come through someone with high enough status to keep him from getting offended. It was an annoying arrangement, but the man was good enough at his job that it was worth the hassle.

Now she just had to tell Ky and Ramirus that plans had been lost under her watch. True, it wasn’t for any of the newest items, especially the gunpowder or cannon, but the Carthaginians getting the ability to make better steel or arcuballista was still not ideal.

“Let’s go double-check your files now, and make sure nothing else is missing,” she said, holding out an arm towards his office.

***

North of Glevum

“You’re supposed to land on your feet, you idiots,” the optio yelled as a man jumping off the side of the boat caught his foot and crashed into the other men bellow, causing men to spill into the knee-deep water.

Yells from small unit commanders could be heard up and down the beach as men practiced unloading from the boats into the shallow water, ten of which were currently being used as training platforms. Bomilcar had spent the last week testing how close to the beach the galleys could come while still making as fast of an exit as possible. There had been no one good answer to that question. For the actual soldiers disembarking, the ideal distance was up on the beach itself. The landing would be a little harder when jumping into the sand, and the wet sand was difficult to walk through, especially for a man weighed down with their armor, weapons and a large shield. Conversely, for the boats, their fastest exit would have had them in water almost neck-deep for the men disembarking, since that was deep enough for the oars to get into the water so they could propel it away from the shore quickly.

Since both unloading the men to get in formation to fight and pushing the boats back out so more boats could land were equally as important, Bomilcar had split the difference. Neither was ideal, but after several test runs, it looked to be the fastest way to achieve their overall goal. As much as Velius distrusted the Carthaginian, he had to admit the general was thorough. Velius would have probably just looked over the two ideas, talked to a shipmaster or two, and made a decision, instead of spending days having men run through trials, timing each to find out which was the most efficient.

Now they had to train the men, most of whom had never even been on a boat before, let alone tried to unload quickly off the side of one and get up onto a beach, ready for battle. It was going to be a long process to get the men ready, but the Consul was a believer in training. Preparation now would save lives when the day of the assault came. For now, they were just beginning the process, with the men stripped down to trousers and boots, both of which had been adopted as part of the new standard uniform.

It had been an odd change for Velius, who still thought the boots were less comfortable than his old sandals, but he could see the practical advantage. They’d had boots before, of course, but the Consul’s new design included a much more rigid and harder sole. They took some getting used to, but already Velius had stopped noticing what he was walking on, no longer taking careful steps to avoid sharp objects that could poke the foot uncomfortably through the thin leather previously used as the bottom of Roman footwear. Once the men got used to them, they would be able to run much faster over uneven ground, and probably march longer as well, since the pressure on their feet would be more evenly distributed.

“This is going to take longer than I thought,” Ky said from next to him, causing Velius to jump in surprise.

For such a large man, Velius was amazed by how quietly the Consul could walk. True, between the yelling of men and the crashing of waves it wasn’t particularly hard to sneak up on a man here, but Velius had been startled by the Consul numerous times, including inside completely silent rooms where the slightest sound would make an echo.

“Yes,” Velius said, getting himself together and his pulse back under control. “It isn’t unexpected, however. I think, once they’ve had a few goes, they’ll get used to it, and the training will go much faster. Most of these men come from highland areas, where the ground is usually rocky and hard. They don’t have a lot of experience with the sand of the beaches and the way the ground slides out from underneath you with every movement. Once they get the feeling, it will move much faster.”

“So they’ll be ready in time?”

“Yes, the schedule will hold. A few weeks of this, giving all the men a chance to practice getting out of the boats, and then we can shift to more full-scale training, from starting out in the water, coming on shore, offloading quickly, forming up on the beach, and pushing the boat back out. Bomilcar thinks we can get each wave in and out in under ten minutes. I’m not sure how he came to that number, however. We will see.”

“You still don’t trust him,” Ky said, more as an observation than a question.

“I don’t, and if I can speak freely, I don’t think you should either. I know you two have spent a lot of time talking, but that man served our enemy his entire life and led an army to destroy us. A lot of us are … concerned with how quickly you’ve taken him into your confidence and given him a place of leadership.”

“I know and your concerns haven’t completely fallen on deaf ears. It’s one of the main reasons he is only involved in planning and strategy at the moment, and has no direct command over any of the legionaries. In time, I think he will win you over, but I’m not going to tell you that you have to like, or even trust the man. All I ask is that you continue to work with him and give his recommendations reasonable consideration. You have to admit, several of his suggestions have already started to bear fruit and he has been right many times. Besides, having someone who knows the Carthaginian army like he does, will be a big help to us when we actually meet the enemy in battle.”

“Maybe, but how do you know he won’t attempt to double-cross us or lead us into a trap?”

“I don’t, but I’ve seen what he’s gone through and how his former empire treated him. How willing would you be to continue to support your government if they placed the blame of a loss entirely on you and had your entire family and most of your friends executed as part of your punishment?”

“Maybe not, but I certainly wouldn’t go over to the other side, and help them destroy everything I’ve fought for.”

“That’s a good point, but only if you look at it from your point of view. Imagine if your family had served an empire for generations. You’d grown up in the heart of the empire, only hearing its propaganda about how it is strong, bringing civilization and order to the barbarians and heathens who don’t worship the emperor. Then you find yourself on the other side of that propaganda. The same people who always told you the primitives living on Britannia were eating children and mating with animals are now saying you purposely lost to them. That you destroyed your army and got your men killed to weaken the empire, because you were secretly a barbarian all along, and wanted to join the evil Romans in their depravity. A trial is held where you are convicted, unanimously, in absentia, while the whole time these people you were told were evil nursed you back to health. You tour their medical wards where they are doing the same for even the lowliest of your soldiers. You tour the camps where the prisoners are being held and see they are being adequately fed, clothed, and kept safe. When your worldview shatters, what do you do?”

“I don’t know. It’s just so hard to believe.”

“Look to your own men. You’ve seen how many of the Carthaginian prisoners have asked for asylum. How many have asked to join the legions and fight against their former rulers? More than a few died under your command in the battles to push the Carthaginians off Ériu. Why would men be willing to give up their lives, and fight like they have, if they didn’t believe in their conversion.”

“Most are just regular soldiers. Bomilcar was a general. That’s not the same.”

“Why not? Does how much one person believes in something, and their reaction to finding out that belief was misplaced, depend that much on their station? You’ve been a soldier for too long to believe that individually, any of your legionaries is any more foolish or unworthy than any other man.”

“But we kept the converts separated, spread out across the legions, as a safety precaution, in case their change of allegiance was false.”

“Yes, and I’ve never put Bomilcar in direct command of troops either, only using him as an advisor. I also wouldn’t put him with a less experienced commander like Ursinus. I’ve either kept him with myself or left him working with someone like you, who has the experience to tell if his advice is helpful and honest, or a ruse. And, unlike you or I, whose guards are with us for our protection, his guards are men we trust whose job it is to watch him. I haven’t just given him free rein. I have, however, listened to him and evaluated his recommendations, and I expect you to do the same.”

“If you believe his ideas are sound, I will of course follow where you lead,” Velius said, which wasn’t the same as saying he’d listen to Bomilcar.

“While I appreciate that, it isn’t what I asked for. Vandar’s ships will be rolling out of the docks soon and I’m going to have to go back to the North to work with him on those, which means you’re going to be in charge here. Of the three of us, Bomilcar is the only one who has landed boatloads of men in a combat situation. While we won’t exactly be doing things the Carthaginian way, his experience has been invaluable. Unless you’re suggesting that you would have both considered and spent so much time testing just how close we could bring the boats in to increase the speed we could cycle through the waves of ships?”

“I wouldn’t have,” Velius said.

It did him credit to admit his failings, and was one of the reasons Ky was comfortable leaving the Roman in command, in spite of his hatred for the general.

“You’re making good progress, so just continue getting the men comfortable with getting on and off the boats and forming up on the beach. While you do that, I need you and Bomilcar to work out orders for each century, where each of them go when they unload. The goal is to form a cohesive line quickly and then expand it as more men become available. Bomilcar’s right that we’ll have the element of surprise at first. However, he’s also right in that they’ll come at us as soon as they get their men formed up. The cannons will weaken them and hopefully break up their ranks, but you can’t rely on that being successful. You will have a very short window to get your first line up and ready to counter their attack, so have the men prepared for it.”

“I won’t let you down,” Velius said, standing up straight.

“I know you won’t,” Ky said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re doing a good job, Velius. I know you’ll have the men ready.”

Velius gave a nod as Ky gave his shoulder a pat and turned to head back to the camp.

“Ohh,” Ky said, stopping to face him again for a moment. “Try to give Bomilcar a little bit of a break, though.”

Velius made a face, but didn’t respond. Ky gave a shrug and continued on. Velius just needed time. At least Ky had tried.