The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,114

can wear – as well as a dry one for you.’

She could not resist such an appeal and it was true that he shivered just as violently as she did.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But I’m coming back.’

He guided her to the hatch and held it open long enough for Lavinia to climb down the ladder before closing it. He was still smiling as he walked back to the prow and looked over the grey ocean, taking in everything he had missed.

At least the captains from Syria knew what they were doing, Sextus had to admit, as his ship followed them. The group of ten weatherbeaten galleys held their positions well in regard to each other, a flotilla moving with something like skill. To reach him from Syria they’d crossed open ocean, the wear showing on their galleys and men. Sextus told himself he’d made the right decision letting Cassius’ captains lead the way east around the heel.

Sextus jerked as he heard a great crash somewhere on his left. He squinted out through the pouring rain, but he couldn’t see what had caused it. The southern coast of Italy was faintly visible and he took heart from that. It would not be long before they were round the point and back into more sheltered waters. He only wished he could take the fleet in closer, but even if they could see his flags, the rocks would rip the bottom right out of a galley.

The wind began to howl around the mast and the prow seemed to dive under another enormous wave, so that Sextus had to grip the prow in a lurch or be swept away. He gasped and coughed as freezing seawater entered his lungs. As the green bronze ram came up once more, Sextus felt exhausted, but the storm was still coming and they were only at the edge of it. With a glance behind him, he saw the Roman captain was still there, bent over. The man looked like a corpse, but he still hung on, swearing weakly. Sextus grinned at the sight, reminding himself to mention it if they both survived.

Ahead of him, the Syrian galleys were still forcing their way through. There was no safe place to wait out the storm. All he could do was continue the insane dash around the heel of Italy and turn for Brundisium once more. He told himself over and over that Cassius was right. He had enough ships to blockade the entire country if he used them in two fleets, like the jaws of a pair of blacksmith’s pincers. No one else had a hundred galleys, never mind the two hundred and twelve at his command. He had the forces to squeeze Rome into starvation.

His mood darkened with the storm and he felt a coldness inside to match his half-frozen flesh. His father could have ruled the Republic. Sextus and Lavinia would have grown up with every comfort. All of that had been stolen away from him on an Egyptian dock, his father murdered by foreign slaves just to please Julius Caesar.

For years, Sextus knew he had been no more than a biting fly on the flank of Roman power. Men loyal to his father still sent him reports from the city and he’d seen his chance and risked execution by returning there to make a personal appeal. Vedius had argued against it, telling him never to trust the noble old men of the Senate. The tavern wolf had not understood that Sextus knew those men well. His father had been one of them. Even then, he had been afraid they would look first at his piracy and his youth, but somehow, with the threat of Octavian and his legions, it had worked. Sextus had been given a fleet unmatched in those waters and the moment when the Senate had voted had eased a pain that had been with him ever since his father died.

Now Cassius had called him and he had answered. His fleet was a weapon to bring the Caesarians to a battle they could not win. Sextus wiped salt from his eyes once more, showing his teeth as the wind bit at him. He had learned from a young age that there was no such thing as justice. It was not justice that his father had been taken from him. It was not justice that a man like Caesar had been given Rome to rule as a king. Sextus had lived with despair and bitterness for