The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,132
Thieves and murderers sometimes went on with their lives and did well, dying happy and old in their family homes. Julius had once told him of a man who had robbed a friend, then used the money to begin a successful business. The friend had died in poverty while the thief thrived and stood as a senator. Yet a man could seek to make his own justice, even if it did not come on its own or through the will of the gods. It was not given to him; he had to take it. Octavian could not rest while the Liberatores lived, while they continued to parade their crimes as good works.
Octavian had seen a coin with the head of Brutus and the title on the reverse that proclaimed him ‘Saviour of the Republic’. He clenched his jaw at the image in his mind. He would not let them steal the history from more deserving men. He would not let them turn what they had done into a noble thing.
Sextus Pompey saw only despair all around him. His crew had been fighting for hours. They had survived three attacks by boarders, barely pulling the ships apart each time before they were overwhelmed. Few of his men were unwounded and many more were simply gasping for fresh water or a moment to rest. The life they led had made them fit, but they lacked the endless well of energy his youth gave him. His nineteenth birthday had come and gone over the previous months, with a celebration thrown for him by his Roman legion captains. They had toasted him in wine and those who remembered his father had made fine speeches. The brothers Casca had declaimed a new poem sweeping through the cities, written by Horace, that praised the Republic as a jewel among the works of men.
It was a happy, distant memory as he looked at the detritus and bodies floating all around him. No one in Rome had known he had a string of horses across the narrowest point of the mainland so that he and Vedius could communicate. He had done everything right and it had still not been enough. The message had come in time for him to form up and wait for the enemy fleet and he had been confident at dawn. Yet the few lines scrawled on parchment had not prepared him for the suicidal tactics of the galleys he faced, nor the terror of clattering, whirring grapnels soaring over his head. Twice his crew had escaped by hacking at ropes as they drew tight over his ship. The cables were still there on his deck, with copper wires shining. There had not been a moment of peace to dislodge them and put them over the side.
He had only been able to watch as the enemy galleys smashed and sank half his fleet. His ships had started well, ramming and shearing oars with discipline, but they lost three or more for every ship they sank. The enemy galleys moved like hornets, stinging with fire arrows at close range, then boarding as the crews were forced to douse the flames before they could catch hold. It had taken Sextus too long to discover that half the ships he faced were manned only by rowers and were no real threat. They all wore red sails, whether furled or filled with the wind. The dangerous ones hid amongst the greater number, pouring men over twin corvus bridges and slaughtering his crews before setting fires and moving on.
The sea was covered in thick smoke and he could hear the creak and splash of oars all around him. He did not know if he was surrounded by the enemy or whether he could risk a signal to his own ships. He gave a sharp order for his oarsmen to stroke at half-speed, though they too were failing and more than one body had been cleared in the hours since dawn. The darts and strikes of a war galley had been reduced to a slow creeping progress.
The wind strengthened in a gust, blowing part of the smoke away so that he could see further across the waves. It did not bring him comfort as the expanding horizon revealed dozens of sunken hulls, drifting like pale fish at the surface, with bodies all around. Many more ships still burned and as the air cleared he saw three galleys cruising in close formation, hunting through the wreckage. One of them had grapnels ready