I got to my feet and ran after Cleon’s knife. I picked it up, feeling queasy at the sight of my own blood on the jagged blade. Belbo was back on his feet, his own dagger drawn. Cleon remained flat on his back, gasping for breath. So, I thought: three against two, all parties armed. I had a giant on my side but my right arm was wounded. Did that make the odds even?
Apparently not, for the fishermen suddenly stopped in their tracks, bumped against one another in confusion, then ran back to their boat, calling for Cleon to follow. I basked for a moment in the illusion that I had frightened them off (with a little help from Belbo, of course), but realized that before they turned and ran they had been looking at something above and beyond me. I turned around. Sure enough, Marcus and some of his men had appeared atop the low hills and were running toward the beach with swords drawn.
Back in the relay boat, two of the fishermen scrambled for their oars while the third leaned toward the beach, crying for Cleon to join them. Cleon had managed to get to his hands and knees but couldn’t seem to stand upright. I looked at Marcus and his men, then at the fishermen in the boat, then at Spurius, who stood not far from Cleon with his arms crossed, scowling as if he were watching a dismally unfunny comedy.
“For the love of Hercules, Spurius, why don’t you at least help him to his feet!” I cried, and ran to do it myself. Cleon staggered up and I pushed him in the direction of the boat. “Run!” I said. “Run, unless you want to be a dead man!”
He did as I told him and went splashing into the surf. Then he suddenly stopped. The relay boat was pulling away, but he turned and stared at Spurius, who gave him a sardonic, aloof stare in return.
“Run!” I screamed. “Run, you fool!” The men in the boat called to him as well, even as they began to row rapidly away. But as long as Spurius met his gaze, Cleon remained frozen, struggling to stand upright in the waves, his face a mask of misery.
I ran to Spurius, put my hands on his shoulders, and spun him around. “Get your hands off me!” he snarled. But the spell was broken. Cleon seemed to wake. His face hardened. He turned and plunged into the waves, swimming after the relay boat.
I dropped onto the sand, clutching my bleeding arm. A moment later Marcus and his men arrived on the beach brandishing their swords.
Marcus satisfied himself that Spurius was unharmed, then turned his wrath on me. “You let One of them escape! I saw you help the main to his feet! I heard you telling him to run!”
“Shut up, Marcus. You don’t understand.”
“I understand they’re getting away. Too far out now for us to swim after them. Damn! Just as well. We’ll let them reach the bigger ship and then the Crimson Ram can take care of the lot of them.”
Before I could puzzle out what he meant, Belbo let out a cry and pointed toward the water. Cleon had finally reached the relay boat. His friends were pulling him aboard. But something was wrong; the heavy-laden boat began to tip. The experienced fishermen should have been able to right it, but they must have panicked. All at once the relay boat was upside-down.
Marcus snarled. Spurius yelped. Together they cried, “The gold!”
Farther out, the fishermen on the larger ship were scrambling to set sail. They seemed awfully quick to abandon their friends, I thought, then saw the reason for their hurry. They had been able to see the approach of the warship before those of us on the beach could see it. It was the red warship I had seen anchored in the water off Ostia. The bristling oars sliced into the water in unison. The bronze ram’s head butted the spuming waves. The Crimson Ram, Marcus had called her. As soon as she came in sight around the bend of the cove, Marcus gave a signal to one of his men back on the hill, who began to wave a red cape — a signal that Spurius had been rescued and the action against the pirates could commence.
It seems impossible that what came to pass was intended by anyone; but then, that might describe everything about the whole disastrous affair. Surely the Crimson Ram meant to outflank the fishing vessel and board her to recover the gold. A warship should have been able to achieve such a capture with ease. But there was no accounting for the actions of the hapless fishermen. Just as their fellows in the relay boat had panicked, so did they. When the Crimson Ram moved to draw alongside, the fishing vessel seemed to turn as if intent on deliberate self-destruction, like a gladiator impaling himself on an enemy’s sword, and offered her starboard flank to the massive bronze ram’s head.
We heard the distant impact, the splintering of wood, the cries of the fishermen. The sail collapsed. The ship convulsed and folded in on itself. The vessel vanished into the roiling sea almost before I could comprehend the horror of it.
“By the gods!” muttered Belbo.
“The gold!” snarled Marcus.
“All that gold...” sighed Spurius.
The men from the capsized relay boat had set out swimming for their ship. Now they floundered in the water, trapped between the Crimson Ram and Marcus’s men on shore. “They’ll have to head in eventually,” Marcus muttered, “along with any survivors from the other ship. We’ll ring the cove and strike them down one by one as they crawl from the water. Men! Listen up!”
“No, Marcus!” I clutched my arm and staggered to my feet. “You can’t kill them. The kidnapping was a hoax!”
“A hoax, was it? And the lost gold — I suppose that was only an illusion?”
“But those men aren’t pirates. They’re simple fishermen. Spurius put them up to the whole thing. They acted on his orders.”
“They defrauded Quintus Fabius.”
“They don’t deserve to die!”
“That’s not for you to say. Stay out of this, Finder.”
“No!” I ran into the surf. The scattered fishermen struggled in the waves, too far out for me to tell which was Cleon. “Stay back!” I screamed. “They’ll kill you as you come ashore!”
Something struck the back of my head. Sea and sky merged into a solid white light that flared and then winked into darkness.
I awoke with a throbbing headache and a dull pain in my right arm. I reached up to find that my head was bandaged. So was my arm.
“Awake at last!” Belbo leaned over me with a look of relief. “I was beginning to think...”
“Cleon... and the others...”
“Shhh! Lean back. You’ll set your arm to bleeding again. I should know; I learned a thing or two about wounds when I was a gladiator. Hungry? That’s the best thing, to eat. Puts the fire back in your blood.”
“Hungry? Yes. And thirsty.”
“Well, you’re in the right place for both. Here at The Flying Fish they’ve got everything a stomach needs.”
I looked around the little room. My head was beginning to clear. “Where’s Spurius? And Marcus?”
“Gone back to Rome with the rest, yesterday. Marcus wanted me to go, too, but I wouldn’t. Someone had to stay with you. The master will understand.”
I cautiously touched the back of my head through the bandages. “Someone hit me.”
Belbo nodded.
“Marcus?”
Belbo shook his head. “Spurius. With a rock. He would have hit you again after you were down, but I stopped him. Then I stood over you to make sure he didn’t do it again.”
“The vicious little...” It made sense, of course. His scheme failed, the best Spurius could hope for was to silence everyone who knew about his plot, including me.
“Cleon and the rest—”
Belbo lowered his eyes. “The soldiers did as Marcus ordered.”
“But they can’t have killed them all...”
“It was horrible to watch. Seeing men die in the arena is bad enough, but at least there’s some sport when it’s two armed men, both trained to fight. But the sight of those poor fellows coming out of the water, worn out and gasping for breath, pleading for mercy, and Marcus’s men slaughtering them one after another...”