"I…" said Falco as he tried to clear himself. The argument was lost, that was certain. "I-"
The Commander's head turned. Falco could not meet the eyes which would not, in any case, have told him anything. He collapsed to a sitting position, wishing the sun were not so bright… wishing everyone else in the courtyard were frozen and he could hack through their throats with impunity, including the Commander and most especially Gaius Vibulenus Caper…
"The attack will be real, your worship," said Vibulenus as he alone remained standing. His viewpoint had drifted back within his body as soon as Falco sank away, but knew his heart was beating abominably fast and he was sure he was going to lose control of his tongue before he could make the necessary explanations.
Plowing on regardless like a runner who knows his legs will give way if he slackens in the least, Vibulenus said, "We need to breach the wall as quickly as possible so that the defenders can't come up with another means of thwarting us-"
"Yes, I understand, Gaius Vibulenus Caper," said the Commander, rising in dismissal. One of the armored toads behind him snapped the folding stool closed with enough force to threaten the frame. "Your preparations will take some time, I'm sure, so you'd best get on with them if you're to be any use at all."
He waved a slender, blue, deformed-looking hand. Non-coms began lurching to their feet while the tribunes tried to rise with greater delicacy.
"Sir," said Vibulenus in a voice of such penetrating clarity that everyone paused and even Falco looked at the still face of his rival. "I'll be leading the assault myself, sir. I think we can make the attack in safety."
The Commander made a corkscrew motion with his free hand. "Whatever you choose, Tribune," he said. "Just no more than twenty men. And-" he was walking daintily toward the gate of the living quarters within the blockhouse, but he paused for a moment "-see that there's a follow-up squad at a comfortable distance. In case you're wrong about the safety."
The blue figure disappeared indoors. In the milling confusion of the courtyard, filled with glances and whispers, Gaius Vibulenus wondered what he did choose.
And why.
"You shouldn't be here, sir," said Pompilius Niger, and the flight of arrows which punctuated the statement thudded into the roof of the mobile gallery above them like rain on thatch.
"I ought to be in Baiae," Vibulenus replied. Floating in a one-man skiff in the middle of the Bay of Naples. Surrounded by the prismatic beauty of thousands of dancing waves and covered by an open sky colored the rich blue of indigo-dyed leather.
"Watch it!" called a soldier beyond the gallery. No way of telling what he was warning about. A thud shook the footing of the men preparing to lift the heavy roof covering them, but it could have been an accident to the Roman preparations as easily as a missile flung some distance by the defenders.
The impact brought Vibulenus quivering back to the fear and near darkness within the mobile gallery, however. "You do your job, Niger," he added harshly, "and let me do mine!"
"Sir," said the senior centurion of the Tenth Cohort, his voice deadened and attenuated because he was speaking from outside the protective walls. "We're about to lower the walkway. Wait the signal so's we get it straight before you step off."
Vibulenus nodded agreement, then realized that the centurion couldn't see him through the layered mud and wicker that shielded the assault party-for a time. "Fine," he said, "fine. Get on with it."
Bows nearby popped, though the hissing thunk of quarrels striking showed that the auxilliary archers were only responding to the defenders. There was a crash, loud for all its distance. Seconds later, the gallery and its surroundings were pelted by shards of a ballista ball which had disintegrated against the tower close above them.
The cohort leader shouted an order. Wood squealed, and a section of men grunted together as they shifted a heavy weight.
"What he means," said Gnaeus Clodius Afer, "is you understand that business best, so it's you needs to be out there running it. We can handle this shit."
The twenty men under the heavy gallery were all volunteers and all from the Third and Fourth Centuries- paired according to a practice more ancient than any history that was not myth. Presumably they all knew how risky it was, since they'd also seen the first ramp destroyed.
Vibulenus doubted that any of them save Clodius and Niger had a real grasp of the plan, although he'd tried to explain it to them. The volunteers didn't much care-a normal attitude for soldiers, and one which the tribune was better able to appreciate now that he had become a soldier himself.
Siege work was boring and, in this case, apparently pointless. The Commander believed the works should be continued to put pressure on the defenders, but the legionaries were running lotteries as to what time the enemy would destroy this "threat" with the same offhand precision as before.
An assault on the walls was something different, and a chance to come to grips with opponents who were invisible-unless you wanted an arrow through the eye you were looking with. One of the tribunes said it'd work, that he had some screwy contrivance that'd keep the wogs in the tower from frying the attacking party alive… but nobody really expects to die, coldly assesses the likelihood of that. And the near-magic available through the Medic and the recovery vehicle didn't much affect the equation.
Gaius Vibulenus Caper knew very well that he could die. In fact, he had no difficulty in intellectually convincing himself that he would die… but his gut didn't believe it any more than did the guts of the troops around him. That was a blessing and no small one, since it permitted him to function in this tight enclosure, already hot with the warmth of sweating bodies.
Functioning meant speaking in a normal voice to the men who shared the danger, convincing them by calm example that they were part of a military endeavor rather than a method of suicide by fire. "No, centurion," Vibulenus said in what he hoped were tones of composure. "The work outside is a matter of timing and military judgment. The leading centurions in charge of it are much better suited to the task than I am."
That the tribune's gut didn't believe, not for an instant; but his intellect did, and he had no choice anyway. He had to be part of the assault he had planned. Vibulenus was young enough to know that he could not otherwise live with himself if the result turned out as badly as it might.
The first centurion, Julius Rusticanus, shouted, "Forward!" Then: "Put your backs in it, you pussies!"
Rusticanus had the scars that had promoted him through the lower ranks, but he had also the exempla that fitted him for his current position. He could handle returns of the legion's equipment and personnel, duties that frightened many men who were willing to charge spears stark naked. Beyond that, he had the carrying voice and absolutely precise enunciation which would have suited him for a life on stage-if he had not been built more like an ape than a Ganymede. He was as likely as any Roman present to be able to understand the complex operation outside the tower, and by far the most likely to have his orders obeyed.
While Rusticanus had overall charge of the operation in lieu of the Commander (whose bodyguard would not protect him from fire), the Tenth Cohort's senior centurion had been delegated tasks involving the assault proper. That meant building a gangway of solid timbers and organizing teams of men to slide it into position when required.