Rome needed an emperor.
Up until now, the botched plan had been recoverable, providing the treasury gold was seized. But where was Antony taking it? Surely not to Caesar. Not this far north. Whatever Antony’s destination, Libo did not seem willing to put his fleet at risk to stop him.
At that moment, Postumus decided that he had suffered the young admiral long enough. It was time for action. It was time to salvage the situation before all was lost.
Postumus carefully eyed the two steps of planking between him and Libo. They were alone on the tower, and Libo was turned away from him, leaning out against the tower’s low bulwark while watching the fleeing armada. With cold calculation, Postumus waited for the ship to roll over the next wave, and then he acted. Rushing forward, he shoved Libo with all of his weight. Postumus was older, and the warrior in him long since dormant, but he was a much larger man than Libo, and had little difficulty in knocking the distracted admiral off balance. Libo was taken completely by surprise. His groping arms reached for the rail, but too late to stop him from toppling over the edge. He flipped once, falling with a single shout of shock and anger before impacting the deck twenty feet below.
After hearing the unmistakable thud, Postumus glanced once over the rail to confirm that the admiral’s form indeed lay on the deck below and was unmoving. By the time the senator had climbed down to the main deck, a cluster of officers had gathered around the body. Postumus was met by his bodyguard who had been waiting at the base of the tower, and then by Naevius who had been with the group hovering over the fallen admiral but who now rose as the senator approached.
"Does he live?" Postumus asked the captain briskly.
"He still draws breath, your excellency, but…" the captain stammered, looking from the senator to the high platform and then back again, a hesitant suspicion on his face. "Were you not upon the platform with the admiral?"
"Yes, indeed I was, captain. Your admiral is very fortunate to be alive. Evidently, when the ship took that last roller, he lost his balance and fell."
Naevius looked at him in disbelief, but Postumus dismissed it. It did not matter whether this insignificant man believed it or not. He was growing tired of pandering to these petty fools. “Now, captain. We have no time to lose. You will please make haste and deploy the sails again."
"Deploy them, sir?"
"Was I not clear?"
"Yes, Senator. It's just that…the admiral -”
"Your admiral lies bleeding and unconscious at your feet, captain, and the enemy is getting away!" Postumus said red-faced. "Now set the damn sails and get those oars moving. Whip the damn rowers until they scream, for all I care, but I want speed out of them. We are going after Antony's fleet!"
At that moment, Calpurnia emerged from the cabin, the two slave girls behind her. She glanced once at Libo's still form and then looked at Postumus with disgust in her eyes, as one beholds a snake with the lump of a half-digested field mouse in its gullet.
"What transpired here, Senator?" she said poisonously. "Did Admiral Libo get in your way, too? Or did he simply discover who you really are?"
Postumus fumed inside. He had had enough of her, of Libo, of the incompetent idiots of the fleet, the army, all of them. He snapped a finger at Naevius. "You will run up those sails and stop Antony from entering that channel or I'll have you scourged before the fleet! Do not shorten sail again until I give you express permission to do so. Is that clear?"
The captain nodded reluctantly and began giving orders.
Postumus then turned back to face Calpurnia. Her eyes still bore malice but they soon changed to fear as he darted to her in three steps and grabbed her arm with enough pressure to bring tears to her eyes.
"You are coming with me, my dear!" he said through gritted teeth, then turned to his bodyguard and pointed at the slave girls. "Her ladyship and I are going below for a private conference. Slay them both if either tries to follow!"
The girls shrank back at the threat and the sight of the exposed blade in the large warrior’s hand, and Postumus, with the frightened Calpurnia in tow, disappeared down the aft hatchway. They descended ladder after ladder, the senator nearly throwing her down one landing after another, until they were in the dank hold, only lit by the narrow shaft of light emanating from the hatch above.
He pushed her down onto the deck and stood over her, a savage, hateful expression on his age-lined face.
“You dare lay your foul hands on a lady of Rome?” she said brazenly, trying not to reveal how frightened she was.
“A lady, no,” he said sinisterly. “The strumpet daughter of a half-mad buffoon, who meddles in affairs of which she has no comprehension, yes. A little girl who has taken it upon herself to throw off the course of an empire by her own personal vendetta. This is not a lady of Rome who now lies before me. A true lady of Rome knows her place. A true lady of Rome does not involve herself in the dealings of men. You are a mere child, with a child’s understanding of the world.”
“This child has a sufficient grasp to have discovered who you really are, Senator,” she said, angered at the condescension in his voice. “Your actions confirm all of my suspicions. You are the Raven!”
At this, Postumus roared back with laughter, a maniacal full-bodied laugh. It was the first time Calpurnia had seen him truly amused.
“My dear lady Calpurnia, wherever did you get such a fantastical idea?”
When she did not answer, he tore open the neck of his tunic and bared his chest to her. A crop of white hair adorned the muscles that were sagging with age, but there was no raven tattoo, nor a mark of any kind. She stared in disbelief as the reality of it sank in. She had been so certain, and now she was confused. How could she have been wrong about Postumus? And if he was not the Raven, then who was?
Then, she suddenly remembered the cloaked man she had seen discoursing with Postumus at her father’s funeral. His face had been hidden, shadowed by a hood on that drizzly day. He had spoken to Postumus at great lengths in a manner that suggested he was his equal, if not his superior. Might that man have been the true Raven?
She sighed, flustered by her own hasty assumptions. Now she was guessing. Grasping at straws.
“It does not matter,” she finally said, trying to remain composed. “If you are not the Raven, then certainly you are one of his henchmen. You are a member of their sect. Whoever the master is, you do his bidding.”
“I will not deny it, my lady,” he said, now seemingly entertained by her discomfort.
“Then you are responsible for my brothers’ deaths, no less than your master. It was your associates who murdered my brothers, and then left the signet of the black Raven with their mutilated bodies as a warning to my father.”
Postumus laughed again. “Let me ask you, my lady, was it you who first discovered this ring among your brothers’ personal effects?”
She did not know why he asked this, but she wanted to keep him engaged that she might discover more. “It was as I told you before. My brothers’ things had been placed in my father’s study. Naturally, my father must have also seen it.”