“Three?” Charon frowned. “Senator Varro must be beside himself.”
“The merchants’ guild has been trying to keep the matter quiet in order to avoid a panic, but you can be assured that what I tell you is truth,” the Decurion said. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to jeopardize the safety of your current inventory. I can tell you that, with Caesar’s Triumphs looming near, there is fierce competition in the capital right now for the kind of slaves you always seem to have on offer.”
Charon grinned, leading the Decurion back up onto the deck. “Come see for yourself,” he said.
As the slave master and the Decurion talked, Hafgan and his men had unlocked our chains, herding us from the caravan cages toward the galley. A miserable clot of human livestock, we shuffled up the sea-slick gangplank to huddle on the deck of the ship. The Decurion began pacing through our ranks, and I secretly examined him as he examined us. Even though most of his face was obscured by the cheek-plates of his helmet, I’d already got the impression—by the timbre of his speech and the way he carried himself—that he was fairly young.
Probably the brat son of some minor official given a plush ceremonial appointment in the legions as an officer, I thought. What a charming escort.
“I must lack a discerning eye,” he said eventually. “I see nothing at all remarkable here.”
Charon didn’t rise to the slight. He just leaned against a stack of barrels, arms crossed. “Travel takes its toll,” he said. “They’ll clean up all right, this lot. Trust me.”
The young Decurion’s gaze landed on me, and I could see that in his estimation, I was less than a filthy runt in a kennel. I swallowed the biting words that only would have earned me a slap as he swept past, heading toward the captain’s tent near the stern of the ship, where there would no doubt be wine and refreshments laid out for him.
As Hafgan appeared to herd us all down into the darkness of the ship’s hold, the smoldering disdain I had carried most of my life for the legionnaire’s kind—for the soldiers that had killed my sister and dishonored my father—flared to a bright-burning flame of hatred. And my soul fanned that fire wholly in the direction of the young decurion named Caius Antonius Varro.
X
IN THE HOLD OF THE SHIP, the darkness was absolute, the air close and damp, overwhelming with the reek of seawater. We’d been sailing for hours, and it must have been close to midnight. Most of the slave captives dozed, lulled by the groan of wood and creak of rope and the rhythmic slap of the waves on the hull. I sat huddled with my knees drawn up, staring wide-eyed into the gloom, when suddenly the galley heaved over, shuddering terribly, as something slammed into her broadside.
At first I thought it must have been wild waves born of the storm. I could hear the crack and rumble of close, heavy thunder. But then the hull planks next to my head groaned and splintered inward. We’d been hit by something far more solid than seawater.
A flash of lightning—sliced into squares by the iron grate covering the hold hatch above—illuminated a chaos of gushing sea and screaming slaves plunged into nightmarish terror.
I clambered to my feet, screaming for Elka.
“Here, Fallon! By the hatch!” she shouted and I saw her wave her arms over her head in the aftergleam of the lightning before everything faded back to black. “Ten paces to your left!”
“Where’s the ladder?” I called, reaching blindly out in front of me and staggering through knee-deep foaming water. I felt Elka’s strong fingers grasping at my wrists, and I clutched at her, stepping over the flailing bodies that tumbled through the water toward the hole in the ship’s hull.
“What’s happening?” Elka gasped, placing my hands on the steep ladder that led up out of the ship’s hold. I grabbed the rungs and held on fiercely as other hands in the darkness grappled onto me. Someone clutched at my ankle and was threatening to drag me under the water. I heard a man’s frantic scream as his fingers lost their grip. The scream turned to a gargled choke, but I couldn’t help him. If I let go, I would be lost. I squeezed my eyes shut and hung on.