Chapter 19

Captain Fulvius, never given to rash predictions, had remarked at sunset to his most important passenger that if this brisk breeze continued through the night The Vestris might see Gaza at dawn.

‘Good!’ exclaimed the Proconsul. ‘I shall go down and tell poor old Brutus.’

‘Better take a handful of sugar along,’ advised the Captain. ‘Your poor old Brutus is getting mean. Yesterday, when I went down for a friendly word with the horses, he laid his ears back and bared his teeth. I’m afraid he is at the end of his patience.’

‘I don’t blame him,’ grumbled Mencius. ‘So am I.’

It had been seven weeks since the fleet had sailed from Brindisi, bound for Cyprus, where a cargo of copper awaited transport to the new docks at Joppa. The winter had been so mild that Fulvius, hoping to make time, had risked a lighter ballast than the season justified; and, once they had rounded the peninsula and headed east, everybody was sick—and disgruntled, too, for the voyage was to be long and, in the opinion of the crew, inexplicably roundabout.

Their natural course, if they had business in old Gaza, would have taken their seven cargo-ships with the copper directly to Joppa, but The Vestris was under orders to sail first to Gaza, where the Proconsul had an important errand at the Roman Fort of Minoa, a few miles inland. The rest of the fleet would proceed to Joppa and stand by until rejoined by the flagship.

The capable Lieutenant Pincus, with a skeleton crew of experienced men, would also disembark at Gaza and engage a camel-caravan for the tedious trip to the salt-fields at Engedi on the Dead Sea.

Then The Vestris, having paid her brief call at Gaza, would sail to Joppa, join the fleet, dump the copper, and double back to Gaza to pick up Pincus and his salt. And nobody knew how long they might have to wait for the return of that plodding caravan. It was doubtful whether they would be back in Rome before mid-summer.

Mencius had paced the deck and counted the days like a jailbird. He had been required to make these long voyages to Palestinian ports so often that they had lost all interest for him. Of course he always enjoyed a shore-leave at Caesarea, where he found many long-time friends at the luxurious Agrippa; but he wasn’t going to Caesarea this time; only as far as Joppa, which the Empire might make something of, eventually, though the mouldy old city offered few attractions at present.

There was only one thing about this whole trip that had stirred the Proconsul’s interest. He had been commissioned to deliver a letter to the young Legate recently appointed—for his sins—to command the Fort at Minoa. Mencius had not been informed about the contents of this letter, and his curiosity had nearly devoured him. All he knew about it was that the gaudily gilded scroll contained a message of considerable significance, for it had been written by the Emperor! What the half-crazy and wholly unpredictable old Tiberius might have to say to the incorrigible son of Senator Gallio was anybody’s guess. The wayward young Legate, according to a freely circulated rumour, had been sent to this ill-conditioned outpost for publicly insulting the Regent, Prince Gaius. And now the Emperor was sending the impudent Marcellus a letter!