Destiny's Shield

The smoke cleared enough for John to see the enemy. The three dromons were only fifty yards away, now. He flinched. No way to stop them from ramming.

Except—

Their forward motion had stopped, he realized. None of the ships were sinking, true. Only one of them, judging from appearance, had even suffered significant hull damage. Still, the shock had been enough to throw the rowers off their stroke. The men on those galleys were completely unprepared for the sound and fury of a cannon broadside. Instead of driving forward in the terrifying concentration of a war galley's ramming maneuver, the dromons were simply drifting.

Again, the screech: "Fire! All cannons—"

Lost in the roar. Cloud of smoke. Enemy invisible.

John leaned over the rail, ready to order—

No need. Eusebius was already doing it.

Screech: "Cannister! Cannister! Load with cannister!"

The smoke cleared. Enough, at least, for John to see.

One dromon was sinking. Another had been battered badly. It was still afloat, but totally out of control. Yawing aside, now, its deadly ram aiming at nothing but the empty Mediterranean.

But the third ship was still coming in. Not driving for a ram, however, so much as clawing forward with broken oars and wounded rowers. Desperately seeking to grapple. Anything to get away from that horrible hail of destruction.

No use. John could see Eusebius at the middle cannon, fussing over the guncrew. The dromon was only ten yards away—close enough for the artificer's myopic eyes.

John saw Eusebius tap the gunner on his helmet. He saw his lips move, but couldn't hear the words.

An instant later, the cannon belched smoke. Cannister swept the length of the dromon like a scythe.

John of Rhodes was, in no sense, a squeamish man. But he could not help flinching at the sheer brutality which that round of cannister inflicted on the dromon's crew. Firing at point-blank range at a mass of men seated side-by-side on oarbanks—one oarbank lined up after another—

He shuddered. Saw Eusebius scamper down to the next cannon in line. Aim. Tap the gunner's helmet.

Another roar. Another round of cannister savaged the dromon. Blood everywhere.

Eusebius scampering. Aim. Tap. Fire.

It was sheer murder, now. Pure slaughter.

Eusebius scampering.

John leaned over, bellowing: "Enough, Eusebius! Enough!"

The artificer, his hand raised just above the next gunner's helmet, ready to tap, looked up. Squinted near-sightedly at the poop deck.

"Enough!" bellowed John.

Slowly, Eusebius straightened. Slowly, he walked to the rail and leaned over. Looked down into the hull of the dromon, which was now bumping gently against the Theodora's side. Studying—for the first time, really—his handiwork.

Under other circumstances, at another time, the artificer's Syrian gunners—country rubes, the lot of them, coarse fellows—would have derided him then. Mocked and jeered, ridiculed and sneered, at the sight of their commander Eusebius puking his guts into the sea.

But not that day. Not then. Instead, Syrian gunners and their wives slowly gathered around him, the gunners patting him awkwardly on the shoulder as he vomited. And then, after he straightened, a plump Syrian wife held the sobbing young man in a warm embrace, ignoring the tears which soaked her homespun country garments.

Above, on the poop deck, John sighed.

"Welcome to the club, lad. Murderers' row."

He raised his head, scanning the sea.

Victory. Total. Four ships and their crews destroyed. Three battered into a pulp. The only unscathed dromon racing away.

He looked toward Antonina's flagship.

"She's all yours, girl. Alexandria's yours for the taking."

Aboard her flagship, Antonina studied the situation. Studied the pulverized enemy fleet, first, with satisfaction. Studied the wildly cheering mob on the Heptastadium, next, with equal satisfaction.

Then, all satisfaction gone, she studied the city itself. Beyond the harbor, looming in the distance above the tenements and warehouses, she could see Pompey's Pillar. And, not far away, the enormous Church of St. Michael. The Caesareum, that edifice had been called, once—the temple of Caesar. Its two great obelisks still stood before it. But the huge pagan structure, with its famous girdle of silver-and-gold pictures and statues, was now given over to the worship of Christ.

And, of course, to the power of Christ's official spokesmen. The Patriarchs of Alexandria resided there, as they had for two hundred years. A hundred years after they took up residence, in the very street before the Church, a brilliant female teacher of philosophy named Hypatia had been stripped naked and beaten to death by a mob of religious fanatics.

"Fuck Alexandria," she hissed.

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Contents

Framed

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Contents

Chapter 29

SUPPARA

Autumn, 531 A.D.

By the end of the first hour, Kujulo was complaining.