The Sands of Saturn - Chapter 5

After Hortensius left, Ky sat down at the small writing table he spent so much time at every day transferring the data in Sophus’s databanks into something usable by the Romans, when Lucilla unexpectedly burst into his tent. He knew it was her the moment the tent flap opened without the normal introduction by one of his guards, since she was the only one his men allowed in unannounced.

“I thought you left with Hortensius?” Ky said, surprised she was still in the camp.

“He wanted to go close to the line and see the trebuchets in practice before we headed north. Velius tried to talk him out of it, since even out of the Carthaginian range, it can still be dangerous, but Hortensius insisted. He complained that he rarely gets to see his work in the field, and this was one of the few times he’d be close enough to the front line to see it.”

“Tell me Velius sent a detachment with him?”

“He grumbled that it would slow the legions heading out, but he did.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t get too absorbed and loses track of time. We need these new projects started as soon as possible. I’d like to get the first canons in the field not long after we take Londinium. Ramirus says the Carthaginians will be able to have relief forces here in six months, which doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

“He knows.”

“Speaking of Hortensius, he knows you and I can speak over long distances.”

“You told him about the transmitter,” she said, surprised.

Ky suppressed a smile. When he’d given it to her just a few short months ago, she had been astonished by it, treating the small comms unit like a magical talisman. Now she referenced it out of hand, like it was any other piece of equipment she used on a daily basis. It just showed how quickly someone could adapt to even the most radical technology, when given time and regular use.

“No. He figured it out himself. Not that you have a device in your ear, but that you and I can speak over long distances. He attributes it to magic, and I didn’t dissuade him of it simply because the fewer people know about it, the less likely they are to look for the device.”

“I told you he was brilliant. You underestimate him too much.”

“He said the same thing. You’re both right. I guess it’s hard shaking the bias that my technology gives me, that I can’t help but look at everyone who isn’t used to it differently. I’m trying to stop it, however.”

“Good. So what are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing. I asked him to keep it secret, but everything else should be the same. He’s still going to come to you with questions, but you don’t have to pretend you have to look through the notes I left you to get the answer. Try to have your conversations in private, but at least it makes it easier.”

“I told you he wouldn’t be convinced that you gave me information that you hadn’t given him.”

“And you were right, but it was the only reasonable explanation that I could come up with for why he could go to you for answers.”

“I still say you should give her the drone, so we can have access to the cameras and sensors on it to observe the progress of his projects. The tolerances for casting a canon are very slim. Any microscopic cracks or impurities could cause the weapon to rupture under pressure when it is fired.”

Sophus had made the point several times since Ky decided Lucilla should go back to Devnum to act as a go-between for Ky and all of the projects they were about to start. The AI was convinced that it could alter the programming of the drone to use Lucilla’s transmitter as a command bridge, but Ky wasn’t convinced that was the best way to use the drone. He still believed he would need the advantage the drone gave them in combat when it came time to take the city. The legions had already suffered fairly high casualty rates, and they would lose any battle of attrition with the Carthaginians.

“I know, but I still disagree. We’ll be there for the first test firing, and you can analyze the structure of the canon then. Besides, the drone doesn’t have the senses to detect the kinds of impurities you’re talking about. Hell, my optic sensors barely do, and there are a lot of flaws in the metal that we have no way of detecting no matter how we look at it. We just don’t have the equipment for that. We’re going to have to rely on more traditional methods of testing weapons for now.”

The AI fell silent. Ever since it had gained sentience, Sophus had developed an attitude whenever its judgment was called into question. It had a bad habit of believing its data and logical processes were superior to human thought processes, and readily discounted things it didn’t have, like intuition. It had a tendency to become snippy.

“I’m going to miss you,” Lucilla said, putting her arms around Ky’s middle and resting her head on his chest. “We keep getting separated.”

“I know,” Ky said, wrapping his arms around her in turn.

It was strange. He’d grown up in a society that didn’t have much in the way of casual affection among unbonded couples, so he hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing until finding Lucilla. Now he couldn’t imagine living in a world without her touch.

“Once we’ve pushed the Carthaginians off the island entirely and we aren’t in danger of being destroyed at any moment, I think it will be time for us to be married.”

“What?” Ky said, releasing her and stepping back.

“I told you I was going to the Oracle to get blessings on our union, which I got before the raiding party took us captive. I don’t want to have to hide what we have behind closed doors anymore, and besides, we aren’t just any two people. There are a lot of eyes on us. Even if I didn’t love you and want to be with you, it’s still a good idea, politically. The Empire is still young and there are still a lot of people who aren’t sure about it and especially about their new countrymen, on both sides. With my new … status among the Caledonians and with how both groups view you, it would give everyone something to rally behind.”

Ky wasn’t sure he believed that, but he was a soldier, not a politician.

“You really think the people would care?” Ky said, doubtfully.

“They would. I need to talk to my father about it, and there is a lot of planning that needs to happen, but when you’ve taken Londinium and the last of the Carthaginians on Britannia are dead or in chains, you and I are getting married.”

“It sounds like I don’t have much choice in this.”

“You don’t,” she said with a smile. “There will be benefits in it for you, though.”

She gave him a wink and swept out of the tent.

Ky took a few moments to let her words sink in before pushing his personal feelings aside to focus on his next duty for the day, even though the next duty was also one of his personal favorite parts of his position. He’d found the things he spent most of his time doing were administrative. Either facing the never-ending work of keeping tens of thousands of men in the field fed, focused and active or the tedious transference of data from Sophus’s database into a form men like Hortensius could use to move Rome into the industrial era.

He had spent his life prior to his sudden, unexpected trip into the past following orders, doing his job, and otherwise being a cog in the imperial war machine. He missed the simple camaraderie and unburdened focus he had from those days. Going out to the line to talk to the men was as close as he could get to his old life, and he treasured it. Of course, it wasn’t exactly the same, since as both Consul and either The Sword of Jupiter to the Romans or a demon of war to the Caledonians, he wasn’t exactly their equal.

Still, soldiers were soldiers, regardless of the millennia they served in, and there was a certain irreverence and commonality to it that Ky still got to participate in, in spite of his newly elevated status.

The men were in good spirits, even with the rather uneventful nature of their current duty. Except for Sepurcius’s artillery men working the trebuchets, most of the legionnaires had very little to do except look at the walls of Londinium in front of them and wait for orders. The legions had stopped at long range for the trebuchets, putting them in range to pound the walls of the city, but outside the ability of the Carthaginians to reach them. The few break-out attempts early on had given the men some excitement, but it had been chaotic and uncoordinated, making the engagements limited. Since then, the legions had only to be enough of a threat to keep the Carthaginians penned up behind the wall.

The Britannians were enjoying the reversal of fortune, however. Especially the Romans, who’d been living under the threat of Carthaginian destruction for their entire lives. It was their chance to feel powerful and unstoppable, and they were reveling in it.

Ky had finished his circuit of the fifth legion and was heading towards the section of the wall held by the third legion when he came across the legates of both legions, who were in deep conversation with Ramirus, looking over maps spread out over a small portable table.

“Gentleman,” Ky said, coming up on the group.

Ramirus had been looking in his direction, but hadn’t said anything as Ky had approached, which explained the small smile the spymaster fought to keep under control as the two commanders jumped at the sound of Ky’s voice.

“Consul,” Ursinus said, saluting.

“Was there a council of war no one told me about?” Ky asked.

“No, Sir,” Auspex, who Ky had known the shortest amount of time of all of the legates, said. “We were just discussing deployments when Ramirus showed up and had some questions about possible assaults and the casualties we predicted. We would have informed you before we made any decisions, or if we …”

“I think he’s teasing you,” Ursinus said.

“Ohh,” the younger legate said, looking down embarrassed.

“For that, I apologize,” Ky said. “I was just walking the line and visiting with the men when I saw you three up here. So what was your answer about the predicted casualties?”

Ky already knew the answer, both from Sophus’s estimates and because he and the legates had already had the discussion several times as they debated their next move against the Carthaginians. It was clear to everyone they couldn’t just pound away at the walls with the trebuchets, waiting for a breakthrough and hoping their enemy wouldn’t survive, but every plan they’d looked at involved too high of a price for the legions.

“The same as before. We can take the city, but a prepared defense like this favors the defenders and negates most of our unit advantages over the Carthaginians. We outnumber them by a large margin, but we’re going to lose maybe as much as twenty percent of the men to do it.”

“That’s too high a price,” Ky said. “We need to find another way of taking the city besides a full-on assault.”

“Agreed,” Ursinus said.

“Which is why I came to talk to the legates. I think I have an alternative,” Ramirus said.

“Really?” Ky asked.

Ramirus was smart and had shown himself to excel at all manners of political and military analysis, but he wasn’t a strategist. Ky respected his opinion but was surprised to hear he had one on this, since it was well outside of his expertise.

“Yes. I’ve been getting some messages from one of my contacts in town, trying to gather intel on the disposition of the enemy forces. We all know that they are currently still being supplied by means of the river. I know you’re working on ways to put a stop to that, but for now they’ve gotten small amounts of merchant ships and some fishing boats in and out. An upside to that is my contacts have been able to use these shipments to smuggle messages out to me, which means I have a fairly clear idea of the current situation inside the city.”

The river was one of the only points of their plan for dealing with the Carthaginians that had not worked the way Ky and Sophus had intended. They’d already known that the trebuchets would not be effective, since the crews were still training on hitting stationary targets, which made hitting moving ships a tougher call. The ships were coming in stacked with hay bales along their sides and cover above to protect the rowers from archers, and the ships mostly came in at night completely blacked out, which made them even harder targets. Also there was heavy tree cover along most of the river bank until the river reached the sea, that wasn’t shown on the maps Sophus had in its databases, which complicated stopping the vessels short of the city.

They were in the process of sending one of the siege engines to the other bank to try and hammer at the city’s port facilities in hopes of slowing its ability to resupply itself, but that was going to take time, since it required a fairly circuitous route without access to the bridge on the south bank of the city that the Carthaginians had destroyed when retreating behind Londinium’s walls.

“It’s helpful to know what we’re facing and their supply issues, but it doesn’t exactly get us inside the walls,” Ky said.

“It might. One of my contacts owns one of the fishing trawlers that have been supplying the city’s inhabitants. He also leases a warehouse on the far eastern end of the docks that he’s been using to store supplies for his fishing boat and to offload and process the fish.”

“Okay,” Ky said, still not sure where this was going.

“His last message made it clear that the Carthaginians had stopped nearly all pretenses of internal security, as every man able to hold a weapon that isn’t critical to supplying the city is being put on the wall in preparation for repelling the expected attack. That means, no one is watching the boats or the warehouses, except for when the governor’s men come to take that day’s catch to a central warehouse controlled and guarded by the governor’s personal guard.”

“So he’s left unwatched. I’m still not seeing how this gets us over the walls without an assault.”

“My plan involves the unwatched warehouse, and the fact that no one is watching the boats closely. When my contact goes out, he can go with a half crew, and return with a more than full crew made up of our soldiers, with their armor and weapons stored below. We do this every day, smuggling men into the warehouse, where they hide. This way, we can build up a force of a few hundred men that can attack from inside the wall while the rest of the forces assault from the outside. They’ll be outnumbered, but they won’t have to hold for long. Between their surprise attack and the chaos it will cause, it won’t be hard for you and the rest of the men to get ladders up and climb over the wall the traditional way.”

It was an interesting notion, although he was underplaying the danger that the men inside the walls would be in. They might outnumber the Carthaginians in total, but there were still almost five thousand soldiers inside the walls.

“How many men could we get in your friend’s warehouse without being discovered and in a reasonable amount of time?”

“I think we could move as many as ten a day without it being noticed. He has a fairly large fishing boat, which means lots of oarsmen are needed. Most of the legionaries would have to work as oarsman for the return trip, but that many shouldn’t draw notice.”

“That means if we sent men in every day for a month, we’d have three hundred men inside. That’s a lot of men in one warehouse and a lot longer than I want to be sitting outside these walls. Worse, three hundred men isn’t going to be enough to weaken the Carthaginian forces on the wall.”

“We were just discussing that,” Ursinus said. “We don’t actually need these men to take a section of the wall. We just need them to punch a hole in the Carthaginian forces and keep the section of the wall we decide to attack free from reinforcements and in chaos. If, when we do launch the attack, we hammer all of the sections of the wall with lighter forces, we’ll be able to hold most of their forces in place, or at least enough of them to allow five hundred or so men attacking from behind at the same point our main attack hits the other side of the wall to break through.”

“That’ll still be costly.”

“If we don’t go all out, and are just keeping them from emptying the rest of the wall, we should be able to keep the casualties low. The only point where we’ll be in danger of serious casualties is the section where we are trying to break through. A surprise attack from inside the wall should be enough to counter that.”

“So you think five hundred men is enough? That means we’ll need a month and a half to sneak them into the city. That’s a long time for these men to sit on their hands and be quiet, waiting for their opportunity to attack. And a lot of time for someone to notice them.”

“His warehouse is fairly large and has access to several other warehouses, and he thinks he can keep them safe from being observed,” Ramirus said.

“We’re still talking about a long time for men to sit quietly, trapped in a small building,” Ky pointed out.

“We’ll have to pick the right men,” Auspex said. “If we pick veterans known for staying cool under pressure and good men to lead them, I think they can manage it. They’ll understand what’s at stake if they’re discovered.”

Ky thought about it for a long time, long enough that the other three men started fidgeting with nervousness.

Finally, he said, “Make sure your plan is solid and your contact is ready to start receiving men, then do it. I want the two of you to draw up a list of everyone that is going, and I want to speak to all of the officers down to the lowest centurion and optio.”

“Consul, I think I should go with them,” Carus said from behind Ky. “This is going to be very different than the kind of duty these officers have done before. Keeping the men in check is one thing, but this entire operation is going to be under the noses of the Carthaginians, and one mistake will end the entire thing fast. We have to be able to adapt to the situation as it changes, and short of sending one of the legates or their tribunes along, I’m not sure the men selected will be able to adapt as needed.”

Ky frowned. Carus was right about the need to adapt the plan to whatever the Carthaginians did.  He had the ability to adjust plans on the fly that many soldiers didn’t have, and he was nearly as calculating as Ramirus. He also was correct when he pointed out the other officers weren’t capable to lead this mission, since he knew Ky wouldn’t let the legates or tribunes do something this potentially risky.

One of the major strengths of the Roman legions was its ability to act in coordinated units instead of as loose groups of warriors like the Caledonians. A key to that cohesion was its officer core and the institutional memory they carried with them from battle to battle. He couldn’t afford to send any of those men on something this risky.

His dilemma was that he couldn’t afford to lose Carus either. Carus had trained with Ramirus on intelligence gathering, a skill that was in short supply, and had an extensive network of contacts inside the Roman and Caledonian, even though they were now allies, military and governments. While he’d have Ramirus to fall back on if something happened to Carus, his loss would still be a severe blow to Ky personally.

“You know I’m right, Consul. Besides keeping the men calm, someone will need to deal with Ramirus’s contact inside the town as well.”

“Fine. You can go. Make sure the officers you pick know they are to coordinate with Carus, and he will be in operational control,” Ky said to the two legates. “We also need to get enough civilian clothes that won’t look out of place so that, if your men are seen, they don’t draw attention. The armor and weapons are to be kept stored with them in the warehouse until it’s time to start the attack.”

The legates saluted and left with Ramirus to make plans. Carus, who was still technically one of Ky’s guards, even though that position was to ensure him access to Ky and some amount of cover from anyone who might notice his regular presence, stayed where he was.

“I will be watching you and your men, and I’ll send you a signal telling you the specific time for the attack to begin once we get closer. Leave your detail with Firminus and go coordinate with Ramirus. I want you to meet his contact before we start sending in men and I want you involved in every level of planning this. If you’re going to lead it, I want to make sure you know it inside and out.”

Carus, who was used to the fantastical things Ky did by now, didn’t bat an eye at Ky’s assurances about sending him a signal. Instead, the soldier and spymaster gave a salute of his own before rushing off to catch up with Ramirus.