The Wings of Mercury
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 23
Carthage
“And then,” Marcellinus chuckled, “the fool actually believed me when I told him the crate was full of salted fish! Can you imagine?”
Medb gave a throaty laugh, pulling her arm slightly against his so her body brushed his side slightly. He joined her laugh as they made their way slowly up the palace steps.
“And he believed it? You must have nerves of iron to face him and not break. I just ... how can they be so gullible. You really are quite something, my friend.”
“You aren’t half bad yourself,” he said, putting a hand on top of the one cupping his bicep. “With your connections and my ... let’s call it business acumen, we’ll have this city in the palm of our hands before the year is out.”
“Ohh, I have no doubt. We make quite the pair.”
“Indeed, though I must admit, I find myself wishing our journey here had afforded us more ... intimate opportunities to solidify our partnership.”
The look in his eyes made it very clear what he meant, as they dipped once again to her well-sorted cleavage.
Medb squeezed his arm, her laugh low and throaty. “Patience, my dear Marcellinus. Good things come to those who wait.”
They walked past the guards and into the audience chamber itself, which was more or less empty aside from her husband, on the much simpler chair that had been brought in to replace the throne used by Eoghan, and a few guards attending him.
Medb stopped at the foot of the dais that he sat upon, releasing Marcellinus’s arm.
“Husband,” she said as she curtsied. “I have returned.”
Cormac sat rigid, his hazel eyes fixed on the pair, not returning her greeting. Marcellinus looked to her a little worried, but the small smile she gave him seemed to give him a small measure of courage.
“My lord Cormac, it’s an honor. I’m Marcellinus, a humble merchant eager to contribute to your grand vision for Carthage,” he said, giving a low bow.
“I’m sure you are,” Cormac replied, his tone as cold as his stare. “Guards, seize him.”
Cormac didn’t break eye contact as men materialized at the merchant’s side. Marcellinus’s face was locked in shock, his mouth opened, all but frozen in place as the guards grabbed his arm on either side, much as Medb had done moments before, but much less gently.
“What? What is the meaning of this?” he sputtered, struggling against their grip. “Medb! Tell him there’s been some mistake!”
Medb looked to Marcellinus one last time, the humor completely gone from her eyes, replaced by the same cold stare her husband was giving him.
Facing Cormac, she began to slowly ascend the dais, each step purposeful and deliberate. As she reached him, she leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, her fingers gently running through his hair. Cormac looked up at her and for a brief moment, both of their eyes softened as she gazed at him with true warmth before her mask slipped back in place and she straightened, looking down at the stunned merchant.
“This,” Medb said, her voice cold and heartless, “is your arrest.”
“On what grounds?” he sputtered, looking frantically between Medb and Cormac, trying to pull futilely against the guard’s grip. “This is madness!”
“Treason, for starters,” Medb replied.
“What? I would never ... Prince Cormac, I don’t know what you’ve been told...”
“Marcellinus, you stand accused of selling proscribed weapons, avoiding imperial taxes, supporting rebel factions, and plotting to use Empire resources for your own enrichment,” Cormac said as if the merchant hadn’t even spoken.
The color drained from Marcellinus’s face. “This ... that is absurd! You have no proof! Tell him, Medb! You ... this can’t be true. We...”
He stopped, seeing the look on Medb’s face as she reached into a pouch sewn into her dress and pulled out several rolled pages, the edges jagged as if they were ripped from a book, and handed them over to her husband.
Cormac looked down at them, his eyes moving left to right as he read everything.
“Two hundred rifles and fifty barrels of gunpowder to someone named Nebamun. Sounds very Egyptian, which is a country not allowed to buy those weapons, which is probably why you declared it as farm implements. Ohh, this is interesting. A five thousand denarii payment from Zamaris. That name has come up several times recently when dealing with some of the more organized pro-Carthaginian factions in the city. I wonder what he could have possibly been paying you for. Do you have any explanation for that?”
Cormac looked up from the document at the merchant’s face, his mouth moving wordlessly like a fish.
“I thought not,” Cormac said, putting the documents into his own pocket. “These do seem like a fair amount of proof, though. Enough to pass judgment.”
“I ... you can’t ... I’m not...”
“Guilty?” Cormac said, interrupting him. “No. I think you are. All of your possessions and holdings are now forfeit to the Empire. Ships will be dispatched with orders to the navy that any vessel bearing your name is now the property of the crown. Your officers and factors face arrest warrants, pending proof of their innocence.”
“You should also send word to the capital,” Medb said. “I understand he has quite a few holdings there. I believe his properties, and his family’s properties, should be seized. I’m sure the Empress would agree that the proceeds from the sale of them would do well in funding the war effort and taking care of the men wounded in battle.”
“Excellent thinking, love,” Cormac said, patting her hand.
“My ... my wife,” Marcellinus stammered, finding his voice at last. “What about her?”
Cormac’s cool facade slipped for a moment, letting some of his annoyance through. “Now you show concern for your wife? Curious, given your eagerness to bed mine.”
Marcellinus looked from him to Medb and back again, his eyes wide and full of fear. Was he so stupid he thought she hadn’t told Cormac everything? Even now, when all of his secrets were being laid bare, did he still think that would be hidden?
“She’ll have to crawl back to her family. Let her try to salvage some dignity after choosing such a poor excuse for a husband.”
“What about me?”
“You,” Cormac sneered. “You are to be executed tomorrow morning. You will finally get to do something noble for your Empire, serve as a warning to any who’d dare steal from the Empire in these times of war. Take him away.”
Marcellinus looked like a frantic animal as he tried to wrench free of their grasps and make a run for it. The entire attempt was pathetic; his screams could be heard fading down the corridor after they dragged him out of the room.
Medb looked down at her husband and smiled, happy to be with him again.
Port Vikhavn
“I believe they’ve decided to give up on taking the port,” Valdar said, looking around the room at the gathered men.
It was an eclectic bunch. Ship’s captains, the majority of which were Scandi or Germanic immigrants, side by side with the Roman port commander and some of his equally Roman officers, next to Chief Ekoko of the Ikondi tribe and a few of his men. Each was dressed according to their customs, making for a motley bunch.
There was a comfort in that, even with the serious tone Valdar had set for the meeting. In the month that they’d been penned up in the estuary, the enemy had tried one more seaborne and three more landborne assaults, all of which had failed devastatingly.
So much so, that their total number of ships had finally gotten close to parity.
That, however, was not without its cost, which this meeting would hopefully address.
“The men our friend Chief Ekoko has managed to get on the outer island to keep an eye on their fleet have reported an uptick in activity. The enemy’s been making repairs to their ships, with a lot of focus on repairing damaged masts and sails and replacing rigging. The kinds of things you’d see focused on for longer ocean voyages instead of the short assaults they’ve been trying.”
“You think they’re planning on sailing north?” Captain Fabius of the Aeolus asked.
“That’s exactly what I think. They’ve realized they can’t break through our defenses here and have decided to try their luck elsewhere.”
“I thought they wouldn’t bypass us because we’d be able to sail out and come up behind them.”
“That remains true, but watching their pattern lately, they’re sitting on the two lines we would have to take if we were to sally out of the port. We’re protected here, but that protection has become a double-edged sword, locking us in here as much as it’s keeping them out there.”
“Then how do we deal with them?” one of the other captains asked. “You just said they’re sitting on the lanes we would need to sail out of here, and I’m not sure we’d be able to get into appropriate lines before we got to them, meaning any assault would be scattered and weak. We’d be torn apart.”
“It’s worse than that,” the port commander said. “We’re dangerously low on powder. If we do mount an assault on their lines, we’ll have to pull the majority of what we have in the forts and might even have to borrow some from the chief’s stores. If your assault were to fail, I’m not sure we’d have enough powder and shot to repulse another attack on the port.”
“I know it puts us in a tough spot. We can’t sit here and let them sail for our homelands, and we can’t sally out of here without putting ourselves at serious risk. What we can’t do is remain inactive, refusing to make a choice. Whatever we do, it must be decisive.”
“I believe the admiral is hinting that he has a plan to address your troubles,” the chief said.
Valdar smiled at the man. He might be considered backward by many of the people in the Empire, but Valdar would never make that mistake. He was a shrewd man, who both understood how to read people and paid close attention to situations.
It had served him well, allowing him to become chieftain in the first place and then recognize the value of their visitors five years ago, and turn that to his advantage when other tribal leaders had only seen a threat.
“The chief is, of course, correct. I do have a plan to even those odds, but it’s going to be risky. I want you to assemble your carpenters and sailing masters and take all of the extra anchor chain, along with any similar chain we might have in the port, and wrap the ships’ hulls in that chain, from the deck to the waterline, finding ways to affix it so it stays put even when pounded by shot and shell.”
“Chains, sir?” Captain Fabius asked. “I don’t follow.”
“During that last assault, I was watching when a shell came in high on the deck and hit the anchor chain, and then glanced off instead of plowing through it into the timber. I think the chains could work as an impromptu armor plating, like what the Consul and shipbuilders are working on for those river ships they were discussing before we sailed out. We have to talk about how far apart those rows should be placed and if just one layer is needed, and as I said, how to get it to stay on the hull, but it should, I think, give us some protection and allow us to fight longer.”
“We’ve got a fair amount of chains stored in the fort’s warehouses,” the port commander said. “And that apprentice of Hortensius – what’s his name, Aulus? – he’s got a small smithy and workshop. We could probably produce more, given some time.”
“Time is not something we have a lot of, but if he starts now, by the time we’ve used up what we have, it would give us just a little more. How many ships can we reinforce?”
The commander thought for a moment and said, “It depends on how it’s spaced apart, but seven, maybe eight, at the most.”
Valdar’s expression remained neutral, but inwardly he felt a flicker of disappointment. He knew it wasn’t going to be enough for the whole fleet, but he was hoping for more.
“Then that will have to be what we have.”
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