There were two tykes aboard: a lean, wide-awake sailor standing astern to row, plus a substantial chunk of bellypork taking his ease in the prow. I hung about, ready to make myself useful catching their mooring rope. The oarsman touched; I gripped the bumboat's prow; the passenger stepped out; then the deckhand pushed off at once. I tried not to feel superfluous.
The man who landed wore soft doeskin boots with copper half-moons jingling on their thongs. I had heard the sailor call him Bassus. Bassus clearly thought a lot of himself. He was the type of mighty transit barrel who rolls through life clearing a wide swath. And why not? Far too many feeble whingers with all the dye bled out of their characters skulk on the sidelines of existence hoping no one will notice them.
We walked towards the beach. I weighed him up. He probably kept a bankbox in all the great ports from Alexandria to Carthage and Massilia to Antioch, but like a wary seaman he always carried sufficient good gold on his person to bribe his way out of seizure by pirates or tangling with small-town officials when he went ashore. He had earrings, and a nose stud, and enough amulets to ward off the Great Plague of Athens. His Sun God medallion would have caved in the chest of a lesser man.
He was not even the captain. The whip through his belt told me this was merely the bosun-the overseer who striped the hide of any oarsman on the Isis who upset her tranquil motion by catching a crab. He had the silent confidence of a man whose bulk can dominate a tavern from the moment he enters it, but who knows the first officer on a sleek lugger like the Isis never needs to cause a fuss. If this was just the bosun, Aufidius Crispus the owner probably thought himself foster brother to the gods.
'You've come from the Isis!' I commented, giving the ship an admiring eye but not bothering to annoy him with the obvious statement that she was a superb rig. Bassus condescended to flick me a glance. 'I need to see Crispus. Chance of a word?'
'He's not aboard.' Short and sweet.
'I know better than to believe that!'
'Believe what you like,' he returned indifferently.
We walked up the beach, as far as the road. I broached him again, 'I've a letter to deliver to Crispus-'
Bassus shrugged. He held out his hand. 'Give it to me if you like.'
'That's too easy to be true!' (Besides, I had left the Emperor's letter upstairs at the inn, when I changed my clothes.)
The bosun, who had been fairly passive so far, finally formed an opinion of me. It was unfavourable. He did not bother to say so. He simply suggested that I should get out of his way, which, being an accommodating type, was what I did.