"I'm not a swimmer," I said.
After eating, we had returned to the lookout post on the hill north of the city. Tiro, Fortex, and I sat on horseback, surveying the view. It was much as I had seen it the day before, except that the harbor was now crowded with moored transport ships, and the harbor entrance had been pinched a bit tighter, thanks to new rafts hastily added to the end of each breakwater. Tiro had said he wanted a final look at the lay of the land and the disposition of Caesar's forces, but I was beginning to suspect that he had no idea of what to do next and was searching for a way to get inside the city walls.
Lacking the wings of Daedalus, this could be done in only two ways: by land or by water. Entry by land would require getting past the front line of Caesar's heavily manned trenches, traversing the no man's land before the city wall, and then penetrating or scaling the wall itself. We could hardly do any of this in secret. Long before we crossed the front line, the attackers would order us to stop or be killed as defectors. Even if we crossed the no man's land alive, the defenders might fire upon us long before we could explain ourselves, and they could hardly be expected to open the gates or let down ladders even if they wanted to help us.
That left the possibility of approaching Brundisium by water. The city wall that fronted the harbor was shorter and less heavily guarded than the landward wall, but scarcely less formidable to three men without wings. Outside this wall, a narrow road ran along the waterfront and gave access to the port situated at the tip of the peninsula, but the entire length of this road had been covered with a veritable thicket of spikes and caltrops to make passage impossible and discourage even small boats from landing. There was only one point of possible ingress: the port itself, where gates in the walls opened onto a wide boardwalk and several large quays projected into the water. The gates to the port were open and there seemed to be a great deal of activity on the quays, but as yet there was no sign that the ships moored there were being readied for departure.
"What did you say, Gordianus?" mumbled Tiro, gazing intently at the prospect.
"I said, I'm not a swimmer. I've always been a city boy, you know. Born and raised in Rome."
Tiro blinked. "People swim in the Tiber all the time. Upstream from the Cloaca Maxima, anyway."
"No, Tiro. People splash in the Tiber, and float across on planks, and in dry years they wade across. That's not the same as swimming across a harbor with arrows falling around you."
"Who said anything about swimming?" said Tiro. "Do you see those little fishermen's huts down there, on our side of the channel? Just a stone's throw away, facing the city across the harbor?"
I nodded. The huts were few and spaced well apart. I hadn't even noticed them in the twilight of the previous day, distracted by the battle at the harbor entrance.
"The huts looked abandoned," said Tiro. "No signs of life. The fishermen have all retreated inside the city walls. But they left their boats behind. They're only skiffs, too small to be of any use to Caesar, so they've just been left there, pulled up on the sandy beach. I can see five or six of them from here. We have our choice. I have my eye on that one with the white sail. Less visible than, say, the one with the orange sail."
"Do you know anything about sailing a vessel like that?"
"You might be surprised by the things I know, Gordianus."
"Once we're out in the harbor, what then?"
"We sail directly for the quay. The channel can't be more than a quarter of a mile across."
"What if the current's against us? What if Caesar's men come after us?"
"Then Fortex shall have to row harder," said Tiro.
Fortex rubbed his jaw.
"And you may have to swim," added Tiro.
I didn't like the sound of that.