It has been a month since that night skirmish and the Roman fleet kept sailing towards Rhodes, stopping every now and then to check out some isolated island. As the winds were favorable, the Roman armada covered the distance between Samos and Rhodes with ease, sliding with grace upon the clear blue waters of the Aegean -- until the next stop. Brutus and Priscus were starting to get along once again, to the relief of the barge's crew since they didn't have to conceal their wine deposits from Priscus anymore.

As the Armada came to visual distance from Rhodes, it was obvious that something was terribly wrong. The once merchant fledged city which was drowning in vessels of all sizes, coming and going, carrying their goods from and to the Greek island was now strangely deserted. No ships were seen at the dockside, no merchants cursing that they would miss their voyage if the carriers didn't put their back to the task while huge piles of smoke infested the once clear sky.

"What happened here?" Brutus asked in disbelief, seeing the devastation that was inflicted to Rhodes. Priscus stood besides him in the gunwale, his eyes filled with horror for what wretched catastrophe had stroke the island. "Earthquake!" Priscus finally said with chilling climbing down his spine; "Rhodes must have been stroked by Neptune's trident!". The entire crew was left speechless in the mention of the powerful God, whom all Romans were scared of.

As the barge let the anchor hit the muddy ocean's pit some meters away from the shore, Brutus and Priscus embarked on a raft with several marines who rowed the tiny vessel forwards. Standing in the middle of the raft, Brutus tapped the back of his men, encouraging them to row just for a little while longer, as far as to the shore where they would get their deserved rest.

When finally the raft reached the shore, Brutus with a leap landed on the deserted beach. However, he could see clearly now; bodies of warriors laid around the shore, as did weapons and arrows and loot... Brutus took a few steps towards a body of an old woman, killed with no apparent reason. Her face still had the expression of shock and disbelief for what was killing her; it was almost as they did not expect them. Priscus was a few steps to the left, relieving a fighter laid dead in front of his feet of his purse. He had no need for money now, anyway.

"Pirates." Brutus finally said, wiping off a tear running on his face with his arm. His voice though didn't betrayed the discomfort his soul was in. He stood though in front of a house, a petty house, where two men were slain; one was standing outside of the burned House's door and the other from the inside as the roast of his skin would confess. Probably the man outside was trying to get in the house when he was killed while the owner must have tried to block off invaders from getting inside his only property. Then, Brutus collapsed to his left knee once more and begun to cry silently; his mourning though wasn't for the scene he was standing witness but for one he had seen many years before, in Rome. During Gracchus's riots.

He remembered of the man standing outside his door, banging it with his own fists, begging to let him in. He remembered approaching the door in terror and when opening it, he remembered the face of the man lying to the doorstep, murdered. His whole family killed too, even a little girl. Gods! She shouldn't have been older than twelve summers! Brutus recalled the young child. How deep had he managed to bury this memory only to pop out once more: in Rhodes of all places!

"Lucius" Priscus whispered. "Lucius?".

Brutus was desolated. From the beginning of this damned campaign, all had gone backwards. "They died for my vanity, you know" he finally said. "Look at them, Priscus. I caused their deaths."he said as he stood up, he saw that the beach was filled with corpses and the central road covered with the dead too. It was a massacre. "So many dead..."."You say they died because of you?" Priscus started. "Then they have died by a good cause. Don't worry yourself, my lad, these things happen in war..." he said to Brutus smiling, trying to reassure the young Quaestor. "Now, get it together. You have still some dice to play!" he ended.

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Counsel of Rhodes,
House of Agathocles of Rhodes.
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Andronichus, special assistant to the Agathocles, scuttled up to the Archon of Rhodes and announced, "Telemachus Spanikopitos, High Priest of Helios." Moments later, Spanikopitos entered the chamber and offered a formal greeting to the Agathocles: "Governor-Archon, I bid you good day."

Agathocles winced at the use of his formal title. Governor-Archon indeed! He was Archon of Rhodes, elected by the the whole people in the best Hellenistic tradition. The Romans, their erstwhile allies, insisted on adding the phrase "Governor" to his title as if to provide a constant reminder that he governed on their behalf! Well, that was the whole problem, wasn't it? Rhodes was not a Roman province. She had never been conquered by Rome. She had allied herself with the Roman republic generations ago, and was a formal Friend and Ally of the Roman People.

"Telemachus Spanikopitos, welcome. We face a grave matter today. Thank you for joining me in this meeting. The delegation should arrive presently." While the two were waited on by slaves who served them wine and figs, Agathocles continued to brood, but this time out loud to Spanikopitos. As High Priest of Helios, he carried tremendous clout. "For years--years!--Rome has been a faithful ally to us, and us to them. When the Senate requested us to equip them with a fleet to battle the pirates, we complied willingly, with the expectation that this was but the next chapter in our long association together. Then this upstart of a Quaestor arrives, and treats us as if we were night soil stuck to the bottom of his sandal!"

"What was the name of this Quaestor?" asked the priest. "I have not met him."

"Brutus." spat the Archon. "He claimed he had gained special knowledge of the location and intentions of the pirates. Told me that the pirates were planning an attack on Rhodes, and made it sound as if he had arrived to save us just in the nick of time. Well..."

Agathocles drained his cup and held it out impatiently for a refill. "This Brutus makes a big show of assembling his fleet and infantry, beats out of the harbor with a flourish headed for Samos with plans to conduct a night attack. A night attack! As if he had the eyes of a cat and the knowledge of Poseidon when it came to navigating the waters of Ionia! Well, my friend, that fleet has failed to return, so only Olympus knows how he fared, of if any of them yet live."

He was interrupted by the sounds of an angry crowd gathering outside the Archon's residence. "What we do know is that the only fleet to return to the city was the pirate one, led by Deppulous himself. You saw for yourself the havoc they wrought upon us. Rhodes hasn't looked this devastated since the day of the great earthquake which toppled the Colossus itself! And speaking of the Colossus!" he clapped his hands over his forehead in a dramatic gesture. "The pirates desecrated even the ruins of that great statue! But, alas, now has the delegation arrived. Hear for yourself, friend Spanikopitos, what they have to say."

As the delegation filled the Archon's audience chamber, the two seated dignitaries could barely make out the various complaints which seemed to erupt from the normally content and placid Rhodian citizenry:

"That quaestor said Rome would protect us from the pirates. You call this protection?!"

"Friend and Ally of Rome, are we? My arse, we're their friends and allies!..."

"...looted then burnt down my warehouse!"

"What happened to the fleet what was supposed to protect us? Where is it??"

"...my docks--totally wrecked along with two nearly complete ships when that fire barge slammed into them!"

"...thought Rome would protect her so-called Friends and Allies...in a pig's eye, they'll protect us!.."

"They killed my auntie!"

"...perhaps we should be supporting the Illyrians, fellow Hellenes like us!"

"...very rude fellows, these Romans, treating us like a conquered province..."

"Pompous ass! More like a 'keester' than a 'quaestor,' if you ask me..."

"Enough!" Agathocles screamed. Then, more softly, "Enough. We've all heard enough. Fellow Rhodians, we have all suffered at the hands of these pirates. For some reason, yet unknown to us, Rome has failed utterly in her promise to protect us. We have heard nothing from the fleet which we have built for Rome, nor from the young Roman who commanded it. Let us wait yet a few days more to see if we can find him."

"You have found him." Brutus said in ill humor inside his shining armor, his guards standing right and left of him. The nobles and Agathocles turned to see at the end of the Chamber of the young Roman who had the nerve to appear before them. "Dissapointed, Agathocles?" he asked the governor with spite. He had listened to all these fine noble men complaining and even supporting rebellion. He had them now!

"Friends." Brutus begun, loosening his crest and giving it to one of his bodyguards. From within the tight crest his curly brown hair were jumping wildly to all directions. "Allies of Rome." he said again, fixing his hair with his both hands. "What happened here?" To the sound of this words the nobles were in an uproar about it; finally Agathocles took the initiative.

"The pirates attacked. The pirates Rome had promised us to eradicate attacked and shacked my city. How do you explain that?" Agathocles said in anger, rising from his chair. "Maybe you can pretend that all this never happened and that it is maybe a nightmare?" he said, spitting the last sentence while the nobles laughed at the young Roman. "But of course, you wouldn't have much problems with nightmares since you are so fond of the night, now would you?" he ended.

"Agathocles, where were your own men during the attack? Let me rephrase that; had you any soldiers in case of the attack?" Brutus asked. "Surely a state as great as Rhodes would have it's own force rather than only Rome's fleet, I imagine." Lucius said.

"Friends" Brutus turned to address the rest of the nobles, except Agathocles, "here you see nothing more than an incompetent governor that wants to pass around the blame for this catastrophe. What has he done to secure the city? Nothing. He did nothing at all, basing all hopes on Rome's fleet. Your ruler, Agathocles, had been warned off by Rome of this impending attack as well as he knew that I would have to take the whole fleet away from your shores as soon as the fleet was constructed; that was my mission."

"My orders were to secure the shores of Asia, not to defend your island in case of an attack! If the Roman fleet was to protect Rhodes from harm, I would never have removed it from a day's travel but the fleet wasn't meant to protect you but instead the province of Asia." Brutus continued.

"So, instead of protesting to Rome for something that you had no right to protest about in the first place, best protest to your Governor-Archon for his failure to estimate the gravity of the situation even though, Rome, in the spirit of friendship and alliance shared the information of the attack immediately with this man! At least protesting to your own elected Archon will certainly bring some result."

"Now."

"While what happened here is a tragedy, deeply and truly, the Roman navy is now outside your docks returning from Samos after a night sea battle. Some of our vessels have been damaged, that is true, but our fleet will be ready to operate in the Aegean soon enough."

"Now, since you too were attacked from the pirates, I am sure that you now understand of the gravity of their threat. So, you can either let us face this evil alone, in which case you endanger yourselves for Rome won't be available to help you as She is now or you can either aid us with information and by repairing the damaged vessels in which case you would be sure to be mentioned with the utmost respect in the Senate House. What do you say, Equals of Rome?"