Pride of Carthage (29 page)

Gnaeus moved closer. He bent and studied Hanno's face. He had heavy eyebrows, bushy and chaotic, and a rounded nose that might have been broken in his youth. “I can see that you understand me, so don't feign ignorance of my language. I truly mean what I am saying. You have done me a great service. When I first saw events unfolding at Hannibal's direction I feared the worst. But when I met you on the field I was reassured. Barcas can be defeated. I know, because I've witnessed it. And now you know it, too. You understand that we will send you to Rome eventually, don't you? You are, and will continue to be, a prisoner of the Roman Republic, but before you journey to my capital I will use you for a purpose or two here in Iberia. I've already sent word to every Iberian tribe that called you an ally. I've invited them all here to see you, to look upon a captured Barca and see you for what you are. Imagine the effect on them when they see you live in a tiny room, alone except for your own filth.”

Gnaeus straightened and stepped away. “When you do go to Rome, I cannot say how the Senate will dispose of you. To some extent that depends on yourself, and on your brothers. Think carefully on what may be possible, because your lot need not be so foul as you might fear. Hannibal will lose this war. You do not have to lose it with him. You might, actually, manage to find favor with us. You might aid us and subsequently find yourself elevated even as your brother is defeated. For example, should you choose to speak reason to the tribes and dissuade them from their allegiance to Carthage . . . Or if you open your mouth and tell us things valuable to our fight against Carthage here in Iberia . . . There are many ways you can be helpful. Need I detail them to you?”

Hanno, having grasped the thrust of the man's comments clearly enough, answered him. “I will never betray my family, or Carthage.”

“Better men than you have done just that, and no one calls a man a fool if he succeeds while his brother perishes. How can you be sure your brothers would not sell you to save their own skins?”

“You know nothing of us.”

The Roman considered the prisoner from a different angle, and then twisted his head away as if to indicate that he saw nothing new. “In any event, you have already betrayed your nation. Do your people not frown on failure as a man's greatest sin? Perhaps I should put you on a boat bound for Carthage and let them deal with you. It's crucifixion they favor, isn't it? Or is it impaling?”

Hanno spat on the ground and then covered the spot with his foot. “I curse you and your line, your brother and your sons. May you father only girls and may all of them be whores to your enemies.”

Gnaeus smiled. He held his chin in his hand a moment and seemed to think bemusedly on the curse. “Is it by your own gods that you curse me? I do not fear them. And you, you should not trust them. Look at how they've abandoned you.” He knocked on the door and waited for the guards to let him out. Once the door was cracked he paused and addressed himself once more to Hanno. “Whether you like it or not, we will ask you many questions. It would behoove you to answer them. If you do not, we will find which torture persuades you most forcefully. By the gods—yours or mine—I would not wish to be inside your skin in the weeks to come.”

With that he pulled the door fast behind him, leaving Hanno alone with the man's words echoing in his head.

After the battle beside the Trebia, a howling blizzard blew in. Snow fell for two days straight. On the third a new cold crept down from the mountains. It stung exposed flesh so that men could only walk blindly, faces shrouded, stumbling toward whatever goal spurred them to move. There was little rejoicing among the men and no real mention was made of following after the ragged Roman survivors. Few even ventured out to scavenge on the battlefield. That graveyard was left to the wolves and ravens and other creatures fond of human flesh and impervious to the weather. The elephants that had traveled so far and inflicted such great damage could not withstand the relentless cold. All but one of them died within the week; this last creature, called Cyrus, was looked after with care, for now he was Vandicar's sole ward. The chief mahout swore he would keep the creature alive to see the heat of an Italian summer.

Despite the hardships, Hannibal was pleased that they had won their first battle against Rome. Over the winter, he managed to receive several reports from spies and what they told him of events in Rome brought him pure joy. News of the defeat had traveled quickly to the capital and rocked the population's confidence. During his first meeting with the Senate, Sempronius minimized the full extent of the tragedy and his role as the author of it. They had suffered this setback for a variety of reasons, he claimed. The rawness of so many of the troops. The bitter weather that impeded their deployment. The morale boost that the Carthaginians had fed upon after the skirmish on the Ticinus. The Trebia battle was no major defeat, he said, just an unfortunate incident.

Cornelius, arriving somewhat later, described the situation as he recalled it. He responded to the senators' questions as flatly and simply as possible, but still each answer fell like dirt filling into his fellow consul's grave. Among other things, he provided the most accurate estimate of the dead—more than thirteen thousand killed outright, more dead of infection. Questioned as to whether Sempronius had acted with gross negligence, Cornelius, surprisingly, said that he did not believe so. The events that benefited Hannibal that morning were too numerous to explain. No man could orchestrate such a thing. Perhaps only the gods could.

Nor was he the only one to arrive at this conclusion. Soon after the news of the defeat, tales began to circulate of prodigies that should have warned of the gods' displeasure. In Sardinia, a cavalry officer's staff had burst into flames. Some soldiers on Sicily had been struck by lightning while at exercise. At Praeneste, the rat population doubled in just a few days, and at Antium reapers swore that their hay had left traces of blood upon their blades. In more than one place it rained red-hot stones large enough to crack the skulls of the unwary. And these were not mere rumors. In each case of such an unnatural occurrence, a witness journeyed to Rome and told the story to the Senate. The Board of Ten consulted the Divine Writings, and on their recommendation the city spent much of the winter making offerings to Jupiter, to Juno, and to Minerva, conducting rites and holding public banquets like the Strewing of Couches, sacrificing pigs in Saturn's honor.

Fine, Hannibal thought. Let them pray themselves into a frenzy.

The early spring brought the news that Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius had been elected consuls. They were both charged to prosecute the war by extreme measures. They were to take control of all the routes through the Apennines and bar Hannibal's southward progress. There were now to be two legions with each consul, another two for Rome itself, two more for Sicily, and a further legion to protect Sardinia. The two legions in Iberia were to continue their efforts there. Flaminius—a new man in the Senate and the first in his family to attain consulship—especially burned for action. He announced his plans to leave the city and commence the campaign immediately, eschewing the traditional ceremonies that would have delayed him well into the spring.

This was equally pleasant news to Hannibal. Religious fervor on one hand, arrogant impatience on the other: What more could he ask for?

In the days just preceding the first tentative signs of spring, the commander met in council after council, studying charts and interviewing scouts and debating the course ahead of them. His goal lay to the south, toward Rome and her prominent allies, but just which route to take was not easy to decide. They could march toward the east coast, take or bypass Ariminum, and roar down the Via Flaminia directly toward Rome. Another way lay across the Apennines toward the Etruscan town of Faesulae, from where they could weave their way south through several different channels, not as direct as the Flaminia, but a reasonable course that might provide them just enough forage and geographic protection to fight their way to the peninsula's heart. Or they could attempt a crossing of the Ligurian range, difficult terrain that merited consideration only because of the possibility of resupply from the Carthaginian fleet along the Tyrrhenian coast.

As usual, the commander's generals came to him with differing opinions and expressed them freely. Bomilcar and Mago argued for a march on Ariminum, for direct engagement with Servilius, the consul in command there: All of Italy would be open to them if they defeated him. Maharbal and Carthalo preferred some variation on the central route, a way that would suit their swift and far-ranging riders and let them fight the skirmishes they excelled at. Only Bostar favored the difficult march toward the western coast and the benefits of meeting up with the fleet. Monomachus did not seem to think the route mattered that much; each of them led to Roman blood and that was sufficient for him.

None of the routes suited Hannibal perfectly. He wanted something more devious, more disconcerting, a way forward that would again throw the Romans into confusion. When he heard that among Maharbal's horsemen was a man who claimed to know of just such a course, he had him brought forward at once.

The man in question joined Hannibal, Mago, and Silenus in Hannibal's tent late on a pleasantly mild morning. He entered humbly behind Maharbal, head down, eyes fixed upon the earthen floor. He was gaunt in a way that indicated he had suffered from months of poor diet. He stood like a stick figure dressed to scare birds from a field. His clothes hung off him, a collection of skins and furs piled upon each other against the cold. His hair was wild, grown long and matted. It did not flow down his back but stood out around him like a lion's mane.

“He is called Tusselo,” Maharbal said. “He has been with us since Saguntum. He is a good rider, though I cannot say how he comes to know this land.”

“You are Massylii?” Hannibal asked.

Tusselo nodded.

“Why do you know Roman geography?”

Tusselo did not raise his eyes, but his voice was steady and calm when he spoke. “I was a slave to the Romans. I lived twelve years in this land. My master was a merchant. We traveled much. I learned the land through walking it. Many places and the ways between them are still clear in my mind.”

“Do you find the land different when looked upon with free eyes?”

“Different, yes. And the same.”

“It cannot be easy to return to the land that enslaved you, especially not for a Massylii. Your people were not put on the earth to be slaves. Do you return to seek revenge?”

The Numidian did not answer immediately. He cleared his throat and waited and made no sign that he would respond. But Hannibal let the silence linger.

“I cannot answer you with certainty,” Tusselo eventually said. “I have much anger, yes. I was robbed of many things, but not physical things that I can reclaim as such. I do want revenge, Commander, but I also want things I do not have words to explain.”

“I will not press you to find those words,” Hannibal said, “so long as there is always conviction in your actions. What is this route south that you know of?”

Tusselo explained that there was a neglected and difficult road to the north of Arretium. He pointed it out on the chart the generals had been using in their debates. It ran just south of the Arno River, through a marshy, swampy land. There was little forage on this route, the ground being so constantly soaked that only water plants flourished there. Trees had been drowned long ago and stood bare and rotting. Grass would be difficult to find. This time of the year it would be a chilly wasteland, a wide swath of country knee deep in water. The route had a single thing to recommend it, and that was that nobody would imagine they would choose it. They could emerge well into the center of Italy, behind the armies sent to bar their passage.

“My master once took this route to avoid the debt collectors who were hunting him,” Tusselo said. “It proved a good choice. But even in the height of summer it was a wetland. It will be wetter in the spring.”

“You still call him your master?” Silenus asked.

Tusselo turned his gaze on him, took him in, and then looked back in Hannibal's general direction. “It is just a word, the easiest for me to use. The truth is something different.”

Mago placed his fingers on the papyrus and turned it toward himself. “If these marshlands are as you describe they'll be as deadly as the mountain crossing.”

“It is the least favorable route imaginable,” Tusselo said, “but if we managed it the army might pass both consuls undiscovered. We'd appear to vanish from the world in one place—”

“—and later appear in another,” Hannibal concluded.

Tusselo nodded. For the first time he looked directly into the commander's eyes. “Like witchcraft,” he said.

There was a silence. After a moment, Hannibal dismissed the Numidian. To Maharbal he said, “Do you trust this man?”

“I don't know how he came to us,” Maharbal said, “but he has never given me reason to doubt him. I believe he knows this land. And I believe he is no friend to the Romans.”

“I see as much in his eyes,” Hannibal said. “Sometimes I wonder at the workings of the gods. I would not have found this route without this man, and yet I feel a drum beating inside me. This is part of our destiny. I must believe the gods placed him among us to make us see that which we would not have seen.”

“Or to lead us astray,” Mago said. “Not all gods look kindly on us. Brother, I do not favor defeating our cause by a march. We cannot survive another victory like the mountain crossing. I fear this will cost us too heavily.”

“At times our fate is presented to us through unlikely vessels,” Hannibal said. “I believe this Numidian is such a vessel. Why else would he return to the land that enslaved him? Even he cannot answer that question. This route is like an arrow loosed in the dark. The Romans will neither hear nor see the missile's flight. They will simply feel the shaft as it runs deep into their chest.”

To Maharbal he said, “Tell this Tusselo that he rides at my side on this march. If we succeed I will be the first to credit him. If anything goes awry . . . he will learn the wrath of a new master.”