Pride of Carthage (32 page)

“Then shape the map in your mind into words and lay it before me. I wish to find a trap hidden in the land. Help me with this and you will make your life one I value.”

The Numidian barely hesitated. He opened his mouth and began speaking. The words came out smooth and even, as if he had actually rehearsed them for this moment. Hannibal sat back and closed his eyes and realized that the view of the world thrown against the back of his eyelids was not dimmed by the infection. It was still possible to see clearly. He listened to the African speak for some time, learning the land in a way that all of his previous chart study had not approached.

That evening his physician came to him and after a long examination confirmed what Hannibal already knew: His eye was dead. Forever after, he would see the world through a single lens only. So be it, he thought. Knowing this, he felt there was no need to delay. Starting the next day, the army moved in a herd of flaming destruction. He turned them away from the Roman legions at Arretium and marched upon Faesulae, a fortified town which they took by the sword. They ravished it: the men killed, the women brutalized, the children kicked fleeing into the hills. They took what they could carry, torched the rest, and marched southward, repeating the pattern as they went. Their wake was a blackened wasteland of despair. On this march, Hannibal showed no mercy. It would take a hundred thousand deaths to end this war, so he might as well up the count daily. It was therefore up to the Romans to acknowledge his supremacy and call the bloodshed to a halt.

Passing Cortona, Hannibal's scouts brought him the news he had hoped for. Flaminius was behind him. His army pursued them at a headlong run, heedless that they were not chasing a quarry at all. They were being baited.

As he was nearer to the western coast than to the eastern, Silenus sailed from a nameless village port on the coast downstream from the city of Asculum. The entire journey was to take place clandestinely, with no mention of a Carthaginian cause and no use of an African vessel. The latter would make the journey time-consuming, but it was deemed best. The Romans, never sea-lovers, had as late gained some naval mastery. Silenus could not afford to be aboard a ship that might be targeted for attack.

Despite his secrecy he was stopped three times by random Roman patrols. The first time, Silenus claimed to be a merchant from Heraclea, plying his trade in leather goods along the Adriatic coast. Asked if this were not a risky undertaking, considering the war, he answered that he had complete confidence that Rome would vanquish the African foe soon enough, after which the fruits of his intrepid labor would richly reward him. When he produced samples of his wares and offered a sales pitch, he was soon released.

The second time, at the port of Syracuse, he named no concrete purpose to his life but simply wagged his tongue evasively during questioning. As he had grown to manhood in the city, he spoke with inflections that marked him as a native. The soldiers dismissed him for a nuisance, not a threat. Thereafter he stood for some time staring up at the city. It was—as ever—a wonder to look upon, an architectural marvel, a museum housing much of the world's knowledge and artwork. He longed to take a few hours away from his mission and climb up into the familiar environs, to look out over the views he loved and to search out old friends and share with them tales of the things he had seen in the last few years. He wanted the company of Greek men so much that he felt the desire for them deep inside his abdomen. Looking up at the accomplishments of Greek minds and labors, he wondered why he had so tied his life to the fortunes of another race. Maybe this was foolish.

As he stood thinking this, word came to him of a ship that would take him on to Emporiae, embarking that very afternoon. He turned to the man who brought him this news and asked how to find the vessel. He did not think the action through fully, but simply carried on with his mission. The prompting, defying all else, was of a personal nature. Though he had said nothing of it to Hannibal, the news of Hanno's capture had rocked him. To imagine any Barca in Roman custody was shocking enough, but this one he had a particular fondness for. It was hard for him to explain, even to himself, but he had always found something endearing in the traits others might call Hanno's faults. Hanno's taciturn nature brought Silenus a new pleasure in his own mirth. Hanno's superstitious fear of signs and symbols in the world made him smile at his own irreverence. Never had he met a person who took life so seriously, who stood so near to greatness and got less joy from it. Hanno was not impressive in the manly way of Hannibal, nor strikingly handsome like Hasdrubal, nor good-natured like Mago, but Silenus could not help himself. He liked the taciturn soldier best of all, and wished very much for a future in which they had the leisure to figure out the nature and depth of their relationship.

There could be no sight more offensive to Roman eyes than the horizon-wide view of farmland and villages burning under an invader's torch. Flaminius could scarcely believe the visions that assaulted his eyes as he pursued the Carthaginian army through Etruria. How had they appeared south of him, out of nowhere? The news sent him reeling with amazement. Somehow, Hannibal had already bested him. In his first move, he had slipped by without so much as a skirmish. Anger followed fast on shock, and Flaminius wasted no time in striking camp and setting the full two legions in pursuit.

And a strange pursuit it was. If Hannibal had been invisible a moment before, now he chose to leave signs of his passing in the sky and on the land and written on people's faces. Smoke billowed up into the sky from a thousand different fires. Even among the Roman officers there were whispers that this invader was blessed by some new gods and could not be stopped. It was foolish rumor, but a seed of doubt had sprouted within them. Flaminius decided to check this before it grew into outright fear.

One evening he had a great fire kindled. He stood with his back to it, stared into the red faces of his men, and harangued them at length. Could they not see that this invasion was a new version of the first barbarian wave? The first time Romans had come face-to-face with Gauls, they believed the brutes were divine warriors, sent to herald the end of the world as Rome knew it. Those yellow-haired monsters strode out of the north, a horde of giants, invincible, bone-crushing. The Romans who met them were so frightened they turned and ran. The Gauls found Rome an empty city, save for the Capitol, which a few soldiers held with their lives. They had plundered the land just as Hannibal was doing now, undisciplined, bestial.

“And yet here we are,” Flaminius said, “generations later, rulers of all of Italy, branching out into the world. How is that possible? Because of the fortitude of a single man. A single citizen reversed the tide of Fate. That man was Camillus, as great a man as Cincinnatus. Camillus loathed these barbarians. He said, ‘Look at them. They're not gods. Not demons. They're not harbingers of change. They're men like us, except beneath us. They have no discipline. They sleep in the open. They erect no fortifications. They gorge themselves on food and wine and women and collapse upon the ground.' Camillus saw them for what they truly were, and he taught the others how to vanquish them. With a corps of picked men he stole into their sprawling camp one night, walked quietly through their snoring masses until his men were everywhere among them. Then they fell upon the Gauls. They slit their throats and left them gasping, waking from their drunken dreams to see the face of hell.”

Flaminius raised his hands out to either side, embracing the whole company before him, in silhouette with the fire bright behind him. “Never since that night has a Roman feared a barbarian. Let us not forget the teachings of our ancestors. We are Rome; we fear not the invaders now among us. We've only to remember ourselves to triumph.”

At the morning meal the next day, scouts reported that Hannibal was heading toward Perusia, from which he would, presumably, make a dash for the south. Hearing this, Flaminius rejoiced. He could not have had better news. Little did Hannibal know that he would soon find himself trapped between two consular armies: Flaminius' own and that of Geminus, who even then was marching south in haste. It was perfect. The gods were with him. If he had his way, he would sever Hannibal's head from the body that bore it and carry it aloft on a spear. Rome would greet him with a triumphal welcome of unprecedented proportions.

In haste, both from impatience and also to demonstrate his determination to those around him, Flaminius left his breakfast half-eaten. He rose and hurried toward his horse, shouting out orders to the officers who scrambled to keep up with him. They must quicken the pace of march. At the same time, they would send word to Geminus and ask him for cavalry reinforcement. It just might be possible to pinch the enemy between the full weight of both their armies. “Then,” he said, “by the gods we'll have them all.”

Having spoken thus, he attempted to mount his horse with likewise conviction. He leaped directly from the ground. The move began sharply enough, with some of the grace of a mounted entertainer. Some of it, but not all. The horse skittered, backed, and then reared as the consul sought purchase. It spun in a tight circle and yanked the reins from the rider's hands. This flurry of motion ended in stillness: the horse standing a few paces away, calm and instantly undisturbed, the consul on his backside in the mud, gazing at his stained garments as if completely mystified by this outcome. It was an ill omen if ever there was one, but Flaminius swatted at the hands that offered him aid.

“Just a mishap!” he snapped. “Has no one ever fallen from a horse before me?”

Then, as if he had not already enough prods to rage, a report came that one of the standard-bearers could not pull his burden up from the ground. Before the gaze of astonished onlookers who were reluctant to touch the pole themselves, the young man strained and groaned and tired himself with the effort. True enough that the ground was damp, yielding stuff, but its grip on the shaft seemed unnatural to all onlookers, as if the earth itself wished to delay them in action.

Flaminius, however, tilted his gaze skyward and asked the heavens if ever a consul had led an army less inclined to action. He ordered the standard dug out of the ground and called for the march to begin. Omens be damned; the consul was determined to make contact with the enemy and bring him to a full test. And so he would, three days later, beside a lake called Trasimene.

A year ago, Aradna would not have imagined that she and her donkey would still be following the Carthaginians, but come the spring she had to set aside her plans of escape. Though she still had her treasure tied and snug between her breasts, it did not seem like enough. And also she had come together with the remnant band of camp followers over the long winter. They had aided each other by pooling their food and foraging in bands, although scavenging items of value was still a solitary, secretive pursuit. They were several groups—some composed entirely of Gallic women attending their husbands—of which hers was the smallest, fifteen in total. Even this modest number provided some measure of security above traveling alone. It was a mixed company of men and women, young and old. She managed to fend off the attentions of the men and live with them peaceably. And, better yet, she had come up with a proposal that had bettered their lot and won credit for it.

Like any army's livestock, the Carthaginians' had to be transported alive and afoot. There had once been a horde of slaves and servants and ambitious boys to attend to this, but their numbers had dwindled. Many of those still living were recruited as soldiers, now that every willing man—and some not willing—was needed. Why not let the followers aid in herding the beasts? Aradna passed this proposal to Hannibal's secretary through the large Celtiberian who thought himself their leader. The Carthaginian, Bostar she believed his name was, had agreed, and so the ragged followers became sheep and goat and cow herders. They got no pay for their labor except the poor portions of the slaughtered animals, but that was no small thing. And, of course, it placed them in a prime position to scavenge should a great battle soon reward them.

The evening that the army marched through the defile and down into the valley of the lake, Aradna believed that the time had come. No one thought to consult with or give directions to the followers, but they judged the signs for themselves and reacted to them. She and the others herded the few surviving goats and steers onto a high, grassy knoll. From it they had a vantage point that encompassed the entire valley below. The lower elevations were just slipping into shadow, but the air above seemed to suspend particles of the sun's amber vibrancy. The shore of the lake curved in a wide, irregular arch that slipped out of and then back into view. Beside it stretched a relatively flat expanse. This soon tilted and rose to a gradual, undulating slope dotted with trees and low vegetation. A little higher, the incline increased, leading up the rocky mountain ridge that hemmed in that side of the valley completely. The only easy access to the lakeside came from the narrow defile through which they had passed and from another similar gap at the far end. An army entering the field would have to march thinly through the pass, spread over a distance, with little room to move on either side until well down onto the flats.

The main contingent of Hannibal's infantry took up a position in the center of the far end of the plain, as if they were preparing to meet the Romans in a traditional combat on the morn. But the plain itself was not wide enough for the two armies to march toward each other in battle formation. Aradna recognized that the troop movements before her were made with guile. Units of cavalry took up positions near the mouth of the defile, on fairly open ground, but hidden behind the hills and ridges that marked that area. Slingers and light infantrymen were deployed in small groups along the whole length of the plain. They moved up toward the hills and slipped between the folds of earth there. Within a short time they had all but disappeared.