Pride of Carthage (47 page)

After Mandarbal departed, the commander dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against his friend's chest and murmured the man's name. Bostar. He repeated it softly, over and over again, a single word made into a prayer and a speech, a confession and an apology. He spoke as if he were alone with his deceased secretary, but his remaining officers rimmed the walls of the council tent. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with revelry at their victory, but the aftermath of the battle provided no respite from toil. There had been, and still were, a thousand different matters to attend to. This pause to mourn the passing of one of their own provided for most of them the first hushed moment for reflection.

Each of them had been wounded in some way. Maharbal had been hacked down to the bone of his lower leg with a dullish sword. He could barely stand, but claimed that he did not notice the injury when mounted. Bomilcar bore a gash across his forehead where a passing spear point had carried away a strip of flesh. He would wear the scar of it ever after, the first point on his massive visage that any newcomer's eyes settled on. He joked that he could tap the bone of his skull directly to clear his muddled head. Monomachus' arms were battered with bruised, oozing wounds, and he wore a cloth wrapped around his left hand, the material tainted a reddish brown where he had received the point of a dart thrown at close range. Carthalo lay on a cot in his tent, a spear wound in his thigh. Several lesser officers stood or sat about the chamber as their injuries allowed.

Mago watched his brother with a pained expression that had nothing to do with the physical. By the grace of Baal, he had survived the battle largely unscathed. He and his handful of attendants had fought near the front ranks of Gauls. His voice was still raw from all the yelling, from his crazed attempt to manage the wild energy of barbarians, to control their retreat and stay alive and watch Hannibal close the jaws of his trap. In the hours of battle, moment after chaotic moment passed as if it might be his last, each instant laced with a hundred ways for him to die. He had personally killed more men than he could count. He had stepped back, always at the edge of the retreat, receding before the Roman line as it trod over his soldier's bodies.

One of his guards had been impaled beneath the chin by a Roman spear. The weapon struck so hard that Mago, standing just beside him, heard the vertebrae snap under the pressure and saw how strangely the man's head hung from the spear point, attached to the body by tendrils of flesh but no longer connected to the framework hidden beneath. He still carried the sickening image in his head, ready to impose itself on any person walking past, any face he looked at. Nor was it the only disturbing image. He tried to flush these out with reasoned thought and celebration, but as ever he hid within himself the strange duality of character he had always found in battle. He was both inordinately skilled at it and absurdly haunted by it afterward. Strangely, it was he and Hannibal—the two most slightly injured—who seemed most troubled.

Hannibal was still whispering the dead man's name when Gemel stepped into the tent. He had assisted the commander for some years now, but he seemed nervous in his new role as Bostar's replacement, clumsy in it and hesitant in his speech. He lowered his head and stood in silence.

But Hannibal must have sensed his presence. Without lifting his head he asked, “What do we know for certain?”

Gemel glanced around at the others, but they all knew whom the commander addressed and with what question. “We can be sure of little, sir,” he began. “The Gauls suffered most. They are still counting, but they may have lost more than four thousand. We cannot account for two thousand Iberians and African troops, and we lost at least two hundred from the combined cavalry. Commander, I am sure of none of these figures. This is just the best we could gather throughout the day.”

“And of the enemy?”

“Your estimate, sir, would surpass mine in accuracy. We've captured a full twenty thousand—many of them wounded and dying—and taken both their camps. Some hid in Cannae itself. We are still rounding them up. A few escaped to Canusium and Venusia—”

Hannibal lifted his head. “Just give me numbers, Gemel, a simple tally.”

“The best figure I can give this morning comes from the Romans themselves. They say they were ninety thousand strong. Twenty thousand of these we captured. Perhaps another ten thousand escaped us. So . . . This field may well be the death of sixty thousand of them.”

Maharbal could not help but speak up. “Do you hear that, Hannibal? Think of it—sixty thousand! And the figure may be higher than that! Let me do what I proposed earlier. My men could ride before the dawn. Do not consider me injured—”

“I've already answered you, Maharbal,” Hannibal said. He touched on the horseman with his one-eyed gaze, briefly. “I rejoice that you are so hungry to sack Rome. But he is a fool who does not place himself within a framework of other men's actions. We are not the first to conquer Roman legions on their own land. The Gauls sacked the city of Rome and had their way with her as if she were a whore. They left loaded with plunder and stories of their own greatness. But what did it come to? Rome went on. The Romans crept back into their city and built it again and spread their power and now have little to fear from the Gauls except annoyance.”

“We are not barbarians,” Maharbal said. “Their story is not the same as ours.”

“Pyrrhus of Epirus did battle here—”

“Nor are you Pyrrhus!” Maharbal cut in. “He knew how to win a victory, but not how to use one. Do not make a different form of the same mistake.”

Hannibal glanced up at him again, studying him as he might a stranger who had spoken out of turn. But after a moment he seemed to find the man he recognized and spoke to him with tired patience. “Pyrrhus defeated Rome on the battlefield,” he said, “a deed that earns him my respect. Again and again he emerged victorious, but still he gained no foothold. Though he won, he lost. Rome replaced its soldiers like the Hydra replacing heads. That's what Pyrrhus never understood. Rome always has more men. Not because their women push them out of the womb any faster, but because they use the wombs of others. If they run low, they call upon their municipal cities, upon the colonies, and, beyond that, upon the allied states. It is that that gives them power. Sever
those
heads, and the picture is much different. That is something Pyrrhus never succeeded at. He never isolated the Romans. That is the key, to cut them off from the outside world, hack at her bonds with her neighbors. This done, Rome is just a city like any other. And then any city—not only Carthage—may deal with her as she deserves. Rome will find herself the most hated creature the world has known. This, Maharbal, is as true today as when I first explained it to you. I know my mind on this. I will strike Rome not with the greatest force, but with just the right blows to find vulnerable flesh.”

He indicated this with the edge of his hand, cutting the air before him. Then, remembering the body of his friend, he pulled his hand back. “This talk is pounding my head to pain. Gemel, have they found the slain consul yet?”

“No. He may've been stripped by camp followers already.”

“Keep looking for him. He deserves an honorable burial, even if he was a fool. And see to it that the allied prisoners aren't mistreated tonight. I'll speak to them tomorrow morning. I want to send them home to their people friends instead of enemies. Have special presents sent to the Gauls, along with wine and heaps of praise and the cuts of meat they most favor. And Gemel, have careful counts for me before the dawn.”

As the secretary withdrew, Monomachus said, “The gods, too, deserve praise for our victory. We should offer sacrifice. With your permission, I'll select a hundred Romans from the prisoners. We should torture them in the old ways, and offer sacrifices—”

“No. We offered enough sacrifices yesterday. And what is this man lying before me if not a sacrifice?”

This did not move Monomachus. “You know I'm sworn to Moloch. I can feel his hunger. This battle did not sate him.”

“Don't talk to me of this.”

“In your father's time, we—”

“Stop!” Hannibal snapped to his feet. “Have all my generals gone mad? There will be no sacrifice! We will not march on Rome and this is not my father's time! You are my councillor only as long as I tolerate you and that may not be much longer. Leave me now. All of you. Go!”

Monomachus turned away without comment and filed out with the others. Mago started to leave also, but Hannibal stayed him with a glance.

Alone with his brother, the commander asked, “Why is my heart so troubled? I should rejoice, but instead I feel a new weight draped over my shoulders. I should honor my generals with praise; instead, I only find fault with them. I craved Roman blood for so many years; yet I do not want another victory like this. Mago, when I looked upon Bostar's face it was as if I were looking at yours, or at my own.”

“I know,” Mago said, “or I upon yours.”

“This victory was not worth his life. I would undo it all to have him back. How strange, my brother, that a man like me, who wants only to defeat his enemy . . . How strange that in mourning I would trade everything that this companion might live.”

“No good can come from talking so,” Mago said. “You will not have to look upon a field like Cannae again. You will not have to bury your brothers. Surely, this is the end of war. Never will the world see another day like this. That is what you have accomplished. Bostar would reverse nothing that happened here.”

Hannibal placed his fingers on the wood of the funeral table and pressed till his fingertips went white. “I know nothing of what Bostar thinks now. By the gods, I want to win this! It is all the work of my own hands, but at moments I look down and realize that I'm seated on a monster fouler than anything I could have conceived. Sixty thousand of them dead? Sometimes I wonder who is more bound to Moloch—Monomachus, or myself.”

Hannibal dismissed the thought with a tic that upset and then released the muscles of one side of his face. Mago had noticed this tic several times in the past few weeks. He did not care for it, for during it Hannibal's face was briefly not his own. It was an ugly mask, similar to his, but different in disturbing ways. One of the torches began sputtering, a few loud bursts of oil combusting. Mago turned and watched it, wary lest an accidental blaze disturb the solemnity of the chamber. “You surprise me, brother,” he said. “Do you pity yourself now, at the moment of your greatest glory?”

“I do not pity myself,” the commander said. “I know no pity. Neither do I yet have the word for what I feel. Even the gods in whose names we fight remind us not to think of war always. Think of Anath. After the defeat of Yam she hosted a feast in Baal's honor. When the gods were all assembled, she slammed the doors closed and began to slay everyone. She would have killed them all, for they had all betrayed Baal in the earlier war. You remember who stopped her?”

“Baal himself. He convinced her that the bloodshed had gone on long enough and that a time of peace and forgiveness was needed.”

“Just so . . .” The tic disfigured Hannibal's face again. He closed his eyes and for some time seemed to focus only on his breathing. Watching his visage grow calm, Mago was reminded of the clay masks street players wore during the winter months. They were vague, almost featureless faces that hinted at human attributes without rendering the details. They betrayed no emotion, and one could tell the tenor of the play only by listening and watching that much more carefully. Even as a child he had found it strange that the same mask could at one moment indicate mirth, and in the very next embody sorrow. He was, then, both surprised and not surprised by what his brother said next.

“Let us forget this conversation,” Hannibal said, opening his eyes and straightening to his full height. “It does nobody any good and we've much to attend to. Here is what we do, brother. You must go to Carthage on my behalf. . . .”

Never before had Rome endured so dreadful an hour. Each of the previous battles had struck its blow, but Cannae beggared belief. For days after the first news of the disaster trickled in, the people had no clear understanding of any of it. Just who had been killed, who captured, and who spared? Was there an army left? Was Hannibal already beating a path toward them with gleaming eyes? Was he truly, truly unstoppable? Questions multiplied with few answers rising to match them. Rome's people knew only that every aspect of their lives had been altered; now everything was at risk of imminent destruction. The streets and the Forum became roiling sluiceways of despair. The living and the dead were mourned simultaneously, in a jumble, for there seemed no way of separating the two.

On the suggestion of Fabius Maximus, horsemen rode out along the Via Appia and Via Latina to gather what news they could from the battered survivors—if any could be found. The gates to the city slammed shut behind them. All believed that Hannibal would come for them now. What object could there be but the destruction of Rome itself? The death of her men, the despoiling of her women, the theft of her riches: what greater temptation for the monsters of Carthage? For a people so buoyed by their enslavement of others, it was easy to imagine the trials ahead for them should the barbarians breach the gates. Masters crouched beside servants and wept with them and made declarations never heard before and whispered apologies previously inconceivable. All awaited the coming tempest.

Amazing, then, barely believable, mysterious . . . that Hannibal did not appear on the horizon. Yes, the details that reached them were horrendous, the death toll shocking, no portion of the news fair or
welcome . . . but Hannibal did not come. He did not come. And with the passing of days into weeks and more weeks, people's thoughts turned from impending doom to other matters. Amid the fervor of war and hope in the city as Paullus and Varro marched out, none had taken note that prodigies had been occurring with unusual frequency. In the sealed, waiting city these events were recalled.