Pride of Carthage (49 page)

The sight of them strolling away in a loose, casual herd let loose a shiver of fear low in his back. Cornelius knew he had been betrayed. He turned around and started to count his men with his eyes, but stopped himself. He knew the numbers and what they meant. He called for his officers and with them decided to fly in pursuit of his brother's force. There were four days between them, yes, but if they sent out swift messengers immediately and strode out at all haste they might manage to converge in less than a week. Their smaller number would speed them, anyway.

Hasdrubal's force crossed the river behind them and shadowed about a day's march behind. Occasionally over the first two days, skirmishers from the Carthaginians harassed the Roman baggage train. On the morning of the third day, one of the original messengers rode into camp on a lathered horse, a creature dead on its feet from the moment it stopped moving. The man himself had nearly lost his left hand from a sword blow to the wrist. His horse's side and his own leg were spattered with blood. Streaks of brown cut across his face where he had tried to wipe away sweat. Cornelius had received fair news from worse-looking messengers before, but the first words out of the man's mouth proved such was not the case in this instance.

The route north was alive with Numidians, he explained. They were everywhere, roaming at will. The others of his party had been lost. He had escaped only because his horse took him down a sliding gravelly slope so steep nobody would follow. They had better prepare, because the Numidians would be on them any moment.

Cornelius bent close to the man, who was now seated, having his injured arm dressed and gulping down water between sentences. “Are you sure of what you saw?” he asked. “Is it not just that the Numidians trailed behind my brother's army? If they are so close, then Gnaeus is close as well. Perhaps they are pinned between us.”

The messenger shook his head. “Sir, when we met them they weren't in pursuit of your brother. They faced south. They're coming for us.”

The land to the east was barren and, to the Romans, largely unknown. There were no important settlements, so the area had been largely ignored. But it was not very wide a stretch. In five days they could be at the coast; another two and they would be among allies. This was no easy choice to make. Cornelius did not know whether some catastrophe had befallen his brother. He could not tell whether pressing forward would reunite them or lead him into annihilation. All he could do was make decisions based on what he knew. His ten thousand were no match for the Carthaginian forces now. There was an army behind him, and marauding Africans in front of him. He ordered the dash for the coast.

They left behind their wagons and the camp supplies that needed to be dragged by pack animals, keeping only enough food to get them through a week. They made good time that day. They did not halt until after dark and were up again before the dawn. Cornelius demanded the strict rationing of water, but the second day took them through a terrain so parched it seemed to suck fluids mischievously from their skins and gourds. The sun perched in a cloudless sky, blistering from above, scalding as the fury of it bounced up from the sand. The heavens gave no sign that they remembered the approaching autumn and the rains the season always brought.

The third afternoon they passed through an area of cave dwellers. They were a strange people with no military might who watched the Romans from gaping black mouths in the rock. They seemed to know who was in danger here, for they showed little fear. Children clustered about the adults' legs, staring, chatting, pointing at the strange sight of a Roman army in full flight. Cornelius ordered water requisitioned from the peasants, but not a drop of the stuff could be found. How they scraped out an existence in that craggy land was a complete mystery.

On the fourth day, the Numidian cavalry attacks—which had been sporadic and light—picked up. The horsemen appeared at their sides. By midday they began to attack before the Romans. As the sun finally tilted toward the horizon, scouts brought Cornelius the worst possible news: They believed Masinissa himself directed the cavalry attacks. And to the west they had seen a cloud of dust rising from the ground, catching the red fire of the setting sun: It could only indicate a large host. Hasdrubal's troops alone could not account for such a sign. The Barca brothers' armies must have joined.

If this were so, Cornelius knew, Gnaeus might well have perished. He spent the night wrapped around this possibility and rose not having slept at all. The Numidians allowed them no peace from the moment the sun rose. They found no water that day. Instead they stumbled across dry riverbeds. In resting moments he saw men clutching their heads, their lips dry and cracking, their eyes receding into their skulls. Some of the horses refused to walk. A few collapsed from exhaustion, toppling their riders to the ground. They only needed another day, Cornelius believed. Only another day of running. But he knew as the sun fell for the fifth time that they must live through a long night before then, and the territory they had to do it in was so barren as to beggar belief.

They paused on the only feature of note on the land around them, a bald hill that fell gently in all directions, nothing more than a pimple on the landscape. The full ten thousand men barely fit on its slope. It offered none of the many things needed to build a fortified camp. There was no timber for stakes. No turf to slice and peel up to build walls. They could not even pierce the stony soil to dig a trench. The proconsul hesitated only long enough to confirm all this for himself. He looked ahead and verified that the land offered only more of the same everywhere he could see.

He formed the infantry into a circle around the hill with orders to beat off the enemy's cavalry charges, which started even as he uttered the words. Inside this barrier of men, all the others stripped saddles from mounts, packs from supply animals, gear of any and all sorts. These they tossed into a heap that formed a second line of defense. They hefted stones into place. They slaughtered fifty mules and hefted their bodies up onto the wall of debris. Soon after, they dispatched the rest as well, for what use would they be to dead men on the morrow?

By the time this was accomplished, the Carthaginian forces had appeared in their full might. They spread across the land like a river of congealing blood, their armor a hardened skin that pearled the fading glow of the carmine sky. The Numidians drew back to consult with them and Cornelius ordered his infantry inside the strange fortress. They sealed the entry. Cornelius set sentries all around the ring and had lookouts climb to vantage points to keep watch on the enemy. This having been done, a silence settled over the army. There was nothing more to do. They stood panting, grimy, so dehydrated that many of them could no longer sweat. Cornelius instructed them to rest, to share water if they had any, to keep weapons close at hand, and to remember their gods and the nation they served. They were here for noble reasons and not one of them need regret it. Not one of them need meet what was to come with anything but bravery.

The night blackened and then grew lighter as the moon rose and the stars fired to brightness. Around them was nothing but silence. Occasional wisps of African words carried on the breeze, but they gave no true indication of the sea of animosity that surrounded them. Cornelius sat on a simple stool, ringed by his officers. They spoke quietly around him. They recounted aspects of the day, pondered the night ahead, and optimistically proposed strategies for defense. But to the elder man at their center their words were children's chatter. Alone inside himself, he prayed that the Carthaginians would wait the night out. They will delay, he said silently to himself. They will rest. No army presses an attack at night. He wanted to stand on the mound and yell this to them in case they did not know it. Night maneuvers were folly. Wait till the dawn. Wait till the dawn! But even as he wished for this, he recognized that the Carthaginians would be fools not to finish them that night. And Barcas were not fools.

Cornelius tried to find some reason why the gods would have blessed the enemy so suddenly. The night marked the Nones of the Wild Fig. The day was meant to honor serving women for once defending Rome. There was nothing at all portentous in it. He had never understood the reasons behind the teetering rise and fall of Fortune, and his age had only made this stranger to him. No matter that others could always explain away success or failure. To him it had never seemed that people understood even a portion of the gods' inclinations. He had never wavered in worship, never failed to offer tribute, never let his vigilance in service wane for even a moment. So why had Fortune not been as constant toward him?

Though he had expected it, the shout when it came jarred him so much that he visibly flinched.

“There!” a sentry called. “They're coming!”

The white walls of Carthage simmered under the sun's glare, glorious, blinding, like structures cast in silver and polished to brilliance. Mago remembered how much he adored this place. He set foot once more on African ground, inhaled African air, and looked upon his countrymen. News of his arrival had preceded him. People accosted him on the street as he made his way up from the harbor. He was hugged and kissed by women, grasped and patted by men, praised and questioned by both. But he would not speak of the rumors they had heard, not just yet. The Council summoned him a few hours after his arrival, but he delayed them some time and ordered a series of crates brought up from the ship.

He sped home to his mother. In public she received him with all the dignity of her position, but inside the privacy of their grounds she hugged him to her in the manner of a mother. He did not fight against her. He told her everything he could. She heard it all, smiled and frowned as appropriate, and passed her reasoned judgment on the campaign with all the authority of an old warrior. Like Hannibal, she accepted the victories as natural enough and looked past them to how to end the war. Mago found it strange listening to her. There was a cadence in her voice that reminded him of his father. He had not noticed this before.

Sapanibal greeted him with more enthusiasm than usual. She pressed close to him and touched his face with her fingers and began to ask him details of where the campaign stood, how damaged they had been by the lack of reinforcements, what Hannibal thought of marching on Rome. . . . If Didobal was an old warrior, Sapanibal was the younger equivalent, a roiling cauldron of schemes and ideas.

Sophonisba rescued him from her. She launched herself at him as if she were still a girl, landing on him with her legs wrapped round him, pecking his face with kisses. He was as shocked by her as he was pleased. Astarte had been hard at work on this one; or was she the creation of the Greek goddess Aphrodite? She was no longer a girl, even if she played at being one. Though her brother, he recognized the stunning beauty of her face and form. His awareness of this made him instantly uneasy. Pray that war never comes to this land, he murmured on his breath.

This thought was still in his mind as he met Imilce. She alone approached him with the reserve demanded by Carthaginian decorum. She bowed before him and greeted him with praise and rose only when he begged her to do so. She asked after Hannibal demurely, matter-of-factly, as she might have inquired about the weather. He answered only in the vaguest of terms, speaking not of her husband but of the victorious commander. He certainly had no desire to speak of the damage to his brother's body, of the trials they had seen and the changes Fate had sculpted in the man. Only Hannibal himself should convey such things. Mago did slip her the scroll that his brother had entrusted to him. Of all the documents he had arrived with, this alone he hand delivered. He could see by the urgency in Imilce's eyes that she wished desperately to read it. But she did not. She only nodded acceptance of it and handed it to a servant.

When he finally presented himself to the Council, the clamor of their questions rang through the dark, smoky chamber, which was lit by the rippling, orange glow of torches. Mago did his best to quiet the men with his upraised hands. He said he had come to them bearing proof of the greatness of Hannibal's exploits, proof that he would lay before them in just a moment. First, though, he wished to recite his brother's accomplishments to make sure that all understood their magnitude. He described the geographic obstacles they had overcome. He named the battles they had fought and numbered the enemy dead from each. He said that so far Hannibal had been responsible for the death of nearly two hundred thousand Roman soldiers. He had captured and ransomed over forty thousand more, and sent countless Roman allies home to their people to sing the praises of a just Carthage. He spoke at length, saying nothing openly disparaging to the Council but letting them know that all these things had been accomplished with the most limited of resources.

He went on to outline Hannibal's plan for the continuation of the war. Let it be a multi-pronged strategy. Send reinforcements to Italy, yes, but also redouble efforts to hold Iberia, attack Sicily and win back the old allies, and send aid and support to Philip as he strove to end Roman influence in Illyria. If Carthage could keep Rome stretched thin and struggling in the outer circle, Hannibal would drive home his attack in the inner circle. He would strip the Romans of her allies one by one until she stood alone and naked among enemies. Carthage, in a year's time, would be the first nation of the world, the single greatest power, with no impediment to expanding beyond all far horizons.

When he concluded his address, one councillor, Gisgo, shouted above the others who had started to question him. Mago could not help looking to the ceiling with mild annoyance. Gisgo had been his father's enemy of old, and by the look on his thick face he was still an enemy to all things Barca.

“You talk grandly of your brother's victories,” Gisgo said, “but you speak with a double tongue. If Hannibal has won such great victories, why has he not sacked Rome already? If you are to be believed, not a single man of fighting age is left in all of Italy. Does Hannibal need help in fighting women and children, then? Is it old men he's afraid of? You name victories, and then you ask for more, more, more. Explain this to me, for I am confused.”