Pride of Carthage (5 page)

He broke his fast with a small meal of something dense and meaty—cattle liver topped with eggs, venison on a bed of onions, stewed chunks of goat—and then it was on to the gymnasium. Hasdrubal and Noba had received the same instruction in hand-to-hand combat, but Noba carried with him earlier knowledge, the wisdom of the martial arts of his southern people. The two men merged these tactics and pressed beyond them. They wrestled each other into awkward positions and then talked through the most efficient, deadliest way to free themselves, the quickest way to deal a deathblow. They made killing a game, a physical and mental exercise that they joked their way through, lighthearted, companionable. Yet they both learned their lessons well and on more than one occasion credited their survival to tactics first thought up during these sessions. From wrestling, the two moved on to weapons practice. They sparred with thrusting sword or sweeping falcata, Spartan spear or javelin. When Hasdrubal tired of those, they experimented with using different shields as weapons, fighting with broken swords, with the shafts of blunted spears, or with the spearheads minus the shafts.

Before his afternoon meal, Hasdrubal walked stairs in the gymnasium with an ash beam balanced on his shoulders. He stripped down to nothing for the exercise, grabbed the straps that aided his grip, and hefted the beam with the full exertion of his body, slowly finding the balance point, sliding his body underneath the weight, and coming to peace with it. He took each step deliberately, pressing his foot down into the stone and thereby lifting himself and the weight carried like outstretched wings. It was a slow ordeal, a hundred steps up, a slow turning, and then a hundred steps down, another turning, and on again.

Groups of young noblewomen sometimes gathered to watch him. They whispered among themselves and pointed and laughed and sometimes called out to him, asking him whether he ought not exercise that third leg, for it was limp and lifeless compared with the two others. Hasdrubal kept on at his work, giving them little more than a smile or shake of his head. Instead of being bothered by their teasing, he was amused, flattered, encouraged, reminded that pleasure was never that far away. He slipped out from under the beam only when his legs were useless, rubbery things that wiggled beneath him and disobeyed the instructions his mind gave them.

The rest of the day was spent in training of a less overtly physical sort: honing his horsecraft, practicing the tribal languages, studying accounts of earlier campaigns, learning from the mistakes or triumphs of others, and fulfilling whatever obligations Hannibal had assigned him. A week after their return from campaign and the appearance of the surprise envoy from Rome, Hannibal called a meeting of his brothers and all his senior generals. Mago met Hasdrubal in the gymnasium baths. They had agreed to attend the meeting together so that Hasdrubal could fill his younger brother in on any details that eluded him. The elder brother stood naked before Mago as Noba pounded out a massage on the wings of his back. The squire's dark face was calm and somewhat vacant, his body lean and tall, perfect in a manner unique to his people. The muscles of his arms popped and contracted at their work.

“You should train with me,” Hasdrubal said. “Carthage will make a man soft. Too much palm wine and too many Nubian servant girls to rub you with oil. You need a good thrashing and then for Noba here to beat the fatigue out of you.”

The Ethiopian patted his master on the back and stepped away from him, indicating that he was finished. Hasdrubal rolled his head on his shoulders and stretched his torso at several angles, as if he were testing that the parts still functioned as they should. Then he began to dress.

“So,” Mago said, sitting on a stone bench and looking into the yellowish water of the baths, “is it a certainty, then? We attack Saguntum in the spring?”

Hasdrubal slipped on his undertunic and tugged it into place. “It's a certainty that we'll be at war with someone. Hannibal will spend the winter securing the goodwill of our new allies. He will succeed, in part, but never completely. Men who have just been soundly beaten and humiliated are slow to grow into true friends. If it were my decision we would not attack Saguntum next year. You know I like a fight, but there's enough fight left in the rest of Iberia to keep me occupied. Our brother, I believe, has long wanted to chastise the Saguntines. That Roman envoy only succeeded in making the prospect irresistible.”

“Perhaps that is why it's a sound move to attack Saguntum,” Mago said. “To show our new allies that we can share common enemies. It will take their humiliation and heap it onto another people.”

Hasdrubal glanced up for a moment and took his brother in frankly. He sat down beside him and laced up his sandals. “Perhaps,” he said. “In any event, Hannibal rides before the vanguard of reason. He leaves it to the rest of us to catch up. By the way, watch yourself or you'll find you have been betrothed to some chieftain's daughter. That is a sure way to secure their goodwill—to make them family.”

“You make that sound unpleasant. Hannibal has done so himself.”

“True, but not every man's daughter is an Imilce. Truth be known, brother, I like this country. I am more at home here than in Carthage. The Celtiberians make good allies and amusing enemies. And I've even grown to appreciate their women, pale things that they are. Mago, you would not believe this creature I've been screwing lately. She's beautiful, yes? Silver eyes and a gentle voice and a mouth that always seems in a pucker, you know? She thinks up things that would make an Egyptian blush. She does a trick with a string of beads . . .” Hasdrubal's eyes rolled upward into a flutter. He leaned back against the stone wall, momentarily lost in contemplation. “I won't even describe it. I don't know what you'd think of me.”

“Is this love or just passion?” Mago asked.

“It is the love of passion, my brother. The love of passion.”

The two brothers were among the first to climb the winding stone staircase to the top of the citadel, where the meeting of the generals was to take place. The tower was open to the air, a round platform ringed by a waist-high stone wall. It offered a view of both the fortress and the turquoise sea stretching out to the horizon. A wind whipped and buffeted the brothers, cold and mischievous. It made talking a challenge, but what Hannibal had to discuss he did not mind shouting out. And they were far from prying ears anyway.

Most of the officers were still settling in after the Arbocala campaign. If they were surprised to be called to a meeting so soon, they did not show it. They mounted the platform, shadowed by their squires, with a variety of characters reflected on their faces, as different in temperament as in the shades of their skin.

Maharbal, the captain of the Numidian cavalry, stepped onto the platform with a stern demeanor throughout his entire body. He wore his hair long. The thick, wiry strands gathered at the back, secured with a strip of leather. His dark skin had a reddish hue, as if baked by the sun and ripened to a rough, thick coat. His nose was slim and sharp; his chin protruded as if his face were a hatchet meant to slice the wind. Indeed this was just what he was famous for, the speed and precision of his riding.

“He is new to leadership,” Hasdrubal said, “sent by King Gaia of the Massylii. He knows his men and their horses and commands a devotion that almost rivals their admiration of Hannibal himself. He has almost too much power, but he has thus far proved true to us. We would be legless without Numidian horsemen.”

Adherbal, the chief engineer, also arrived early, dressed in a flowing Carthaginian tunic. He set his palms upon the stone wall and gazed out over the city he had helped create. His eyes moved with a singular intelligence, as if the wheels of his thoughts spun behind them, figuring calculations and making measurements even as he smiled and spoke and listened. Recently, his skills at building and knowledge of the laws of physics had been used to destroy cities rather than create them.

“If we lay siege to the Saguntines it'll be his machines that win it for us,” Hasdrubal said.

Just before the meeting, the others arrived in quick succession. Young Carthalo commanded the light cavalry under Maharbal. Bostar and Bomilcar: the first Hannibal's secretary and the second a favored general. Synhalus, the oldest man of the group, had served as the Barcas' surgeon since Hamilcar's time. He was the slimmest of them all, fine-featured and intelligent, of Egyptian blood. He had quiet eyes and full lips and a face not given to showing emotion or betraying any thoughts whatsoever. A man named Vandicar stood beside him, the chief mahout, a native of the distant land of the Indians. His complexion was a touch darker than the Carthaginians', but his closely cropped black hair was absolutely straight, oily and dense. Behind each of the primary players stood their squires and assistants, quiet shadows like Noba who heard all with blank faces, trusted aides and friends, battle-hardened soldiers in their own right, some free, some bound by slavery.

Most of these men Hasdrubal knew both from the rigors of campaign and from the pleasures provided by leisure moments. He greeted them with nods and an easy grin. There was in his movements and posture the swagger of a young lion confident with his place among his peers. So he seemed until the first sighting of the crown of one man's black mane. This man was Monomachus. He took the company in with a disdainful glance that touched on everyone but moved on quickly, as if none of those he saw proved to be of sufficient interest. His eyes were intense and bulbous, seemingly too large for his face. Or perhaps they only seemed so because of his shrunken cheeks and the withered, dry pucker of his mouth.

Hasdrubal's glib expression vanished. He whispered to his brother, a little lower than previously, his eyes not upon the man in question but looking off at nothing in particular. “There stands a more ancient form of man than most.”

“I remember him,” Mago said. “He's Monomachus. He created the Lion's Way, did not he?”

Hasdrubal nodded. “And he's no saner now than he was then. He's devoted his works to Moloch, the Eater of Children. He leaves very few of his opponents alive. At least he fights for us. Of this be thankful.”

When Hannibal appeared he swept up onto the platform in a flourish of purposeful energy. He wore the leather corselet he sometimes sparred in. Its polished blackness was as impressively sculpted as hammered iron. He wore a red cloak that fell almost to the ground, but beneath this his arms were bare, as were his legs below the thigh. He gave the impression that he had just come from training, still flushed and warm from it. When his eyes touched on Hasdrubal, the young man felt a warm flush on his face despite himself. His brother's gaze in joy was like the sun bursting from behind a cloud.

Hanno appeared just after him. He nodded at his younger siblings, then crossed his arms and waited.

When he began, Hannibal's voice rang loud and clear, despite the wind trying to spirit his words away. “Remember with me for a moment the grandeur of our nation and the work we've accomplished here in Iberia,” he said. “We who were beaten through treachery have here carved one of the world's great empires. We who should be poor are rich. We who should be defeated know only victory after victory. We've much to be proud of. Be so in the name of my father, Hamilcar, and my brother by marriage, Hasdrubal the Handsome, for they made this possible. Their work was well begun, but it's not yet complete. As they have passed on to Baal, it passes to us to make real the world they both envisioned. We still have an enemy, a single foe, but a foe like none other. You know of whom I speak. . . . Not the Greeks whom we fought so often in times past. Not those Celts still defiant in the north of this very country. Not even the Saguntines, to whom I will direct your attention in a moment. I speak now of that den of thieves and pirates that they call Rome. Need I recount their crimes against us?”

The group murmured that these crimes were well known to them all.

Hannibal said the names anyway, slowly, each word broken into its separate syllables. “Sicily. Sardinia. Corsica. All taken from us. Our wealth. Blood. Possessions. All taken from us. The enormous cost of a war we did not start . . . Heaped upon us to pay for far into the years to come. Our navy destroyed. A people who were above all seamen now limited to a few vessels, cursed to walk instead of follow the wind. These losses are too great for a proud people to bear. And we are proud, are we not?”

All agreed that they were. Monomachus grunted low in his throat.

“Now, friends, the wolf's nose is sniffing even here in Iberia. Again the Romans are on the verge of ignoring honor. They wait not for right but only for opportunity. Some back in Carthage call themselves the Peace Party. They would have us avoid all conflict with Rome—would have us bow and bow again. They argue that we should accept the rule of our betters and profit from what commerce we can, like street peddlers scrounging for business in back alleyways. But what do these peaceable sorts know of the things we have created here? They know only that wealth pours from us to them, and that is as it should be. They need know little else, because it is we here on this citadel who determine the future of our nation. Make no mistake—we are Carthage, the heart and arm of it both. We are a small group here, but each of you is key to this army. Each of you makes Carthage great through your work. Each of you owns some portion of this empire. And what we've built thus far is but the foundation for something larger.

“I will speak to you plainly, so that you'll understand me the same way. We will move against Saguntum in the spring. Either the Romans will come to the Saguntines' aid, or the city will fall to us. If it falls, then the Romans will know what we think of them and they'll have to respond. So, either way, Saguntum is the opening thrust in an attack upon Rome itself. The Romans will be slow to recognize this completely. My sources say that they are now more concerned about events in Illyria than they are about us here. They will move more like tortoises than wolves. By the time they know we are their enemy, we'll be on their soil, with our swords at their necks. So . . . Saguntum this summer. Rome the next. Do any question me?”