Pride of Carthage (60 page)

Imco pursed his lips and almost admitted that he preferred the soft beds of Capua to anything he had otherwise experienced, but he deemed this best kept to himself.

“We told many stories in those days,” Hannibal said. “The histories of the gods.”

“Do you remember them still?” Imco asked.

“Of course. I could speak tales all night if asked. Do you remember El? You will recall that he went out to sea on a reed boat in the early moments of the world—”

“Why?”

Hannibal had fallen into the cadence of a storyteller. Imco's interruption brought him up short. “What?”

“Why did El go to sea? As a fisherman? A merchant?”

“Do you know nothing of the gods?”

Imco said that he knew something, but still the tales he had heard thus far called up more questions than they gave answers.

“Imco, at times you are like a child,” Hannibal said. “I like this about you. Talking to you is like speaking to some grown version of the man I imagine my son might become. But it doesn't matter why El went to sea. The god went to sea. That's all there is to it. Would you ask whether he rowed his boat or sailed? Whether he went alone or had a crew? Would you ask how he could have a boat in the time before the world was fully created? Don't answer me, Imco—I'm sure you would ask all those questions. But don't. There are some things you ask questions about. What is for breakfast? Is it raining or snowing? But when I'm telling a story of El, you don't ask; you listen.”

The captain held his tongue. His head still rang at the magnitude of the casual compliment the commander had just uttered. This, more than anything, quieted him.

Hannibal began at the beginning, reminding Imco that El was the Father of the Gods, the Creator of Created Things. He was called the Kindly, and he loved the quiet of peace above all else. When he was young, he decided for some unknown reason to go to sea. Far out on the water he met two beautiful women, Asherah and Rohmaya. Taken with them, El killed a bird flying overhead with his spear. He roasted it and—blocking it from the women's view—sprinkled the flesh with drops of his semen. When he fed the flesh to them, they took his seed inside them and were charmed by it. He asked them whether they would stay with him, and whether they would rather be his wives or his daughters. They chose to wed him, just as he had hoped. They bore him two children, Shachar and Shalim, the dawn and the dusk, and so the world began to take the form we now know, measured by the passage of days, shared between the old one's children. In the ages to follow, Asherah became the more prolific mother of the two women, giving birth to more than seventy offspring, all of the many divine ones who live in the world beyond human awareness.

After Hannibal fell silent, Imco asked, “Do you think, then, that El is the greatest of gods?”

“No. No, I don't believe that.”

“But without him all that came after wouldn't have been possible.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps someone else would've achieved the things he did in his place. You cannot say that without El there's nothing; in truth, without El there's something else. As to his greatness . . . Just as with a man, there are aspects of his character to admire; others not to. In his love of peace, he was at times a coward. His own son Yam had the old one trembling with fear. Through threats alone, he forced El to assign him a position over Baal. I would never pattern myself on him. Baal laughed at him for his fearfulness. I would've done the same. Peace is blessed; but first comes the sword; and then the sword must be held aloft to slay any who would take advantage of the calm. This is simply the true way of life.”

“But Moloch of the Fire defeated Baal in battle.”

Hannibal looked at Imco and grinned, as if the young soldier had just betrayed something about himself that he found pleasing. “The greatest do not always prevail. Often the strongest is defeated. Moloch is not all-powerful; Anath tracked Moloch across the desert and cracked his skull with a staff.”

“Then Anath is the greatest? A woman!”

“Imco, things are not as simple as you would like,” Hannibal said. The edge in his voice suggested an end to the conversation, but another question appeared in Imco's head and he could not help but ask it.

“Why do you think the gods are so quiet now?”

“They're not,” Hannibal said. “It's just that not all of us can hear them.”

This kept the younger soldier silent for some time. He wondered whether Hannibal was referring to the priests. Just a few days before, the commander had stood beside Mandarbal as he carved up a yellow bull and read the signs written in its guts. He knew that the man had often predicted the future correctly, but he thought it unfortunate that the intermediaries to the gods were always such unpleasant creatures. Mandarbal's breath was so rank it seemed to fall from his mouth and slink across the ground in search of prey. His jutting teeth and leather gloves and the strange shape of his lips . . . With all the beauty to be found in the world, why did the gods so often depend on the likes of Mandarbal to make their will known?

Thinking that the commander had drifted to sleep, Imco said, “Sometimes, Commander, I question whether this warrior's life suits me.”

To his surprise, Hannibal turned and studied him. Incredulity etched his forehead in thin, moonlit lines. “Why would you say such a thing? You are a blessed man, Imco Vaca, a natural warrior. Otherwise you wouldn't have lived through the things you have. You won honor way back at Arbocala. I haven't forgotten that. And Bomilcar—who is a good judge of fighting men—says you have a gift. Perhaps you're beloved of a god who wards off the arrows meant for you, blocks sword swings and spear thrusts. If this is so, then who are you to question it?”

Imco thought about the time he had caught an arrow in the palm of his hand, but this was a small wound that would hardly refute the commander's statements. “Bomilcar thinks too much of me.”

“I, too, am a good judge of men,” Hannibal said. “There is something in you that I much admire, though I cannot name it. Stay the course until you discover your destiny. It will come to you when the time is right.”

“Have you truly never known doubt?”

Hannibal settled himself back against the earth and closed his eyes. “My father in his later years had many doubts. He questioned everything about the life he'd led. He wondered why the gods had ever created the world we know. He marveled at the chaos that seemed to reign just behind it all. In some ways, I believe he wished he'd lived an entirely different life. But at the same time he pushed forward with the many things entrusted to his care. He could not be other than he was. As they say, a lion cannot shed its skin and take on another's.”

Imco waited a moment in silence, until it was clear Hannibal was finished speaking. “But, my lord,” he returned, “it was you I asked about.”

“Why should I know doubt now? The season is matured and closing for winter. We have both won and lost this summer, but for us that is ultimate victory. Think of it this way: We may have suffered in Iberia, but perhaps now the Council will change its ways. They'll bemoan their riches lost, but they'll finally reinforce me, the only hope of finishing off the war. The Romans, believe me, will harness this young Scipio and set him against me here in Italy. And this is what I want more than anything. I hope they are as confident in him as they were in Varro before Cannae. My brother is on his way to us. Surely, you've heard this report as I have. Perhaps Mago and Hanno will soon do the same. Would you bet against the four of us, free to finally end this conflict? In one set of defeats we've been freed for a greater victory. Afterward all that was lost can be gained again. And I hope that the spring will see the fleet of Macedon lining the Adriatic. Carthalo will return with them. I'll finally see Lysenthus in battle. . . . These are the many reasons I look favorably on the future. What place has doubt, considering these things? Now, Imco, let us be silent. As ever, there are many things I must think over, and there is noise enough in my head without your questions.”

And that was that. Imco lay beside the commander for some time, unable to sleep, worrying about the things he had said and how the man might interpret them, listening to his breathing and knowing that he was not asleep either. He felt uncomfortable for some time. And then he did not, although this may have just been the calm of approaching slumber.

It happened three days later. He had just eaten a breakfast of boiled eggs and smoked fish and roasted squash, a meal prepared for him by the Tarentine boy assigned to him as a servant. As he rose from the meal, stretching and scratching his groin, his eyes touched on the creature. He had turned and begun rolling his bedding before the image ordered itself in his mind and slowed the work of his hands. It could not be.

He spun around. The spot where he had seen the creature was now empty but for a dilapidated hut and a bit of fencing that had been once a pen. Imco, however, was quite sure his eyes had not deceived him. He let his gaze travel slowly, up along the narrow road, out toward the fringes of camp, and then up along a goat track to the crest of a narrow ridge. There the donkey stood, big-eared and potbellied and knock-kneed. Pathetic in its worn coat, glazed in expression, tail drooping. It could be no other.

Imco looked around for the Saguntine girl. She must be playing a trick on him. This could not be the animal he thought it was. He had been so long at war, so far from home, so tormented by longing and the slow gnawing of dread that he had simply lost his senses. He should be careful, or he would soon be one of those lunatics raving along city streets. If Hannibal knew even a fraction of the absurdities that went on in his mind, he would have him flogged and sold as a slave.

He paced so fast that his feet stirred up dust. A passing group of old Italian women looked at him with more than the usual distaste. They muttered something in their language, an insult surely. The Tarentine boy wrinkled his brow and pretended not to notice him.

Something in the boy's dismissive look broke his resolve. Damn reason. Damn sanity! Both were overrated and daily trumped by the world. If he was insane, perhaps he could be happily so. When would he again have the chance to follow a figment of his imagination in pursuit of the great love of his life? Such moments come rarely and are best seized at once. So Imco told himself as he gathered up a minimum of supplies and walked casually away, nodding to the men in his charge as if he were just going off on some mundane errand. But once he was well away, he picked up his pace and turned to follow the ass's arse.

It would have been inappropriate to offer such a young leader as Publius Scipio an official triumph. After all, he had never held the office of consul. The blood of his battles was barely dry. The news of Ilipa preceded him by only a few weeks and had yet to be considered in detail. Despite his string of victories the great peninsula of Iberia was far from pacified. Some thought him foolish to leave his post before his assignment was completed. Considering all this, the Senate decided that on his return to Rome Publius Scipio should pause outside the city, at the Temple of Bellona on the far bank of the Tiber. There, beneath a chill drizzle from a slate-gray winter sky, he made sacrifices in praise of the gods. He humbled himself before the divine forces and gave a full account of his campaign to the gathered senators, many of whom sat with their arms crossed, searching the proconsul's face for the first signs of hubris.

Publius did not try to justify himself too boldly, but he did suggest that his return was only a product of his continuing duty to Rome. He believed he had accomplished most of what he could in Iberia. As the first Roman general to defeat Carthaginian forces so far, he thought he should bring news of his tactics home and aid in planning future moves. They needed a new thrust to end the war for good, a strike like his move on New Carthage, an attack that bypassed Hannibal's armor and struck at his weakness instead of at his strengths.

Having said only this much, he entered the city to a roar of welcome from the people made more impressive by the lack of an official celebration. Men shouted their support on the street, from windows and rooftops and bridges. Women tossed trinkets of affection at him, reached to touch him, called him their savior, their hero. Girls pouted with painted lips and smiled and swooned as he passed. Children greeted him wearing headdresses meant to suggest a Numidian's curly locks. Some wore shifts like the red-rimmed Iberian tunics or sported tufts of donkey hair stuck to their chins to look like Hannibal's guards. They ran from the proconsul in mock panic, looking over their shoulders, never truly disappearing but instead looping back toward him again and again so that they could renew their cries.

The people believed his Iberian victories to be a sign of things to come. Some said that Publius conversed in person with Apollo and had thus devised his ingenious tactics for success. Others, thinking of champions from the past, pored over their records, concluding that Publius had accomplished more than they had at his age. Priests—never far from the current of public opinion—found in their augury sign after sign that favored Publius. Mass opinion was so clearly in his favor that he was voted into the coming consulship, making him the youngest person ever to hold such an honor.

But if rumor and enthusiastic chatter helped buoy him into office, so, too, did they stir the ire of his peers. Someone had heard him declare that his consulship bestowed upon him a mandate to prosecute the war to completion, as he saw fit, calling on no counsel save that of his own inclination. Others said that he had already begun preparations for a mission so secret even the Senate had no say in it. Or that he had dismissed his fellow consul, Licinius Crassus, as irrelevant. And a few swore that he had offered to meet Hannibal himself in individual combat and so decide the issue with his own blood.

Publius heard these tales with a smile. He had said none of those things. He did have a plan, but he kept it sealed within the close circle of those he trusted most. Once, Laelius' body had pointed out New Carthage as a target; this idea, too, came to Publius through his companion. Shortly before they left for Rome, as they shared wine and hashed over recently arrived details of Hannibal's campaigns in Italy, Laelius said that they should offer thanks to the elders of Carthage.