Pride of Carthage (67 page)

Before either of them knew it was going to happen, Sapanibal slapped her brother. “Was Hasdrubal the Handsome a demon?” she asked. “Was he? Was he? Was he?” She slapped him again, with the right and then with the left hand, and then with a mad barrage from both. He sat taking it, his features smudged and reddened; then she dropped on him and hugged him in a strange embrace, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades.

Later still, Sapanibal walked barefoot down the hall toward her sister's quarters. She stood between the eunuchs who guarded the entry, which was open to them but hidden around a corner. The two men each straightened when she approached. They did not speak, did not ask after her business or even set their eyes upon her for more than the instant it took to recognize her. She just stood, not sure what she would say to Sophonisba, or that she would even enter. She told herself that it was her duty to soothe her sister while also reminding her of the union's importance to their nation. Of course, this was what her reasoning mind believed. Her outburst against Hanno was a confused thing, the product of prolonged worry, of her own weakness. Fortune spins like a top and one never knows on what symbol it may land.

The soft, round notes of a pipe chime came to her, pushed by an evening breeze. For a moment she had the strange thought that some spirit had brushed past the chimes as it rushed to confront her, to grab her by the neck and squeeze all that nonsense out of her throat. She did not believe any of it. Maybe she never had. Maybe that was why this pained her so, because her whole life in duty had been an empty torture, a slow, prolonged strangulation. She heard movement inside, the murmur of a voice, and then a short, clipped sound that could have been either laughter or crying. This prompted her to move, although she did not know what she would say.

Rounding the corner into the soft lamplight she noticed Imilce first, leaning on Sophonisba's makeup table. Once, Sapanibal would have felt a pang of jealousy. She was no great friend to her sister, but Imilce had become one. She had taken the place in Sophonisba's life that Sapanibal might have occupied, if she had not been so cold to Sophonisba, if she had not envied her beauty and disdained the joys she took from life. She got no farther than the entrance, and then stood, elbows tucked into her sides.

Her younger sister sat on a stool before the small desk in which she kept her makeup and jewelry. Sapanibal caught her breath, frightened by how beautiful she was. She wore her hair pulled back and her face in profile was a twin to the goddess Tanit's. The curve at the ball of her nose, the full richness of her lips: all glistened as if they were molded anew each morning. She seemed ever to step out of a sculptor's workshop, unblemished, not even a grain of imperfection in the marble of her skin. Her gown fell off one knee, exposing the weight of her calf, a single foot, five toes, the smallest of which wore a tiny gold ring. Perfection. Tragic perfection.

She was about to withdraw when Sophonisba jerked her head around. Viewed straight on, her face struck Sapanibal with the force of a ceremonial mask. The dark makeup with which she etched the edges of her eyelids had run. Black lines streaked down her cheeks in the trails that dipped into the corners of her mouth. She stared at Sapanibal for a moment, then twisted her lips and asked, “Why do you look at me that way? I am not the first woman to wed for the sake of Carthage. Is that what you're going to tell me? Remind me of your own marriage and all the good it did our family? Say it, if you like. You must've waited many years to.”

Sapanibal closed her eyes. When she opened them a moment later tears burst from them. The harsh expression fell from her face completely, replaced by a trembling chin, flushed red cheeks, a ridged and quivering forehead. Several times she tried to say something, but the words bumbled around behind her teeth and nothing came out but sobs of hot air. That was not what she was going to say. Not at all.

Sophonisba stood and moved forward, lifted her arms, and pulled her sobbing sister into her embrace. “What's becoming of us?” she asked.

It was a day that Masinissa would always remember, a moment of decision that shaped everything in the life that was to follow. He began that fateful day trying to find a way to convince Mago not to quit Iberia. They need not be beaten yet, he argued to himself. He could send to his country for more horsemen. Carthage might provide another installment of infantry. Up to that moment, he had found it inordinately easy to kill Romans. He still believed he could accomplish all the tasks set before him and return to Numidia on his own terms. Though he had not mentioned it to the Barcas, he had even rejected envoys from Scipio the previous summer. The Roman had offered him friendship in return for his abandoning the Carthaginian cause. Scipio promised him Carthaginian lands as his own, with gifts from the wealth of their treasury, with numberless slaves, and with permission to rule Africa as he saw fit. It was a lot for a single agent of Rome to offer; this Scipio was bolder than his father. But still, it was of little importance. He rejected the offer with contempt and went on killing them. Who were the Romans to offer him anything other than their blood to wash his spear?

It all changed in a single moment, when a messenger whispered in his ear. What he heard stopped his breathing, blocking his throat so that for some moments his lips opened and closed uselessly, neither speaking nor drawing in air. This happened just after first light of the morning. Before the sun had reached a quarter height he arrived at Mago's camp. He entered at full stride, speeding past the two surprised guards and kicking the tent flap open with his foot.

“How long have you known?”

Mago looked up from the correspondence he had been reading. His first answer was a frown, his eyes nervous and—the Numidian thought—deceitful. “What news have you heard?”

“You know what I've heard. I've been told the sky is falling and my head is uncovered.”

This seemed to confuse the Barca. His frown deepened for a moment; then he dropped the pretense. “The news comes to me just this day as well. By the gods, Masinissa, I had no part in this. Syphax saw an opportunity and he grasped for it. But do not be rash. We can yet mend this.”

“How? How, when everything has been taken from me? My father is dead! I am no longer a son, and I am not a father. Now another man takes my Sophonisba to his bed and fucks her full of my enemies. Instead of my children she will push out Libyans, beasts that will bark for my blood. How can this be mended? Things done cannot be undone. There is only one way forward. I resign my command in your army; I leave Iberia—”

“You cannot!” Mago said, up on his feet now and coming toward him. “Don't be a fool, Masinissa. I know your blood is hot. I'm sorry they have done this. It was done without my knowledge. Nor would Hanno betray you, or Sophonisba herself. This is the work of the Council. Fight on with me, brother, and we will one day set things right again.”

“Again I ask you,
how?
Would you have me fight for you still, when you are allied to the man who has grasped my kingdom as his own? Have you not understood?” Masinissa blinked his eyes furiously. The conflicted reality of the situation flashed across his face in bursts, as if he were still being pelted by new realizations, continuously putting together how one thing rebounded against another. “All along I've been played for a fool. Sophonisba . . . Sophonisba herself trapped me. She made me a dog, leashed by Carthage. . . .”

“No, that's not so. I know my sister's heart is true to you. I saw her with you. I saw the flush of her cheeks and the joy you kindled in her. If she betrays you, it's with a knife to her throat and no other choice. Tell me you believe me, and we can make anything possible.”

The emotion in his heart was too much for Masinissa to bear showing another man. He gripped Mago and pulled him in so forcefully that the solid impact of their chests took away his breath. He pressed his cheek against the rough grain of Mago's neck. “I wish I could believe you,” he said, “but this morning a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I see everything differently.”

“I cannot be your enemy,” Mago said.

“And I cannot be your brother,” Masinissa whispered. “I loved you, but think of my position. I am a king without a kingdom and a husband without a bride. I don't know about the bride, but I must at least claim my nation back.”

As he walked away he counted each step toward his horse, listening for the call, the shout for him to halt, the order for the soldiers of the Sacred Band to rise up and grapple him to the ground. But the shout never came. Perhaps this was a last act of brotherly affection; perhaps it was a sign of weakness. Either way, he was soon up on a high ridge, riding with his guards around him. With the wind in his face and his horse beneath him he thought most clearly. He sent a messenger to the Romans the next day. He swore allegiance to them on the terms Publius had earlier offered, with the new condition that Rome would help restore his kingdom to him and help him make war against Syphax. It was strange to make promises to Romans. It meant, of course, that he was now at war with Carthage, but it could be no other way. He was a Massylii. With his father's death he had become a king. Strange that he had not heard of this for several weeks. Strange that someone had to whisper in his ear for him to know the whole world had changed.

Telling the Romans that he was returning to his country to raise an army, Masinissa departed Iberia with two hundred of his most loyal horsemen. He could have pulled more of his men if he had the time or ships to aid him, but he did not. Only his friendship with Moorish traders made his flight possible. He considered sending word to Maharbal in Italy, asking him to forsake Hannibal and return to Numidia, but he had not the resources to do this. Not yet, at least. Perhaps he also feared the answer he might receive. Maharbal did not know him. Who was to say he would even acknowledge him as his king? He had first to make sure any of his people would.

The events that unfolded from the moment his feet touched African soil came so fast and furious that the prince barely rested. He slept no more than a quarter of the night's cycle and yet still the waking moments were so full of shifting providence that he felt a lifetime passing in what should have been weeks. He landed on a barren stretch of beach east of Hippo Regius. His men disembarked beneath the light of a waxing moon, the world cast in bone highlights, full of shadow and light, with little gradation in between. They rode their horses right from the transports into the water. They churned up onto the shore in a froth of spray, propelled by bubbling rows of waves. The mounts neighed and tossed their heads and kicked sand into the wind. Not a soul moved on this lip of the continent except for them. This was as it should have been. Masinissa hoped to arrive home unannounced.

But Syphax, he soon learned, had anticipated him. As soon as he received confirmation from Carthage, he had shouted his men to arms. He called in soldiers from throughout his vast empire, making the usual promises: riches and women and the rule of all North Africa. He sent multiple armies marching into Massylii territory, a many-pronged attack that took the city of Thugga with barely a fight and stormed Zama with great violence and cast a net of terror over the plains of the upper Tell. He had King Gaia's grave identified and dug up. He set his corpse aflame and erased all monuments to the ruler's reign and set about placing his own name on all that had been Gaia's. The Massylii were a brave people but without a unifying leader they could not withstand such onslaught; without Carthage's blanket of protection they suddenly seemed a small nation. Syphax pressed them beneath his heel and took joy in it, for to do so had been his hunger all his life long. The summer was not yet half over, but he retired to Cirta to await his new wife and the pleasures he was sure she would provide him.

Masinissa had landed in a country in turmoil. He was branded a bandit from the moment he arrived, a wanted man, treasure to the killer who severed his head and offered it to Syphax, a greater fortune to the man who brought him in alive for the king's amusement. Scouts roamed the shoreline in competing bands. Though he missed him by a day, a Libyan captain named Bucar spotted signs of Masinissa's arrival and set out after him. He ambushed the young king's men a few days later, on the flatlands outside Clupea; he swept down on their riverside camp, trapping the small band between a force of two thousand horsemen and four thousand foot soldiers. There could be no contest between such numbers, so Masinissa's men simply struggled to escape the tightening vise. They fled the horsemen but everywhere found pikes aimed at them from the ground, javelins flung at them in numbers and thickness like a school of barracudas.

By the time they sprung clear of the foot soldiers they numbered less than fifty. In the daylong running skirmish they killed three times as many as they lost, but this was a losing equation. To their honor, his men protected Masinissa with their own lives. That was why there were only four of them alive when Masinissa led them at a full gallop into the river Bagradas. The current lifted them and tumbled them in the brown, silt-laden water. They slid obliquely past their pursuers, at a steady speed faster than the horsemen could make over the irregular terrain, gnarled and choked as it was with bushes. Some of Bucar's men plunged in after them, but three of these went under and disappeared. Seeing the same happen to at least two of Masinissa's men, Bucar pulled up the chase. The prince learned later that he had declared him dead and ridden for Cirta to bring Syphax the news.

But Masinissa did not die. The river spat him to shore at a constriction in its great girth, on a patch of sand so fine and soft that it reminded him of otter fur. His two remaining men found him and together they sat contemplating the desolation that had overtaken them. They had been no great force that morning, but now they had only two horses to share between them, and one of those was lame. How could this have happened? Masinissa asked himself silently, again and again as if the answer would come with dogged persistence. He had accomplished nothing, nothing at all, and now he feared he could not.