Pride of Carthage (70 page)

He began to detail the methods he would use, but Imilce did not hear him. Sophonisba grabbed her by the arm and dragged her through the soldiers, pushing and cursing her way down off the battlements and into the crowd below. The young woman's grip was bruising, but Imilce did not care. She was hardly aware of the people around her. She was not thinking about what was to happen to her next, or about the turn of fortune in the war, or about Hanno's death, or how she might survive the next few hours. Instead, she thought of her son. Ideas came at her like darts zipping in from unseen attackers. Hamilcar was safe in Carthage! What a joy that he was safe in Carthage! But the next moment, Imilce realized she might never see him again, might not know what became of him. He might forget her in the coming years and call some other woman mother. She thought of Didobal caring for him, and this struck her as both a relief and as a sadness. She had a momentary fantasy that Tanit would feel her distress and lift her up and fly her home to Carthage. She closed her eyes, even as she stumbled forward, asking the goddess to let her touch him again, let her cradle that boy in her arms and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him . . .

Even in this state she recognized the grinding clink of the main gate. The decision had been made. She opened her eyes and realized that they had not gotten very far at all, just to the edge of the central courtyard, which they would have to cross to get back to their quarters. She could see the gate shifting heavily. Sophonisba ignored it and kept on. They pressed their way slowly through the mass of tightly packed bodies, the scent and heat and sweaty proximity almost overwhelming. Imilce's head swam and for a moment she feared she would faint.

Then Sapanibal was with them, solid, head-clearing, determined. She grasped both women around the neck and pulled them in to her and began explaining their means of escape. She already sent a servant to gather peasants' clothes for them. They would meet her near the northeastern gatehouse, which had a secret door that she had arranged to have opened. From there they would make their way to the docks. Perhaps one of them would ride a donkey. They would look like servants sent by their master on some task. None would question them, as long as they beat Masinissa's men to the harbor. She believed they could do that, but they must leave immediately. The captain of the vessel that brought them would wait for them. She was sure he would, and after that it was only a matter of navigating home through the Roman sea patrols. It would not be easy, but they must . . .

Even as she spoke the drama just behind them played on. Some of the horsemen came in so fast upon the gates that their horses reared, seeming to kick the doors wide. They poured forth in a tumult of mounted fury, propelled by a wind that roared through the new opening, bringing a cloud of dust and the scent of smoke. The horsemen trilled their tongues and carved circles with their mounts. They waved their spears in threat and cuffed at those who approached too close, many already begging for mercy, promising to lead them to treasure, to act as guides to the palace, to show them in whose homes the greatest fortunes could be found. Amazing how fast allegiances turn.

“Let's go now,” Sapanibal said. “Before—”

Masinissa came into view. Imilce's eyes flew toward him and she knew Sophonisba's did the same. He dismounted and sauntered with his hands resting on his hips and his elbows cutting angles out to either side. His blue garments flapped and snapped in the wind. The magistrates were before him in an instant. They dropped first to their knees, and then to all fours, and, finally, flat to their bellies. They were awaiting the king's attention, but his gaze stayed above them, searching for something he knew none of them offered.

“Enough,” Sapanibal hissed. “We must go now!”

This seemed to wake Sophonisba from her stupor. Her eyes flashed over to Sapanibal, wide and intense, full of purpose. “Yes, sisters,” she said. “Do that! Do that this very minute! Whatever happens, go, and do not wait for me.”

With that, she twisted from Sapanibal's grip and flung herself into the crowd. Both women called after her, but she made furious progress. Moments later she stepped out of the circle of the townspeople and stood alone. She straightened her garments and walked forward. A Massylii horseman almost ran her through, but thought better of it and froze with spear upraised. Sophonisba strode past him, toward Masinissa.

Lawlessness flourishes in uncertainty. Sapanibal and Imilce struggled through the growing tangle of it as they raced down toward the harbor. Already young men had found occasion to snatch food from stalls. A Libyan trader went down, slashed across the forehead for an insult that had not existed a moment before. He rolled in the dust and reached for Imilce's legs. They passed a moneylender's table as it was overturned, coins spinning in the air, hands grasping for them. A boy of ten shoved past Sapanibal, nearly knocking her from her feet with the ostrich leg slung over his shoulder. Through all of this the two women walked forward. They wore servants' dress and watched the ground before them, making themselves smaller than they were.

The ship's crew did not recognize them when they tried to board. Sapanibal slapped the sailor who barred her way. She spat at him and spoke her name with her teeth so near his nose it seemed she might bite him. This did the trick. The captain had only to hear the barest of explanation before ordering his men to cast off. The first hordes of Libyan horsemen had rounded the city and started toward the harbor as the crew bent their backs to row out into open water. The vessel was a merchant vessel, not designed for quick initial maneuvers although nimble when under full sail.

Sapanibal, who had been so resolute, collapsed on the deck near the boat's stern. Everything was spinning into madness. There was too much to take in: Hanno's death, Syphax' defeat, Cirta's surrender, Masinissa's appearance, Sophonisba's actions. All of this piled on the earlier shocks of Hasdrubal's death and the defeat in Iberia and Sophonisba's marriage. The boat's rocking made it worse. Everything within her—mind and guts alike—churned with the rise and fall, the tilt and lift and fall and rise. For a time she felt her body to be a cauldron in which a massive stew bubbled. When they pulled free of the harbor and met the chop of the shifting currents she knew they were beyond Masinissa's reach, but she could not contain herself any longer. She stuck her head through a gap in the railing, and she heaved up everything inside her. Heaved and heaved, watching droplets of matter slip away on the slick backs of the waves. She was at this for some time, long after she had gone empty and could only convulse dryly.

Afterward she balled up in exhaustion. She folded in on herself and tried to separate the threads of narrative in a manner that made sense. She had no idea what would befall Sophonisba. She had seen her sister drop to her knees before the king, seen that Sophonisba was speaking and he listening, but that was all she knew. They could not have stayed a moment longer. Massylii soldiers were working toward them through the crowd, battering people about the heads and upraised arms, jerking them up to their feet and shoving them into groups by sex and rank. At any moment, they would have been noticed. It took a massive effort of cold determination to tug Imilce into motion, but she did it. Sophonisba had made her decision; she and Imilce had to do the same.

And Hanno. What of her brother? Masinissa had named his method of death. She tried to curse him as a liar, but his very presence suggested he spoke the truth. She could not imagine what Masinissa and the Romans had done, but it must have been something devious. Hanno had gone out to cleanse himself for the meeting with the consul, full of hope. Just a few days ago when they had parted, he had been more alive than she had ever seen him. He stood before her in a corselet of orange, protected by bronze plates that scaled over each other like the skin of some armored fish. He held a helmet clamped under one arm and looked at her with a grave intensity that was, silently, a form of speech.

“Are you going to make war or peace?” she asked.

“Let us pray that it be peace,” he said. “We've all had enough of war.”

Sapanibal had nodded then and said she hoped the Romans felt the same way, but as they were a more warlike people she did not put too much stock in the wish. “At least,” she said, “you've built for yourself a strong position here. You have African brothers, as you wished.”

Hanno closed his eyes at this, first one and then the other, and then he opened them in the same order, as if they registered a wave of fatigue passing through him. “Sapanibal, for all my days I will grieve that bargain. The union only need last until the war is done. Then, on my word, I'll personally free her—if that's what she wishes.”

“You make that promise to
me
?” Sapanibal asked. “Why not make it to Sophonisba?”

“You'll take the message to her. It's hard for me to look at her now. She utters not a single word of complaint, but that only makes this marriage seem a greater crime.”

Sapanibal had been surprised at what he said next. The words did not seem to fit the image she had of him standing there, an armored warrior ready to ride toward the enemy. He did not soften his erect posture or come any nearer to her, but he had made a confession to her. He said that for all the years he could remember, he had feared Hannibal, feared and envied him. Hannibal had made his life a misery just by being so gifted, so beloved by all who witnessed his deadly grace. But recently this had not mattered to Hanno as much. He had come to believe that they are all put on the earth to be who they are, not to aspire to be anyone else, not to be measured against others at all, but rather weighed on a scale calibrated each to one's own special trials. And if he could make peace with the consul on the terms they had already set forth, then he would have achieved something great of his own.

“Hannibal makes war better than anyone,” he had said, “but perhaps Hanno will find a gift for making peace.”

That was what he had said, what he had thought, felt, hoped. It was madness that a man aspiring to such things died with them undone. He was gone, and she had nothing to take home to present her mother. Nothing that had come from his dead body, no trinket taken from his neck, no locket of hair, no ring.

When she finally looked up—ashen, cheeks sunk, and lips still trembling—Imilce was sitting near at hand. She cradled her legs up to her chest, hugging them into her, with her chin resting on one knee. Sapanibal did not speak to her, but it filled her with affection just to know Imilce was near and that she was not yet totally alone in the world.

They did not travel far that night, just out of sight of Cirta, really; then they cut in and anchored off a fishing village. That evening the crew stripped all distinguishing trappings from the vessel. They furled both the flag of Carthage and the Barca lion. They tossed watered-down excrement onto the sail, for it was far too white to go unnoticed. They pried the golden eyeballs of Yam off the prow and scratched at the face painted there with hooks to make it look old and ill maintained, and they piled fishing nets into heaps at visible points on the deck.

In the dead of night, they lifted anchor and moved on. They tried to go slowly, for the coast was not without dangerous shoals, but they were passing the Roman landing point and had no wish to dally either. Indeed, at first light they spotted an entire fleet of Roman vessels beached along the shore. Hundreds of them. And there were more coming. The captain had thought to pass at half-sail, but spotting several ships moving in from the north, he gave the order to bend all the sails and fly behind the wind. Fortunately, the gods favored them again. They passed unnoticed, or at least without piquing the enemy's interest.

Later that day a Roman quinquereme came upon them at an angle heading toward the shore. The warship passed within shouting distance, a lean craft four times their length. Oars, stacked three rows high and numbering almost three hundred, dipped into the water, sliced up into the air, and splashed back down, all to the beat of a great drum that even from a distance thudded against Sapanibal's temples. The vessel dwarfed theirs completely. It cut the sea into two foaming curls, interrupted by the lifting and submerging of the prow through the waves, an armored prong that looked like the head of an angry whale each time it broke the surface. Had it rammed them it would have splintered their boat into pieces and plowed through them without losing the slightest momentum. But the quinquereme did not turn toward them. It just rowed on, some of the crew peering over long enough to inspect them in passing, uninterested, on other business they deemed more important.

They sailed on into the night, turned the point of Cape Farina the next morning, and steered straight for Carthage across a frothy sea, the glass-clear water whipped into foam by the same wind that carried them home. That afternoon, the captain approached the two women where they sat behind a shelter toward the rear of the boat. He walked steadily, even though the boat heaved with their progress, and he stood before them, body swaying to adjust to the boat's pitching. He did not look at them at first, but just remained nearby, kneading the coarse hairs of his beard with his thick fingers.

“It's ill news that we carry home with us,” he said finally. “It's likely we'll be the first back with word of Hanno's defeat. The Council won't look on this kindly at all. Perhaps you should report the news in your brother's name.”

“You fear they'll kill the messenger?”

He squatted and looked at Sapanibal. His eyes were a remarkable blue, as if they held the sea. “They wouldn't harm you, but me or one of my men?” He pinched the air and flicked his fingers, as if tossing sand into the wind. “Tell them to call Hannibal back, if they haven't done so already. Nothing else can save us now. Without him, Rome will grind us like wheat beneath a millstone . . .”

“Is this the state of Carthaginian manhood?” Sapanibal asked, scornfully. “You ask a woman to do your work, and then despair of the nation in same breath. Have you no pride?”