The Seven Hills (17 page)

So far, Hamilcar had resisted their entreaties. He was a Hellenizing monarch and did not wish his nation to appear
barbarous in the eyes of the civilized world. He also wanted
to suppress the power of the priests over the minds of the people. The shofet should rule; the priests should tend to the rituals of the gods and stay out of the affairs of state.

All of these things passed through Zarabel's mind as she watched the martial display. Her brother was a competent shofet, in her estimation, but his attempts to be a great war leader like their ancestor Hannibal the Great were ludicrous. He had not been trained in the officer schools, but raised in the palace. Like so many men born to rule, he thought he was a great natural military genius and that, confronted with an enemy in the field, he would know with unerring instinct exactly what to do.

During their sojourn in Carthage, she had come to know these Romans far more intimately than her brother, who
was ever surrounded by a buffer of his courtiers. She knew
that they laughed at such amateurism. Not only did they insist upon absolute professionalism among military men, but also they taught that even great generals could be the
victims of mere bad luck, and they planned for such eventualities. It was how they had survived defeat after devastating
defeat by Hannibal, with their nation intact, though just barely. They did not intend to be defeated, but one defeat, or even several, did not demoralize them. They just analyzed what had gone wrong and took steps not to let the same thing happen again.

"When will they depart for Sicily?" she said, annoyed.
"My brother could exhaust his whole army with his endless
inspections."

"The winds have not been favorable, Princess," said Echaz, eunuch priest of Tanit.

"Our ships have oars. They shouldn't need to worry about winds."

"Against winds that blow untimely from the north, even
the oared galleys of Carthage cannot prevail," he said. "It is
further proof of the displeasure of the gods. We have neglected our duties toward the baalim for too long."

She nodded, absently running a gilded fingernail along the line of blue tears tattooed from the corner of her eye down one cheek, the ritual tears shed for Adonis. She was high priestess of Tanit and the goddess's champion in the eternal rivalry between Tanit and Baal-Hammon. She led the priestly party in its own rivalry with the secular Hellenizing court, upholding the ancient customs and religion
of Carthage against the incursions of foreign philosophy.

"To the harbor!" she said to the litter slaves. Then, to Echaz: "I want to look at this inert fleet of ours."

The slaves raised the great litter to their brawny shoulders and set out at a brisk trot, their gait skillfully broken to provide a smooth ride. The litter was large enough for the princess, a dozen of her serving women and a few priests. Runners armed with staves preceded the litter, clearing away any who stood in its path. Their efforts were scarcely necessary: The moment the unique vehicle came
into view, all citizens and slaves immediately went down on
their faces. Only the sentries at their guard posts remained standing.

The walls of Carthage were broad enough to race chariots
along the top, and tunneled through with barracks, store
houses for supplies, magazines for arms and stables for horses,
oxen and elephants. It overlooked the Great Harbor from an immense height, and the circular Naval Harbor, with its artificial admiralty island, lay within the wall's protection.

Now the water and the ship sheds of the Naval Harbor were jammed with the triremes assembled for the war, and the commercial harbor was almost full with the spillover.
There were warships and transports of all kinds. Some ships
had been lost at Alexandria, victims of the outlandish de
fensive works envisioned by the School of Archimedes, and
carried out under the direction of the Roman, Marcus Scipio. But these losses had been trifling. Carthage could build more ships in a day than had been lost in the Egyptian war.

But the contrary winds kept them penned here. Zarabel wrinkled her shapely nose at the stench of their refuse, dumped into the water to linger there until winds from the south should blow once again, allowing the ships to leave and the waters to refresh themselves in the accustomed fashion.

"What would happen," she wondered, "if a fire should break out on one of those ships? They are packed together
like wooden tenements of the poor. A fire could sweep them
all and spread to the Naval Harbor. The sea power of Carthage could be more than halved in a single hour."

"One supposes," Echaz piped dryly, "that our shofet has
made all necessary sacrifices to secure us from such a disaster."

"Even so," she murmured. "Yet, as you have observed,
the gods are no longer pleased with our sacrifices."

The priest lowered his gaze. "That is very true, Princess."

"Let us implore Tanit," she said, "that no such evil befell us."

"I shall pray and sacrifice daily, Princess."

"But," she amended, "the decision lies with the goddess. Should she desire to humble Baal-Hammon by striking a
blow at his overweening devotee, the shofet, we can only ac
quiesce to her will."

"That is also true, Princess," said the priest.

The next evening, after a seasonal banquet in honor of Patechus, the god of terror and guardian of naval vessels, Zarabel spoke to her brother more sharply than was her usual custom.

"Brother," she said, speaking down a table lined with courtiers, now replete with food and wine, "you know that
the people call for a
Topbet
to win back the will of our gods."
Instantly the convivial hubbub quieted.

"I have heard no such thing from the people," Hamicar said. "Only from certain priests, who would do well to hold their tongues if they wish to keep them." He wondered
what his sister was up to. She had been meek for some time,
itself a suspicious circumstance.

"The baalim are angry with us," she asserted.

"How so? I was forced to retire from Alexandria, but we
suffered no military disaster in Egypt. These Romans have come to plague us with their outrageous aggression and
their lying alliances, but that is because our ancestor Hanni
bal the Great neglected to destroy them when he had the opportunity. I will finish the task and will not be moved to
clemency, as he was." The courtiers made sounds of agree
ment and tapped the table with their flywhisks in applause.

"Yet your great host stays here eating up the substance of
Carthage because you cannot get a favorable wind. This alone is proof of the gods' displeasure."

"Winds favorable or unfavorable are a matter of luck at any time. They obey laws of nature that we do not understand and will blow northward when it is time for them to blow that way."

"That is Greek philosophy, not the wisdom of Carthage,"
she answered with the hint of a sneer in her voice.

His face darkened. "Then let us be instructed by another Greek example, one from a time before the Greeks took up
philosophy. The Greek king Agamemnon assembled a great
fleet, very much like mine, to sail against Troy, which had insulted him much as these Romans have insulted me. But
the winds were unfavorable. To secure a good wind for Troy,
the gods demanded the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia. The sacrifice was duly performed and Agamemnon got his wind, but the sacrifice caused him much trouble later."

In the ensuing silence he took a sip from his jeweled cup.
"Nevertheless, I might be persuaded to risk his sad fate for the good of Carthage. But, as you know, sister, I have no daughter. In fact, I have only one close kinswoman." He glared at her until she lowered her eyes.

Later, when the guests were gone and Zarabel had retired
to her quarters, far from his, Hamilcar stood on his great terrace and brooded upon the evening's disturbing turn. He
was tall, handsome, with the pale complexion and black hair
shared by all highborn Carthaginians. His hair and beard
were dressed in the Greek fashion, and his robes were Greek
in design, although embroidered with gold in Carthaginian figures and befitting his lofty rank.

He wondered what his sister's outspokenness portended. She had obviously wanted to be heard by others. Why else wait until a banquet? It had not escaped his notice that she had paid more than proper attention to the Roman delega
tion when they visited Carthage. He was all but sure that she had been more than intimate with the one named Norbanus.
Norbanus and Scipio had been the ranking men of the mission. His sister had identified Norbanus as the weaker and more corruptible of the two and had set out to exploit him. Hamilcar could only approve of her strategy, if not of her motives. Might his sister be contemplating treachery, even
treason? If so, he would not be totally displeased.

For some time after returning to Carthage he had kept an
eye on his sister's waistline. If she was with child by a foreigner, he could put her aside without incurring censure.
But she was too clever for that and had a vast knowledge of medicines and every sort of abortifacient. Much as she provoked him, her position as royal princess, direct descendant
of Hannibal and high priestess of Tanit, made her invulnerable, lacking proof of the most egregious crime.

His gaze was drawn north, past the twin lighthouses that flanked the harbor entrance. What were the Romans doing up there, to the north? The Romans he had taken to Egypt had shown themselves to be terribly effective in battle, but they were cut off from Italy, last reported somewhere in Judea. Surely, he thought, they would all die or desert long before they could reach Italy to reinforce the usurping Romans there.

But the rich and strategic island of Sicily, long a
Carthaginian possession, now swarmed with Romans, more
of them than he had dreamed existed. Incredibly, the sheer
number of legions seemed to surpass those faced by Hanni
bal. Where had they all come from? Could the ragtag,
beaten nation that chose exile north of the Alps have bred so
many sons in a mere four or five generations? It did not
seem possible, unless they had the reproductive capacity of
hares.

In truth, he was not entirely displeased with his new challenge. Once, he had thought that conquering Egypt would win him undying fame. Now he knew that it would have made him merely one conqueror among many. But he would beat the Romans, annihilating them utterly, as his ancestor Hannibal had failed to do. Then he would march on and finish Egypt and, with his empire restored and the wealth of Egypt added to that of Carthage, the world was his. He would go on to swallow up the Seleucid kingdom and drive the Parthians back to their steppes, crush Macedonia and Greece, and then the sea would be his own personal lake. He would be master of the world, greater than Hannibal, greater than Alexander.

He was distracted from these pleasant musings by a glimmer far out in the darkness of the harbor. It was brighter than the oil lamps used to illuminate ships at night. The reflection of one of the beacons on polished metal? It seemed to flare brighter with each gust of wind from the north.

"Shofet?" said a feminine voice. He turned to see one of
his banquet guests, Queen Teuta of Illyria.

"Please use my name," he said, smiling. "Fellow mon
archs need not observe the formalities while sharing a roof. Could you not sleep? Is there anything you require? Please regard me as your personal servant." He could be as gracious
and urbane as any Athenian with his peers, even this rather primitive queen of a barbarous land.

She smiled, a strange sight because it made her facial tattoos writhe. She wore a proper gown of Greek design, but it left head and neck, arms, shoulders and the upper surface of
her breasts exposed. Every square inch of visible flesh was
covered with exquisitely rendered designs of twisting vege
tation and bizarre, elongated animals in vivid colors.

"I lack for nothing, Hamilcar. In fact, I never knew the meaning of abundance until this visit. No, the night is fair and I am not tired and I thought that this might be an opportunity for us to speak candidly." Her accent was heavy,
but her Greek was excellent. There were a number of prosperous Greek colonies on the coast of her nation, and where
there were Greek cities, there were Greek teachers of language and rhetoric. It annoyed Hamilcar that the eternal rival of Carthage had such a monopoly on culture, but it was
certainly convenient that all educated people had a common
language.

"Then this is my good fortune. Will you sit?" He gestured toward the fine table and chairs in the center of the terrace, pure Carthaginian in their drapings of precious fabrics and exotic animal skins.

"Thank you, but I come of a people more at home in
tents than in palaces. We are always on horseback or afoot,
surveying our herds. I think and converse better while walking."

"Excellent. I, too, find myself pacing when I have anything serious to ponder." Idly, he wondered what this chieftainess might have on her mind. He knew little about her people save that they were largely nomads, that some had founded settlements but only in recent generations, and that they seemed to be a mixture of Thracian, Scythian and perhaps Gallic in blood heritage. The woman herself was tall, strongly built and had abundant hair as white-blond as
he had ever seen. Her face was handsome, with broad cheek
bones, and her brilliant blue eyes had a distinctive tilt that
hinted of Eastern ancestry. As for her complexion, he had no
idea.