The Seven Hills (19 page)

"So much for your open foes."

"Closer to home, the subject cities are always a threat: Utica, Sicca and others, even the colonies such as New
Carthage in Spain are jealous and want more independence,
more profit for themselves."

"And within Carthage itself?"

He paused, then: "Since the day of my ancestor Hannibal
the Great, there has been a constant struggle for power between the shofet and the priesthoods. Every king must have a divine sponsor and mine is Baal-Hammon. His priests have grown wealthy and influential and have no stake in weakening my position. Tanit has lost power since Hannibal's day. Her priests are a wretched, weakly lot. They are mostly eunuchs who cling to power by cultivating the women of the royal household."

"Do they stand to gain by burning your support fleet?"

"Not directly. They cannot believe that giving victory to Rome or to Egypt will better their lot. But it will be much to their advantage to put it about that Baal-Hammon has
abandoned me. They will cry out again that the gods are angry with me for adopting foreign ways. They will demand a
Tophet.
Zarabel will be their cat's-paw."

Her advice was simple and direct. "Kill her. Then kill the priests and suppress the cult of Tanit."

He smiled upon her. "If only it were that simple. In times of our accustomed peace and prosperity, I could take such extreme measures. But now I must have the people with me, both the commons and the wealthy. A quick war with fat, indolent Egypt was one thing. A swift victory
against Selene would have made my position unassailable. But a double war that includes her new Roman allies is very different. I must take back Sicily and Italy. It will be a long, costly war, and the wealthy hate to sacrifice, while the commons adore the gods above all things. In the end, I will give
Carthage the world. But for a while, they must all suffer, and the priests will take advantage of that."

She nodded. "I understand. So you think the priests of Tanit are the most likely culprits?"

"I believe so. I further believe that Zarabel put them up to it. She is far more intelligent than any of them, and she has studied the politics of world power deeply, while they understand it only as fought within the temples, the city and the court."

"But you will not take immediate action against them?"

"I cannot. That would be a mistake. I must plan against them as carefully as they have plotted against me. In the meantime, the people must be given someone to blame, and I must not allow them to think that the gods of Carthage have forsaken me."

She inclined her head toward him. "You are sagacious as
well as bold. Please allow me to help in any way you think proper."

He walked back across the seawall and spoke to the har
bormaster: "I find no fault with your conduct during this emergency. It was enemy action, and so I shall report it to the Assembly. The firefighters and others who died will receive all the proper rites." He gestured toward the line of bodies. "You and your men may speak freely of what you have seen here. It was a treacherous act perpetrated by Rome, seeking to weaken the sea power of Carthage."

The harbormaster bowed. "My shofet is gracious." He spoke as calmly as if the specter of the cross had never intruded upon his thoughts. "I shall see to the cleaning and repair of the harbor."

"See to it. Now go."

For a while Hamilcar and Teuta stood alone upon the sea
wall, save for the corpses and the guardsmen, who stood a little way off.

"What will you do when you move against your sister and the priests?" Teuta asked him.

He pondered this a while. "You come from a far place and have traveled widely. Do you know of a punishment even worse than crucifixion?"

Their ship was a cargo vessel from Corcyra
named
Oceanus.
It was an old but trustworthy craft, veteran of more than a hundred years of voyaging to every shore touched by the Middle Sea, or so her skipper boasted. Been
in his family the whole time, he said. The ship was bright with paint recently renewed, and its graceful stem, carved in the form of a swan's neck and head, was brilliantly gilt.

They saw the smoking pinnacle of the Pharos lighthouse from many miles out at sea and passed between the island
and Cape Lochias at midday. Since they had letters from the Roman Senate, they would be permitted to use the exclusive Royal Harbor. A small cutter drew alongside at the entrance
to the little harbor, and Zeno presented his dispatch case,
sealed with a lead medallion embossed with four simple letters in the Roman script: SPQR. This was a formula signify
ing the Senate and people of Rome, and was placed on all official correspondence, decrees and even public monuments. It was fast becoming a familiar sight.

The glittering official, his uniform the brilliant blue and gold of the Egyptian royal house, glanced at the seal and then at the two Greeks. His golden breastplate and helmet, Zeno thought, would not have withstood the assault of an angry bird.

"You two don't look much like Romans," he noted idly.

"All the Romans are busy fighting Carthage," Zeno told him.

"So one hears. Well, your documents appear to be in order. You may proceed to the royal wharf. The palace is hard
to miss. Someone will lead you to the quarters where the Romans stay."

"What is that?" Zeno cried, staring upward. The two
Greeks gaped, all philosophical impassivity forgotten for the moment. Above them soared something beyond the specula
tions of Aristotle: a winged thing that was clearly no living creature, but rather a fabrication of wood and cloth, with
batlike wings and a great, wedge-shaped tail. So bizarre was this apparition that at first they did not notice the man hang
ing just below it like the prey of a great, flying hunter.

"But this is marvelous!" Izates said, apparently finding nothing Cynical to say about it. "A man flies!"

"Yes," said the official, "and no good will come of it, I assure you. This is the sort of behavior that draws the wrath of
the gods. Flying men, boats that travel underwater—what
next? Men should not aspire to the power of the immortals."

As if to show his contempt for such cavils, the flying man
swooped low, almost knocking the gilded helmet from the official's head. The official's Greek polish abandoned him and he cursed at the flyer in native Egyptian. The crowd of idlers gathered along the waterfront cheered.

Zeno and Izates proceeded to a wharf and climbed the steps to the huge palace complex. A chamberlain examined their credentials and led them to the suite of apartments occupied by the Romans. There they found a man seated at a desk. He rose as they entered, extending his hand.

"Welcome to Alexandria, my friends. You've brought me
dispatches from the Senate?" He had the Roman look, but
he was a shade less martial in appearance than most others of
his class they had encountered. He clearly was not as ob
sessed with physical fitness, being just a bit soft around the
middle, his jaw and cheekbones not defined with quite the razor sharpness so noticeable in the others. "I am Aulus Flaccus, aide to Marcus Cornelius Scipio."

They introduced themselves.

"I am so pleased that the Senate has for once sent men ca
pable of intelligent conversation and interests beyond war and conquest. Gabinius must be behind this. Only man in the Senate with more brains than ferocity. Please, sit down and I'll have some lunch brought in. You must tell me all about how Rome of the Seven Hills is progressing. It was a wasteland when Marcus and I passed through."

"It was Gabinius, indeed," Zeno told him. "He has be
come our patron and
hospes
in Rome. A most remarkable
man." He looked around the room and saw the many mod
els of machines being developed at the Museum. Some were
clearly catapults and so forth. Others were utterly mysteri
ous. "Remarkable as I have found the resurgence of Rome,
however, developments here in Alexandria have been equally stunning. We saw a flying man when we arrived."

Flaccus smiled. "Yes, Marcus has become enthralled with
military toys."

"I would think that a flying man has greater significance than the merely military," said Izates.

"I suppose so. At the moment, however, we are at war and surrounded by enemies, so military applications have pride of place. No doubt you've heard of the underwater
boats. They are developing new ways to propel vessels, and
people are doing amazing things with mirrors: ways to see over walls and around corners, directing light.into dark mines and galleries. And now lenses."

"Lenses?" Zeno said.

"Yes, they are pieces of shaped glass with strange properties. Glass is a Babylonian invention, and the purest glass is still made by artisans from that part of the world. Actually, the Egyptians have been making glass for a thousand years or more, but they only use it for things like perfume
flasks and other frivolous uses. Anyway, there is a man here named Aristobulus who has a workforce of these glassmak
ers who turn out lenses of varying properties. They can make small objects appear large and vice versa. He uses arrangements of these lenses to make distant objects seem closer. Other glass objects, too—prisms, he calls them. They cast a very pretty beam of many-colored light, like a flat rainbow."

"Very interesting," Izates muttered. "Not as impressive as a flying man, though."

"That is true. They seem to have the flying gadget under control now. A number of slaves got killed getting it to
work, but now they have free men using them. Makes sense
when you think about it. I mean, give a slave a flying machine and you've lost your slave, haven't you? The flyers have grown insufferably arrogant, though. They swagger around the city as,if they're a superior breed of men."

"Well, they
do
fly," Izates said. "I suppose it could make a
man conceited."

"Ah, here's our lunch," Flaccus said. Slaves carried in trays and pitchers, and the new acquaintances confined themselves to small talk while they ate. The Greeks described the rebuilding of Rome as they had observed it; Flaccus told them of the latest Alexandrian gossip. The huge, polyglot city with its vast number of inhabitants of many nations was a bottomless well of social and political prattle, which the Roman seemed to find hugely amusing.

"The Greeks are trying to be philosophical about this
sudden expansion of Roman power, but they hate to see any
thing eclipsing the prestige of Greek culture. The. Jews are
abuzz over the way our colleague, Titus Norbanus, has unified their nation under a single king. We just got the word a
few days ago. They don't seem entirely pleased with the news, though. I get the impression that they
like
disunity, being a naturally fractious people. The natives are biding their time. They believe that eventually all the foreigners will be expelled and the great days of the pharaohs will return. Egyptians are patient. Their history goes back thousands of years, so the last few centuries under foreign rule don't amount to much."

"They have been conquered by foreigners before," Izates
observed, "and expelled them."

"Their ancestors were more manly," said Flaccus. "Those
I've met seem to be natural-born slaves."

"You Romans are born with swords in your hands," Zeno
said. "I think it would take a warlike nation indeed to impress you."

Flaccus waved a dismissive hand. "Qh, the discipline and fighting skills are only a part of it. It's what everyone raves
about, but I believe our political instincts are what have made us supreme. The Gauls are a brave people, skilled at
arms. We've conquered them. You've never seen anyone as
ferocious as the Germans, but we're conquering them, too. We haven't really outfought them, but we've outthought them."

"This has worked well against uncivilized people," said Izates. "Clearly, tribal societies devoid of unity cannot for long prevail against a great nation with a splendid army. But now you are moving into the civilized world, and kingdoms are very different from tribes."

"Only in degree," Flaccus said. "A kingdom is one big
tribe under one big chieftain. If the king is a fool, the whole nation suffers. If the royal succession is disputed, there may
be civil war. We think a republic is better, and we prefer to have our disunity at the top."

"How do you mean?" Zeno asked, fascinated.

"All philosophers agree that monarchy is the wisest form
of government, aristocratic oligarchy the next best, and democracy the worst," Izates said.

"I take it you've stood in the Forum and heard the Senate
debate inside the curia?" Flaccus said with a sly grin. "Sounds like a big dogfight, doesn't it? That's the way we like it. Let the senators thrash it out among themselves and leave the commons and the soldiers out of it. Eventually, they'll agree on a policy and then send it out to the com
manders in the field. Once policy is set, the state acts as one
man."