The Seven Hills (21 page)

"I'll let Timonides explain," Marcus said.

Timonides turned out to be yet another of the obsessive philosophers, his particular obsession being the properties
of flight, whether those of birds, bats or insects. He showed them models built of reeds, papyrus and parchment, and explained how the unique musculature, skeletons and feathers
of birds gave them their power of flight.

"This is not reproducible in a form usable by humans,"
he said, "although the wings of soaring birds have given me many lessons in how the wings of my gliders should be con
toured. But it is the structure of bat wings that offers the greatest possibilities for imitation. A bat's wings are made up of thin struts with a membrane of skin stretched between them. This we can copy with wood and fabric. It is both light and strong."

"But they can only glide?" Zeno asked.

"Alas," Timonides said, "the propulsive, flapping actions
of the wings have proven thus far impracticable. However, our fliers have discovered many unsuspected properties of the air above us that allow them to soar for extremely long times. We do not understand these properties as yet, but in
time they must yield to our research. We may yet learn to fly
as freely as birds."

"Gentlemen," Flaccus said quietly. Immediately all conversation stopped and the sounds of work stilled. The Greeks turned to see that a young woman had entered the courtyard. She appeared to be pure Hellene and she wore a simple, modest gown of Greek design. Her only adornment
was a thin fillet of plaited silver bound about her brows. All
bowed, the native Egyptians among them going to hands and knees and touching their foreheads to the ground.

The young woman walked straight up to Marcus Scipio
and was about to speak when she caught sight of the Greeks
and paused. Marcus introduced them to Princess Selene, consort of young King Ptolemy.

"Welcome to Alexandria, my friends," she said.

"My lady is too kind," Zeno said. "However, it is clear that you have business with our host. Please do not let us detain you. We will withdraw."

She nodded appreciation of his tact. "We will speak at dinner this evening."

They stood aside a few paces while the princess and Sci
pio spoke in low but urgent tones.

Izates inclined his head toward the two. "Bad news, do you think?"

"The queen perceives her situation as precarious and sometimes allows small matters to upset her. It is probably nothing."

Zeno gave the pronouncement no more respect than it
deserved. These Romans would tell him nothing of real importance. He did, however, notice that Flaccus had used the word "queen," which Selene did not rate by any recognized standards. The Romans wanted her to be sovereign of Egypt for their own purposes, so as far as they were concerned she
was queen.

He noted another thing: Selene and Scipio spoke with their heads close together, and from time to time she touched his arm lightly. The gesture was trifling, yet performed thus in public, by a de facto sovereign to her sup
posedly subordinate ally, it spoke volumes. Zeno wondered
what Marcus Scipio's enemies in Rome would pay to hear about this.

Norbanus hadn't anticipated the effects of dust. The shuffling feet of thousands of men, the
churning hooves of thousands of horses raised a pall of dust
so thick that he had trouble observing the course of the battle. He thought of the lessons drilled into him in military
school: the handling of troops; the hazards of illness, unfavorable terrain, mud, cold—all of them potentially as devastating as a well-led enemy of superior numbers. Even plain
bad luck had been taken into account. Somehow, though, the lessons had never mentioned dust.

"Maybe I was out with a fever the day they covered that,"
he mused.

"Eh?" King Jonathan said. "Covered what?" His face was
drawn and concerned. His future, his very life were the issues being contested on the field before them.

"Dust. I don't recall that our instructors ever mentioned it."

"You don't have dust where you come from?" Jonathan said, astonished.

"I suppose it rains too much."

The two stood atop Norbanus's command tower, oversee
ing the combat. The battle had been joined about an hour
earlier, beginning with an exchange of arrows, javelins and sling-stones. These preliminaries had caused casualties only
among the light-armed native troops. Roman shields and armor were proof against all such trifles.

They had found Manasseh and his army toward the southern edge of the plain called Megiddo: a natural battle
field where countless engagements had been fought. Besides
the Jews, it had seen the armies of Egypt, the Hittites, Per
sians and Greeks clash and fall. Manasseh's army was larger,
but it held no Romans. Most important, his Parthian allies had not arrived yet. When he deemed the time propitious, Norbanus had committed his legions, and the cohorts strode forth to hurl their murderous pila and draw their
short, razor-edged swords. The cavalry of both sides were
quickly engaged on the flanks and the dust rose.

"How can we control an army we can't see?" Jonathan asked plaintively.

"We can't. In a fight like this, the general's task is done in making his dispositions and giving his commands. Now
it is a soldier's battle. The junior officers and the centurions
will handle their own individual parts of the fight. This is where Roman training and drill pay off. Our legionaries can win a battle with all their commanders dead."

"I see," Jonathan said without conviction.

From the cloud before them, above the sounds of clash
ing metal and wood and the meaty smack of weapons against unprotected flesh, they could hear the blare and snarl of Roman trumpets. Unable to see, Norbanus could
follow the progress of the fight as officers closer to the action
directed their trumpeters, calling some cohorts back, sending others forward, closing up lines or putting them in ex
tended order to take advantage of momentary weaknesses in
the enemy formations.

"That's a bit risky," Norbanus noted.

"What?"

"Niger just wheeled his second cohort to catch the left
flanking corner of Manasseh's formation. He must see an op
portunity there. I hope he knows what he's doing. It wasn't in the battle plan."

"You can tell all that from the tooting of a trumpet?"

"It's as plain as speech once your ear is accustomed to it."

"You allow your subordinates such license?"

"Of course. Rigid adherence to a battle plan in spite of
changing conditions is folly. He may have won the battle for us, in which case I'll decorate him. If it's a blunder, I'll have
his hide for a shield cover."

Jonathan sweated. "This is maddening. We can do nothing, know nothing."

"We still have them," Norbanus said, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder. Behind the command tower an entire legion sat on the ground, resting, ready for battle at an instant's-notice.

"Why do you keep so many out of the fight when we are
outnumbered to begin with?"

Norbanus hid his impatience. He hated dealing with
amateurs. "They are my reserve. At any given time, only the front-line soldiers do any actual fighting. To commit every
one at once merely tires them out without accomplishing anything. They might as well stay to the rear and husband their strength. Should I see an opportunity or a great danger, I have them ready to meet the situation without having to disengage them from the battle first. It's the best way."

"Of course," Jonathan muttered. "It is just—Manasseh has so many men."

"And they are all out there, most of them able to do nothing except wave their arms and shout. They are getting
very tired, I assure you." He was not as sanguine as he pre
tended. It was indeed wearing on the nerves to hear a battle
without being able to see it clearly. He took great comfort
from the presence of that legion behind him. Should the sit
uation prove disastrous, they would extricate him and the bulk of his Romans from the fight.

He was not pessimistic, but anything could happen. He knew the story of Xenophon, who had been in a situation very much like this. His Greeks had won their part of the battle, but their Persian ally lost his part and the Greeks
were forced to make their epic march to the sea. Norbanus's confidence in his legions was absolute. His confidence in
Jonathan's forces was slight.

And, he thought, where were the Parthians? They could
appear at any time, and there were few more disastrous occurrences than the sudden advent of enemy reinforcements
after Roman forces were already committed to battle. But then, he thought further, the whole Manasseh-Parthian alliance might be nothing more than a rumor.

He shook these unproductive thoughts from his head and returned his attention to the battle before him, or as much as he could see of it. He cursed the dust once again.

Gabinius relaxed in the courtyard of his ancestral home, enjoying the cool of the evening. The house was new, but it felt right. He was where he should be. He heard a small commotion from the atrium. A visitor, no
doubt. A man of his importance received guests at all hours: clients in need of a favor, friends from other towns come to
claim hospitality. His steward entered the courtyard.

"Princeps, a lictor has come to summon you to the curia."

"Good news or bad?"

"He would say no more than that you are summoned."

Gabinius rose. "Lictors. How they love their little secrets." He knew that it had to be something momentous for
a Senate meeting to be called after sunset. Even the news of
the disastrous fire in the harbor at Carthage had waited until morning. It had been by no means a decisive blow to Hamilcar, but it bought the Romans time, and time was
what they needed. They were conquering too much, too fast.
How long will the gods bless us in this fashion?
he wondered.

His fellow senators milled on the curia steps, some of them looking a bit tipsy from their after-dinner drinking. At the summons of another lictor, they filed inside. The nearby forum began to fill as word spread of the extraordinary meeting.

Inside, they took their benches. The consuls were already
in place. When the doors shut, the Consul Scipio stood and
raised over his head a broad wooden tablet of traditional de
sign, the letters SPQR blazoned on it in large, gilt letters. A
laurel wreath encircled the tablet. A hiss of satisfaction went up from the assembly. Laureled dispatches meant victory.

"Syracuse has fallen!" Scipio announced, producing a general uproar. "Sicily is ours!"

When the cacophony died down, Scipio read the terse
message. "The Proconsul Titus Scaeva sends greetings to the
noble Senate. On this day, the nineteenth of Quinctilis, the
city of Syracuse passed into the possession of Rome. About
the middle of the second hour the undermining operations I had pursued bore fruit and a large section of the northern city wall collapsed. I immediately ordered my legions into the breach. The Carthaginians and their citizen allies fought with desperation, but they were lost when they had to face Roman soldiers at close quarters. The fighting was street-by-street and ended in the square surrounding the great temple of Zeus. Resistance ended by the seventh hour, and the inhabitants were put to the sword to let all foreigners know the price of resistance to Rome. At sundown I signaled a halt to the slaughter. In coming days I will render the noble Senate an accounting of the plunder of this very rich city. Death to Carthage. Long live Rome."

The Consul Norbanus stood. "I propose, pending a full report from both the Proconsul Scaeva and the Senate's observers in Sicily, that Titus Scaeva be voted the right to celebrate a triumph. I further propose that he be awarded the title 'Siculus' in honor of his conquest of Sicily."

Amid further cheering Gabinius made his way to the consuls' dais. Norbanus noticed him first. "I see from the princeps's sour look that even this wonderful news fails to elate him."

"Oh, I am quite elated," Gabinius assured him. "I'd always rather hear of victory than defeat. But has anyone given thought to what we are going to do with Sicily?"

"Do?" Norbanus said. "We are going to divide it up, naturally. That's what you do with conquered territory."

"And who's to get it, eh?" Gabinius asked. "You've read Cyclops's reports: The land is unbelievably rich and fertile, better than Campania. Are we to have the whole Senate at each other's throat over who gets what piece of this prize?"

"There is danger there," said the Consul Scipio. "What
are your thoughts, Princeps?"

"Right now we are all a bit drunk with success and with favorable omens. A good drunk is always followed by a bad
hangover. Even if we are fully successful in every campaign we undertake, there may be serious consequences. Foreign
ers are not the only enemy. We've expanded our legions to unprecedented numbers. What will we do with them when Carthage is destroyed and the fighting is over? Has anyone considered that?"