Masinissa wrapped his mantle around his face so only his eyes were visible and raced past the Roman contingent, now certain of reaching Cirta ahead of them, though Anir was many miles behind.
Masinissa rose up on his horse as he neared the city gates, waving his sword over his head to hail the guards. “Open the gate for your king.”
They recognized him immediately and opened the postern gate. He galloped through the gate and into Cirta all the way to the palace, then leapt from Chthonia and ran into the great hall where Menna was awaiting the arrival of the Romans.
“Where is Sophonisba?” he called out, gasping for breath.
“In her chambers, Your Highness. We heard that the Romans were coming for her.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Masinissa climbed the stairs to the second floor three at a time, sprinted down the hall, and burst into the royal chambers. Sophonisba knelt on the floor with tears in her eyes, stroking her lifeless cheetah. The blue vial lay on its side on the dressing table with his letter.
“Sophonisba! Please tell me I’m not too late!”
Sophonisba wavered as she tried to stand. Masinissa took two long strides and caught her in his arms, then settled down onto the floor to hold her on his lap. She looked up at him through vacant eyes, her life fleeing. Masinissa’s tears fell on her cheeks and rolled off as though they were hers. He held her against his chest and rocked her.
Sophonisba gazed into his eyes, puzzled. “My love, how is it that you are here? I was told the Romans were coming.”
“They’re at the gates now. I’m here to stop them—even if it means losing my kingdom.”
Sophonisba managed a weak smile. “I thank you for that, my king.” Her eyes turned to the dead cat. “But it seems I’ve made a hasty mistake. Felicia already leads the way to where I am headed.”
Masinissa lifted her into a sitting position. “No, the mistake was mine, Sophonisba, for not realizing soon enough that I valued you more than anything else.”
“Merely knowing that, my love, brings joy to my last moments.”
“No, you’re not going to die. I won’t let you.” Masinissa called out at the top of his lungs, “Someone come quickly! Help me, someone! Anyone!” Then softly, tearfully, he whispered, “There must be a way to counteract the poison, Sophonisba. There must be.” He tried to force his fingers into her mouth to make her vomit, but Sophonisba stopped him.
“No, my king, it’s too late. Let us treasure this last moment before it ends. Kiss me one last time so that my final thought is the tenderness I knew with you.”
With tears streaming down his cheeks, Masinissa pulled her close and kissed her deeply until he knew she was no more.
By this time Ralla and his men had already arrived at the palace and were waiting in the great hall for Sophonisba to appear. When the wait grew too long, Ralla forced one of the slaves to take him to Sophonisba’s chambers.
The tribune and six of his men followed the slave up to the second floor. Illi, unaware of Sophonisba’s suicide, tried to stop them at the door to the queen’s chambers, but the men pushed past her into the inner rooms. With Illi behind them, shouting for them to stop, Ralla barged into the bedroom with his men. The sight of Masinissa kneeling on the floor, rocking the dead queen in his arms, stopped them cold. Illi and Menna came up from behind and gasped, then fell to the floor wailing.
Masinissa looked up at Ralla and angrily ordered him to leave.
The tribune waved his men out of the room. “I will be returning to the Roman camp immediately.” Ralla noticed the blue vial and letter on the dressing table. “I will be taking the woman’s body with me.”
“Touch her, Tribune, and it will be your life,” screamed the sobbing king.
“The general will not be pleased, Masinissa. You will regret your actions.” Ralla spun on his heels and stalked out of the room.
CHAPTER 100
During the time that the Carthaginian envoys were in Rome, a convoy of two hundred transports carrying food and supplies for Scipio left Lilybaeum escorted by thirty warships. Upon reaching the African coast, the convoy encountered exceptionally strong winds. The warships were able to maneuver without sails by using their three tiers of oars. The transports, however, relied entirely on the wind and were dispersed down the coastline from the Promontory of Mercury past Rusucmon Bay. More than half of them were tossed in heaps upon the shore in full view from Carthage.
The people of Carthage, having already given Scipio the promised barley and wheat, and being heavily pressed for food themselves, cheered from the walls of the city while watching the transports run aground or break apart on the rocks. Hasdrubal Gisgo, angry about the terms of the treaty, quickly assembled a fleet of thirty ships. He gathered up the supplies strewn along the coast and brought them into Carthage.
Upon hearing what had happened, Scipio was enraged. His first thought was to cancel the agreement, but he had also just received word that the Roman Senate had ratified the treaty and that Laelius was on his way back to Africa. Instead of annulling all that he had worked so hard to achieve, he sent three representatives to Carthage to confront the Council of Elders. They told the Council that the treaty had been ratified, but that Hasdrubal’s actions were equivalent to thievery and had endangered the truce and the treaty. The Council repeated the conditions of the agreement and the promises that had been made to Scipio in the name of their gods, then assured the representatives that the goods would be returned.
Certain that Hannibal’s return would change everything, Hasdrubal decided to use the issue to spoil the peace. When the ship carrying the envoys left Carthage, Hasdrubal had three triremes waiting for them with orders to attack the diplomatic vessel. The Roman ship managed to escape without being sunk, but was forced to the beach short of Tunis. While some of the Roman sailors lost their lives, the three envoys reached land safely. When the men returned to headquarters with their report, Scipio was livid.*
Two weeks later, when Laelius returned from Rome with the Carthaginian envoys, Scipio informed them that since their departure for Rome Carthage had violated the truce twice, the second time with clear intent to disrupt the agreement. Despite his personal sadness for their failure to secure peace, he could not ignore what had happened and would advise Rome to annul the agreement immediately. At that point, with great care to be respectful to these men—in contrast to the way his own emissaries had been treated—Scipio dismissed the envoys and resumed the war with even greater ferocity than before.
Rather than besieging Carthage, Scipio left the camp in Tunis with his entire army to raid the villages and small towns in the highly productive farmland to the south along the Bagradas River. Much as Hannibal had done in Italy, Scipio became a scourge upon the land, burning the homes, killing the people, and taking the harvest.
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*I might note that Scipio’s rabid indignation over the reversal of the agreement could be called into question. In many ways, Hasdrubal’s deceit was no different than Scipio’s. All through the peace talks with Syphax, he had planned to set fire to his enemy’s camp. In a sense, the two nations had thrown away all honor and had descended into the deepest throes of mutual hatred and distrust.
CHAPTER 101
Scipio had learned of Masinissa’s unannounced trip to Cirta in the days after the Numidian king had left. When Marcus Ralla arrived at the Roman camp in the Bagradas Valley, he told Scipio the rest of the story. Masinissa had forced the Roman contingent from the city and remained there to bury his queen. Scipio had already been concerned about Masinissa, but now he worried that he had lost him as an ally, something he could not afford with Hannibal due in Africa any day.
Several days passed with no word from Masinissa. Scipio had just decided to send a contingent to Cirta when he learned that Masinissa had arrived at the Roman camp accompanied by Anir. He immediately dispatched a centurion to find Masinissa and bring him to headquarters.
Scipio was a
lone in the tent when Masinissa entered, head down, uncertain why he had even bothered to obey Scipio’s orders.
“The tribune I sent to Cirta for Hasdrubal’s daughter told me that she took poison,” Scipio said.
A composed and unusually somber Masinissa nodded absently while looking at the ground.
“And that you were there when he arrived with his men.”
Masinissa lifted his head. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”
Scipio took a deep breath and shook his head sadly. “In other words, you tried to correct your previous act of poor judgment with a second?”
“If that’s how you see it, sir.”
“And how do you see it?”
Masinissa, a man who feared nothing, always struggled before Scipio. “I fulfilled the promise I made to my wife.”
“She was not your wife. She was the property of Rome. You had no obligation to her for anything.”
“I did what I had to do.” His composure began to melt away.
“Do you regret that now?” asked Scipio.
“I regret that the woman I loved is dead, yes.” His voice shook and tears ran down his cheeks.
“Control yourself, Masinissa. Hannibal is on his way to Africa now. We will soon be facing the greatest challenge of this campaign. Passion, except in heat of battle, is at odds with clear thinking.”
Masinissa wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.
“Are you capable of leading your men?”
Masinissa glared at Scipio and muttered, “Yes,” through gritted teeth.
“Have you any thoughts of taking poison yourself?” There was a hint of ridicule in Scipio’s tone.
Masinissa’s face tightened. “No.”
“Can you, after twice making decisions at odds with your general, be trusted to follow my commands and act according to the interests of Rome?”
“Yes, sir.”
Scipio nodded, still unable to read the man’s heart. “I cannot deny it, Masinissa, I have lost a large measure of my respect for you. You have revealed the passions of a barbarian, not a military officer. But I also know that when you are right-headed, when you are focused, you are the best man I have. Your capacity as a cavalry commander is unmatched by anyone I have ever seen on horseback.”
Masinissa looked down at the ground, furious at the way Scipio was talking to him.
“I promised to give you back your kingdom if you forfeited Hasdrubal’s daughter to Rome. You agreed to this, then broke your word. Though the woman is dead and out of the way, there is no reason for me to uphold my end of the bargain. Is that correct?”
Masinissa, his eyes still on the ground, said nothing.
“Is that correct?”
Masinissa lifted his eyes, now nearly spiking with flames from the heat behind. “If that’s how you see it, sir.”
“Hasdrubal’s daughter was only a trophy to me,” said Scipio. “Her loss is nothing otherwise. I will still uphold my part of the bargain if you are able to lead your cavalry with complete loyalty to the Roman cause. Can you abide by that?”
“You can count on me, sir”
“Then I will. But don’t let me down again. It will cost you everything you have gained, including my friendship. You’re dismissed.”
Masinissa turned away, then stopped as he lifted the tent flap. “You should know, General, that I have amassed another six thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry. They are on their way from Cirta now. They’ll be here in three days. We have a war to win.”
CHAPTER 102
News that Hannibal had landed in Hadrumentum—on the African coast about one hundred miles southeast of Carthage—reached our camp four days after Masinissa’s return. The reports we had received from Rome said that Hannibal’s army had been greatly reduced by attrition in his final year in Bruttium, and that he had been lucky to escape from Italy at all. We also learned that Mago had died during the voyage back to Africa from the javelin wound he received in north Italy. Mago’s troops, however, had arrived safely and had joined Hannibal who was now recruiting far and wide to rebuild his army.
Along with Mago’s twelve thousand Gallic mercenaries, Hannibal had what remained of his most loyal soldiers, men who had come with him from Spain, now less than two thousand in number, plus another ten thousand mercenaries he had brought with him from Italy. Hasdrubal Gisgo secured another ten thousand untrained Libyan and Carthaginian recruits and eighty elephants and brought them to Hadrumentum.
Hannibal’s biggest concern, however, was cavalry, an essential piece in just about all of his tactical maneuvers. He reached out to Syphax’s cousin, a Numidian by the name of Tychaeus. Tychaeus answered with two thousand Numidian horse. Little by little, Hannibal was piecing together an army which, though short on experience, was somewhat greater in number than Scipio’s thirty thousand veterans.
When Hannibal was ready, he marched from Hadrumetum seventy-five miles west to a place called Zama, not far from the Bagradas Valley. He set up camp less than ten miles from our camp, intent on bringing an end to Scipio’s reign of terror.
Finally, some three years after Scipio had been given a consulship and permission to go to Africa, Hannibal and Scipio were positioned to meet on the battlefield.
CHAPTER 103
The day after we learned of Hannibal’s arrival, one of our foraging parties caught three of his scouts in the low hills behind our camp. They were immediately brought to Scipio. Rather than imprisoning them or torturing them for information, Scipio ordered Masinissa to give the three Numidians a tour of the camp, then to bring them back to headquarters.
Of course everyone in camp was aware that the scouts had been captured, but the soldiers were stunned to see Masinissa escorting them like guests through the camp. I encountered Masinissa and the three men during their tour. At first I just watched them as they passed, as stupefied as everyone else by Scipio’s hospitality. Then I hurried after them, calling to Masinissa to stop so I that could speak to the captured scouts. With Masinissa acting as an interpreter, I asked them if a woman traveled with Hannibal, a woman of forty years with a lovely singing voice. The lead scout, who I’m sure was thrilled not to be in chains, told me what he might not have otherwise. Yes, there was such a woman, a slave, he said, traveling with the army. She was kept in leg irons at all times because of Hannibal’s concern that she might try to escape. Though I didn’t explain this to Masinissa, I knew the woman was my mother. Now at least I knew where she was, and more importantly, that she was alive.
When the scouts returned to headquarters, Scipio asked them if Masinissa had sufficiently described the workings of the camp, and if there were anything else they wanted to know. Completely disarmed by Scipio’s generosity, the scouts said they had no more questions. Shocking these men even further, Scipio arranged for an escort to take them back to Hannibal’s camp.
I tossed and turned all through that night thinking about my mother. What would happen to her should we defeat Hannibal? His camp would be immediately plundered, and in the chaos that followed, if she weren’t simply murdered by those in the camp, there was no assurance that I would find her before a Roman legionnaire, who would certainly consider her fair game for a soldier’s pleasure.
The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Finally, in the hours before dawn, I concluded that nothing, not the potential battle between Hannibal and Scipio, nor the outcome of the war, nor even my own life, was more important than my mother’s safety. That was when the idea struck me.
The diagram for Archimedes’ adjustable parabolic mirror array was in headquarters buried in my stack of maps. What if I went to Hannibal’s camp and offered him a trade—the drawing for my mother? Instead of giving it to Scipio, a decision I had yet to make, why not use the drawing for my own personal advantage?
Beyond the fact that I might be killed just trying to get close to the Carthaginian camp, what would it mean if Hannibal accepted my offer? How would that impact the war? As I thought this out,
I realized that even if Hannibal were able to evade Scipio for a month, as he had Marcellus in Italy, there was really no way that he could build the array and use it effectively against us. I had studied all the designs, but never mastered this one. There were no more than ten men in the world who could even understand the mathematics, much less be available to Hannibal at a moment’s notice to make the array operational. The design, in my mind, was an invaluable demonstration of optical science, but in practice, all but impossible to apply to the dynamics of a set piece battle.
After a full night without sleep, I decided to take a chance. I went to headquarters that morning and pretended to work. Midmorning I left headquarters with the scroll containing the plans for the parabolic array. I went to our corral and told the guard that I was going to make some last minute observations of the vicinity to add detail to the map. He knew me well enough to understand that this was something I did, though rarely on my own.
Hannibal’s camp was a little less than ten miles away. It was not an easy ride, and I didn’t want to be seen. I spotted the camp from a ridge overlooking Zama. Knowing that Hannibal could very well imprison me and take the scroll as soon as I told him what it was, I found a place to hide it. If things went well and I had secured the safety of my mother, I would take Hannibal to the location and give it to him.
I rode down to the Carthaginian camp without a weapon. I was surrounded by perimeter guards before I got anywhere near the gate. I told them I wanted to see Hannibal. When they laughed at my request, I told them I had information that their general would like to know.
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