by Rob Edmunds
Masinissa was very much fond of the story of the founding of the Byrsa and, subsequently, the city of Carthage itself. It was a very important point of identity for all the people there who traced their personal histories back to the Phoenician and Tyrian settlers. It was also relevant to him as a Numidian, and as a descendant of the king who had ceded territory to Dido and her Phoenician exiles when they had fled Tyre and Pygmalion’s wrath. It was funny, Masinissa thought, how such an apparently minor concession, which could even be regarded as an act of mercy, could have such enormous ramifications centuries later. If Dido had been rebuffed, would she have continued on and made landfall elsewhere, perhaps in Mauritania or Iberia? Maybe they could have found shelter beyond Mons Calpe and made their colony close to the Temple of Melqart, near Gades.
For Masinissa, the story was also potentially a salutary lesson in so far as it gave him a reminder of Phoenician cunning and duplicity. He would only ever have to remind himself of the actions of Dido to realise that the Carthaginians were not to be trusted. Dido had asked the Numidian king Iarbas only for a tiny and temporary parcel of land for a brief refuge. In appearance, if the country were represented by the king’s body, the land she asked for would be merely the tip of the king’s fingernail. Once granted, Dido proceeded, figuratively, to devour the rest of his arm. The covenant that was agreed upon granted Dido as much land as could be covered by an ox hide. Wandering the alleyways of the Byrsa, it was clear that this could not have been achieved literally. Dido had craftily torn the ox hide into thin strips, which when laid together were – so it was told – sufficient to encircle the entire hill on which they stood, and that had developed into the citadel of Carthage. Its name was even taken, a little scornfully, from that legend: the meaning of Byrsa being “hide”. It was also the Phoenician word for citadel, so perhaps its future purpose may have been ordained by the gods.
Masinissa was excited by the prospect of spending time with Sophonisba, and it was the first moments with her that he always looked forward to the most. It was a mixture of the pleasurable thoughts of reunion after their absence in which he could reform her beauty outside of his imagination and also share her delight at seeing him again. She provided him with a sort of reflection of himself, as if he were looking at her in a sort of pellucid emotional mirror. She exhibited immediately and guilelessly the emotions he felt, and she quickly released him from any social strictures he may have felt, and he was the giddy, besotted fool he longed to be.
The one thing that Masinissa tried to ensure in their hide-and seek-play was that he would lose. Aside from the enjoyment both he and Sophonisba would gain by him having to pay the tribute and buy the gift for her, he found thrilling the notion of being stalked and the way in which Sophonisba would declare his capture and defeat. It had become almost a form of greeting, and one that he certainly preferred to the formal bow or the informal kiss. His peripheral vision and sixth senses were pretty acute, and he always knew when she was sneaking up on him. However, rather than turning around and exposing her, he simply would become quiet and still, and await his seizure by her. He had been told by some animal keepers once that the best response to being mauled by certain creatures, bears in particular, was to lay still and play dead. Sophonisba wasn’t going to treat him so roughly, but the ploy of stillness was one he certainly enjoyed using.
The way in which she did it, after carefully shadowing her prey was to reach her hands over his face from behind and cup his eyes, so that he was blinded by his assailant. Of course, he knew exactly who it was, but the sport in the game was for him to guess. It was as if he were playing a game with a child, and he made sure that he faked a little confusion and maybe even threw out a wild guess, which usually would only make Sophonisba clasp his face even tighter. The sport would conclude with him placing his hands on hers and, suddenly and theatrically, realising it was her all along. At which point, he would turn, give her the broadest smile and wrap his arms around her, whilst she yelped her delight at his happiness and cooperation.
In order to facilitate such an easy kill, Masinissa had made the most abject attempt at concealment and tracking. He had positioned himself at the edge of a wall leading into the lane that headed to the chambers of the Council of Elders, and he just waited. One way of looking at such a move would be that he was in a position to ambush her if she were to approach from that direction. Another would be that most of the rest of the Byrsa was behind him, and his location could be spied easily by people coming from most directions. He had given himself effectively a one-in-five or one-in-six chance of victory in this game. He liked those odds very much.
Inevitably, it was only a matter of time before she pounced, and he was blinded and temporarily paralysed. When she first started to play this trick on him, this incapacity was almost real as he was so overwhelmed by her presence. He soon learnt to control his love daze, though, even though the thrill always remained the same as ever. The complement to this sensory deprivation of light was the sensory overload of scent. If Sophonisba could be regarded as an expert at anything, it would be at the art of the perfumer. She always wore the most alluring and feminine scents, and always applied them just before she was leaving her home, so that their intensity was at their greatest. If they were to play their game for real, she would stand no chance of winning, as her presence would be as detectable on the air as a cavalry unit being tracked through a woodland after rain.
Masinissa knew she had anointed herself in several of the most obvious places, locations that she had amended marginally in his honour. Not that he needed any cues, but they were given to him, nevertheless. As the cloud of flesh, scent and joy had enveloped him, he had no need for his eyes, and as soon as he had given Sophonisba that first squeeze of greeting, he buried himself as deeply into her throat, neck and breasts as he could. His face could not have been better signposted. She could have done no better if she had left pieces of cake at those spots and lured the nearest starving glutton.
It may have been better for him that his eyes were closed, and his mouth and nose were buried in his beloved’s cleavage. For despite their disregard for their surroundings and preoccupation with one another, this indifference was not reciprocated. To those around him – be they nobles, scholars, merchants or slaves – he and Sophonisba were objects of much interest, some of which was simple curiosity, but some of this attention was of a more vicious and jealous kind. They were both well known, and consorting with each other so openly could be offensive to the more patrician elements within Carthaginian society.
Masinissa, though, was carefree, and oblivious to the condescension or hostility of some of the passers-by as he was engulfed by the sensory pleasures Sophonisba had gifted him. He wrapped one of his arms low around her hips, and the other he held higher, tracing the line of her spine with his thumb and forefinger. His hands were flat at first, spread as wide as they could be to accommodate as much of her body and flesh as possible. It was a mix of possession, sensual ardour and also an automatic response her musk had compelled in him.
Holding her, he inhaled and, as deliberately as he had from his secretive vantage point when he spied her, he tried to fix her scent in his mind, both to enjoy it for the moment and to save it as an imprint for the future. He wondered if, in the coming months, he might be able to open a bottle of this perfume, and recall her body and this moment as a result. He doubted his olfactory senses could be relied upon to conjure such a vision, but it was worth the effort, he was sure. He wanted a bottle of that scent quite badly, in truth. He wanted to be able to drizzle tiny amounts of it on a cloth and smother his face in it as a comfort, in the same way as a baby would seek out a blanket. It is funny how some passions, even in their delirium, could have premeditated elements.
It was impossible for him to analyse her smell properly, but he ardently sought the most conspicuous notes that he could. As there was only one Sophonisba, there would only ever be one scent that he wanted to associate
with her, despite the frequency with which she might alter the blend. This essence of her would always be the most recent one, as the most recent could always be the last. Masinissa held to the romantic absolutism of the desperate and the beguiled.
He knew that there was an element of practicality to her scent as well, and that it offered her a modest protection from the sun, which – in tandem with her veil – helped shield her complexion from the fierceness of the daylight. That benefit was incidental to the moment, as he savoured the symphony of cedar, myrrh, frankincense and cypress, and tugged gently at her hair so that more of her throat and bosom was exposed to his greedy senses.
There was only so long he could submerge himself in her cleavage, and, as he rose for air, he breathed out compliments as avidly as he had inhaled her sweetness.
“Ah, my Aphroditeeee,” he purred. “It always seems too long.”
It was a compliment that was sure to find its target; Sophonisba sighed slightly in approval, and her diaphragm dropped momentarily, as if the deflation in her lungs gave an accompanying inflation of her ego. “Oh, my Melqart. I’ve missed you too. It’s only been a few days, but I’ve suffered. Tanit help me when you start campaigning. I need an artist to draw your likeness to keep me going, I think. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off if I hadn’t known you.”
Masinissa looked at her a little ruefully and tried to put a little commiseration into his words and eyes. “Oh sweetheart, it is the nature of the world for us, for everyone, to know departures and reunions. Savour the moments we have and see me as much as you can in your dreams; well, when the time comes and I’m away in Numidia, Iberia or Rome even, wherever the tides of war wash me up. I will do my best to come back to you in one piece and with enough of a reputation to hold you in the night as I do in the day.”
Sophonisba put both her hands on her hips, accentuating that region considerably in the process, and looked at him in mock seriousness. It was another of their games that they played to indicate annoyance or the semblance of it in most cases. One hand on her hip was, in their lover’s lexicon, a single humph, and two hands on her hips was a double humph. A single humph was a very rare sighting in Sophonisba’s play. “Do your best? You will do your best to return to me as I pine and yearn and pray for you my every waking moment? You can’t lay that one at my feet and expect me to do anything other than kick it away. I need more, Masinissa. I need everything.” She raised her hand and pointed two fingers at him, which she waved slightly in front of him to indicate that she was disapproving of his lacklustre commitment. The gesture retained a little of the comedy of the pose, but it was clear that she was genuine in her pique.
Masinissa realised his error. This girl was all or nothing, and he’d given her uncertainty and the prospect of failure. He backtracked sharply. “You have it. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offer weakness or doubt. You need my strength and my conviction, and I’ll give it to you. I will be back, and I will claim you as my own with all my mind and body intact. I will evade my enemies and make my way through this mad world of conflicts. Your heart will be my beacon, and I will follow it and race back to you as soon as I am able.” Masinissa could see that had left a better mark on her. She needed his reassurance as she had about her portions of the realist as well as the romantic, and he needed to steer her towards the later.
She lowered her voice a little and spoke more earnestly. “I hope it is easy for you to love me when I become a memory. I hope I do not fade away like a cheap dye as you march on your conquests.”
“No, my darling, you must trust me as I do you. My feelings for you are as indelible as the scars I bear.” He pointed at one on his forearm from a dagger swipe, which once had been livid and crimson, but now was like a furtive worm, curling between the hairs of his arm.
“I’m not sure I want to be compared to a scar you know.”
The sensitivity of his woman never ceased to surprise Masinissa, but he had enough wits about him to realise his metaphor had held some substance for Sophonisba. Nevertheless, he knew she needed more, and it was time for his feelings to pour out. I’m going to have to keep laying this on, Masinissa thought, channelling a little masculine bravura, although in a measure that couldn’t hope to dilute the intensity of his true feelings.
“I believe in fate,” he said quietly whilst focussing his gaze directly at Sophonisba, “and the interventions of the gods, and we are fated by them to be together. I believe in the all-consuming nature of love as the most intense expression of our beings. Without that emotion, we are no better than the animals who live out their short existences listlessly and mechanically. Knowing you has lifted me out of that drudgery, and given me purpose and fearlessness.”
He saw that Sophonisba was quietly being moved by his words but held a little self-possession to her core to prevent herself from embracing him and curtailing his lover’s monologue.
He continued, “You know each day alters me a little; little parts of my soul are exhausted and fade, whilst other parts are awakened. Maybe I mature, shed a little innocence and gain a little wisdom, but certain emotions and attitudes abide and are constant. My first thoughts of the day and my final ones are of you. I cannot imagine a moment in the hopefully long chain of my days that will change that fact, even when my mutable being rewrites my story a little every day.” He held her hand, almost as a gesture of formal commitment. “I am yours now, as is obvious to see, but I will be yours forever too, which is a claim I know is harder to believe or trust. I know the war will lay waste to large parts of me, and little deaths will afflict me even if I am spared a final blow, but – regardless of the trials ahead, and the new days when I will awake with new eyes and changed feelings – you will always be there as my joined soul, in the part of me that is inviolable. I love you. In all the complexities of our universe, I hold to that simple truth.”
Masinissa knew that this was the natural point to stop. He had made his confessions and his claims, and it was for Sophonisba now to absorb what he had given her. There was an inevitable pause as she let his words embed themselves into her memory and heart.
“A promise is a promise, sweetheart,” Sophonisba murmured with her eyes slightly shadowed and downcast, and with a tone of obvious doubt and uncertainty, as if she wanted to believe him and trust the conviction and certainty he had packed into his words. She continued, “I know words are not as solid as rock or as certain as the march of waves on a shore, but when they are spoken by the man whom you have sworn to believe in, then they should carry weight and obligation. Don’t say words to me just to fill the air, to make me smile or to even give you the belief that you don’t completely possess in silence. I know that, whilst we are masters of our souls, we are not masters of our destinies, especially people like us who could be flung to all parts, all suitors and all causes in this terrible, endless war. We may both fail in all our hopes and dreams, but stick to your promise, my darling, until the point where it is torn from you, so that you can be comforted by the knowledge that you stayed true to your noblest and most sincere emotions.”
Masinissa buckled visibly with the force of her words. She was full of surprises and the wisdom and apprehension in her words shook him. “The fates will push us like the fiercest gales will rock the flimsiest sailboat, but the promises I make to you are filled with certainty. Every portion of my being pledges fealty to you, to what we have and to what we could have if our destinies are allowed to entwine. This is not an idle promise that I, or any of my soldiers or vassals, might make in a moment of passion, or as thoughtfulness or deceit to please or trick a curious girl. This is not even a promise made to lovers, as these can be shared and transient. This is more a promise made to love itself; that is, the emotion that can only be exclusive and mutual, and that can only be discovered once in its purest form. I love you, Sophonisba.”
For a second time, she dropped her gaze to the earth and closed her eyes; although, this time, it
appeared to Masinissa as if it was to savour, in a momentary stillness, an ecstasy that his words had given her. She breathed deeply, then exploded into his arms, and held him as tightly and possessively as she ever had.
Games Without Frontiers
Conon stood over his desk, with a compass in one hand and a hunk of bread in the other. He had dipped the bread in honey so he took care to perform his drawings with his uncontaminated hand. Whatever his design, it would appear to be a preliminary effort. Breakfast looked as if it at least had equal call on his attention. When he noticed that it was Masinissa at the door, he beamed and ushered him in with his sticky baton.
The scholar had developed a great affection for Masinissa, initially as one of his Greek tutors, but latterly as a friend and confidante. It was a fondness that could be traced to a number of origins. There was Masinissa’s natural charm, impressive stature and amiability, but it was also related somewhat to his status as a Numidian and a Massylian. As a Greek, Conon regarded him as a fellow minority and the fact that Masinissa retained a detachment from the Carthaginian nobility and his freedom of thought, if not always his freedom to act impressed him. This was not a trivial attribute in Carthage, where there was an increasing deference to the Barcid clan, following the victories Hannibal had made in his Italian campaigns.