by Rob Edmunds
The punch rocked Metellus and diverted into empty air the strike his own free hand was aiming at Masinissa’s chin. It also had given Hanno enough time to regain his equilibrium, and, for as much as he evidently wanted to revel in the moment, this was not a duel for honour but a savage fight to the death, and he responded accordingly.
As the knuckles of Masinissa’s hand plastered his enemy’s nasal bone and cartilage, he yelled at Hanno, “Stick him.”
His associate appeared to be of similar mind, and as Metellus’s head pitched upwards, exposing his throat, Hanno yelled, “Duck!”
As Masinissa did as he was bid, he almost immediately heard a set of reassuring sounds: a rip of flesh, the whoosh of air as Hanno’s blade passed close to his skull, and the gurgling noise Metellus’s larynx tried to make as it was turned into a fountain of blood.
He rose, and his eyes confirmed the message his ears had already received. Metellus had been sliced open from the edge of his jaw to his clavicle. Only one of his arms seemed to be functioning, and that arm’s hand was reaching into the pulp at his neck in a vain attempt to stem his ebbing life force. His eyes were no longer scowling at either Masinissa or his nemesis, but were frozen as terror finally found its way into his expression. Masinissa had seen this type of death many times before, men who choked out their lives looking like fish that had just been landed on a boat, and as much as the man deserved to suffocate for a little longer there was business to attend to. He urged his companion, who seemed a little incapacitated in his own way, “Take the rest off.”
The adjuration seemed to revive Hanno, who shook both of his arms in tandem by his sides, hesitated for a second as if searching for an appropriate comment, thought better of it and grabbed the hair of the dying man, whose focus on his enemy was restored suddenly. Their eyes locked onto one another and lingered in a macabre antithesis of the gaze of lovers. Hanno broke the spell by expectorating into the wound he had made, drew himself and his sword backwards, and, with his full strength, sheared Metellus head off his shoulders.
Hanno looked at the corpse and then upwards to the heavens, and said solemnly, “Father, my duty is paid. Rest now.”
Masinissa approved the simplicity and sincerity of the comment, but he needed to be brought back to his senses. His vengeance may have been satiated, but the cup of Melqart still had to be retrieved, and they needed to do it quickly.
“That’s for him, not for you,” Masinissa reprimanded, but with a hint of levity and relief.
Fortunately, Hanno showed no inclination to savour the moment and gave Masinissa a nod. “We’re in luck in these chambers. The window at the rear lies directly over the tree. Imelce told us that the cup is buried shallowly close to the trunk on the south side, close to a hollow in its base.”
“Easy!” Masinissa exclaimed. He threw Hanno the rope he had with them. “Fetch! I hope this is long enough for the drop.”
“Don’t you want the honour?” Hanno replied, a little surprised.
“I’d rather be the one handing it over to the priests, if it’s all the same to you. If I could be blessed with a sense of communion with my favourite god, I would rather it be at his home. Frankly, we haven’t got time for prayer and meditation right now, and you seem a little more lithe on the rope than me.”
“Fair point,” Hanno conceded as he quickly tied the rope to the closest anchor to the window.
He was over the parapet just as briskly, and, for a few minutes, Masinissa was forced to piece together his movements from the tenebrous digging shape he could barely discern, and the sounds of the stabbing and probing of the earth that carried up just within his earshot. He could make out that Hanno had begun the exploration with his sword, but, when the unmistakable clank of metal revealed the location of the goblet, he switched to his shorter knife and scraped around it avidly. He freed it quickly and, as he did so, he let out a short whistle of admiration. It might have been considered a little imprudent, but it was unlikely anyone in the castle would be so vigilant as to notice such a minor expression of triumph.
Having retrieved the cup, Hanno ascended the rope. As he climbed back into the window of the keep, Masinissa could not help but admire the glittering object tucked into his belt. As the Carthaginian regained solid ground, he presented it to Masinissa, and – even though it needed cleaning and the light was poor – its detail and quality was obvious to both men. It was a very ornate skyphos, which is a two-handled, mostly silver cup that had its design origins in Corinth and Athens. In the case of the cup of Melqart, parts of the handles and base were highlighted in gold leaf, but it was the delicacy and detail of the repousse art that the craftsmen had hammered out from the other side that took the eye and was simply breathtaking.
Masinissa himself had heard and seen a few of these before, mostly of males in quite intimate poses, a Greek custom he thought might benefit from the inclusion of some female figures, even ones that were chastely covered, but this one held no sensual elements whatsoever and instead used the large surfaces of the cup to intertwine elements of the first six of the labours of Melqart. It was a little cramped in places, but the artist or artists were clearly skilled in the most precise work and had pulled off quite a tour de force. As Masinissa turned the cup in his hands, in turn, representations of the Nemean Lion, the Lernean Hydra, the Hind of Ceryneia, the Erymanthean Boar, the Augean Stables and the Stymphalian Birds appeared, all depicted with the most distinct detailing, captivating him.
In truth, for all the plunders of the war and all the treasures held in Carthage, Illipa and Gades, Masinissa had never seen an object so exquisite in his life.
Hanno nudged him to break him free of his appreciative stupor. “Makes you want to see the other one doesn’t it?”
“For sure!” Masinissa smiled back. “I wonder if the depictions of Geryon and Cerberus are as good as the creatures here.”
“No doubt they are. I’m sure the commissioner of the pair would have insisted upon it. When you are making tableware for a god, I’m pretty certain you’d do your best work.”
“Let’s reunite them, shall we? Before these Romans find us and turn our skulls into a pair of vessels like the Boii made out of the praetor Lucius Postumius Albinus.”
Hanno agreed their missions were complete, and it would be ill advised to linger too long in the fortress of their decapitated host. “Do you think we have disturbed any Romans?” the young Carthaginian asked, his tone raising the spectre that there may be a tide of their enemies vaulting up the steps of the keep at that very moment.
“These walls are thick, even though the night is still, and, besides, I’m sure Capuca and Ari can despatch any light sleepers. At the window, when you were digging all I heard was the breeze. There were no hints of our interrupted enemies rallying for an assault. They don’t have the same need to be furtive as us. Let’s go!”
The two men left the room and retraced their steps. As they reached the courtyard of the castle, the first thing that assailed them was the evidence that they were not the only members of their small infiltration party to have encountered and eliminated one of their enemies. They almost stumbled over the corpse of a young soldier. Even in the gloom, Masinissa could see easily that he had all the innocence of a fresh hastati, a raw trooper without any of the scars of battle worn by more experienced troopers; that is, aside from the gaping wound in his forehead that was no doubt caused by one of Ari’s pinpoint stones.
“Good sign,” he whispered to Hanno.
If this fort was garrisoned with such youths, extricating themselves would appear to be quite a routine matter. He reflected on how suitable Ari had been for this venture. He had been the perfect choice. No one he could think of could perform the role of assassin as well. The thought was reinforced as he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and his stealthy confederate emerged. After the momentary shock of being surprised so easily passed, Masinissa asked for a quick revie
w of the events outside of the keep.
Ari reassured him, “Aside from this poor soul, another pair at the gate, and a few of their hounds, who took a dislike to my desert odours, it seems they are still oblivious to us.”
“Excellent! Thank Melqart,” Masinissa exclaimed. To him, as for the others, their good fortune thus far could have no other explanation than it had been divinely sanctioned. The retrieval of the cup had somehow given them all a sense of invulnerability, an impression only consolidated by the night’s events, which had left none of them with even the slightest graze.
The three emboldened men moved quickly to the stables, taking the same precautions as they had earlier, but with a greater certainty that they would all still see the encroaching dawn. Their time was short by then, and the cooks and maids of this castle would soon be the first to revive. The discovery of slain men and dogs would send shrieks of alarm throughout the citadel. Masinissa felt a slight tinge of sadness at the prospect that would await him at the stables. They could not risk stampeding the horses, as many would return to the castle and allow a pursuit to be mobilised, and so, apart from the four most fortunate steeds, the rest would be hobbled or killed. For a horseman like Masinissa, that was a tragic fate.
As they approached the stables, which lay close to the gates, he could see that the grizzly duty he had presumed he was to perform had, for the most part, been spared him, or at least Capuca’s ingenuity had come up with an alternative no less repugnant. It would seem as if his cousin had the foresight to realise that slaughtering horses in the middle of the night would cause a bit of a commotion and his solution appeared to have been to create something that resembled a cross between an enclosure and a bonfire. He had taken wooden stockades and corralled most of the horses, but had broken up straw and any combustible material he could lay his hands on and incorporated that into his fence. He held a lit torch in his hand that he was poised to ignite the pyre with. Masinissa supposed that a few of the horses may, in their desperate panic, jump the improvised fences he had erected, but most would be consumed.
It will be enough, he thought sadly to himself.
Suddenly, and in close proximity, a throaty, lupine howl broke forth from the nearest doorway, and a man emerged and charged towards him, with a sword raised high above his head and incoherent curses spewing from his mouth. Quickly, it became apparent that the brave fool was alone, but his yell would have the whole castle upon them in no time.
“Mount up!” Masinissa cried to Hanno and Ari, confident that – despite the ferocity and wildness of the berserker charging towards them – he wouldn’t need their assistance to check his attack. His two companions disappeared rapidly from his peripheral awareness, and his senses sharpened, focussing upon the approaching swordsman. He sensed a flash of heat against his cheek as Capuca set fire to the stockade, drew his falcata across his body and ran at his enemy’s unarmed side. It was a move that Masinissa had practised in many close-quarter engagements. You let your opponent lunge, then, when he commits and over extends himself, strike at whichever vulnerable point presents itself.
“Die African,” the maddened Roman snarled as he readied his blow.
For a second, Masinissa caught his eyes, which blazed blue with bloodshot edges. This is an easier prey than usual, Masinissa thought as his attacker drew his sword over his head and threw his blade at full pelt in a wild arc, which Masinissa easily eluded. You only get one shot when you fence like that, Masinissa thought to himself, maligning the rather pathetic effort to take his life.
He caught the man’s eyes a second time, and the expression he read was more familiar. The man knew he had sealed his own doom, and his roar of attack had been choked back in his throat to a panicked rasp, which left any longer would have changed into a cry or a pitiful plea. Masinissa didn’t give the man the opportunity to forfeit his dignity, and, as he saw death in his eyes, he sent him briskly on his way to the afterlife. There was no time or need for a second strike. The man crumpled to the ground and was no longer a threat. That was as far as Masinissa’s immediate cares stretched. He glanced upwards at the blur that had passed him seconds earlier, and saw that Hanno and his mount, not unexpectedly, were already almost at the gates. His opinion of him slipped at the fractional desertion, but he knew Hanno’s loyalties to him were slight and he had the cup in his possession after all, which stood as a slight mitigation of his flight.
Capuca and Ari were their reliable selves, though, and had pulled up their horses and the one intended for Masinissa just behind him. The horses were extremely agitated, but Masinissa was quick to gain the back of his stallion before it broke free of Capuca’s fist. He winked at the steadfast Numidian and Libyan, and the three charged out of the fortress of Xativa, as the cries of alarmed men and the screams of burning horses gave greater urgency to the digs they drove into the flanks of their terrified mounts.
The village was awake from the raised alarm, but no one made any attempt to impede them as they passed by. They were mostly local Iberian civilians who had, until recently, served the castle when it was in the possession of the Carthaginian forces and may yet again if the territory changed hands once more. They knew the tides of war ebbed and flowed, and that there was nothing to be gained from trying to impede the riders. Those who were bold enough to make the doorways of their dwellings merely crouched there and stared warily at the fleeing men.
For Masinissa, his perception of time slowed even further, as his heartbeat raced as fast as his mount’s, and they put a great distance between themselves and the citadel in what seemed only minutes. They had crossed the wood and made the peak of the furthest hill, beyond which awaited the Numidian cavalry. There they could rein in their horses and lay an ambush, should the Romans salvage enough horses to come after them. That prospect, however, was improbable, as it would take them days to acquire fresh steeds, and, once the dead Metellus was discovered, appoint a fresh legionnaire.
Masinissa turned to the others as they gained a vantage point of the valley beyond, and saw, with relief, that his men were busy with their early morning affairs. He hailed them with his deepest baritone holler, like an exultant Norseman returning to his native fjord, and, almost in unison, the men below let out an echoing roar as Masinissa’s returning presence was detected. For the exhausted Numidian and his three companions, the energy of the salute restored a little vitality, and they sat more poised and erect on their stolen horses. The certainty of safety and success coursed through them. The smell of camp breakfast – frying strips of meat, garlic and eggs – also began to reach their ravenous senses, and added a little extra impetus to the gallop down the leeward side of the hill.
Inhaling deeply of the cooking smells, Capuca broke their hungry trance. “We made breakfast, boys!” He chuckled with a little mock nonchalance in his tone.
In response, Ari grinned and rubbed his stomach. Hanno, not willing to be excluded from the companionable moment, mimicked Ari’s gesture, rolling his hand around his torso like he was a little boy amusing his mother with an eager, pantomime appetite.
“You hungry too, Sacred Band?” Masinissa smirked.
“I sure am!” came Hanno’s affable-but-terse reply.
“Well, you earned a good feed; let’s get down there before we faint.”
The three others goaded their steeds a little harder at the prompt.
Ari chipped in a famished, “I’m going to eat like we’re at a feast day to Tanit. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
The men laughed at the banal observation they’d all heard so many times before, as if it was suddenly the freshest, most ingenious pleasantry.
Letting his animal follow its kind at a circumspect pace, something of a slow canter, Masinissa let his thoughts elevate their preoccupations from his stomach to his soul. They had just killed in cold blood both men and animals – some guilty and deserving, others just unlucky and almost innocent – and they had ri
dden out of Xativa with the prize of a cup. It was, he consoled himself, an extraordinary cup and an object imbued with even more value for its association with the god of Tyre, his god, the one he had beseeched for protection frequently and sincerely ever since his tutors had taught him knowledge of and reverence for the gods of the Phoenician people. However, the mundanity of the trinket, despite all its craftsmanship and beauty, bothered him.
The absurdity twisted a defiance out of him, as if he was down to his last couple of dogs in an outmatched game of latrunculi, where his opponent was circling him with a mostly intact pack. They had done these things for Melqart, and Melqart was his god too. He had a right to this transplanted diety’s protection just as much as Queen Dido had when she had pleaded, with deceitful intent, for the Byrsa. He could and he would drink from it at the temple near Gades when they returned it there, and imbibe greedily all of the mercy the goblet channelled.
He wondered if the gods, as they roamed the planet and made new conquests, retained their vitality or whether their powers withered as they distanced themselves from their origins. Maybe that was why temples were made. Tyre and Gades were at the opposite ends of civilisation, but they honoured the same divinity. He wondered a little about the existence of any native and supplanted deities. What had people worshiped before Baal Hammon, Tanit and Melqart? He didn’t know. No one had told him of any ancient myths or celestial beings. Maybe the Troglodytae in their desert caves and primitive understandings preserved a memory of them somehow. Maybe, he wondered with an idle heresy, there may be layers of gods, which time laid like clay bricks, one on top of another, burying false promises and residues of hope with each fresh gloop of supernatural mortar. No one would submerge the powers of Melqart, though. His power was irrepressible.
What was important was not what was real, and what he could touch or taste. It wasn’t the wine in the cup or the designs on it. It was the faith you had in its consecration. In what could not be understood or felt. This was not an ordinary day, the cup was not an ordinary cup, and its journey back to where it belonged would be his most solemn duty.