“At dinner,” Mago said. “Explain it to me as well. Tell the tale in leisure, as you suggest.”
Hanno looked at his brother but did not contradict him. He turned his attention back to the divination, although he was still aware that some moments passed before the Greek hefted his load and moved away.
Mandarbal finally rose, the bloody liver cradled in his gloved hands. The goat lay on its side, abdomen slit open and viscera strewn from the wound and freckled with pale dirt, already swarming with flies. The priest placed the sacred organ carefully upon the ceremonial table and bent close to it, his attendants on either side of him, shoulder to shoulder, head to head so that the two brothers saw nothing of the signs written on the liver itself. Mandarbal stood erect above the scene for a moment, then turned and walked toward the brothers. As he left the circle of priests, the space he vacated closed behind him. Hanno only caught a momentary glimpse of the mutilated flesh.
“The signs are uncertain,” Mandarbal said, his voice high and lisping. “The offshoot of the liver is abnormally large, which suggests a reversal of the natural order. The right compartment is healthy and fine, but the left bears a black mark shaped like a young frog.”
“How do you read that?” Hanno asked.
“It is uncertain. We are favored by the gods in some aspects, and yet there are divine forces aligned against us.”
“Is that all you can see?”
Mandarbal considered this. He looked back over his shoulders. An insect landed on his lip but flew away instantly. He said, “Perhaps you have offended a single deity and may yet suffer for it.”
Hanno pressed his tongue against his teeth for a moment. “I would look upon the organ myself,” he said. “Might I—”
The priest stopped him with his hand. His fingertips spotted Hanno's breastplate with blood. “You cannot see the sacred parts. This is forbidden to your eyes. You would profane the rites. I've told you more than enough. Trust when I tell you that the future is not certain. Sacrifice to Baal and to Anath. I will ask El for guidance. Perhaps the aged one will speak to us. And Moloch, also—give praise to death.”
Mandarbal made as if to return to his attendants, but noting the expression on Hanno's face, he paused. “Events will unfold by the will of the gods,” he said. “To know their desire is not always our fortune; to have a part in it, regardless, is the blessing and curse of our lives. Be at ease with it. A thrashing man will always drown; a passive one may sometimes float.”
With that, the priest turned and showed the Barcas his back.
Mago shrugged, pursed his lips, and patted his brother on the shoulder. “What did you expect?” he asked. “They are priests. It is against their creed to speak clearly.”
Hanno took the sacred ceremonies much more seriously than his brother, but he could not deny the simple truth Mago referred to. The priests always left one more ill at ease than before, more uncertain, more troubled by the numerous possibilities. It was a strange art, theirs, but one he could never turn his back on.
Had he had only his own inclinations to consider, he would not have joined his brother for the evening meal but would have retired early to privacy. But, as so often since Hannibal's departure, his presence seemed an official necessity. In honor of the Greek, the officers dined in a style he was familiar with, lounging on low couches in Mago's tent, sampling cheeses and fish, vegetables and goat meat with their fingers. The day was still stiflingly warm. One wall of the large tent was folded back to encourage the first stirrings of an evening breeze. Silenus spoke Carthaginian with a Syracusan accent. He entertained the weary soldiers with tales of his voyage from Carthage to Sicily, from there up to the Greek town of Emporiae in northeastern Iberia, from which he sailed along the coast aboard a trading vessel that dropped him at Saguntum. It was hard to know just where fact met fantasy in the man's story, for his odyssey seemed calculated to outdo the poem sung by Homer. He spoke of pirates off the Aegates, of sighting a leviathan longer than the quinquereme in which he sailed, and of a lightning bolt that darted down out of a clear sky and struck the surface of the water.
“It sounds as though we are lucky to lay our eyes on you,” Mago said. He motioned for a servant to refill the Greek's wine bowl, a task attended by a slim-shouldered Arbocalan.
“That you are,” the Greek agreed. “If I had known that I would miss the commander, I might not have rushed.”
“Better that you delayed no longer,” Hanno said. Without his meaning to reveal it, his voice bore an edge of threat. There was something about the scribe that annoyed him, more so because he chided himself for showing it in the face of a company that seemed kindly inclined toward the man. In a more controlled tone, he said, “There's a great deal you'll have to learn about what we require of you.”
“Of course that is so,” Silenus said. He bowed his head and left it at that.
One officer, Bomilcar, seemed particularly amused by Silenus. Though a giant of a man, perfectly proportioned but at a scale rarely witnessed, Bomilcar was neither a terribly disciplined nor especially intelligent officer. His muscular bulk made him a leader of men regardless. His family was an old one in Carthage, but they had maintained a remarkable purity of Phoenician blood, evidenced by the curved blade of his nose, his sharp chin, and the bushy prominence of his eyebrows.
“Greek,” he said, “let me ask you, how did your gimp god Hephaestus secure Aphrodite as a wife? Why not Ares instead? Why not Zeus himself? Or that one from the sea?”
“The blacksmith has got poor legs,” Silenus said, “but his other limbs function quite well. He spends his days pounding iron—”
“And his nights pounding something else!” Bomilcar was laughing at his own joke before he had even completed it.
Silenus smiled. “Yes, but Hephaestus is known as a kind god, as well. Perhaps Aphrodite finds this a virtue. This may come as a surprise to you, Bomilcar, but I am not personally acquainted with the Olympians. I've invoked their presence more than once, I assure you, but as yet they've spurned me. Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite—I've asked them all to dine but they've ignored me. I caught a glimpse of Dionysus once, but my head was a bit foggy at the time. No, the gods are largely silent as concerns young Silenus.”
“Are you a Skeptic, then?” Mago asked.
“Not at all,” Silenus said. “I've seen Ares in a man's eyes and sampled Aphrodite's handiwork and every day one sees Apollo's labors. I've simply been shunned, and I am bitter.”
Hanno said, “Greeks are strange creatures. They claim to revere their gods above all others and yet at the same time they pretend to believe in nothing. Have you no fear of the insult you may cause and of the punishment brought down on you?”
“Insult to the gods?” Silenus asked. He held his wine goblet beneath his nose for a moment, thinking. “I am too small a man to accomplish that. You see these arms, this misshapen head? What god could reasonably take offense at anything I utter?”
“You toy with questions instead of answering them,” Hanno said. “We Carthaginians fear our gods. We ask daily, hourly, each minute that their wrath be directed at our enemies instead of at ourselves. We never know what will displease them, so we are ever respectful.”
“How unfortunate,” Silenus said. He seemed to have more to say but left it at that.
“Let's not talk of our faiths,” Mago said. “We all honor Baal. That is never in question among this company, Greeks included. But tell us something more useful, Silenus. You have actually been to Rome, haven't you? Tell us of the Romans.”
Silenus picked up on the topic happily enough. “The Romans are an uncultured lot. It is not so long ago that Rome was a flea-infested sewer of no consequence at all. They've no literature to speak of. They appease the gods when it suits them, but they make a muddle of it. They've actually just borrowed our Greek deities and renamed them. One wonders whom they think they are fooling. Not the gods themselves, surely. I imagine that when they decide they need a literature of their own they'll take
it from Greece. Take Homer and rename him Pomponius or something similarly absurd and change all the names in the Iliad. They are shameless, I assure you. This could well happen.”
“If they aren't humbled first,” Bomilcar said. “Which they shall be by Baal's grace and Hannibal's cunning. I wish he were here to meet you, Greek. Then you'd see the face of the future. He'll squash these Romans beneath his heel soon. Hannibal puts steel in all his men's backbones. Rome is no foe to be feared.”
“I am no warrior,” Silenus said, “but I might argue there's a thing even more powerful than steel.”
“And what's that?” Bomilcar asked. “Surely not pen and ink? Are you of that school?”
“No,” Silenus said dryly, looking almost saddened by the admission. “I'm not such an idealist that I believe that. What I'm referring to is not easily explained. I don't have the word for it just yet, but . . . Have you heard of Cincinnatus? During the early forging of the Republic, the Romans battled with their neighbors constantly. In the instance I am speaking of, the Roman army was pinned down by the Aequi, in a dire situation, trapped with dwindling food and water and outnumbered. As things seemed hopeless, Rome looked to the priests for direction, and in answer they were instructed to call upon Cincinnatus, a veteran soldier some years retired into a quiet life. They found him working in his field, plow in hand, sweating, squinting at the sun, I'd imagine, wife and children and some pigs about the place. You can picture it. But still they called him up and bestowed upon him the powers of dictator. He left the plow where it rested and raised a new army from the fields and farms around him. He marched on the Aequi within a few weeks and defeated them soundly. Quite a feat for a humble farmer, would not you say?”
“But Cincinnatus was no humble farmer,” Hanno said. “He was a veteran. Retired, but still a warrior. What point do you wish to extract from this tale?”
“I assert that he was a warrior and also a simple farmer. He was both, and not more one than the other. That is my point. Romans believe themselves to be simple farmers. But they believe that hand in hand with this goes the requirement that they also be their nations' soldiers. Plow one minute, sword the next, depending on the call of the country. After his victory Cincinnatus laid down the title of dictator and walked away from the rule of Rome and returned to his farm. He picked up his plow where it lay and carried on with his real work of choice.”
Mago doubted that the man's plow had stood untouched in the fields and said so. Silenus waved this away as superficial. “That is a detail of the storyteller. It enhances the tale's symmetry, but should not distract from the truth of it. Still, my point—”
“I understand your point,” Hanno said, “but no army of farmers can stand against an army of trained soldiers, men who have chosen war above other paths. A soldier who has just stepped from the field cannot hope to defeat one who has been drilled and drilled again, one who knows nothing but the life of the sword and scorns men who would break their backs trying to grow plants from the dry earth. Our army succeeds not despite the absence of civilians, but because of it. No man in the Carthaginian Council could last a day in battle beside my brother or me. I'd wager that the same is true of Roman senators. I think this Cincinnatus is just a fiction, a detail from an earlier storyteller, to use your words.”
Silenus shrugged. He lifted his bowl and realized it was empty. Holding it up to be refilled, he said, “But if I understand the possible plans this conversation has suggested to me, then your brother would consider attacking the Romans on their own soil. Men fight differently with their wives and children at their backs. The Saguntines demonstrate it at this very moment.”
Hanno studied the Greek through narrowed eyes. “One wonders if you are suited to the job required of you.” Without awaiting a response, he rose, bade them fair evening, and turned to leave.
“Hanno,” Bomilcar called. “You haven't said whether we resume in force tomorrow. I know the signs were troubling . . . but my men are ready to push the assault. Adherbal says—”
“I know,” Hanno snapped, “but architects do not give orders. They follow them. And I've not made up my mind. I must think on it more.” He stepped out into the summer night and stood for a moment with his eyes closed, feeling the movement of the evening air across his face. The scent of cooking meat floated to him. Beyond that came the flavor of incense and the musty rankness of horses, and, behind it all, the dry smoke of a thousand small fires. He heard bits of conversation, a yell in a language he did not recognize, laughter like that of children at play, and a prayer spoken loud to Shalem, the god who most loved to contemplate the setting sun.
He moved off toward the cottage he had been staying in of late. It was somewhat farther up the slope, set back on a flat shelf and abutted by a stony outcropping. It had been a retreat for one of Saguntum's wealthy leaders, just far enough from the city to provide some quiet, high enough up for the air to be better than that found near the sewers of the city, with a view that one could contemplate indefinitely. Hannibal would not have approved—rather a simple tent or the bare ground, like the men who served them—but the commander was away. Hanno was no stranger to the trials of camp, but when opportunity allowed he preferred solid walls around him and comfort in his bed and the privacy to share it as he saw fit.
While he ascended the hill, the sky bloomed in magnificent color. The horizon glowed radiantly auburn, as if the air itself took on the warmth of the sun and hummed with it. Even the smoke rising from the city caught the crimson heat. Highlights swirled into the billowing gray and black. Hanno remembered the earlier mention of Hephaestus. The sky around his volcano-forge would look much like this. . . . He shook his head to clear it of Greek thoughts. There was only one aspect of Silenus' stories that he cared for: the notion that the Romans read the prophecies correctly when they sought out Cincinnatus. Would that he had such wisdom himself, for he was more puzzled about how to proceed than ever. Was he the drowning man Mandarbal referred to? He felt this to be so, but how did one float in a sea as tumultuous as the one he found himself in?
As he reached his cottage, a figure rose from the ground before it, no soldier or guard but one of the young men who cared for the horses in the hills beyond the camp. He was perhaps fifteen, bare-chested and lithe, a Celt with hair touched by the sun and large black eyes that he kept lowered as the general approached. Hanno did not pause to address the boy, but he was warmed by his presence and thankful for the silent company he was to offer. He walked past him without a gesture or greeting. The boy waited a moment. His eyes rose enough to take in the scene of the city before him, and then he turned and stepped through the threshold.
Hannibal met Hasdrubal en route from New Carthage, and the two brothers rode together at the head of a force of almost twenty thousand. In the week they spent riding inland Hannibal kept his brother tethered to his side, discussing tactics with him, testing his knowledge of the country, quizzing him on the various chieftains, their characters, flaws, and virtues. He needed to know that this young one was capable of the things that were to be asked of him, and the time left for training diminished daily. The army was a mixed company made up partly of the veterans stationed at New Carthage, with some Iberians from the southern tribes, completed by new Libyan recruits and a unit of Moorish mercenaries, and augmented by a company of elephants fresh from North Africa. They had never fought together as one body, but at least they knew the commands as given by the trumpet. Even more important, Hannibal trusted the generals overseeing them to carry out his will.
The farther inland they marched the hotter it grew, dry and unrelenting through the day and a slow bake at night. When they looked back on the column, the army faded rank after rank into a thickening cloud of dust. Hasdrubal once commented that the men were like individual licks of a great fire—a fitting image, Hannibal thought.
Though he spoke of it to no one, Hannibal's wound troubled him constantly. It had half healed into a ragged, fearsome-looking scar, and the leg was just barely
sound enough for him to walk and ride. Synhalus had opposed this excursion, and Hannibal soon acknowledged the physician's wisdom—if only to himself—as days in the saddle took their toll on him. At night the pain of the wound gnawed at his leg with such convulsive ardor that he once dreamed a miniature fox had been sewn alive into the wound. He awoke drenched in sweat and angry at himself. A man should control his pain and not the other way around. His father had exemplified such strength during the last decade of his life, and Hannibal was determined to be no different. To prove it he brought his fist down upon his thigh as if to punish the creature within it, to beat it into submission. This proved largely impossible, however. He was glad when battle came, for during it he truly forgot the pain and had no purpose save one.
The Massylii scouts had brought back partial reports earlier in the day. Therefore Hannibal knew as he approached the river Tagus that the Carpetani were near at hand. But it was not until the full force of the barbarians blocked their path that the situation became completely clear. They stood on the near bank of the river, thousands upon thousands of them, a force larger than any they had yet mustered. Hannibal knew at a glance that this horde represented not a single tribe but the confederation of several. They outnumbered the Carthaginians by at least three to one. Moving forward in a semi-ordered mob, they shouted out in their various dialects and blew their horns and bashed their spears and swords against their shields.
The Barca brothers watched this from atop anxious horses. Hasdrubal cursed that they had no choice but to engage fully, but Hannibal shook his head. It was late afternoon already; the sun was slipping behind the hills to the west. He gave orders for the army to back and fight, back and fight. He engaged chosen units briefly and then withdrew them, inflicting what damage he could with pikemen and with the quick spears of the Moorish skirmishers. The elephants wreaked some havoc among the Carpetani but even these he held at close rein.
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