“The consul Titus Manlius,” Silenus began, “once gave orders to his entire legion that they were not that day to engage the enemy.”
“What enemy?” Hasdrubal asked.
“Not relevant to the story,” Silenus said. “It was a clear enough order and easily obeyed, one would think. But Titus had an impetuous son with other—”
Silenus cut off his words at the entry of the commander. All rose to greet him, but Hannibal squelched any formality with a gesture. He must have had his hair trimmed that very afternoon, for it was shorter than it had been the day before, cut close around the ears and with a straight line across the base of the neck. His face was fresh, and clean-shaven save for his chin beard, which had only been snipped for shape, not shortened. He sat down heavily and took the scrolls handed to him by an assistant. While he stretched them out across the low table, he nodded that the Greek could carry on.
“Titus Manlius had a son,” Silenus resumed, “a brave youth who that very day had an encounter with the enemy. The latter had called the young Titus out to single combat and Titus could not restrain himself. The two did battle and young Titus came away the victor. He slew a distinguished opponent,” Silenus said, “robbed the enemy of a leader, and . . .”
“Disobeyed his father,” Bostar said.
“Exactly. Manlius summoned the young man and called for an assembly to be sounded. Once all were in attendance he gave a speech, the words of which escape me in exact—”
“No!” Bomilcar said. “Surely you were there and can quote him word for word.”
Silenus let this sit and looked sadly around at the company, his eyes alone conveying a humorous disdain for the large Carthaginian. “As I understand it, he spoke of the need for discipline. His son's actions were in contradiction to his order, and his order was a stitch in the fabric that held Roman arms together. If the young Titus was allowed to snap this thread, then the cloak of Roman arms might well fray and come apart at the seams.”
“Sounds like a quote to me,” Hasdrubal said. Bomilcar seconded the notion.
“The consul summoned a lictor,” Silenus continued, “and had his son grappled and bound to a stake and beheaded before the view of all the company, without any further debate. Such is the nature of Roman discipline and the lengths they'll go to in ensuring it, whether justly or not.”
Monomachus said that whether the punishment was just was not the issue. He was sure, on the other hand, that it had proved effective in keeping discipline thereafter. “That, surely, is the point Silenus is making.”
Bostar said, “You all assume too much of the fatherly bond. Perhaps the old man had no love for his issue. Perhaps he was glad to be rid of him.”
“No father can help but love his son,” Hannibal said, absently, only through his words showing that he was listening at all.
“So you would not have acted as Manlius did?” Silenus asked.
“My son wouldn't have disobeyed me. Just as I never disobeyed my father.”
“But if by chance . . .”
Hannibal finally looked up from his charts. “That's not a decision I would have to face. If it's impossible for me, it deserves no comment from me. Silenus, you are needed here as a scribe and chronicler, not as a storyteller. Keep notes of what passes now. The things we will speak of today are known in part to all of you. But I will state the order of things again so that none misunderstand.
“This spring the army of Carthaginian Iberia marches for Rome. Hasdrubal, to you goes command here in Iberia, with all the duties that entails. It will be no easy task to fend off Roman parties while also keeping a tight grasp upon the Celtiberian tribes. It will require all of your skills, and Noba's as well. Vandicar, you and your elephants will sail as far up the coast as possible in transport ships, but by the Pyrenees the creatures will need to be afoot. The rest of us will all march from here in a month's time. We will suffer considerable losses before ever touching down in Italy. No one can say how many, for no one has attempted this before. But we can minimize our losses by carefully managing the march. We must find the best guides for each portion: one pass could lead to death, the next to Rome. We must choose correctly. And we must be stern with the mountain Gauls. We'll send an advance guard two days ahead of the column. They can welcome us as friends and see us provisioned, and they can even join our cause if it is close to their hearts' desires. If they oppose us we'll leave their houses aflame, their men dead, and their women weeping. It's as simple as that.”
Though Hannibal seemed to be ready to move on to the next point, Monomachus signaled with an upraised finger that he would like to speak. “These Gauls will be a thorn in our side each day of our journey,” he said. “I've no doubt that we will kill many of them. But why waste the dead? From the early days of the march, the army should be fed a daily ration of enemy flesh.”
Cries of disgust went up from Hasdrubal and Bostar. Bomilcar slapped his hand down upon the tabletop. Mago blurted, “Is he mad?”
Monomachus spoke calmly over the din. “This way we'll put their very flesh to use. We'll harden the men to the practice and later, should we need to fall back on it in times of famine, the men will find it easier to bear. And also, there are some people who believe one grows stronger by eating the flesh of conquered warriors. Perhaps some essence lives on in the tissue.”
“Hannibal, must we discuss this?” Mago asked.
The commander considered for a moment before answering. “Monomachus, I pray we never become enemies,” he said. “I understand that there is a measure of dark logic in your proposal. An army that not only kills but that dines on its enemies would be an awesome force, preying on the minds and courage of their opponents. But, to be truthful, the idea turns my stomach. And I would not force my men to a practice I will not take part in myself. We will make do as we always have.”
“There are tales of—”
“Let us not think too much on tales. The answer is no. We will make our way through the Alps and smoke the Romans from their den. I will not fail to lead us there through lack of willpower. But we will not become eaters of flesh. Let us move on.”
It was clear that Monomachus had more to say, but Hannibal's voice was firm. Monomachus sucked his cheeks in and stared at a space on the far wall of the chamber.
“Hanno, you will stay with a company guarding the mountain passes. This is our only road to Italy and, once secured, it must be kept open for reinforcements. This is a most important post, for without an artery connecting our army to Iberia we will be cut off within the belly of our enemy.”
Hannibal carried on with his speech, but for a moment Hanno heard nothing save a repetition of the words previously uttered, his fate. What did this mean? A company guarding mountain passes? Was it an insult, to be left on some rocky outcrop among barbarians, a banishment to a snowy wasteland? Or was there some importance to the role and the command—small though it might be—that he would exercise? It was too much to think over quickly, not while he sat among this company, wanting to present an expressionless face, to act as if he had known all along his post and even had some hand in planning it. He felt again the pulsing in his palms. He slid his hands from his thighs, down and out of view.
“Mago will attend me,” Hannibal was saying. “He will be the left arm twinned beside my right. Bostar, Bomilcar, so, too, will you test yourselves on Italian soil. Maharbal, the hooves beneath you will resound in valleys and hills around Rome. This, at least, is the order of the first prong of this attack. Next year we will spend the cold months in the land of the Gauls, where the Boii and Insubres are ready to unite with our cause. The spring of that year we attack, with a larger army than has ever before threatened Italy. Once we have them in a defensive posture, Hasdrubal can follow with another army. Should Baal and the fates favor us, by autumn of the second year hence we will dine within Roman halls, as guests or conquerors, depending on what peace terms the situation dictates.”
“And if we meet Romans while still in Catalon
ia?” Maharbal asked.
After getting Hannibal's approving glance, Bostar answered. “That could be to our advantage. We know that the Romans will divide their consular armies: one for Iberia, another for Africa. If they do land an army in Iberia, it will certainly be in the north, nearer to their Greek allies in Massilia. It would do us no harm to fight there, far from New Carthage. With our victory, they'll recall the second consular force from threatening Africa.”
“Either course of events suits us,” Hannibal said, “although we cannot count on Rome to do our bidding. We must imagine a plan wherein our actions carry us through.”
“Then why not besiege Rome itself?” Bomilcar asked. “We've made no preparations to take siege engines. This must be reconsidered.”
“Siege will not be our first resort. The engines would be too burdensome to journey with us by land. They might reach us by ship, but our navy is too small. We might build the machines once in Italy, but in any case I believe a siege might be an error. Rome is too well fortified.”
“No city can hold out forever,” Bomilcar said.
“Neither can a small army survive indefinitely on hostile lands,” Hannibal answered. “No, we must meet them on the field of battle and beat them resoundingly. We wound them first and then follow until weakness betrays them. We show their Latin allies not the city of a strong friend under threat, but proof that their masters have a superior on the field. A winner never lacks for friends. Said simply: We march to Italy, we defeat the Romans in battle, we break the old alliances with their neighbors, and then—only then—we press upon Rome itself. I've spoken to each of you fully about these matters. This is how we will proceed. Through the rest of the early spring you will each school yourselves in all the matters important to your roles.
“Now,” he said, leaning over the charts and smoothing them with his hands, “let us examine all these points in more detail.”
Hanno, bending forward with the others, watched his brother's profile: his hair, wavy and dark, forehead ridged with the thoughts he sought to convey, eyebrows like two ridges of black basalt, full, shapely mouth. For the first time he gave a word to the feeling he had for his brother, the sentiment that lingered just beyond his love, at the backside of admiration and adoration, fast behind the awareness that they shared blood and features and a scent so similar even hounds could not tell them apart. In a place further back than all these things, a seed planted in his infancy, there resided an emotion, named now for the first time. It humbled him just to form the word in his head and hear it sound within him.
Hate.
Hasdrubal awoke knowing that he had dreamed of the day of his father's death. He did not remember the particulars of the vision. It faded into the vapors of the unconscious world even as he opened his eyes upon the earthly one. He was left with something equally disturbing—the memory of the actual events, the part he had played in them, and the frightening world in which his childhood was a narrow sliver of his life, maturity demanded even before his body began the change toward manhood.
The second youngest male Barca had emerged into awareness while his homeland was in the depths of defeat. One of the first things he knew of his country was that they had lost a war to a great power called Rome. Lands and property and pride had been taken from them. They had staggered beneath a war indemnity and, further, the city itself had been besieged by its own mercenaries. The outcome of that conflict had been no sure matter. It was only by the belated will of the gods that his father, Hamilcar, had finally managed to raise the siege and drive the mercenaries out into the desert and slaughter forty thousand of them in a trap of epic proportions, leaving a mass grave almost beyond imagination—though Hasdrubal's youthful mind created images of it often.
This was the Carthage into which the boy Hasdrubal came of age. As some children run up dark stairs for fear of the imaginary beast behind them, Hasdrubal ran through his early years pursued by massed armies of the dead waiting to sweep away all he knew in a whirlwind of violence. He might have grown into a shy adult had not his father modeled such complete, military confidence. Hamilcar set out to change this world, with Iberia as his stepping-stone, with his sons nipping at his heels like cubs. With a foothold on the river Betis, he carved his way into Iberia through brute force, constant war, prevailing by the sheer might of Barca will.
The year of Hamilcar's death it was the city of Ilici that put up the fiercest resistance. Hamilcar's siege of the city had dragged through late summer, through autumn, and on into winter. The quarrelsome people showed no signs of surrender. In their resolve, they even tossed the bodies of the old and infirm over the walls, men and women with their throats cut, a message that they preferred death to starvation: better to be corpses than to be the slaves of the Carthaginians. Patient but resolved, Hamilcar released some of his army for the winter and kept up the siege with a reduced force. He believed that patience would assure them victory. They had recourse to resupply while the suffering Ilicians did not. His position was strong. It was simply a matter of time, and the two sons attending him—Hannibal and Hasdrubal—would benefit from the lesson of patience.
When Orissus, a tribal king from just north of the city, approached them under the banner of peace it seemed reasonable enough. The man had been on favorable terms with them for some time. It was likely he wanted to better his position to exploit the Ilicians' misfortune. He offered Hamilcar entertainment in his stronghold, a reprieve from the siege, and the opportunity to consider an allegiance between them. He spoke with no guile on his face, offering simple truths and promises kind to the ears of battle-weary men.
In private council to consider the offer, Hamilcar asked his sons their opinion. Hannibal, long his father's confidant, warned against accepting. He argued that they should bear out the cold and see the siege through. Let rest come when the work was completed, not before. For his part, Hasdrubal was not yet accustomed to being asked his opinion. He fumbled for an answer, trying to disguise his own eagerness with logic. “We have no reason to doubt Orissus,” he said. “He's been a friend thus far. And there is your health to consider, Father. Cold is sometimes the death of great men.”
Hamilcar heard them both out, standing with his arms folded, the bunched muscles of his arms prickled with cold bumps, his breathing phlegmy and difficult. He pointedly did not comment on the question of his health, but he did overrule Hannibal. It was not simply a matter of pleasure, he explained, but an opportunity to build political alliances.
They set out with a mounted company two hundred strong, leaving some behind to maintain the siege. Hamilcar rode at the side of the Iberian, sharing a skin of warmed, spiced wine between them. He honestly seemed to enjoy the other man's company, although Hamilcar was such a statesman that it was hard to say for sure. The sky was slate-gray and so thick that one could not sight the orb of sun in it. It rained steadily, as it had done all week long, not freezing on the ground and yet so unrelenting as to chill one to the bowels. Hasdrubal, following the muddy flanks of his father's horse, wished only that they would move faster. He had notions of native girls in his head, of wine and warmth and all the tastes he had developed a liking for. Silly things to think on, he knew, not worthy of his consideration. Glancing to his side he saw his brother and knew from his focused, stern face that no such desires clouded his thoughts. Hasdrubal remembered thinking an ill thought of his brother at that moment. It was something he might well have forgotten, but it was welded into his consciousness by the actions that interrupted it.
A Massylii scout came galloping in from the rear and beckoned anxiously for Hamilcar's council. He said something in his own tongue that got the commander's complete attention. He pulled up and moved off to hear the scout. What the Massylii said was this: A mixed company of Iberian infantry and cavalry had dropped into the valley behind them, cutting them off from Ilici and trailing behind them. What number? The Numidian was not sure for the visibility was poor, but he estimated a thousand, perhaps half that again conceal
ed by tree cover. He believed they had seen him and would be fast behind.
“What people?” Hamilcar asked.
The Numidian, without raising his gaze but using only his chin, indicated those he believed responsible.
Hamilcar snapped his gaze around at Orissus. Meeting his eyes was all the confirmation he needed. The Iberian recognized this. He yanked his horse into motion, followed at once by the rest of his company. Hamilcar barked an order. Monomachus and a small contingent of cavalry went off in pursuit. But before Hamilcar could speak another command—with divots of mud thrown high from horse hooves still falling around them—the ambushing army breached the far horizon.
It was not even a battle or a running skirmish but simply pure flight after that. There was no time to consult maps save the internal one that Hamilcar had etched inside his skull. They rode west at a dead run, vaulting over the bodies of Orissus and his men, not even pausing to comment on their betrayers. The opening of a valley to the north brought with it yet another band of attackers. The Carthaginians raced past and forded the river without a pause. They emerged on the other side under a barrage of arrows, some hitting their targets, most skittering across the stones. They were at this for the better portion of the winter afternoon.
By the time they reached the impassable river the horses were lathered beyond all health. Before them churned an unnamed river that would have been easily crossed in summer. But now it was in full spate, high enough to cover the base of trees and churn brown water through branches usually the home of birds and squirrels, not fish. His father gave a command then, the only one of his that Hasdrubal wished he had disobeyed.
“You two,” he said, “ride south with the Sacred Band. Go now, at all speed. Meet me in a week's time in Acra Leuce.”
With that, Hamilcar spun his horse and rode, yelling to the rest of the soldiers to follow him. Hasdrubal glanced at his brother and for a moment saw the same concern on his face. To go upriver was madness. With the Iberians fast behind him, Hamilcar would have no escape route, for the river in its higher sections would surely be a tumbling torrent. Hasdrubal wanted to cry out for his father to stop, to halt, to reach forward and grasp the great man by the hair and stop him. He wanted all this, but turning once more to his brother he found Hannibal's face had changed. The visage now directed at him was set in stone, unkind and pitiless.
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