“Fabius Maximus!” he said. “I worked under your father. I know his greatness despite all those who malign him. Do you think he would ever consider the plan you here devise? Have you all forgotten yourselves? If so, then Rome truly died today. We are no more than the corpse; your words, the first stink of decay.”
The younger Fabius began to explain himself, but Publius brought his sword hand down and punched him square on the mouth. The man dropped like a deadweight, unconscious.
“I swear to you all,” Publius said, “that I will allow no man to abandon our country, nor will I betray it myself! I swear a dying oath to Rome. If ever I fail it, may Jupiter bring down upon me a shameful death. May he destroy my family honor and cast all I possess into the hungry mouths of my enemies. I swear this; who among you swear with me? And who among you die on my sword?”
Having spoken, he stood surrounded by a room full of mutinous officers, his single blade raised against them. Laelius flanked him, his hand in a white-knuckled grip around the hilt of his sword. But the others did not attack. Instead they each and all lowered their eyes. As he listened to first one man and then another take the oath, Publius told himself that this was not the end, not of the war, not of his nation. The sun would rise tomorrow. The war would carry on. Publius Scipio had not died at Cannae as he might. Instead he recognized his life's greatest challenge. He would meet Hannibal again. He was sure of it.
Aradna would have forgotten about the young Carthaginian soldier if she had not stumbled upon him in the festering, open-air graveyard of Cannae. She and her band and other bands of camp followers rose before the dawn and greeted the sun at the edge of the battlefield. Usually, they would have swarmed through the dead at the first tentative light, but the sight before them was an unusual horror. The carnage of the day before was past belief. Looking upon the great, jutting, tangled, shadowed devastation, none of them dared enter. Moans filled the air with a low, unnatural tone of anguish. Even the least superstitious among the camp followers feared to tread carelessly among so many soulless creatures. The various afterworlds to which these men hurtled headlong could only hold so many new souls. Surely many of them lingered on this plain, angry at their lot and dangerous to the living.
Aradna, standing to the east of the field, felt the heat of the sun touch the back of her head and slant down her shoulders. She watched as the first touches of gold illuminated portions of the dead and crept down into crevices and gashes, across faces and private parts alike. The human form lost all reason in the jumble. Arms and legs twisted at angles impossible for the living, reaching up from the piles of bodies three, four, and sometimes even more bodies deep. Wounds lay open to flies. Slivers of bone jutted into the air. Flesh had taken on infinite coloration: shades of blue and purple, white as bright ivory, yellow and brown and sometimes strangely crimson. On several occasions Aradna's eyes tricked her into believing that among the human forms were the half-roasted carcasses of swine. But this was, of course, not the case. It was just that some men, in death, failed to look human. The view was no better in the light than before, save that now the carnage was betrayed for what it was—nothing ghostly, just the barbarous work of men on a scale never seen before. This, at least, was something the camp followers understood. They began their labor.
Why she stopped above the young soldier she could not later say, except to explain that she often had to pause that day and steady herself and take shallow breaths. He was buried to mid-torso in the arms and limbs of others. They propped him up so that he was almost vertical, with his head tilted back. Grime caked his face, sweat and blood and dirt commingled into a mask all men shared alike. His mouth gaped open to the air like so many others. A fly buzzed about the cavity, landing on his teeth, crawling over his lips and around the rim of his nostrils. Recognition crept into her slowly. She stared at his face so long that the strange, naked soldier she had met twice and still thought about occasionally emerged from beneath the mask. His features slowly aligned themselves into shapes and contours she recognized. She bent close to him, thinking him dead and feeling no threat from a dead man, touched by curiosity and the slightest notion of sadness.
The soldier grunted, stirred a little, and raised an arm partway up from the muck. That was the first indication she had that he lived. She set down the sack she had already stuffed full with items of jewelry and coins and sacred tokens, jeweled daggers and gilded bits pried from helmets and armor, anything that struck her as valuable in relation to its weight and size. She sat on top of her treasure and reached out a hand toward the man. The flesh at his neck was warm to the touch. She found a pulse and felt it beat beneath her fingers. He might have been unconscious, but the life inside him still seemed strong. She pulled her hand away and sat a while longer, studying him. Already she felt a strange intimacy between them. She had touched his flesh. She stared at him now as he really was, unconscious of her. What, she asked herself, could she learn of this man from his sleeping face?
She did not have time to consider this for too long. The surviving soldiers were up now, moving in small groups across the battlefield. They scavenged also, but they went armed. Judging by the occasional cries of pain, she knew they were dispatching the wounded: the enemy certainly, but also some of their own if they believed them beyond mending. What might they make of the soldier before her?
Aware that she could only do what she wanted to if she did not think about it fully, Aradna put the consequences out of her mind and searched out the men of her band. With their bewildered aid, she wrenched the soldier free from the rest and dragged him to their camp. They did not question her; each in his own way loved her. In this they were more like family than anyone she had known since childhood. She thanked them and said no more and with her gestures warned them to be still if they wished to stay near the light of her favor.
That evening she sat beside the soldier beneath her hide shelter. He still slept soundly, snoring now that he was on his back.
“Never has a man been so tired,” she muttered. “Only men can sleep so deeply.”
She unbuckled his armor, lifted it from him, and set it to the side. She peeled his tunic away from his flesh. The fabric was stiff with dried sweat and grime, with blood, though she did not know whether it was his or other men's. She probed him with her fingers, searching for wounds. And there were many: cuts all over his arms and legs, a piercing wound under his collarbone, a gash in one of his nostrils. Bruises bloomed over every inch of him. These blood wounds must have drained his soul force terribly, but to her eyes none seemed fatal.
The soldier stirred.
Aradna snatched the torch up and held it between them. His eyes cracked open and seemed to focus on the hide above him. She believed she saw conscious thought in his gaze, but perhaps this was not so. He closed his eyes again and the rhythm of his slumber returned.
She carried on with her work. She dipped a cloth in herbed water and gently touched it to his face. She held the fabric there for a moment. When he did not react, she drew it across his forehead, wiping away the grime to reveal the rich, sun-browned skin beneath. As she peeled away the concealing layers, the soldier's face emerged. He had a small mouth, a somewhat wide forehead, and a perfectly formed nose, evenly placed and uniform, save for the scab of the small cut. His eyes pressed against the thin skin of their lids in such a way that she believed she could make out their character. She had to lean close to verify her impression, near enough that she held her breath for fear that he would feel it brushing against his moist skin. Still she saw the same thing. His eyes, they were gentle.
During this process the old woman, Atneh, had come over to the shelter and peered in several times. On each occasion she turned away without speaking and sat by the fire. Aradna knew Atneh had asked that the men stay near in case the soldier woke up in a rage. She fed them a soup she cooked on occasion, made from ingredients she did not name and about which they did not ask. They all sat quietly and talked over their departure on the coming morning.
They were loaded beyond their capacity; best to make for the coast and on to whatever destination they chose after that. Eventually, Atneh squatted beside the younger woman and watched her for some time in silence.
“I never thought I would see that look on your face,” Atneh said.
“What?” Aradna asked. She felt her cheeks flush and she turned her face away.
“We women are all fools in our youth. I was. My mother was before me. The gods wish it, so that they may sport with us. Men are fools as well, but that is different. . . . Women more often grow to wisdom. I had hoped that was true of you. I see I was mistaken.”
“I don't know what you speak of.”
“Yes, you do. Don't lie to me. It's useless and insults us both.”
Aradna said, “Aunt, it's just that his face isn't like other men's. In sleep he looks like a boy I would choose as a son, as a brother.”
This did not move the old woman. “Leave him,” she said. “Tomorrow we go; he doesn't. Who can judge a man by his face? Better to judge him by his genitals and be wary of what hangs there. This one will bring you nothing but trouble. Do you hear? Leave him and carry on toward your goal. What is it you want of life?”
“Very little,” Aradna said.
“But say it to me. What do you want? What are the things you told me in confidence? Say them again.”
Aradna shook her head. “Very little,” she repeated. “I want to go home to Father's island. I want to herd goats on the hills and watch boats pass at a distance. I want a quiet corner of the world away from all of this. Every day I want a little less. . . . Aunt, I just want peace.”
The old woman nodded through this, solemn, her eyes fixed on the young woman and full of sadness. “Tell me, then: What place has this murderer on that island? Hmm? Do you truly think this killer of Romans, this African, would allow you the peace you have earned? Be no fool, dear one. Leave this man. He lives. That's more than he deserves.”
Aradna could not dispute any of this. She knew Atneh was right, and yet she could not help making one last protest. “Aunt, several times already I have met this man. Twice before and now yet again. What does it mean that I found him a third time?”
The old woman answered quickly, struggling to her feet in the process. “It means you should have no doubt. He's more devious than he looks. Perhaps he's entrapped you in a spell. Either way, leave him.”
And so she did. The next morning, she dragged away everything that she could from Cannae on a sledge harnessed to her back. They were to return to the coast, where, she believed, she would arrange passage across the sea to Greece. She was going home. Only a fool would do otherwise. It wasn't until late that day that she realized she did not know the man's name. Three times now, Fortune had brought them together, but she could not think of him by name.
Hannibal made sure that the body was tended in a manner commensurate with the quality of the man. He helped the attendants lay him out on the beam. He wound ribbons of white cloth around his ankles and across the groin, over the arms at the elbows and across his forehead, securing him into a rigid, disciplined posture. An officer's body should not be seen to flop about like others. He deserved better than that. That was why his innards had been scooped up from where they had escaped him, cleaned, replaced, and sewn into the cavity that housed them. Hannibal watched as the priests anointed his flesh with fragrant oils and tucked a small charm bag beneath the fold of cloth near his hands. Mandarbal entered once all this had been concluded and spoke his strange words over the corpse. He dotted the man's forehead and shoulders, hands and feet with his warm blood, drawn just moments before from a slit in the priest's wrist.
After Mandarbal departed, the commander dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against his friend's chest and murmured the man's name. Bostar. He repeated it softly, over and over again, a single word made into a prayer and a speech, a confession and an apology. He spoke as if he were alone with his deceased secretary, but his remaining officers rimmed the walls of the council tent. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with revelry at their victory, but the aftermath of the battle provided no respite from toil. There had been, and still were, a thousand different matters to attend to. This pause to mourn the passing of one of their own provided for most of them the first hushed moment for reflection.
Each of them had been wounded in some way. Maharbal had been hacked down to the bone of his lower leg with a dullish sword. He could barely stand, but claimed that he did not notice the injury when mounted. Bomilcar bore a gash across his forehead where a passing spear point had carried away a strip of flesh. He would wear the scar of it ever after, the first point on his massive visage that any newcomer's eyes settled on. He joked that he could tap the bone of his skull directly to clear his muddled head. Monomachus' arms were battered with bruised, oozing wounds, and he wore a cloth wrapped around his left hand, the material tainted a reddish brown where he had received the point of a dart thrown at close range. Carthalo lay on a cot in his tent, a spear wound in his thigh. Several lesser officers stood or sat about the chamber as their injuries allowed.
Mago watched his brother with a pained expression that had nothing to do with the physical. By the grace of Baal, he had survived the battle largely unscathed. He and his handful of attendants had fought near the front ranks of Gauls. His voice was still raw from all the yelling, from his crazed attempt to manage the wild energy of barbarians, to control their retreat and stay alive and watch Hannibal close the jaws of his trap. In the hours of battle, moment after chaotic moment passed as if it might be his last, each instant laced with a hundred ways for him to die. He had personally killed more men than he could count. He had stepped back, always at the edge of the retreat, receding before the Roman line as it trod over his soldier's bodies.
One of his guards had been impaled beneath the chin by a Roman spear. The weapon struck so hard that Mago, standing just beside him, heard the vertebrae snap under the pressure and saw how strangely the man's head hung from the spear point, attached to the body by tendrils of flesh but no longer connected to the framework hidden beneath. He still carried the sickening image in his head, ready to impose itself on any person walking past, any face he looked at. Nor was it the only disturbing image. He tried to flush these out with reasoned thought and celebration, but as ever he hid within himself the strange duality of character he had always found in battle. He was both inordinately skilled at it and absurdly haunted by it afterward. Strangely, it was he and Hannibal—the two most slightly injured—who seemed most troubled.
Hannibal was still whispering the dead man's name when Gemel stepped into the tent. He had assisted the commander for some years now, but he seemed nervous in his new role as Bostar's replacement, clumsy in it and hesitant in his speech. He lowered his head and stood in silence.
But Hannibal must have sensed his presence. Without lifting his head he asked, “What do we know for certain?”
Gemel glanced around at the others, but they all knew whom the commander addressed and with what question. “We can be sure of little, sir,” he began. “The Gauls suffered most. They are still counting, but they may have lost more than four thousand. We cannot account for two thousand Iberians and African troops, and we lost at least two hundred from the combined cavalry. Commander, I am sure of none of these figures. This is just the best we could gather throughout the day.”
“And of the enemy?”
“Your estimate, sir, would surpass mine in accuracy. We've captured a full twenty thousand—many of them wounded and dying—and taken both their camps. Some hid in Cannae itself. We are still rounding them up. A few escaped to Canusium and Venusia—”
Hannibal lifted his head. “Just give me numbers, Gemel, a simple tally.”
“The best figure I can give this morning comes from the Romans themselves. They say they were ninety thousand strong. Twenty thousand of these we captured. Perhaps another ten thousand escaped us. So . . . This field may well be the death of sixty tho
usand of them.”
Maharbal could not help but speak up. “Do you hear that, Hannibal? Think of it—sixty thousand! And the figure may be higher than that! Let me do what I proposed earlier. My men could ride before the dawn. Do not consider me injured—”
“I've already answered you, Maharbal,” Hannibal said. He touched on the horseman with his one-eyed gaze, briefly. “I rejoice that you are so hungry to sack Rome. But he is a fool who does not place himself within a framework of other men's actions. We are not the first to conquer Roman legions on their own land. The Gauls sacked the city of Rome and had their way with her as if she were a whore. They left loaded with plunder and stories of their own greatness. But what did it come to? Rome went on. The Romans crept back into their city and built it again and spread their power and now have little to fear from the Gauls except annoyance.”
“We are not barbarians,” Maharbal said. “Their story is not the same as ours.”
“Pyrrhus of Epirus did battle here—”
“Nor are you Pyrrhus!” Maharbal cut in. “He knew how to win a victory, but not how to use one. Do not make a different form of the same mistake.”
Hannibal glanced up at him again, studying him as he might a stranger who had spoken out of turn. But after a moment he seemed to find the man he recognized and spoke to him with tired patience. “Pyrrhus defeated Rome on the battlefield,” he said, “a deed that earns him my respect. Again and again he emerged victorious, but still he gained no foothold. Though he won, he lost. Rome replaced its soldiers like the Hydra replacing heads. That's what Pyrrhus never understood. Rome always has more men. Not because their women push them out of the womb any faster, but because they use the wombs of others. If they run low, they call upon their municipal cities, upon the colonies, and, beyond that, upon the allied states. It is that that gives them power. Sever those heads, and the picture is much different. That is something Pyrrhus never succeeded at. He never isolated the Romans. That is the key, to cut them off from the outside world, hack at her bonds with her neighbors. This done, Rome is just a city like any other. And then any city—not only Carthage—may deal with her as she deserves. Rome will find herself the most hated creature the world has known. This, Maharbal, is as true today as when I first explained it to you. I know my mind on this. I will strike Rome not with the greatest force, but with just the right blows to find vulnerable flesh.”
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