The chamber was silent for some time. Then, gradually, various senators posed questions. A few debated the issue of Publius' youth. Still others suggested that he need not sacrifice himself out of mourning. The truth was that with several enemy armies roaming Iberia some in the Senate were whispering that they should write the place off for the time being. But this was just talk. In the end, the senators, knowing that no one else wanted the assignment, acquiesced to the young man's wishes. He would not have a great army. He would not have the full resources of the state. And the task was formidable. But if he wanted it . . .
Sapanibal never spoke a word to Imilce about her attempt to sail to Italy. She never explained how she found out about her plan, never chastised her for the foolishness of it. To Imilce, this silence became an even greater admonishment. Hers had been too absurd an idea even to merit reproach. She could not explain it herself. It had just come upon her suddenly: the knowledge that Hannibal wintered near Capua, the desire to fly to him. What might she have found, arriving unannounced in some foreign port? Would Hannibal have welcomed her? Would he even have recognized her, or she him? And what if she had been captured by the enemy?
She still believed Sapanibal a coldhearted creature, but with each passing day Imilce felt herself more and more in her sister-in-law's debt. One of the strange things about the family she had married into was that there was something about each of them that made Imilce crave their approval. This was not usual for her. Most people, she had learned long ago, are not worthy to judge others. She had found that many wore their avarice in the motion of their hands, their lust in the pout of their lips, their insecurities on their tongues, their petty minds behind the flutter of their eyelids. Not so with Barcas. Each was an island of stillness to her. Sapanibal had taken inside herself the discipline of her family name and demonstrated it in the only ways possible for a woman of their class. Even Sophonisba—for all her chatter and gossiping—contained strength unusual for her age. And Didobal awed Imilce with every motion: every word said or not said, each gesture, the placement of her gaze and the tilt of her head and the flare of her nostrils in breathing. Their encounters were tense affairs, during which the matriarch rarely uttered more than the polite minimum.
In the mild, damp weather of early spring, Imilce earned the honor of braiding the older woman's hair. She had been in training for this throughout her time in Carthage. The intricacy of Carthaginian headdresses was wholly new to her, influenced, she heard, by the ways of people far to the south. On odd days of the week, she met Didobal in her quarters, in a small chamber whose walls were hung with layer upon layer of colorful cloth. The room was always warm, heady with incense and full of threat. Oil lamps stood on stands all around the floor: tiny flames, but so many that they gave off an almost even light. Imilce once singed her gown negotiating them. Another time she knocked two over with a single misstep. Servants dashed in with wet blankets to squelch the fire. Didobal did not comment on either incident.
One morning, weeks after her aborted journey, Imilce ran her fingers from the top of the woman's head down through her tresses. Didobal's hair was thick in her fingers, dark and heavy. It did not fall limply around her, but had a wavy, tensile strength in each strand. Imilce combed the hair into strips measured by fingers. With the aid of an assistant, she began to treat them separately. Some she sprinkled with an oil fragrant with cinnamon. Into others she combed dust flecks of silver. Still others she bound in ribbons of seaweed. Today she was to fashion her mother-in-law's hair in imitation of a certain bust of Elissa, a design of tight plaits low across the back of the head, building a platform into which to set the gold headpiece that would anchor two great curving horns of hair.
As happened too often, Imilce found herself speaking to fill the nervous silence. Words issued from her mouth of their own accord: an observation about the rising level of water in the cisterns, a recollection of her dream from the previous evening, a question—which went unanswered—about the fate of Tanit's veil, that holy relic so beloved of the goddess. And then, without knowing she was about to say it, she commented on the pain of being separated from her husband for so long. It was unfair, she said, that he fought so far away that he could not return for the winter as most soldiers had throughout history.
Didobal cleared her throat. She touched her assistant with her eyes. The girl stepped back, turned, and moved away. The other servants followed suit. They retreated into the folds of fabric on the walls; their faces went blank, eyes glazed and unfocused, still as statues. All this, Didobal accomplished with a single look. Imilce feared the woman was about to dismiss her, but instead she asked, “You feel a great passion for my son?”
“Yes,” Imilce said.
“Such as few women feel for their husbands?”
“I don't know what other women feel, but I think of him always.”
“By your tone, you suggest that I know nothing of this. Do you think you are the only one who has loved her husband almost to foolishness?”
“No. No, I did not mean . . .”
“I did not know what to make of you when we first met,” Didobal said. “I did not trust you. Forgive me, but it's hard for a mother to watch his son give his affection to another woman. A mother always feels that she came first: the first womb, the first breast between their teeth, the first unreasoning love . . .”
The woman turned her head slowly, tugging the thick braids from Imilce's hands. Her eyes were large, the whites slightly yellowed, deep-veined and very dark in the iris, a brown that at the moment looked solid black. She said, “I'm sure you understand this.”
She turned back and again showed the younger woman her face in profile. “Because of this I couldn't help but receive you warily,” she continued. “I had you watched. It's shameful—but, Imilce, you have hardly done a thing while in Carthage that I did not know of minutes later. Why did I do this? Because a person proves who they are not with their mouth but through the accumulation of actions over time. Were you in my household purely for our riches? Did you care for the fate of your husband, and did you honor his people's traditions in your secret moments? Did you partake in the diversions this city offers even to women of our class? Did you simper and smile beneath the gazes of powerful men? Forgive me, but I had many anxieties.”
Throughout this discourse Imilce attempted to carry on with her work. She set pins to keep the lower plaits in place. Then she picked up an ivory comb to work on the mass of higher hair, somewhat wild now, chaotic compared to the close weave at the back of the neck. But she slowed down as Didobal spoke and, eventually, stood with the comb in hand, held out to the side, inlaid pearls pressed tight between her white fingers. What a set of questions, Imilce thought. For all the world at that moment she could not imagine the answers the woman might have received. She had been watched! All this time . . . In a strange way it made sense. It explained much of her discomfiture. All this time . . .
“Hamilcar was as hard not to love as Hannibal now is,” Didobal said. “They are of the same mold, those two. We who live near to their fire are as blessed as we are cursed. It seems also that you and I are not so different as we seem. During the Mercenary War, I couldn't bear to be separated from my husband. I did what you—with greater wisdom—did not do. I followed him into the desert when he chased the mercenaries away. I caught up with him two days after the battle at Leptis Minor. He was victorious, but never had I seen him so, caked in blood and filth, eyes reddened and skin peeling from him as if he'd been burned. I expected him to be angry, and I was afraid, but he said not a word of reproach. Instead he took me as he never had before, like a lion, growling at me. His passion was beyond words and he did not speak to me through the act at all. He did me no kindness, left me red with the stains of war.
“It was horrible, Imilce, but I thought, that night, that if this was my husband's ardor on campaign, then it was well I should be there, for who but me should receive him like that? The next day he took me by the hand and led me over th
e ridge and down into the valley where they had fought. He showed me the battlefield. He walked me through the high-piled mounds of bodies. Imilce, it was a sight you should never wish to see. Three days in the heat, and the bloated bodies belched gases and shivered as if life still resided in them and came to them in spasms. Some burst as if boiled too long. They sent up the foulest of scents. Scavenging birds blackened the sky, long-necked creatures that flew in from all directions, bald demons.
“And that was just the beginning. I spent the week at my husband's side. He made me watch everything. They spent days tilting up crosses to crucify the captured leaders. Other prisoners they set free without their hands. Some had their feet severed at the ankles and were left to fight off the hyenas. Others they blinded and sliced out their tongues, cut off their manhood, fed live to captured lions. The war had been brutal beyond imagining, and Hamilcar—my husband—answered earlier barbarities in kind. All these years later, these sights are as alive in me as they are real somewhere. Somewhere in this war such scenes are being repeated. The men we love are their architects, or their victims. That is why I chose never to trouble my husband again. I left him to his work, not as a sacrifice, but because I hated the way it made me look at him. I hated—and never understood—how such a man could perform such horrors. Because of this I spent the larger part of my married life away from him. I loved him; and therefore I could barely stand to be with him.
“I'm not sure if this makes sense to you, but do not seek the ways of war, Imilce. Do not wish to understand it. Take your husband in his quiet moments, when he's in your arms and when he looks upon your child with love. You must do this, for if you know too much of a warrior's work you'll grow to hate him. And I would never have you doubt my son.”
“Nor would I,” Imilce whispered.
“Then hold on to your ignorance. Men's follies are better left as mysteries to us.”
“Do you think it is all for nothing?”
“All for nothing?” Didobal pursed her lips. “No, I wouldn't say that. The world thrives on the strife of those living in it. As food nourishes the body, so does turmoil feed the gods. One creature must prevail over another. I would not wish our country to be used like a slave woman, so I pray daily for our victory. What else can we do? On the day this war ends, a new one will begin. It's dreadful, but so it always has been. There is no reason to believe it will change.”
“So we can never live at peace?”
Didobal answered flatly, “Not until the gods are dead. And as we both know, they are immortal. The gods will ever make us dance for them. That is what it means to be born of flesh. In truth, Imilce, I feel the gods are restless with this war. I do not know what will happen, but it's coming quickly, like a storm from the north. Like a tempest blown down from the heavens. Let us keep all of my sons in our prayers.”
Didobal lifted her arm and held her hand out to her daughter-in-law. Imilce took it and felt the woman squeeze her fingers, her regal hand heavy with rings. Something in the pressure made her feel like a child holding a giant's hand. “Forgive my earlier deception,” Didobal said. “I like you very much, daughter.”
Publius sailed from Ostia at the head of a fleet, carrying ten thousand infantrymen and another thousand cavalry, the full measure that Rome allowed him for the year. Barely had his men's feet touched solid ground at Emporiae when he had them exercising to regain the strength the journey had sapped from them. He gathered the battered remnants of the existing army and with them left behind the distractions of the Greek city. They marched to Tarraco, where Publius set up his headquarters and began interviewing anyone and everyone with knowledge he considered useful. He had never been busier. He had never directed so many men, faced such challenges, held such complete responsibility. He knew Rome was too far away to rely on for any guidance, so Iberia was his to win or lose. Only the constant motion kept him from pausing long enough to weigh the staggering gravity of this.
Within seven days, he had sent out invitations to all the tribes aligned with Rome already, and even to a few still with Carthage. The delegations came to him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with more complaints than promises, with wary eyes that took in this youthful new leader skeptically. Was this truly the best Rome could do, to send a boy with barely a hair on his chest? What could he hope to achieve that his father and uncle had not, especially now that the situation was even worse? Cornelius and Gnaeus had been skilled commanders with years of experience, two armies, and a force of allies it had taken years to win. But they had been destroyed. Now, with Mago Barca having arrived over the winter, the Carthaginians had three armies in Iberia. They roiled across the land, storm clouds hurling down bolts of retribution for earlier betrayals. Hanno had hammered the chieftain of the Vaccaei to a cross and sent five hundred of his people's daughters to New Carthage as prisoners. Hasdrubal burned a scorched path along the river Tagus all the way to the Great Sea, enslaving whole tribes, burning villages, twisting their leaders on the burning spit of fright as only Carthaginians knew how to do. Mago laid new levies on the southern tribes and daily built his army into a great horde clamoring to become the second wave to march for Rome. Considering all this, more than one envoy asked, what assurance could Publius give that Rome's cause was not dead and rotten like the corpses of his predecessors?
Strangely, Publius found something calming about staring into these belligerent eyes. As the translators conveyed their messages he took in their foreign features, their varying dress and demeanor. The more disrespect the Iberians showed him, the stronger the set of his jaw, the more steady his gaze, the more fluid the motions of his hands. He promised nothing in exact detail, he said, for no one individual ever decided such complex matters. But he did pledge to fight the Carthaginians as they had never been fought before. He reminded them that never yet had Rome uttered one conciliatory word to the Africans; such was their certainty that the long war would eventually swing their way. They had made mistakes. They had been hasty when they should have been patient, honest when they should have been devious, restrained when they should have exploded with fury. In many ways, they had fought the war unwisely up to this point. Yes, he admitted, even his father had made errors of judgment, but none of these need be repeated.
These speeches met with mixed receptions, but each time he spoke them Publius believed his words a little more. He was discovering traits in himself that he had not known before, but he had little time to pause and consider these things. Laelius, like a twin beside him, did not speak a thought not directly related to the war, so he did not do so either. He trusted no other officer as completely as he did his companion. With him alone, he laid out all the charts and information he had about Iberia. On their hands and knees, they crawled across the marble floor, talking through each piece of information, from the obvious to the most complex. They both believed that they must strike, and soon. They could rely on no reinforcements from Italy and, for all they knew, Hannibal might soon strike another great blow there that would further complicate matters for them. They could win the confidence of old allies and secure new ones only through a victory. A winner always had company.
Such was Publius' thinking on an afternoon two months after his arrival, well into the dry heat of early summer. His period of grace with his men was short. Already he felt them murmuring their doubts. Each passing day suggested hesitation. Had this new commander any plan at all? The truth was that he did not, but he woke and slept and ate and shat with the belief that he was at the verge of revelation, that the key to unlocking Iberia was within his grasp if he just knew how to reach for it.
He entered his war room to find Laelius stretched out atop the charts, writing notes directly onto the parchment. His body covered the circles that marked the three Carthaginian armies. His left ankle hid Hasdrubal's base at the mouth of the Tagus; his right foot lay flat across the Pillars of Hercules, where Mago resided; his torso entirely covered the center of the peninsula, where Hanno based his operations. The single mark
ed spot of importance that was visible fell in another area entirely, one that suddenly appeared to Publius as what it was: completely isolated, lightly protected, vulnerable.
“We've been thinking only of the hounds, but not of the sheep they guard,” Publius said. “Laelius, what do you see when you look at this from on high?”
Laelius stood and peered about. He began by restating his earlier argument that they should seek out Hanno's force first, as he was reportedly having trouble managing his Celtiberian troops. “We could gather at—”
Publius touched him at the wrist. “Friend, think. Remember when you saved me at Cannae? You raised my outlook so that I saw with my enemy's eyes. I learned from you that day, and I'm alive because of it. Now you must use such foresight as a matter of course, each day that passes, each moment until this is concluded. The Barcas don't fight like normal men, and neither will we. Look at these charts and answer me. What is the weak point? What holds all of this together and yet lies exposed?”
It took Laelius only a moment to grasp Publius' meaning. His face shifted from perplexity to mute understanding, and then the left corner of his lips lifted.
When they departed for the south a fortnight later, they traveled in haste, troops marching double time, Laelius and the ships shadowing them offshore, cavalry riding out in small units, hunting any who might betray their movements. Publius had yet to reveal their goal to any but a select few, no more than the fingers on a hand. He was so intent on secrecy that he refused to tell the twenty thousand men of his army anything more than necessary to get them through the day. If his plans for Iberia were to succeed, this first effort must not fail. He left nothing to chance, but this did not stop him from mingling with the men daily. He rode up beside his troops during marches and harangued them from the saddle. Everything was about to change, he declared. The gods themselves had told him so. Never again would they make small war in Iberia. Never would they fight skirmishes for no real gain. Never would they divide their forces and rely so heavily on Iberian honor. They would strike only decisive blows, well timed, perfectly placed, and so effective that the brothers Barca could not recover even from the first attack. Hannibal might have rewritten the rules of warfare; now it was their turn to take up the stylus and inscribe the rest of this history.
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