by George R. R.
I thought about this. Matho had been right. Of all of us, only Lino knew the ways of the Roman slave raiders. If I was to survive, Lino might help me. Perhaps I could learn from him—and still hate him for what he had done.
“Fabius spoke of something called the temptatio,” I whispered.
Lino sighed. “A Latin word. It means a trial, a test, an ordeal. In this case, the temptatio is the journey across the wasteland. The temptatio turns free men into slaves. It begins tomorrow. They’ll make the men march like this, naked and in chains. They’ll simply bind the hands of the women and children and herd them like sheep. By nightfall we’ll reach the place where the path splits. They’ll separate us from the women and children then, and some of the Romans will take them to a different destination by way of a shorter, easier route to the sea. But the men will be driven up the long valley until we finally reach the coast and the slave galleys that are waiting there.”
“Why do they separate the men and women?”
“I think it’s because Fabius wants the women to be kept soft and unharmed; that’s why they take an easier route. But the men he wants tested and hardened. That’s why Fabius will drive us on foot across the desert. Those who falter will be left to die. Those with the strength to survive the journey will be stronger than when they set out, hardy slaves worth a fortune to Fabius and his men when we reach the coast. That’s how the temptatio works.”
He spoke as dispassionately as if he were explaining the workings of a flint or a pulley, but when the firelight caught his eyes, I could see the pain that came from remembering. It took an effort of will to hold fast to my hatred for him, and to keep my voice as cold and flat as his. “Fabius called you his little eagle. What did he mean?”
Lino drew in a sharp breath and hid his face in the shadows. “He lied when he called me that. He said it only to be cruel.” His voice faltered and he shuddered. “All right, I’ll tell you—tell you what I would never speak of before, because like a fool I hoped that it was all past and I would never have to face it again. Once thetemptatio begins, Fabius will choose two of us from among the captives. One for punishment, the other for reward. The rabbit and the eagle. Both will serve as examples to the other captives, clouding their minds, shaming them with fear, tempting them with hope. The eagle he’ll elevate above the other captives, making sure he’s well fed and clothed, treating him almost like one of his own men, testing him to see if he can turn him against the others, seducing him with promises of freedom.” He fell silent.
“And the rabbit?”
Lino was silent.
“The rabbit, Lino. Tell me!”
“The fate of the rabbit will be very different.” His voice grew dull and lifeless. A chill passed though me as I understood.
“And last time,” I whispered, “when Fabius captured your tribe—you were his rabbit.”
He made no answer.
I sighed. “And tonight, in his tent, Fabius promised that you would be the eagle. That’s why you told him where the women were hidden.”
Lino nodded. He began to sob.
“But you escaped him, Lino. You escaped last time. It can be done.”
He shook his head. His voice was so choked, I could hardly understand him. “It could never happen again. I beat him, Hanso, don’t you understand? By escaping, I beat him at the game. Do you think he would let me do it again? Never! When he rode down the line of captives, when he saw us standing side by side and recognized me, that was when he chose his rabbit.”
“I see. But if you’re to be his rabbit, then who is the eagle?”
Lino lifted his face into the firelight. Tears ran down his cheeks. He stared straight at me with a strange, sad fury, amazed that I had not yet understood.
* * * *
III
In the morning, the Romans fed each of us a ladle full of gruel, then led us to the place where the women and children were gathered. The elders were missing. Fabius did not explain what he had done with them, but vultures were already circling over the open space beyond the ridge.
They marched us through the boulder-strewn foothills, over rugged, winding paths. The pace was slow to allow the children to keep up, but the mounted Romans used their whips freely, barking at us to stay in formation, punishing those who stumbled, shouting at the children when they wept.
At sundown, still in the foothills, we came to a place where the path diverged. The women and children were taken in a different direction. No words of parting were allowed. Even furtive glances were punished by the whip. We slept that night in the open, laid out in a straight line with our chains bolted to iron stakes driven into the ground. The Romans pitched tents for themselves. At some point they came and took Lino. All through the night, I could hear them singing and laughing. Fabius laughed louder than all the rest.
Just before dawn, Lino was returned. The clatter of his chains woke me. He couldn’t stop trembling. I asked him what had happened. He hid his face and wouldn’t answer.
On the second day we descended from the foothills into the long valley. The mountains gradually became more distant on either side until there was only harsh blue sky from horizon to horizon. The vegetation grew scarcer as the parched earth beneath our feet turned into a vast sheet of white stone dusted with sand, as flat and featureless as if it had been pounded by a great hammer.
In the midst of this expanse, amazingly, we came to a small river, too wide for a man to jump across and quite deep. It snaked northward up the middle of the valley flanked by steep banks of stone.
The sun blazed down on my naked shoulders. Though the river was only paces away—we could hear it lapping against its banks—the Romans gave us water only at dawn and sunset. We thirsted, and the sight and sound of so much water, so near, was enough to drive a man mad.
That afternoon, Fabius rode up alongside me and offered me water to drink, leaning down from his mount and holding the spout of his water-skin to my lips. I looked up and saw him smile. I felt Lino’s eyes on my back. But as the spout passed between my lips, I didn’t refuse it. I let the cool water fill my mouth. I could not swallow fast enough, and it spilled over my chin.
That night I was given an extra portion of gruel. The others noticed, but when they began to whisper among themselves, the Romans silenced them with a crack of the whip.
After all the others slept, Lino was taken to Fabius’s tent again. He did not return for hours.
On the third day, thetemptatio claimed its first victim: Gebal, my mother’s brother. It was Uncle Gebal who had given me my first bow and arrow when I was no taller than a man’s knee, and taught me to hunt the deer in the hills outside Carthage; Gebal who told me tales of Queen Dido and her brother, King Pumayyaton of Tyre; Gebal who taught me to honor the great Hannibal in our prayers, even though Hannibal had failed to conquer Rome and died a broken man in exile. At midday he began to shout, and then he bolted toward the river, dragging along the rest of us chained to him. The Romans were on him in an instant, forcing him back with their spears, but he struggled and screamed, cutting himself on the sharp points.
Fabius himself dismounted, removed Gebal from the line, lifted him off his feet, and threw him from the steep bank into the water. Weighted by his iron collar, Gebal must have sunk like a stone. There was the sound of a splash, then a silence so complete, I could hear the low moan of the arid north wind across the sand. The captives didn’t make a sound. We were too stunned to speak. Our eyes were too dry for tears.
“So much for those who thirst,” said Fabius.
It was also on that day that Fabius truly set me above and apart from the others. Until then his favors had extended only to the extra portions of water and gruel. But that day, as the sun reached its zenith and even the strongest among us began to stagger from the relentless heat, Fabius removed me from the line.
“Have you ever ridden a horse?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then I’ll teach you,” he said.
The
chains were removed from the collar around my neck. My hands were released and retied in front of me, and a thin robe was thrown over my shoulders. The Romans lifted me onto the back of a black stallion. Two sets of reins were fixed to the beast’s bridle, one tied to Fabius’s saddle and the other placed in my hands. A waterskin was hung around my neck, so that I could drink at will. I knew the others were watching in envy and confusion, but my legs were weak, my throat dry, and my shoulders blistered from the sun. I didn’t refuse his favors.
As we rode side by side, Fabius tersely pointed out the parts of the harness and saddle and explained the art of riding. I had been apprehensive when they first placed me on the beast, thinking it would throw me to the ground. But our pace was slow, and I soon felt at home on its back. I also felt a strange kind of pride, to be elevated so high above the ground and moving so effortlessly forward, the master of so much power tamed between my legs.
That night I was chained apart from the others, given a pallet to sleep on and as much as I wanted to eat and drink. As I fell asleep, I heard the others muttering. Did they think I had betrayed the women, and this was my reward? I was too sleepy from the heat of the day and the food that filled my belly to care. I slept so soundly, I didn’t even notice when Lino was taken away that night.
The days blurred into one another. For me they were long and grueling but not beyond endurance. My worst complaints were the sores that chafed my thighs and buttocks, which were unaccustomed to the friction of the saddle.
For the others it was very different. Day by day, I saw them grow more desperate. The ordeal was worst for Lino. He was moved to the head of the line, where he was forced to set the pace. The Romans swarmed about him like hornets, stinging him with theirs whips, driving him on. Whenever anyone faltered behind him, the chain pulled at his iron collar, so that his neck became ringed with blisters and bruises. I did my best not to see his suffering.
“You’re not like the others, Hanso,” said Fabius one day, riding along beside me. “Look at them. Thetemptatio doesn’t change a man, it only exposes his true nature. See how weak they are, how they stumble and walk blindly on, their minds as empty as the desert. And for all their sentimental vows of loyalty to one another, there’s no true brotherhood among them, no honor. See how they shove and snarl, blaming each other for every misstep.”
It was true. Chained together, the captives constantly jostled each other, tripping and pulling at each other’s throats. Any interruption in the march brought the whips on their shoulders. The men were in a constant state of anger, fear, and desperation; unable to strike back at the Romans, they turned against each other. The Romans now spent as much time breaking up fights among the captives as driving them on. I looked down on the captives from the high vantage of my mount, and I could hardly see them as men any longer. They looked like wild animals, their hair tangled and knotted, their skin darkened by the sun, their faces beastlike and snarling one moment, slavish and cowering the next.
“You’re not like them, Hanso,” Fabius whispered, leaning close. “They’re rabbits, cowering in holes, nervously sniffing the air for danger, living only to breed and be captured. But you, Hanso, you’re an eagle, strong and proud and born to fly above the rest. I knew it from the first moment I saw you, flying at me with that dagger. You’re the only brave man among them. You have nothing in common with this lot, do you?”
I looked down at the haggard line of captives, and did not answer.
As the temptatio wore on, I felt more and more removed from the suffering of the others. I still slept in chains at night, but I began to take my evening meal in Fabius’s tent along with the Romans. I drank their wine and listened to their stories of battles fought in faraway places. They had spilled much blood, and they were proud of that fact, proud because the city they fought for was the greatest on earth.
Rome! How the soldiers’ eyes lit up when they spoke of the city. In the great temples they worshipped gods with outlandish names—-Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, and, especially, Mars, the war god, who loved the Romans and guided them always to victory. In the vast marketplaces, they spent their earnings on luxuries from every corner of the world. In the Circus Maximus, they gathered by the tens of thousands to cheer the world’s fastest charioteers. In the arena, they watched slaves and captives from all over the world fight combats to the death. In the sumptuous public baths, they look their leisure, soothed their battle-weary muscles, and watched naked athletes compete. In the wild taverns and brothels of the Subura (a district so notorious, even I had heard of it), they took their pleasure with pliant slaves trained to satisfy every lust.
I began to see how cramped and pitiful had been our lives as fugitives in the desert, fraught with fear and hopelessness and haunted by memories of a city that was gone forever. Carthage was only a memory now. Rome was the greatest of all cities, and stood poised to become greater still as her legions looked to the East for fresh conquests. Rome was a hard place to be a slave, but for her free citizens, she offered endless opportunities for wealth and pleasure.
As I was led out of the tent each night, not wanting to leave its cool and cushioned comfort, the Romans would be leading Lino in. I saw the terror in his eyes only in glimpses, for I always averted my face. What they did to him in the tent after I left, I didn’t want to know.
* * * *
IV
It was on the fourteenth day of the temptatio that Lino escaped.
The featureless desert had gradually given way to a region of low hills carpeted with scrubby grass and dotted with small trees. The mountains had drawn close on either side. In the northern distance, they almost converged at a narrow pass that led to the coast beyond. The river flowed through the pass into a hazy green distance where, framed by the steep walls of the gorge, I could barely discern a glimpse of the sea, a tiny glint of silver under the morning sun.
I first learned of Lino’s escape from the whisperings of the captives. When dawn came and he still hadn’t been brought back from the tent, an excited exchange ran up and down the line. Their hoarse voices became more animated than at any time since the temptatio began, hushed and hopeful, as if the prospect of Lino’s escape restored a part of their broken humanity to them.
“He said he would escape,” one of them whispered. “He’s done it!”
“But how?”
“He did it once before—”
“Unless he’s still in the tent. Unless they’ve finally killed him with their cruel games. . .”
The Romans came for me. As I was led past the line of captives, I heard them mutter the word “traitor” and spit into the grass.
In the tent, I glanced about and saw only the familiar faces of the Romans, busy with their morning preparations. What the captives had said was true, then. Somehow, during the long night of wine and laughter, Lino had escaped.
One of the Romans pulled the thin robe from my shoulders and freed my hands. Suddenly I had a sudden terrible premonition that I was to take Lino’s place.
Instead, they placed a pair of riding boots before me, along with a soldier’s tunic and a bronze cuirass—the same uniform that they wore. They handed me a saddlebag and showed me what it contained: a length of rope, a whip, a waterskin, a generous supply of food, and a silver dagger—the very knife that Matho had given me, with its engraving of Melkart on the handle. Atop the pile they laid a spear.
I turned to Fabius, who reclined on his couch, taking his morning meal. He watched me with a smile, amused at my consternation. He gestured to the items laid out before me.
“These are the supplies for your mission.”
I looked at him dumbly.
“The rabbit has escaped, boy. Haven’t you heard? Now it’s time for you to repay my generosity to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Fabius grunted. “The temptatio is almost over. The sea is only a day’s march away. A ship will already be waiting there, to load the captives and take them to whatever market is currently offe
ring the best price. Antioch, Alexandria, Massilia—who knows? But one of my captives has escaped. He can’t have gone far, not weighted down by his chains. There’s the river to the east, and the desert to the south, so I figure he must have gone west, where he thinks he can hide among the low hills. My men could probably flush him out in a matter of hours, but I have another idea. You will find him for me.”
“Me?”
“You know how to ride well enough, and he should be easy to take with his arms bound behind his back. If he gives you too much trouble, kill him—I know you can do it, I’ve seen you fight—but bring back his head for proof.”
I thought of Lino’s suffering, of the others calling me traitor. Then I realized that I might escape myself; but Fabius, seeing the hope that lit my face, shook his head.
“Don’t even think of it, boy. Yes, you might take the horse and the food and make your way back south. If you can survive the desert. If you don’t meet another troop of Romans on the way. Don’t think the clothing will disguise you; your Latin is terrible. And even if you did manage to escape me this time, I’ll find you in the end. It might take me a year, perhaps two; but I’ll find you again. There are still a few stray Carthaginians to be rounded up. My men and I won’t rest until we’ve scoured every crevice and looked under every stone. They’re easier to take every time—weaker, more starved, more demoralized. Less and less like men willing to fight, and more and more like slaves ready to accept their fate. The reach of Rome is long, Hanso, and her appetite for vengeance is endless. You’ll never escape her. You’ll never escape me.