Hannibal: Fields of Blood (3 page)

Hanno had been called a ‘little rat’ before, but the insult still stung. By way of answer, he aimed a savage thrust at the other’s belly. He laughed as the triarius dodged to the side, unable to block it. ‘Filth? You stink worse than a sow.’

A series of loud thumps on the roof presaged Bogu’s arrival. The spearman had the sense to jump down on the far side of the triarius, who spat a loud curse. He couldn’t fight with an enemy on each side. Rather than run, however, he bravely backed into the archway that framed the entrance, thereby stopping either Carthaginian from getting to the door.

The sound of raised voices in the courtyard told Hanno that time was of the essence. ‘On him, Bogu!’ he shouted. As the spearman advanced, Hanno feinted for the triarius’ left foot but as the Roman tried to move out of range, Hanno brought his right hand up, smashing the hilt of his weapon into his opponent’s face. With an audible
crunch
, the man’s nose broke. There was a cry of agony and the triarius staggered back, blood pouring from his nostrils. Hanno followed him as a viper does a mouse. Deadly quick. With all his strength, he rammed his blade into the Roman’s flesh just above the top of his mail shirt. Grating off the vertebrae in the man’s spinal column, it sank in nearly to the crossguard. The triarius’ eyes bulged; his mouth worked; bloody froth left his lips; he died.

Grunting with effort, Hanno pulled the sword out. He closed his eyes against the shower of blood that followed. The corpse sagged to the floor, and he stooped, frantically ripping the bunch of keys free. Hanno glanced to his rear and wished he hadn’t. At least a dozen
triarii
, in various states of undress, were charging across the courtyard. ‘Keep them back!’ he screamed at Bogu. He spun to the door. Fists were pounding on it from the other side. ‘Sir! Are you all right? Sir!’ clamoured his men. Hanno didn’t waste his breath answering. First, he slid open the bolt. Selecting a key, he shoved it into the massive lock and tried to twist it to the left. It wouldn’t move. He moved it in the opposite direction. Nothing happened.

Frantically, he selected another key. Sandals slapped off the mosaic. Angry yells as the body was seen. Bogu screamed a battle cry. Then, the clash of arms not half a dozen steps behind him. Close. They were so close. Hanno fumbled with the key, unable to fit its bulky end into the hole. It took all of his effort not to scream. Forcing himself to slow down, he managed to insert it into the lock. It fitted better than the previous two, and his hopes rose. A turn to the left didn’t work. Undaunted, Hanno had begun wrenching it to the right when he heard someone emit a strangled gasp of pain. ‘I’m hurt, sir!’ hissed Bogu.

Hanno made the fatal mistake of twisting his head to look. As he did, two triarii charged at the same time. Bogu shoved his spear at the one without a
scutum
, but that allowed the other to close with him. Driving his shield into the spearman, the triarius rammed Bogu against the wall. As Hanno realised, it wasn’t to kill the spearman. It was to allow the Roman’s comrades to barge past – towards him. Too late, he turned. Too late, he tried to engage the key in the lock’s mechanism. An instant later, something smashed into the back of his head. Stars burst across his vision. His world narrowed to a tunnel before him. All he could see was his hand, which was slowly letting go of the key. A key that had not turned enough to open the lock. In the distance, he could hear his soldiers’ shouts mingling with those of the triarii. He wanted to shout, ‘I’m coming,’ but his voice wouldn’t work. His strength had gone too, and there was nothing Hanno could do to stop his knees from buckling.

Then everything went black.

Hanno woke, coughing and spluttering, as a tide of icy water was emptied over his head. Fear and rage surged through him as he tried to get his bearings. He was lying on the flat of his back on a cold stone floor – where, he had no idea. He struggled to rise, but his arms and legs were bound. Trying to ignore the worst headache he could remember, Hanno blinked to clear his eyes of water. Two men – triarii from the look of them – were studying him, sneers twisting their faces. Above them, the low roof of a cell. Panic made his heart flutter. Where in hell’s name was he?

‘Enjoyed your little sleep?’ asked the man on his left, a shifty-looking type with a wall eye.

‘You’ve been out for long enough,’ added his companion in a falsely solicitous tone. ‘But now it’s time for a little chat.’

Hanno sensed that would involve a lot of pain. He strained his ears. There was no sound of fighting. No clash of arms. His heart sank. Mutt and his men were gone – if he was even still in the villa.

A scornful laugh from the first man, who saw what he was doing. ‘You’ll get no help here. We’re safe inside Victumulae.’

A moan. Hanno’s gaze shot to his left. Bogu was lying a few paces away. A large bloodstain on the tunic over his belly and a wound to his lower right leg didn’t bode well.

It’s just me and Bogu.
Hanno spat several ripe curses in Carthaginian.

Another snort of amusement. ‘Wondering why your men didn’t break down the door, eh?’

That
was
what Hanno was thinking, but he kept his face blank. They would have no idea that he could speak Latin.

‘They pissed off as soon as we sounded the alarm,’ said the second soldier to his comrade. ‘We couldn’t believe our luck. They must have thought reinforcements would be sent out from the town. Stupid bastards.’

A tide of weariness washed over Hanno. They were just following my orders, he thought.

The second man leered. ‘If only they’d known that the sound of the trumpets was all the back-up we were going to get!’

Hanno felt sick at the very thought. He closed his eyes, but the kick to his ribs that followed made them shoot open again with pain. He tried to roll away from the next kick, and it caught him in the back instead. He steeled himself for the next.

‘Enough,’ snapped a voice. ‘I’ll decide how and when he and the other maggot are to be punished.’

The sound of men snapping to attention. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘Get him up.’

Hanno felt hands grabbing him under his armpits; he was lifted to a standing position. His surroundings were grim: a square, stone-flagged chamber with no windows. Three small lamps shed enough light to see the damp running down the walls and the table to one side upon which sat a frightening array of metal instruments, every one of them barbed or sporting a cruel blade. A glowing brazier promised more varieties of pain. Watched in impassive silence by the officer who had entered, Hanno’s arms were raised and the rope around his wrists was looped over a hook that dangled from the ceiling. As his shoulder sockets took his entire body weight, Hanno’s agony reached new heights. Desperate, he reached down with his feet. The floor was agonisingly close – he could brush it with the tips of his sandals, but couldn’t support himself for more than a few moments. Gasping with frustration and pain, he looked up.

To Hanno’s utter shock, he recognised the stocky officer – square-chinned, clean-shaven, about thirty-five – before him. It was the man who’d been beneath his blade during the fight with a Roman patrol a week or more earlier. The enemy he had let live, so that he could save Mutt’s life.
I should have killed him.
Hanno felt terrible for even thinking such a thing. Doing that would have ensured this man’s death, but also that of Mutt.
He
would still be a prisoner, and merely faced with a different torturer. Hanno noted that the man did not appear to have recognised him. There was a tiny chance that that might work to his advantage. He held fiercely on to that hope.

The officer gave him a mirthless smile. ‘Excruciating, isn’t it? Count yourself lucky that I didn’t tell them to tie your hands behind your back first. That would have dislocated your shoulders the moment they hauled you aloft.’ A scowl when Hanno didn’t answer. ‘You can’t understand a word I say, can you?’

Hanno said nothing.

‘Hang the other one up too,’ commanded the officer.

Hanno watched with helpless rage as Bogu was dragged up, moaning, and suspended beside him. Eventually, the spearman’s eyes came into focus; he tried to smile, but grimaced instead. ‘We’ll be fine,’ Hanno whispered.

‘’S’ll right, sir. You don’t need to lie to me.’

Hanno’s next words died in his throat. Fresh blood had already soaked through Bogu’s tunic from his belly wound. They were both going to die in this room. Bogu knew it. He knew it. There was no point pretending. ‘May the gods give us a safe passage.’

‘Silence!’ cried the officer. He clicked his fingers. ‘Find me that gugga slave who was mentioned earlier.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The wall-eyed soldier moved towards the door.

‘There’s no need for the slave. I speak Latin well enough,’ said Hanno.

The officer mastered his shock well. ‘How do you know my tongue?’ he barked.

‘I had a Greek tutor as a boy.’

The officer’s eyebrows rose. ‘A civilised gugga, eh?’

‘Plenty of us are well educated,’ replied Hanno stiffly.

A surprised look. ‘Does your man also speak Latin?’

‘Bogu? No.’

‘There are differences between the classes then, as there are here,’ mused the officer, with a scornful glance at his soldiers. ‘Your Latin accent is not that of a Greek-speaker, though. It sounds more as if you come from Campania.’

It was Hanno’s turn to feel startled. Yet it wasn’t surprising that he spoke like Quintus and his family. ‘I have lived in southern Italy,’ he admitted.

The Roman prowled closer. He pushed Hanno between the shoulders so that he swung forward, off the tips of his toes. His arms wrenched back in their sockets, and Hanno bawled with pain. ‘Don’t lie to me!’ shouted the officer.

Desperate to relieve the pressure on his shoulders, Hanno pushed downwards with all the power in his legs and managed – just – to stop himself from swinging back and having the agony rip through him again. ‘I–It’s true. I was captured at sea between Carthage and Sicily with a friend of mine. We were sold into slavery. A Campanian family bought me. I lived near Capua for over a year.’

‘What’s your owner’s name?’ demanded the officer, quick as a flash.

Hanno’s pride reared up. ‘I don’t have an owner.’

A punch in the solar plexus knocked the air from his lungs; more pain as his shoulders took the strain of his body weight. An involuntary retch brought up a little fluid from his stomach.

The officer waited a moment before shoving his face into Hanno’s purple, wheezing one. ‘I doubt very much whether your master granted you manumission so that you could fuck off and join Hannibal’s army. If he didn’t, that means that you’re still his slave. Understand?’

Arguing was futile, but Hanno was furious. ‘Being captured by pirates doesn’t turn me into a damn slave. I’m a free man. A Carthaginian!’

His reward was another powerful punch. Hanno vomited what liquid remained in his belly. He was sorry that it didn’t hit the officer’s feet, but the Roman had stepped well back. He waited patiently until Hanno had finished. Then he muttered in Hanno’s ear, ‘If you’ve been sold to a Roman citizen, you’re his slave whether you like it or not. I’m not going to argue about it, and if you’ve any sense, neither are you. What’s your master’s name?’

‘Gaius Fabricius.’

‘Never heard of him.’

Hanno waited for another punch, but it didn’t land. ‘His wife’s called Atia. They have two children, called Quintus and Aurelia. Their farm is about half a day’s walk from Capua.’

‘Continue.’

Hanno described the details of his life in Quintus’ household, including his relationships with Quintus and Aurelia, and the visit of Caius Minucius Flaccus – an extremely high-ranking nobleman – to their house. He didn’t mention Agesandros, the overseer who had made his life a misery, or his search for Suniaton, his friend.

‘All right, that’s enough. Maybe you were a slave in Capua.’ The officer’s gaze became calculating. ‘So you ran away when you heard Hannibal had entered Cisalpine Gaul?’

Hanno was damned if he was going to pretend that he had skulked off like a wolf in the night. ‘No. Quintus, my master’s son, let me go.’

Disbelief twisted the officer’s face. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘It’s true.’

An incredulous hiss. ‘Where was his father while this was going on? And his mother?’

‘Fabricius was away with the army. Atia had no idea what Quintus was up to.’

‘What a little viper! Not a son I’d wish to have.’ The officer shook his head. ‘This is all neither here nor there, however. What’s far more important is discovering why you and your men were prowling around that villa at night.’

It didn’t matter if the officer knew, thought Hanno. ‘I hoped to find someone who knew how many defenders there are in the town.’

‘And you did! Me!’ crowed the officer. ‘But I’m not going to tell you.’

You prick.

‘So you were scouting for Hannibal?’

Hanno nodded.

‘They say his army is heading here. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

A heartbeat’s pause. ‘How many soldiers has he?’

‘Fifty thousand or so,’ lied Hanno.

The officer’s face grew thunderous, and Hanno felt a dark joy. ‘More Gauls arrive to join him every day.’ The instant the truthful words had left his mouth, Hanno knew that he’d pushed the officer too far. The next punch was the hardest yet. Hanno felt pain so intense that he blacked out. He came to with the officer slapping him across the face.

‘You think that’s bad? It’s nothing compared to the suffering to come. You’ll be nothing but a shell when my men have finished with you.’

Hanno’s eyes followed the officer’s to the tools on the table. He felt his gorge rise. How long before he was begging for mercy? Pissing himself? Would he be granted a quick end if he mentioned sparing the Roman’s life? Shame filled him.
Have some pride!

‘Roman scum,’ croaked Bogu in poor Latin. ‘Wait. For . . . pain . . . Hannibal’s army inflict . . . you. Hannibal . . . better general than any . . . you have.’

Hanno shot a warning look at Bogu, but it was too late.