Pride of Carthage (17 page)

Publius nodded, but he had another thought and knew he had finally been given leave to speak. “But—for the sake of thoroughness—what if he
is
mad?”

“What?”

“What if his target is Rome?”

Cornelius studied his son a moment, head cocked, squinting, as if he was not sure he recognized the young man. “For the sake of thoroughness . . . If Italy is his target he must surely stick near the coast and confront us. He would not attempt the inland mountains. The casualties he would suffer would make that a daily battle in and of itself. He might have overreaching hubris, but still he would not waste his army fighting snow and ice and Gauls. If he reached Italy at all it would be as a band of starving beggars. No, if he wants Rome he must first come through us, and I would welcome such a meeting.”

His tone, once more, suggested that further discussion was not an option. He refilled Publius' goblet and offered it to him. He said, “All considered, I think we can continue our preparations with little fear.”

None could call the journey to the Rhône uneventful for the Carthaginians. They expanded their dominion to the farthest extent it had ever known, through strong-worded negotiation, at times through open war or siege or ambush. Hannibal knew he must keep control of the lands between him and New Carthage. The army traveled in three war columns, separated by miles, each with its own trials to face and each led by a Barca. They sent before them emissaries of peace, but it was hard for any people to look upon this massed power and not grasp for sword or spear. The small, sturdy Balearic Islanders marched in the fore, their slings held at the ready, able in an instant to send a stone whirling through the air at blinding speed; beside them strode the strange gray beasts ridden by men whose nation could only be guessed at. The gray beasts were big-eared and massive, with a nose as flexible and strong as any limb. Behind them came rank after rank of soldiers, marching in their various companies and in tribal groups and followed by horsemen; in the wake of it all, a baggage train that fed the beast of war. Carthage's army churned the spring ground into a wide wasteland. The land to either side of them was stripped clean as if by a swarm of locusts, and behind them came wolves and foxes, buzzards and ravens and swarms of flies.

They came to an agreement to pass through the territory of the Ruscino, but there were other tribes and factions of tribes to contend with. No leader could govern each and every member of a people. Although no Carthaginian head rested easy at night, toward the end of the summer they could claim a tenuous dominion over all of Catalonia. No Roman legion had appeared on the horizon, so Hannibal left Hanno in command of the tribes washing right up to the foothills of the Pyrenees. He then marched the army over the mountains and came down into the plain leading toward the Rhône.

At that river, the Volcae massed to make their stand. Standing on the west bank, Hannibal got his first glimpse of the wild creatures whom Monomachus had barely escaped on his earlier expedition. They were longhaired and half-clothed, pale as pine flesh, some painted in shades of blue and green. Their calls carried across the flat, slick expanse of steady current, taunts spoken in the strangest gibberish, a guttural dialect totally foreign to an African's ear. And yet the meaning behind the words was clear enough when twinned with their gestures. They gesticulated with their arms and fingers, exposed their buttocks and grabbed at their crotches, stuck out their tongues and waved their long swords in the air above them. Clearly, they were not a people open to negotiation.

Mago, standing beside his brother, said, “Those people are out of their minds.”

Hannibal took it all in with an impassive face. “Insane or no,” he said, “they are in our way.”

And so he constructed a plan to remove them. To fulfill it, Mago marched out just after dark, a contingent of the Sacred Band close around him. Behind them came the bulk of the war party, Iberians chosen for their comfort in the water, several with Gallic horns tied to their backs and protruding above them as if long-necked birds were growing out of their flesh. They followed the lead of two Gallic guides, who risked their lives and their family's freedom if they led the soldiers astray. They progressed not in ordered ranks but weaving through the trees, ducking low branches and jumping across creek beds, into shadow and out. They followed the Rhône for some time. Then they left the Rhône to climb into a hilly area, from which they sometimes caught glimpses of the distant river, a black snake across the landscape, save where the light of the moon touched upon it in gleaming silver. They camped for the day in a high pine wood, careful to move little and to keep fires small. Mago found the bedding of needles almost luxurious. He pinched the needles between his forefinger and thumb and snapped them, one after another, for some time. There was something comforting in the action.

When they dropped down to the river again the next evening, the guides led them to the area they wished for. It was as promised: A tree-covered island split the current. The riverbed out to it was shallow enough that the men waded most of the distance across and lost their footing for only a few moments, though frantic ones for those who could not swim. Mago's heart pounded in his chest the moment his feet slipped free of the bottom. His chin dipped under the water. He spat and gagged and tilted his head so far back that he looked straight up at the sky and felt it moving above him and had the momentary sensation that each pinprick of light was an eye looking down on him. But then his foot brushed a stone. One, then another, then a large one that clipped both his legs and sent him tumbling. After that it grew shallower. He made it to the island in no worse shape than the others.

But that was only half the crossing; the far side was deeper and swifter. They set to work hewing pines, chopping the branches from them, and lashing them together into rafts. It was hard work in only the moonlight, but they completed it before the moon dipped and cast them into deeper darkness. They pushed off onto the swaying, hard-to-steer rafts, paddling toward the dark woodland on the far bank.

They were barely ashore when the light of day grew on them. They pulled the rafts up into the trees and gathered together in a narrow valley to warm themselves before fires and be fed. Mago posted guards, but most of the men spent the day at rest, falling asleep as they hit the ground. The Barca was not so quick to fall into slumber. He lay staring up at the thick canopy of trees above them, the myriad branches layering and crosshatching across each other. His eyes sought out patterns in the lines and shadows but there was none to be found. Something in this troubled him, for it seemed that nature so rarely displayed order in the chaos of the earth. Why was this so? Why were no two branches the same, no two leaves true replicas of each other? He did sleep eventually, but it was not a restful slumber.

Few stirred until the late afternoon. Hunger awoke them and consciousness reminded them of the task before them. The third night was devoted to the march back downstream, a difficult venture as they feared being discovered. They moved with such stealth that the head of the party stumbled upon a group of deer caught unawares. The buck of the group stood at the crest of a bare hill, feeding on the low shrubs growing up in the scar of a fire a few years old. Around him were five does and two young males, all heads down and content in their nighttime dining. The two Gauls spotted them first. One flung an arm out to stop the other. The sudden motion was enough in the tense night to send a shock wave back through the group and man after man froze in his tracks. This must have been a stranger sound than that of their motion, for the buck looked up, lifted his nose, and studied on the silence. He grunted a warning and bolted, leaving the does momentarily at a loss. Then they, too, found motion. They bounded up the hillside and out of view, backsides taunting in their spring, somehow deceptive as compared to the speed of the creatures. In the empty stillness after this the two Gauls looked long at each other. They began mumbling at the profundity of such a sighting and might have carried on for some time had Mago not hissed them into silence.

The trip was uneventful after that. They were in place as planned on the morning of the fourth day. Mago had the signal fire kindled and the agreed message went up into the air in billows of white smoke. Watching the plumes rise, he whispered a prayer to Baal, beseeching his attention and blessing on the venture just before him. This done, he signaled the men forward.

Though Imco Vaca knew that Mago had led a small band out on some mission, a few days before, the plan had not been explained to him. It was with considerable trepidation that he pushed off from the shore and began the crossing. The Volcae's numbers had increased over the last few days. It was hard to count them, for they lined the shore from horizon to horizon. Many camped right on the stony edge of the river, others among the trees and into the hills behind them. When they saw that the Carthaginians were finally beginning their crossing they hooted with joy. They drummed their swords against their shields and blew on their great upcurving horns, instruments not musical at all but like the bellowing of an elk caught in a bog. They seemed to think the Carthaginians were floating to the slaughter.

During the early half of the journey, Imco would not have disputed this. He was on one of the large barges that pushed off from far upstream. He manned a pole for the first portion of the journey, heaving it up from the bottom and starting again. They tried to gain the greatest momentum they could before the river deepened, but by the time they switched to their makeshift paddles it seemed they moved more with the current than across. Nor were they alone. Spread out into the distance along the river below them were innumerable vessels of every description. Barges of full-grown trees lashed together with bark ropes, rafts that rode so low their occupants stood ankle deep in river water. A few vessels flew simple sails to aid them; some dragged behind tethered ponies. Some men even bestrode sections of log, legs in the water on either side, weapons strapped to their backs, paddling forward with their hands. Only the Iberians were truly comfortable in the water. Many of them disdained the vessels altogether. They swam with their shields snug to their chests and their clothing and gear in leather sacks upon their backs. It was a motley flotilla.

Halfway across the first of the Gallic missiles began to fall, zipping into the water with little more sound than a pebble tossed from the shore. But they were not pebbles, as the man beside Imco soon learned. The young soldier heard the man's speech cut short. He recognized the squelching, muted thud of the impact. But he did not know where the man had been hit until he grasped him by the shoulder and yanked him around. The other had caught the arrow in his open mouth. It pinned his tongue against his palate and pierced the voicebox. The man's eyes betrayed no alarm at this, only incredulity. This must have changed with deeper realization of his situation, but Imco did not notice.

He turned away, grabbing his shield and ducking beneath it. He knew with complete certainty that joining this campaign was the biggest error of his young life. Nothing had gone right for him since the march began. The first week out, he had stepped barefoot on a fishing barb at the edge of a stream. The wound was a tiny one in the eyes of the warriors around him, but it caused him no end of pain as he marched. Dirt and grime had entered with the barb and made the whole area into a swollen pad of pus-filled agony. Somewhere before the Pyrenees, Imco had picked up an infestation of savage pubic lice. They terrorized his groin, biting him with such vigor that he sometimes jolted to a wincing halt in the middle of the war column.

Now he was sure his miserable life was about to end, body left floating like so much debris in the current. He imagined the ravages of nature upon his corpse, focused particularly on the genitals: a hungry turtle clamping down on his limp penis, fish nibbling the wrinkled sacs of his manhood, his asshole—an area he had never allowed violation of in life—prodded by bald, long-necked buzzards. What a fool he was! He should have quit the army and sailed home to Carthage to take some pleasure in his family's newfound wealth. He had no business in this strange land. His war successes had thus far been gifts from the gods. Now he had overreached their benevolence by thinking himself a true warrior, imagining he could march beside Hannibal on this mad mission.

Thinking thus, he was slow to notice the change in the course of events. It was only when a soldier near him prodded him with a jest about his courage that he peeked over the rim of his shield at the far shore. The Gauls were in chaos. They were shouting, but not out over the water: They were yelling to one another now. Some had their backs turned to the approaching watercraft. The rain of arrows had nearly stopped. There seemed to be a great confusion behind them, which they only increased with their clamor. The air filled with smoke, not of campfires but of destruction. And then came the horns. They were no different really from the horns the Volcae had been blowing on only moments before, but they came from the wrong direction and were blown inexpertly. They spluttered and cut off short and rose and fell in volume. Their discordance sent the Gauls into further confusion. Then Imco caught sight of them: Mago's small band.

Mago's force would have been hopelessly outnumbered, except that by this time the first of the watercraft were reaching the shore. A few Iberians jumped into the river, swords in hand, and lashed out. Cavalrymen mounted their horses, cut them free, and urged them through the water. Some began to hurl their javelins from the barges, catching the Gauls in the backs and flanks. The man beside Imco—not wanting to waste one of his preferred weapons—hurled an ax toward the shore. It cut an awkward, tumbling arch in the sky and hit a Gaul flat on the top of his skull. Though it did not pierce him with the blade portion at all, the impact was enough to liquefy the man's legs and drive him to the ground. The ax thrower sent up a howl of bestial pleasure at this. The scream pulled chill bumps up across Imco's entire body, and yet a moment later he was joining in. It was clear already that this engagement was to be a rout.