Pride of Carthage (71 page)

Under his sunburn the captain flushed, but he answered calmly, so firm in his reasoning that anger was not necessary. “If I speak out of turn, please silence me before I offend. But think of Troy, my lady. Think of Thebes. And there are other cities whose names are no longer spoken. If Rome seeks a pretext to wipe us off the earth they have only to look into the past. Only a fool believes that a victor knows mercy.”

“So you know the future as well as the past? No one yet wears the crown of victory in this war.”

“Just so,” the captain said. “This is why the Council must call Hannibal home. I pray they already have.”

Once the captain rose and moved off Imilce said, “Carthage will not perish. My son's life will never turn on such catastrophe. I must believe this, or lie down and die of grief right now.”

Imilce stopped short, glancing sideways, inhaling through her nose to indicate that perhaps she was being foolish. But in a few moments she lifted her eyes. “Do you love no one, sister?” she asked. “No one who makes you imagine the best of the coming world?”

Sapanibal's first impulse was to answer scornfully. Did the question suggest that she was unlovable? But looking into Imilce's eyes she knew otherwise. They were a wonderfully light gray, flecked with streaks of metallic brilliance, set against a white background almost clear of blemish. They stared at her with such naked kindness that she wanted to reach out and kiss each orb. Why was her instinct always to calculate her place in the world as if in combat? She had to put such thoughts behind her. And how could she have thought herself superior to this woman? Sapanibal knew nothing more than Imilce did. She was no wiser. No stronger. She answered honestly.

“There is a man,” she said.

“Is there? And do you love him truly?”

“I've never told him so,” Sapanibal said, “but perhaps I do. He fills me with fear, but it's not only fear . . .”

“Such is the one cruelty of Tanit,” Imilce said. “She binds together love and loss so that one always lies beneath the skin of the other. But you must tell him. Go to him at the first opportunity. We have so little, Sapanibal. All around us things come and go. People live and die. We kill each other for petty things. We make such a great noise across the world, and why? Who is ever happy because of any of this? Who? Have you ever been happy?”

One of the sailors shouted that he had spotted Carthage. The two women rose and looked out over the water.

“There were times when I thought I was,” Sapanibal said, “but those were delusions.”

Sapanibal felt the other woman's thin fingers grip her wrist. “No! No, those moments were the truth. It's all the confusion we make that's the delusion. I know this for sure. I asked Hannibal to bring me the world. I wanted to be queen over all that I could, but that was the fancy of a child. If he delivered the world to me now, I would hand it back. I would ask, At what cost, this? What I want most now is to make new memories like the old ones that I cherish. Like birthing Little Hammer and putting him to my breast the first time. Like lying cradled in the hollow of my husband's back. Hannibal once fed me grapes by putting them first into his mouth so that I took them from his lips to mine. That was truth. Sister . . . why do you cry?”

Sapanibal shook her head fiercely, and then swiped at the tears with her fingers. “The salt water stings my eyes. That's all.” And a moment later—as she found herself thinking of Imago Messano and the best route from the harbor up to his villa—she said, “Please continue, Imilce. Tell me more of what you've found to be truth.”

For several days after arriving in Cirta, Masinissa felt near to bursting with bliss. He had solved the two great problems of his life: his enemy was defeated; his love his to possess. And not only had Syphax been crushed; he was virtually forgotten. That first afternoon in the courtyard, Sophonisba had dropped to her knees and looked up at him from behind the amazing beauty that was her face. Tears hung at the rims of both her eyes. Her lips glistened from the moisture of her tongue. Two maroon swipes of color flushed across her cheeks. She swore to him that she had never stopped being true to him. She said she loved him and only him, and would love only him her entire life. Each time Syphax touched her, she had cursed the fact that she had skin. Each time he pushed inside her, she felt pain and revulsion instead of pleasure and love. She asked the gods to change her from a woman into some other creature. She said she would rather be a vulture, a frog, or a crocodile or a scorpion. She said that each night she would break a vase of Grecian clay and hold the jagged shards to her skin and pray for the power to sink them home and cut her face to shreds. She wanted him to know—no matter what fate held for her—that she had only ever wanted to be his wife. That was why it saddened her so to know that instead she would be ravaged by Roman soldiers. In a few days they would shove her onto a ship and sail her into slavery. They would take everything that she had wanted to give him and twist it into torturous retribution.

By all the gods, she was a revelation. The fascination he had felt for her in his youth was simply boyish infatuation compared with the ardor that gripped him as he looked down on her. And she spoke the truth! Clearly, she spoke the truth, both about her feelings for him and about the danger she now faced. And as this was so . . . Well, he could not let it be so. He did not have to. He was the king of all Numidia. Nothing that he wished to see done was impossible.

He lifted her to her feet and before the magistrates of the city, before even the eyes of the former king, with the hasty blessings of Syphax' own priests, as his army continued to pour in through the gates, without asking her views, in the space of a few moments . . . he married her. And then began his bliss. For the next few days, he barely left their private chambers at all. He made love to and with her again and again on the bed that had once been Syphax'. She laughed at him as they took pleasure in each other, and this was sweeter still. When her body was close to his, he wanted to possess every inch of her being. He could not stop his hands moving all over her, his fingers kneading, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the weight and contours of her. He wanted to consume her, to bury his face in the cleft between her breasts and cry with a joy so complete it felt akin to pain.

The weight of doubt so long on him lifted. He had his throne, his wife, his world. With Publius recalled to Rome, he could get on with carving his name across Africa. Maybe, he even ventured to think, Carthage would sue for peace. He could make overtures of friendship to them once more. Perhaps he had been wrong. Things done can sometimes be undone. . . . Sophonisba said it herself. When Hannibal returned, Carthage would again see reason. Perhaps Masinissa would find them an ally still. Their old friendship was worth more than this new dalliance with Rome. Sophonisba made things seem amazingly clear.

So he thought for a few precious days. Then Publius arrived, fresh from overseeing the aftermath of the fiery massacre, already having squelched several other Libyan towns and taken their leaders prisoner.

From the first glimpse of him striding into the room—strong-arming his guard to the side—Masinissa felt the substance behind the façade of his world crumbling. Publius yelled at him in Greek, cursed him, and asked him the same questions over and over again. It was so shocking an entrance that Masinissa could only stare at him, openmouthed, trying to make sense of his words and yet yearning not to. The Roman asked: Was he mad? A fool? Had he lost his reason? Publius repeated these questions until they became accusations. Did he really think he could wed her? It was pure madness. Sophonisba was a prisoner of Rome, as a member of the Barca family and as Syphax' wife. That's who she was, and that's why she would have to be sent to Rome. Had he forgotten that they were at war?

“I let you take the city as a gift,” Publius said, “so that you might know I was true to my word, but do you believe you can play me for a fool? Why would you do this?”

“What do you mean, why?” Masinissa asked.

“Why would you do this?”

“Have you never loved? Ask me why I breathe; the reason is the same.”

“Are you bewitched?” Publius asked.

Masinissa stuttered that he might be. He stared into the other man's eyes and nodded. Maybe he had been bewitched. But it did not matter: They were married already. Sophonisba was his wife, and no harm could come to her now. He had slipped into speaking Massylii, but the consul brought him back to Greek.

“Foolish boy,” Publius said. His anger seemed to fade. “My foolish boy. You thought this would save her? Listen, let us sit down and speak like brothers. Speak plainly to me and I will do the same to you.”

What passed between the two men after that, Masinissa would only remember in a fragmented jumble that could not possibly have comprised an entire day, but did, apparently—spanned all the hours from the sun's rising to its setting. Publius asked him about Sophonisba and listened as the Numidian told him everything. He went all the way back to the first time he saw her. He told him about the time they had ridden out from Carthage under the cover of night. He had told her all the things that could be and she had laughed at him. So cruel she sometimes was. But she had also brought him to ecstasy with a single touch of her fingers. And cruelty was a useful trait. She would make a fine queen. She was a woman—not a girl—who made anything possible.

The consul paced through most of this, but he did not interrupt. He did not frown or joke or shout. But finally he stepped close and slipped a hand over the Numidian's shoulder. He caressed the back of his neck and pulled him in. With his forehead touching Masinissa's temple, Publius' words brushed his face like the hot breaths of a lover. “Masinissa, do not think I'm deaf to your love. But what you wish cannot be. We are fighting for the world together. Why would you risk this for the pleasures of a woman? If you are to be worthy of a partnership with Rome, you must prove yourself—not just with your skill atop a horse but with your reason, with your wisdom in thought and action. Sophonisba can never be your wife. I'm sorry I did not make this clearer to you before you came here. She has a strong pull and men such as you feel emotion deeply. I understand this. But the promise of union you shared with her as a youth is no more. It's gone with the past and will never be again. There is something
more. . . .”

The consul brushed his lips against the man's cheek. He ran his hand up into the African's locks and clamped his fingers there. “Do you think this is easy for me?” he whispered. “Think about it. My nation has been humiliated, my family destroyed. I am here trying to save the world as my people know it. In Iberia, some of the tribes declared me a living god. Even some among my own troops believe I walk blessed by Jupiter's hand. But you and I know the truth of these things, don't we? The gods are silent in me; are they the same in you? It may be that I lose everything tomorrow. I simply don't know. I have nothing but these hands and this mind. . . . These are the things with which I try to save my people. That is why I need you with me. The hour soon comes when I will meet Hannibal himself. You must be there.”

Publius loosed his fingers and drew back a little, but still he spoke in hushed tones. “I'll tell you this, and you'll become the first to know: I'm not returning to Rome yet. My work here isn't complete, and it must be made so. You will understand, then, how strange a position I am in. On one hand, I disobey the orders of my Senate; on the other I force you to heed them. Do not question the equity in this. Just hear me and do as I say. Be the left hand to my right. Pull with me on the rope that will drag Hannibal back to Africa. Do as I say and you'll become one of Africa's greatest kings. Give up the girl. She is a Roman prisoner: the wife of one enemy and the sister of another. It's not in your power to change this. It's a certainty that Sophonisba will go to Rome as a prisoner. If she is ever free again it will only be after Carthage's complete defeat, and she may never be free, Masinissa. Her life is not hers to direct anymore; nor is it yours. If you spurn us in this, you have no future. The Senate will tell me to crush you and flick you away like an insect and find another man to call my favored king; and if they ask me to do that, I will. But it need not be. Sacrifice this one thing and everything else is yours.”

Publius stood erect again and paced away a few steps. “I will hear your answer now.”

“I cannot live without her,” Masinissa said.

“Of course you can. Does a single heart beat for both of you?”

“But I cannot—”

“That is not your answer!” Publius snapped. “Who will know you for a king if you cannot be strong?”

The Numidian started to shake his head, but something in the question struck him in a different place and pressed home. In an instant he was reminded of weeks during which he roamed Massylii lands in hiding, exiled in his own country. He had learned so many things during that time, and one of them was that he was no different from other men. Though he wore the crown of a king inside his heart, no man recognized him. He ate stringy meat beside fires and rode beside merchants and slept on the open ground with dogs and beggars. Who knew him for a king then? His own people did not recognize him. They saw a man before them of flesh and bone, with hair on his chin, a person who ate and peed and shat like any other. But they did not see a king.

“You ask who will know me for a king?”

“That's what I ask.”

“And you want me to know that I can be replaced. Masinissa gone and some other on my throne.”

“As you are now on Syphax'. And in his quarters, even in his bed . . .”

Masinissa spoke before he knew he was going to. One thing was as impossible as another, so he said, “I will do as you wish.”

“Good,” Publius said. “You've assured your future. You may send the girl a note of condolence, but do not see her again. Tell her that she cannot be your wife, and that she is a prisoner of Rome.”

Quick as that, the consul turned and walked away.

Once he was gone, Masinissa flung himself onto the bed. Sophonisba's scent flooded him and twisted his insides into knots. What had he just said? Was he mad? He could not live without her. He could not. He simply could not. He said so over and over again. He would always wonder where in the world she was, and with whom. He would eat at his own heart in fear that she was being abused. Or—worse yet—was she giving her love to someone else? He could not possibly live with this hanging over him. So he would take his own life. That was it—he would take his own life!