The Seven Hills (43 page)

"Now your army will be weaker when you confront Nor
banus," she insisted. "It is weaker by several thousand men."
The shofet astonished her. He seemed to be absolutely im
pervious to his folly. She began to doubt the wisdom of ally
ing herself with him. His previous setbacks had been the
workings of chance or bad luck, but this was a disaster of his
own making. From the moment they crossed the Strait of Hercules, she had urged him to march with all possible speed, so that they could link up with Mastanabal and fall upon the Romans with their combined forces. Instead, he had dawdled, making one excuse after another. Now she could see that it was deliberate. He did not want to share the glory with a possible rival. Arrogance and willfulness she could forgive in a king, but not stupidity.

"Norbanus," he mused, seeming only to halfhear her. "That man needs to be humbled."

A letter had accompanied the general's head from the Roman.

From Titus Norbanus, proconsul of Rome, to Hamil
car, shofet of Carthage, greeting.

Shofet, I rejoice that you and I will meet again so soon.
I have found a splendid battleground, well watered and
with plenty of room for both armies to camp. The ground is level, not too stony and with plenty of grass. Personally,
I cannot think of a finer spot to add you and your army to
my battle honors.

Of course, certain formalities must be honored. I am
charged by the Senate of Rome to order you to turn around and march your army back to Africa. Should you choose that course, I will follow you, but not too
closely. I will not hinder your crossing of the Strait of
Hercules.

However, I know that you are a soldier and a man of spirit, so I fully expect you to choose honorable battle
rather than ignominious retreat. I await your pleasure,
here on this excellent field near the aptly named town of
Cartago Nova.

"He actually tells you that he has picked his ground for battle. Does he seriously expect that you will comply?"

"It would keep matters simple. A fight on level ground to decide the contest in a day. And to avoid battle might be taken for cowardice."

"You cannot mean it! Your ancestor Hannibal
never
let
the Romans choose their own ground for fighting. On some
occasions he retreated before them for days, until he found the ground that suited him, and
then
he fought, on ground and terms of his own choosing. Did anyone ever accuse Hannibal of cowardice for this?"

"My ancestor was glorious, but he never had numerical
superiority. Always, his numbers were inferior. I have here a
far larger army than Norbanus commands. And doubtless he lost many men in the fight with this fool." He waved contemptuously toward the oil-gleaming head.

"I think he lost very few," she said.

"No matter. Many or few, I will crush his contemptible legions and march on, destroying any Roman force that dares to defy me. Then I will destroy Rome, and I will not
be as merciful as my ancestor was. I will pulverize every last
stone of the city and I will kill or enslave every Roman in Italy. Then, when I am ready, I will march north, to their
capital of Noricum, and destroy that and every other vestige
of those misbegotten people."

"Excellent words," she said. "I think there are better ways to put them into effect."

"That will be enough. I will not have men saying that
the shofet of Carthage is following the advice of a woman, even a queen and distinguished ally."

With an effort, she restrained herself from answering.
She knew now that she had done her work too well. She had
set out to convince him that he was the new Alexander and greater than Hannibal, and that his destiny and hers were linked. Now it seemed that he accepted the first part, but thought that she was somehow his inferior, a mere woman rather than a queen of more than mortal status. She would have to correct this.

Titus Norbanus rode over the battlefield he
had chosen, and it was not for the first time. It looked level
and consistent throughout, but this was not quite so. A nar
row stream ran through it, and certain pieces of ground near
the stream were boglike. He had had horses graze upon these patches, to crop the longer grasses down to the length
of the rest. There were stony bits of ground, too. The stream
itself was deceptively deep in spots. He had had it sounded
along the whole length of the field, and knew exactly where
all the deep spots were. When the time came for the battle, he would know the field intimately, and his enemy would not.

He looked southward along the stream. He could just make out the fine city of Cartago Nova. He had not bothered to besiege the city, nor had he even sent envoys to demand its surrender. He had an immediate use for that city, and it was not as mere loot. His officers were mystified by his actions, and he had not enlightened them. He had ordered his admiral to stand his fleet well up the coast, out of sight of the city with its fine harbor. This, too, puzzled everyone, and that was exactly how he wanted it.

Satisfied that he knew precisely the nature of the ground,
he rode back to the Roman camp. He had ordered its rampart to be raised higher than usual, and had denuded a nearby hill of trees to construct its palisade. He wanted to give the appearance of a defensive posture.

He rode through the gate and along the
via principalis
to
the praetorium, where he dismounted and passed inside. A
slave took his helmet and others stripped off his armor so ef
ficiently that he did not have to pause as he strode through the huge tent. He pushed aside a leopard skin hanging and went within his women's quarters. Within, the two Judean princesses sat at a table, poring over their everlasting astrological charts. At his entrance they knelt and pressed their foreheads to the carpeted ground, an unusual thing to see from the proud sisters. He grasped a shoulder of each and raised them to their feet.

"Little princesses, what have the stars in store for me?"

"Master, we are sorely puzzled," Glaphyra said, her eyes downcast. "Until now, all our forecasts were favorable. Now
something is wrong."

"Wrong? How? Do the stars say I will be defeated?"

"Not exactly," Roxana said. "But you must not fight to
morrow. The signs say that you will not win glory tomorrow."

"Is that all? Do not trouble yourselves. I expect Hamilcar
to arrive this afternoon, and I will fight him tomorrow, and all will go as I have planned."

"Master!" Glaphyra gasped. "Do you not trust in our art and our gifts? You must not fight tomorrow!"

"I believe implicitly in your predictions and your mastery of your art. But, you see, all battles are not fought to win glory."

"We do not understand, Master," Roxana said.

"That is very good. You do not understand what I intend and neither do my officers. That means that Hamilcar will never guess what I have in store for him."

That afternoon, Norbanus stood atop the battle tower he had had erected at the edge of the field. It was higher than usual, shaded with an awning and equipped with all the sig
naling gear he would require. As his scouts had foretold earlier that day, the army of Hamilcar was marching onto the far side
of the field, regiment after massive regiment of them. With
great interest, Norbanus studied the units as they arrived,
peering through Selene's unique gift. As always, he marveled
at how the device made distant things seem so much nearer.
With it he could make out the details of standards, the shapes and colors of shields, making it easy to identify the units as they arrived and deployed to their camping sites.

This was very important, for he knew that the camping arrangement would correspond closely with their order of battle. Old Hannibal had made it a doctrine of Carthaginian military practice that, in deployment for battle, no unit should cross another's path of march unless it be for purposes of deception.

On the extreme left of the Carthaginian camp he saw
Spaniards: famed not only for their savagery but for tough
ness and endurance. In the middle was a huge mass of Gauls. These were ferocious in the attack, but had a reputa
tion for faltering if the first mad rush failed to carry the day.
On Hamilcar's right, the southern end, the Greek and
Macedonian professionals were setting up a neat and orderly
camp. These were the principal nations, but many others were there as well, most of them skirmishers, slingers, archers and horsemen. They were men of Libya and Numidia, of the desert and nameless nations of the African interior. There were light cavalry of a sort he had never seen before: men in trousers and long-sleeved jackets and pointed caps. He guessed these might be the Illyrians. Norbanus paid them little attention. Controlling Hamilcar's main battle line was the key to tomorrow's fight.

"General," said Cato, "I make their numbers to be at least twice our strength."

"No matter. We've destroyed barbarian armies many times our own numbers before." He handed the magical little device to Niger, who snatched it and scanned the enemy camp feverishly.

"What I see over there isn't a great mob of disorganized tribesmen. Those are hard-bitten professional soldiers and warriors under tight discipline."

"If their strength doesn't bother you," Cato said, "what about the news that his navy showed up in the harbor of
Cartago Nova this morning?" He jabbed a finger toward the
city, just visible in the distance to the south. "Why didn't we take that town when it would have been easy?"

Norbanus sighed. "Because it did not suit my purposes. I
have a plan for that city."

Niger handed the device over to Cato. "Perhaps it's time for you to explain just what that plan is."

"All in good time." Norbanus leaned over the railing and called for a herald. An olive wreath encircling his brow, the man appeared on the platform minutes later, draped in a white robe, holding a staff of hazelwood. "Go to the camp of Hamilcar," Norbanus instructed. "Extend to him my invitation to confer just before sunset at the stream. Neither of us is to be accompanied by more than two companions, the armies to remain in their camps." The herald repeated the message, bowed and left to deliver it.

"Don't go, General," Niger advised. "He'll do something
treacherous. Let some of us go to deal with his officers."

"But that would be unworthy," Norbanus said. "And he won't do anything to besmirch the victory he is sure he will
win. Now he's seen our army, and he has every confidence in
his chances."

Niger closed the optical device with a horny palm. "He buggering well has a right to be confident."

That evening, as the sun lowered in the west, Norbanus rode out, accompanied only by Niger and Cato. His spec
tacular armor was freshly polished to reflect the rays of the
setting sun and cast them back toward the enemy. His splendid cloak, Jonathan's gift, billowed out behind him. He rode a gleaming black stallion and was perfectly aware of the picture he made. His companions, more soberly at
tired, frowned, but as they approached the stream their faces
smoothed into the impassive Roman mask, drilled into them since youth as the only proper expression to assume when dealing with foreigners.

Hamilcar arrived at the stream at the same time as the Romans. He, too, was splendidly arrayed, in golden boots, gold-embroidered purple tunic and robe. On his brow rested a circlet of gold attesting his royal status. Behind him rode an armor bearer who held his sword and helmet, in token of his military mission. Beside him rode a woman who was bizarre even to the now well-traveled Romans: a veritable Amazon with yellow hair and blue eyes and tattooed all over. She looked more like a goddess of some savage race than a proper companion for a civilized monarch.

"Greetings in the name of the noble Senate of Rome,"
Norbanus said. "I have not seen you in far too long, Shofet."

"You have come up in the world, Norbanus," Hamilcar said, taking in the lion-mask helmet and the abundance of royal purple the Roman general wore. "I would remind you that I was already at the crest of the world when you were still living in some obscure German fort."

"And this must be the famous Queen Teuta of Illyria, of
whom we have heard so much." He bowed slightly. "Greetings, Your Majesty. I rejoice to meet you at last."

She glared at him with the coldest eyes he had ever seen in a female face. "You are a jumped-up peasant from the North. Perhaps you are empowered to speak on behalf of
your Senate, but do not presume to address us on your own
behalf."

Norbanus smiled. "I believe I am here to confer with your ally, the Shofet Hamilcar."

Hamilcar radiated boredom. "Speak, Roman. It grows late."