Pride of Carthage

Publius, from where he stood at a distance to take in the whole scene, saw the lights multiply from a few small points into many moving flames. He watched as four fires became hundreds, carried by men in sweeping movements that fanned out all around the camp. He knew the moment the first torches touched the thorny perimeter wall. And he saw how moments later the torches leaped in somersaulting arcs, landing among the reed-and-wood structures. With the evening wind buffeting across it all, it was a matter of a few breaths before the whole place was aflame. The dry wood and reeds went up as quickly as lamp oil.

The Africans woke and at first none understood the horror that was afoot. A few guards shouted alarms, but they were unheeded. Men ran out of the camp's few exits in disarray, bleary-eyed, often weaponless. They stumbled, pushing each other, in a frenzy, some of them swatting at their burning garments. Then they were cut down by what to them seemed to be soldiers the shape and color and consistency of flame, who stepped out of the gloom with sword and spear. Within moments there were so many bodies piled by the entrances that the Romans had trouble planting their feet. Or perhaps it was fear that made them clumsy, for the scene before them soon became a vision of hellish agony. By the time the third and fourth contingents of soldiers had replaced those stationed at the exits, they were not soldiers but angels of mercy, cutting down the flaming, maddened, humanlike figures that ran howling out into their last escape.

In the full light of the following day the army took in the scene with hushed amazement. The camp was a blackened wasteland. Demons of smoke drifted through the charred remains, bodies in every imaginable contortion, man and beast likewise reduced to black, shriveled versions of their former selves. The charred poles and skins that had been shelters could have been carcasses too. Syphax had, of course, been in the camp to perform the purification rites. Publius had required these especially for this purpose—to keep him out of the city and away from his new bride. He had been captured during the night and now sat bound by the arms and legs. He stared with unreasoning eyes at the scene around him and yelled curses at Publius, at Rome and the gods of Rome. He called them all liars and scoundrels and said that history would know their perfidy. A day would come when all of their sins returned to plague them manyfold.

So he harangued them for some time, but Publius soon got the gist and stopped having his diatribes translated. Later, the king hung his head and blubbered into his chest, looking as dejected as a mutilated veteran of some forgotten war. Thus was Fortune fickle, even for kings of men. Hanno had not been found, but nothing in the world suggested that he had done anything except ascend toward the heavens in ash and flame. He had gone the way of the army of Africa, leaving Carthage undefended and, finally, conquerable.

Still looking upon the scene and thinking thoughts such as this, Publius saw the approaching messenger and the banner under which he rode. The message had been five days in transit, not such a short space, really, but short enough for Publius to feel some urgency. He thought he saw Fabius' trembling hand in the document, but even that did not lessen its impact. Hannibal was marching on Rome, the dispatch said. The Carthaginian made no secret of this but instead rolled across the land announcing his movements with drums and horns like some traveling entertainment. He was sweeping in new allies along the way and had also unleashed a hitherto unseen degree of barbarity directed by his general Monomachus, who worshipped the Child Eater and was at that very moment devouring Italy's young. The Senate chastised Publius for the grave danger he had placed them in, saying that he had promised Hannibal would quit Italy on word of his arrival in Africa. Instead, the invader had used the consul's absence to strike his final blow. Rome now found herself in the greatest peril she had ever faced. The burden of this rested upon Publius' young shoulders. He was, therefore, recalled to protect Rome. Immediately. There must be no delay.

Looking south from the terrace adjacent to her rooms at Cirta, Imilce thought it ominous how little of consequence happened in the whole great swath of country she could see. It was true that laborers worked the fields; a flock of birds rose, swooped, and landed, flying from one field to the next and on again, dodging stones thrown by children employed for the purpose; a breeze stirred the palms lining the river and set them rattling; a cart trundled along beneath her, two men talking in Libyan atop it; the dry hint of smoke drifted in from the continent, a scent mixed with the smell of the vast stretches of farmland. Yes, much was happening as she stood there, but all of it seemed false, an imitation of life in denial of the larger movements afoot. She was sure of this and found it most disconcerting that the world was such a resourceful deceiver. From the moment she placed her fingers on the smooth mud of the wall she felt that she must not move until the mystery hanging in the air had been revealed. As it turned out, she did not have to wait past mid-morning.

She first saw them as a ripple on the horizon, a dark line that for some time appeared and disappeared. She thought it might be a trick of the light, the play of heat demons out on the plains. And then the strange thought came to her that a mighty flock of ostriches was rushing toward them. But this impression vanished almost as quickly as it came and she knew what it was that she looked upon: an approaching horde of mounted men.

“Is it my husband returning?” a voice asked, flat and emotionless.

Imilce did not turn to meet Sophonisba. She smelled her sister's perfume, and that was enough to increase her melancholy. The fragrance was just slightly musky, masculine in its richness of tone. It struck the back of the nose, so that by the time one scented her she was already deep inside. Imilce felt the younger woman's hand slip over hers. She reached up with her thumb and acknowledged her by clasping her little finger for a moment. They had been together every day now for weeks, ever since both she and Sapanibal had insisted on traveling with Sophonisba to Cirta. Such an escort was customary when a young woman journeyed to wed in a foreign nation, and the two older women would accept none of Sophonisba's protests. Indeed, Imilce found the resolution with which the girl accepted her fate almost unnatural. She kept reminding herself that Sophonisba was a Barca. That was where her strength came from. She had said as much before. “I am not like most girls,” she had said, long ago. “I do not pray for childish things. I pray that I will somehow serve Carthage.” And so she was doing. Imilce wondered whether she, too, was serving Carthage when she held Sophonisba as she sobbed, in the hour before dawn when she sometimes slipped away from Syphax' bed. How cruel the things nations ask of their women.

“I cannot tell,” Imilce finally answered. “They're horsemen, but—”

“They will have been victorious. I should prepare myself. The king will want me.”

So she spoke, but Sophonisba did not lift her hand or move away. Imilce felt the film of sweat where they touched. She almost thought she could count the rhythm of the girl's heartbeat through her palm, but it might have been her own pulse. She was thinking about this, and had been for some time, when Sophonisba whispered:

“They are not Libyan. They ride under King Gaia's banner.”

The young woman possessed keen eyes. Just a moment later the guards must have reached the same conclusion. A shout. And then the great drum beat the alarm. Men and women and children all knew the sound and responded. Soldiers sprang up from rest and yelled instructions to each other. Those outside the city dropped their work. Women of the fields lifted their garments above their knees and ran for the gates, which started to close, the loud clicking of their works yet another signal of distress.

Imilce looked around from one tower to the next and then out to the horizon, waiting for someone to end the alert, to explain away the banner as a prank or a misunderstanding. It had to be, for no enemy army should be approaching them now. Hanno had assured her they had everything in hand. Either the Romans would make a peace, he said, or the Libyans would rout them with their superior numbers. She tried to think of some way that either possibility could lead to this new development. Perhaps the peace had been concluded, and the approaching force was friendly—

Sophonisba whispered again. “The gods are punishing me still. It's him.”

It took Imilce a moment to pick him out amid the throng of men, but there he was. Masinissa. Imilce glanced at her sister-in-law but could read nothing in her profile. It was stony and cold and distant: all strange words to describe such rich features. Sophonisba's lips parted. “Let us go closer.”

It took a few moments to leave their quarters, walk through the palace, and cross the courtyard. The men might have barred them from scaling the gate tower, but none yet knew what to make of Sophonisba. She might be only a girl, or she might be a tyrant queen with the power of life and death over them: they were not sure which. They parted before her, and the two women soon found a vantage point overlooking the city's main entrance.

“Look at him,” Sophonisba said. “Just look . . .”

Indeed he was something to behold. Gone was the lithe adolescent figure Imilce had last seen frolicking with his friends after a lion hunt, gone the roundness of his boyish features and the handsome innocence of his eyes. Masinissa rode as a man at the head of a mass of men. He wore a royal garment, a vibrant sweep of indigo cloth wrapped around his body and up into his hair to form a headdress. He approached the gates of the city with utter confidence, his legs and feet bare. The vibrancy of his dress made him the center of attention outside the walls. Those behind him seemed a dusty, sunbaked manifestation of the continent itself: dressed in many hues but all beginning and ending in shades of brown, clothed in animal hides, tattooed, with knotted manes of hair, lion teeth dangling around their necks, spears clenched in knotted fists.

Masinissa shouted that the gates had best be opened. The city's new monarch had arrived; he was thirsty and hungry, for meat and for the pleasures of his office.

The magistrate in charge in Syphax' absence answered that he opened the gate for no man but his king. He joked that the young prince had been sent to the wrong destination. The city was sealed against him, he said. That was plain to see. Perhaps the prince was ignorant of the army awaiting him on the plains. If he wished to win the city, he must first turn and face its king.

Masinissa grinned wide enough to show the ivory of his teeth. Alas, the magistrate was mistaken in many ways. First, he was no longer a prince. And second, the battle on the plain had already been fought, and won by the Roman-Massylii alliance. Syphax' army was in ruins. Dead and burned already. As this was so, debate was of no use. Simply open the gates and all inside would be treated fairly.

“The battle is concluded,” he said. “Let us shed no more blood today. We are all of Africa here. Now open!”

At a shout from an officer, the spearmen along the entire wall facing him lifted their weapons up to the ready. Masinissa was within spear range and could easily have found himself a cushion stuck by a hundred points. His soldiers called for him to retreat somewhat, but he lifted his fingers and snapped them—one loud pop—in the air above his head. A moment later, in answer, two mounted guards led a bound man forward. He sat straight-backed atop a silver horse, his hands chained behind his back, his head bare to the heat of the sun, dressed like the simple prisoner he now was.

“Behold your former king,” Masinissa said.

Sophonisba inhaled sharply, a breath like a child who has just stopped crying. She must have recognized her husband immediately. The magistrate, however, did not. He shouted down that never had this man been his king. The Massylii laughed at this. A guard at one side of the man in question shoved him savagely with the butt of his spear. The man gripped the horse with his legs, but not tightly enough. He tumbled off, landing hard upon his shoulder. His cheek pressed against the parched soil, and his neck bent dangerously. The horse did not move. It simply blew air through its nostrils and waited for its rider to fall completely free. Having done so, the man stayed curled on his side, in a fetal pose, deaf to Masinissa's calls that he rise.

For a moment, the scene grew chaotic. Masinissa's men wrestled the man up from the ground, kicking and cuffing him and demanding that he stand. He made himself deadweight, then bared his teeth and nipped the flesh of one guard's cheek. At Masinissa's direction, one of the Massylii clamped his hands around the man's head and tilted it toward the sun, showing first one profile and then the other. They ripped his tunic down the chest, as if this would identify him. And then they held his hands up for inspection, pointing at the lion track tattooed there. The magistrate could have no question now. It was Syphax.

Masinissa dismounted and strolled near enough to the wall that he hardly even had to raise his voice. “Fortune has turned,” he said. “I wouldn't be here before you now, except that your king seized my father's domains a few months ago. We who were blameless he dishonored. We who were proud were made to bow before him. But all has been set right again. I'm not here to harm you. Why would I, when you are now my servants? All that Syphax took from us I reclaim; and all that was previously Syphax' I now call mine. You will find me a kinder master than he. So open!”

But still the magistrate hesitated. He argued with his advisers and thought up new questions to ask the young king, who grew more and more annoyed. What had become of the Carthaginian leader? Hanno Barca was dead, flown into the air as ashes. He was a memory. If they knew Publius Scipio, Masinissa said, they would not doubt him. The consul had lost barely any men in the battle, such as it was. Publius had sent him to pacify the city through offers of peace, as a brother, but if the gates stayed closed then Cirta—with no army in all of Africa to call on—would find herself besieged by the might of Rome.

One of the officers saw a chance to throw a gibe and did so: Was Masinissa truly a king? He sounded more like a bed partner to the Roman. The laughter along the walls flared and died quickly, nervously. In answer to it Masinissa kissed his hands and pushed the air in front of him out with the palms of his hands. He swore that his offer of mercy ended in the next few moments. “If the gates do not open now I will commit myself to the slaughter or imprisonment of the entire population, the mutilation and torture of the magistrates . . .”

He began to detail the methods he would use, but Imilce did not hear him. Sophonisba grabbed her by the arm and dragged her through the soldiers, pushing and cursing her way down off the battlements and into the crowd below. The young woman's grip was bruising, but Imilce did not care. She was hardly aware of the people around her. She was not thinking about what was to happen to her next, or about the turn of fortune in the war, or about Hanno's death, or how she might survive the next few hours. Instead, she thought of her son. Ideas came at her like darts zipping in from unseen attackers. Hamilcar was safe in Carthage! What a joy that he was safe in Carthage! But the next moment, Imilce realized she might never see him again, might not know what became of him. He might forget her in the coming years and call some other woman mother. She thought of Didobal caring for him, and this struck her as both a relief and as a sadness. She had a momentary fantasy that Tanit would feel her distress and lift her up and fly her home to Carthage. She closed her eyes, even as she stumbled forward, asking the goddess to let her touch him again, let her cradle that boy in her arms and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him . . .

Even in this state she recognized the grinding clink of the main gate. The decision had been made. She opened her eyes and realized that they had not gotten very far at all, just to the edge of the central courtyard, which they would have to cross to get back to their quarters. She could see the gate shifting heavily. Sophonisba ignored it and kept on. They pressed their way slowly through the mass of tightly packed bodies, the scent and heat and sweaty proximity almost overwhelming. Imilce's head swam and for a moment she feared she would faint.

Then Sapanibal was with them, solid, head-clearing, determined. She grasped both women around the neck and pulled them in to her and began explaining their means of escape. She already sent a servant to gather peasants' clothes for them. They would meet her near the northeastern gatehouse, which had a secret door that she had arranged to have opened. From there they would make their way to the docks. Perhaps one of them would ride a donkey. They would look like servants sent by their master on some task. None would question them, as long as they beat Masinissa's men to the harbor. She believed they could do that, but they must leave immediately. The captain of the vessel that brought them would wait for them. She was sure he would, and after that it was only a matter of navigating home through the Roman sea patrols. It would not be easy, but they must . . .

Even as she spoke the drama just behind them played on. Some of the horsemen came in so fast upon the gates that their horses reared, seeming to kick the doors wide. They poured forth in a tumult of mounted fury, propelled by a wind that roared through the new opening, bringing a cloud of dust and the scent of smoke. The horsemen trilled their tongues and carved circles with their mounts. They waved their spears in threat and cuffed at those who approached too close, many already begging for mercy, promising to lead them to treasure, to act as guides to the palace, to show them in whose homes the greatest fortunes could be found. Amazing how fast allegiances turn.

“Let's go now,” Sapanibal said. “Before—”

Masinissa came into view. Imilce's eyes flew toward him and she knew Sophonisba's did the same. He dismounted and sauntered with his hands resting on his hips and his elbows cutting angles out to either side. His blue garments flapped and snapped in the wind. The magistrates were before him in an instant. They dropped first to their knees, and then to all fours, and, finally, flat to their bellies. They were awaiting the king's attention, but his gaze stayed above them, searching for something he knew none of them offered.

“Enough,” Sapanibal hissed. “We must go now!”

This seemed to wake Sophonisba from her stupor. Her eyes flashed over to Sapanibal, wide and intense, full of purpose. “Yes, sisters,” she said. “Do that! Do that this very minute! Whatever happens, go, and do not wait for me.”

With that, she twisted from Sapanibal's grip and flung herself into the crowd. Both women called after her, but she made furious progress. Moments later she stepped out of the circle of the townspeople and stood alone. She straightened her garments and walked forward. A Massylii horseman almost ran her through, but thought better of it and froze with spear upraised. Sophonisba strode past him, toward Masinissa.

Lawlessness flourishes in uncertainty. Sapanibal and Imilce struggled through the growing tangle of it as they raced down toward the harbor. Already young men had found occasion to snatch food from stalls. A Libyan trader went down, slashed across the forehead for an insult that had not existed a moment before. He rolled in the dust and reached for Imilce's legs. They passed a moneylender's table as it was overturned, coins spinning in the air, hands grasping for them. A boy of ten shoved past Sapanibal, nearly knocking her from her feet with the ostrich leg slung over his shoulder. Through all of this the two women walked forward. They wore servants' dress and watched the ground before them, making themselves smaller than they were.

The ship's crew did not recognize them when they tried to board. Sapanibal slapped the sailor who barred her way. She spat at him and spoke her name with her teeth so near his nose it seemed she might bite him. This did the trick. The captain had only to hear the barest of explanation before ordering his men to cast off. The first hordes of Libyan horsemen had rounded the city and started toward the harbor as the crew bent their backs to row out into open water. The vessel was a merchant vessel, not designed for quick initial maneuvers although nimble when under full sail.

Sapanibal, who had been so resolute, collapsed on the deck near the boat's stern. Everything was spinning into madness. There was too much to take in: Hanno's death, Syphax' defeat, Cirta's surrender, Masinissa's appearance, Sophonisba's actions. All of this piled on the earlier shocks of Hasdrubal's death and the defeat in Iberia and Sophonisba's marriage. The boat's rocking made it worse. Everything within her—mind and guts alike—churned with the rise and fall, the tilt and lift and fall and rise. For a time she felt her body to be a cauldron in which a massive stew bubbled. When they pulled free of the harbor and met the chop of the shifting currents she knew they were beyond Masinissa's reach, but she could not contain herself any longer. She stuck her head through a gap in the railing, and she heaved up everything inside her. Heaved and heaved, watching droplets of matter slip away on the slick backs of the waves. She was at this for some time, long after she had gone empty and could only convulse dryly.

Afterward she balled up in exhaustion. She folded in on herself and tried to separate the threads of narrative in a manner that made sense. She had no idea what would befall Sophonisba. She had seen her sister drop to her knees before the king, seen that Sophonisba was speaking and he listening, but that was all she knew. They could not have stayed a moment longer. Massylii soldiers were working toward them through the crowd, battering people about the heads and upraised arms, jerking them up to their feet and shoving them into groups by sex and rank. At any moment, they would have been noticed. It took a massive effort of cold determination to tug Imilce into motion, but she did it. Sophonisba had made her decision; she and Imilce had to do the same.

And Hanno. What of her brother? Masinissa had named his method of death. She tried to curse him as a liar, but his very presence suggested he spoke the truth. She could not imagine what Masinissa and the Romans had done, but it must have been something devious. Hanno had gone out to cleanse himself for the meeting with the consul, full of hope. Just a few days ago when they had parted, he had been more alive than she had ever seen him. He stood before her in a corselet of orange, protected by bronze plates that scaled over each other like the skin of some armored fish. He held a helmet clamped under one arm and looked at her with a grave intensity that was, silently, a form of speech.

“Are you going to make war or peace?” she asked.

“Let us pray that it be peace,” he said. “We've all had enough of war.”

Sapanibal had nodded then and said she hoped the Romans felt the same way, but as they were a more warlike people she did not put too much stock in the wish. “At least,” she said, “you've built for yourself a strong position here. You have African brothers, as you wished.”

Hanno closed his eyes at this, first one and then the other, and then he opened them in the same order, as if they registered a wave of fatigue passing through him. “Sapanibal, for all my days I will grieve that bargain. The union only need last until the war is done. Then, on my word, I'll personally free her—if that's what she wishes.”

“You make that promise to me?” Sapanibal asked. “Why not make it to Sophonisba?”

“You'll take the message to her. It's hard for me to look at her now. She utters not a single word of complaint, but that only makes this marriage seem a greater crime.”

Sapanibal had been surprised at what he said next. The words did not seem to fit the image she had of him standing there, an armored warrior ready to ride toward the enemy. He did not soften his erect posture or come any nearer to her, but he had made a confession to her. He said that for all the years he could remember, he had feared Hannibal, feared and envied him. Hannibal had made his life a misery just by being so gifted, so beloved by all who witnessed his deadly grace. But recently this had not mattered to Hanno as much. He had come to believe that they are all put on the earth to be who they are, not to aspire to be anyone else, not to be measured against others at all, but rather weighed on a scale calibrated each to one's own special trials. And if he could make peace with the consul on the terms they had already set forth, then he would have achieved something great of his own.

“Hannibal makes war better than anyone,” he had said, “but perhaps Hanno will find a gift for making peace.”

That was what he had said, what he had thought, felt, hoped. It was madness that a man aspiring to such things died with them undone. He was gone, and she had nothing to take home to present her mother. Nothing that had come from his dead body, no trinket taken from his neck, no locket of hair, no ring.

When she finally looked up—ashen, cheeks sunk, and lips still trembling—Imilce was sitting near at hand. She cradled her legs up to her chest, hugging them into her, with her chin resting on one knee. Sapanibal did not speak to her, but it filled her with affection just to know Imilce was near and that she was not yet totally alone in the world.

They did not travel far that night, just out of sight of Cirta, really; then they cut in and anchored off a fishing village. That evening the crew stripped all distinguishing trappings from the vessel. They furled both the flag of Carthage and the Barca lion. They tossed watered-down excrement onto the sail, for it was far too white to go unnoticed. They pried the golden eyeballs of Yam off the prow and scratched at the face painted there with hooks to make it look old and ill maintained, and they piled fishing nets into heaps at visible points on the deck.

In the dead of night, they lifted anchor and moved on. They tried to go slowly, for the coast was not without dangerous shoals, but they were passing the Roman landing point and had no wish to dally either. Indeed, at first light they spotted an entire fleet of Roman vessels beached along the shore. Hundreds of them. And there were more coming. The captain had thought to pass at half-sail, but spotting several ships moving in from the north, he gave the order to bend all the sails and fly behind the wind. Fortunately, the gods favored them again. They passed unnoticed, or at least without piquing the enemy's interest.

Later that day a Roman quinquereme came upon them at an angle heading toward the shore. The warship passed within shouting distance, a lean craft four times their length. Oars, stacked three rows high and numbering almost three hundred, dipped into the water, sliced up into the air, and splashed back down, all to the beat of a great drum that even from a distance thudded against Sapanibal's temples. The vessel dwarfed theirs completely. It cut the sea into two foaming curls, interrupted by the lifting and submerging of the prow through the waves, an armored prong that looked like the head of an angry whale each time it broke the surface. Had it rammed them it would have splintered their boat into pieces and plowed through them without losing the slightest momentum. But the quinquereme did not turn toward them. It just rowed on, some of the crew peering over long enough to inspect them in passing, uninterested, on other business they deemed more important.

They sailed on into the night, turned the point of Cape Farina the next morning, and steered straight for Carthage across a frothy sea, the glass-clear water whipped into foam by the same wind that carried them home. That afternoon, the captain approached the two women where they sat behind a shelter toward the rear of the boat. He walked steadily, even though the boat heaved with their progress, and he stood before them, body swaying to adjust to the boat's pitching. He did not look at them at first, but just remained nearby, kneading the coarse hairs of his beard with his thick fingers.

“It's ill news that we carry home with us,” he said finally. “It's likely we'll be the first back with word of Hanno's defeat. The Council won't look on this kindly at all. Perhaps you should report the news in your brother's name.”

“You fear they'll kill the messenger?”

He squatted and looked at Sapanibal. His eyes were a remarkable blue, as if they held the sea. “They wouldn't harm you, but me or one of my men?” He pinched the air and flicked his fingers, as if tossing sand into the wind. “Tell them to call Hannibal back, if they haven't done so already. Nothing else can save us now. Without him, Rome will grind us like wheat beneath a millstone . . .”

“Is this the state of Carthaginian manhood?” Sapanibal asked, scornfully. “You ask a woman to do your work, and then despair of the nation in same breath. Have you no pride?”

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!

He called for a servant of the house and asked the startled man if his old master had had any poison. He had, of course, and this was duly fetched. A few moments later he held within his hand a tiny vial, ornately worked. But looking at the vial he knew he could not do it. He was not a normal man. He was king. He had promised a whole nation of people that he would lead them into the future. He had rescued them from tyranny. He could not abandon them; what would become of them? Would not Rome turn against them in rage at his betrayal? And what of all the greatness he wanted to achieve in honor of his father? This had become the new duty of his life. He had to make up for all the years that he had been youthfully ignorant of his father's wisdom. He simply had to live.

And with that thought he decided. He called to his manservant. When he appeared, he spoke calmly. “Take this to my wife. Tell her that I'm keeping my promise to her. She will not fall into Roman hands, but I cannot be her husband. Ask her to drink this.”

The man took the vial without comment. Once he was gone, Masinissa tried to shift his attention to something else. He thought of Maharbal and hoped that he was still the commander of Hannibal's cavalry. He would have to speak to Publius about him, for he had of late conceived a plan that might aid them greatly, if Maharbal was still loyal to the Massylii. He began to rehearse what he would say. With this victory he could raise another ten or fifteen thousand men from his own people. For that matter, he could probably recruit from the Libyans—those not burned to cinders . . .

And just like that, the manservant was back. No time at all had passed. Masinissa was sure that the vial had not been delivered. The Romans had turned him around; the servant could not find her; he came to ask Masinissa to reconsider.

The man said, “She has received the gift, my king.”

“What said she? Tell me exactly. Exactly!”

“She said that she accepted it, but that it saddened her. She said that she would have died a better death if she had not married the same week as her funeral. She said to remind you of the tale of Balatur. She'd wanted to believe it, but truth was as she had said, wasn't it? No Massylii was ever true to a single woman. She said to tell you that she only ever loved you . . . only you, singly out of anyone in the entire world. And she drank the poison. She drank all of it without hesitation, and then she handed the vial back.”

The man held it out for the king to take. Masinissa had already been in tears, but seeing the bottle he crumpled to the floor. The servant left him writhing on the marble, as if he sought to melt into the surface and become one with the stone, to go as cold and hard as it was and to feel no more.

It was glorious to behold. Hannibal calculated every move of their new campaign. For the first few weeks it seemed he pulled the strings to which the workings of the entire world were tethered. He put melancholy behind him. He yoked his sorrow so that it might pull him forward behind it. He marched from Tarentum to Metapontum, picked up the bulk of Bomilcar's former soldiers—who brought their numbers to just above thirty-four thousand troops—and then turned north, following the river into Apulia. The army of Livius Salinator shadowed them, but they were no more trouble than a swarm of gnats. They crossed the spine of the peninsula through the valley of the Aufidus and caused great panic as they threaded between Nola and Beneventum. They moved at a leisurely pace, scouring the country to both sides with an almost festive attitude. It was early summer and the land bloomed all about them. As ever, it was a joy to pluck from it at will. He knew that Monomachus was stealing children from the locals and sacrificing them to Moloch. This troubled him more than he would admit, but for the first time he gave way to another's certainty. Perhaps Moloch did want a greater share of the blood they were spilling. So be it.

Joining the Via Appia they trudged through daylong waves of showers, drenched one minute and dry the next, chilled by the rain and then warmed by the sun, then chilled again. Hannibal asked his men how they liked this ritual purification. It was a blessing offered by the gods themselves to anoint the campaign to follow, he said. Approaching Capua, they slowed just enough for Hannibal to gather intelligence as to the situation there. Three armies held the city pinned down—those of Claudius Nero, Appius Claudius, and Fulvius Flaccus, nearly sixty-five thousand men in all. They had completed the circumvallation of the city and built outer fortifications. Any attack on them would be a siege in and of itself. Hannibal hesitated for a moment. His brother's killer was close, and his desire to avenge Hasdrubal burned within him, but he held to plan.

He marched the army in a hooked route that brought them up to their old camp on the slope of Mount Tifata. From there, they swept down toward the city. They clashed throughout the afternoon with Fulvius, and then pulled back as if to prepare for another engagement the next day. They did not, in fact, prepare a full camp, but only went through the motions until the light faded. In the darkness, Hannibal dispatched a messenger sure he could get inside the city, telling them not to fear his sudden disappearance, because it was part of a greater scheme.

The whole army shouldered their burdens and marched north, past Casilinum, across the Volturnus, around Cales and Teanum. They came to the Via Latina and followed it toward Rome. They burned bridges behind them, set fire to growing crops, fanned the country into a state of terror like that after Cannae. This was all as Hannibal wished, for his intentions were twofold: through terror in the capital, he hoped to see the blockade of Capua abandoned, and—knowing the shallowness of support for the consul's actions—he prayed that the Senate might recall Publius from Africa. Surely, the Rome he had thus far encountered would look to its own interests firsts. Of course it would.

They cut across to the Anio River and camped there, Rome just a morning's march away. Hannibal waited another day, letting the Numidians range within sight of the city; each passing day, he believed, would fill the enemy with more anxiety. Indeed, he learned that the city was in greater turmoil than ever. Though forbidden to disturb the peace, people poured out into the streets and into the shrines of the gods, wailing at their impending doom, convinced that their tormentor had finally come to settle this long dispute. Women loosed their hair and swept it across sacred altars and beseeched the gods with upraised hands, growing louder in the process as each tried to project her call with a force that would get her heard. A slave of African origin seen running through the streets early one morning caused a nervous citizen to declare that the enemy had entered the city, setting off a tumult that took the greater part of the day to dispel. Guards shot out to every possible post: along every section of the walls, in the citadel, on the Capitol. Men went armed even to the baths, and sentries around the city waited to sound the alarm. The panic was so great that all former consuls and dictators were summarily reinstated to their posts, an undertaking that must in itself have been a grand confusion. And then a report came in that Fulvius had pulled up from Capua and made for Rome on the Via Appia, just as Hannibal had hoped. With the news of Fulvius' move, Hannibal believed one of his objectives might well have been met, but he could not come so close to Rome without offering up a challenge.

He addressed the troops early the following morning. The trees and grass dripped with dew, but the sky was so clear as to be a brilliant white. He strode through the gathered throng with a chicken under one arm and a fistful of grain in the other, his voice booming out as he went. He asked how many among them had come with him across the Alps four years before? How many had seen the Ticinus, Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae? Surely there were a few left among them who had been beside him the whole time. He clambered up onto the bulk of a felled tree, half of which had been sawed into sections for chopping. Enthusiastic soldiers jostled each other to hear him; a few jumped up onto nearby portions of the tree and fought to keep their balance as their fellows shoved and yanked them. He said that they would use a Roman method to determine the favors of the day. So saying, he tossed out the handful of grain. Men had to jump back to clear a space for it. He grasped the fluttering chicken with both hands and released it. The bird flapped its wings frantically for a moment, but then, seeing the mass of men all around, thought better of a long flight. It dropped down into the circle of bare ground and began strutting the space with nervous head bobs.

As he watched the bird, Hannibal said, “You've slaughtered Romans until your swords bent and dulled on the flesh and bone of them. You've seen them run before us like children fleeing before monsters of the night. You've looked in the face of the impossible a hundred times and laughed. Haven't you?”

They answered that they had.

“And so you'll be rewarded for it. By the gods, you'll be rewarded for it. What army on earth ever deserved victory more than ours? This will not go unnoticed—”

“The bird eats!” a man cried. “The Persian fowl eats!”

As this message fanned out through the crowd, Hannibal said, “Through the bird, the gods tell us the day will be ours. We, too, will feed upon our prey. This very day you'll set eyes upon the hated place itself. I know all of you have been impatient for this from the start. Now the time has come. Let's go call on Rome!”

He mounted one of the last surviving elephants from the shipment they had received after Cannae, seeming to take great pleasure in the vantage it provided him. Around him men and animals moved across the countryside, through fields and farms, leaping across irrigation ditches, ducking beneath trees, rising and falling with the slow undulations of the land. The Numidians rode out in front. Some soldiers, taken with enthusiasm, jogged before the main force like children anxious to behold something long promised them. Hannibal called for a sack of dates and munched on them as he rode, rocking with the elephant's slow gait.

Hannibal caught his first glimpse of the city as he rode through the saddle between two hills. If he had been on his own feet instead of mounted, he might well have stopped in his tracks, such was the way he drew up. For a moment the expression of mirth faded from his face and his single good eye became the center of his being. It was most dramatic, complete, and undeniable, the way the hilly farmland and pastoral view ended abruptly at the capital's mighty walls. Compared with the green landscape around it, the city was a raised scar inflicted on the land by the hands of men. The walls stood ten times a man's height and stretched in a strong, curving line, towers evenly spaced, the stone so smooth it almost glowed in the bright light. Even from a distance, it was clear that the populace crowded the walls. The upper rim was lined with staring people, with the bristle of soldiers' spears, the curve of archers' bows. And behind them hulked the city itself. All the famous hills, the Quirinal and Viminal, the Esquiline and Caelian and Palatine and Aventine, the Capitoline: Hannibal found himself ordering them in his mind. Stone structures crowded every space, temples beside palaces, the reddish roofs scaled like fishes' backs, steaming as the last of the night's moisture evaporated beneath the sun. Narrow lanes cut between the buildings; tufts of trees crowned some rises; the mixed scent of sewage and food, feces and incense—the stink of humanity—just touched them as the breeze blew into their faces. The writhing line of the Tiber shimmered as if it flowed liquid silver.

Rome. Finally, Rome.

The soldiers catching their first glimpse of the place slowed and hesitated, bumped into each other as they stared. They might have stopped completely except that Hannibal, on his elephant, carried on. After a few moments of hush, generals, captains, and bold men remembered themselves. Numidians trilled and surged forward on their mounts. Gauls bellowed that they had returned to finish the sacking they had started years before. They and Iberians blew on their horns, a ruckus like a thousand stags in rut. And the Latin contingents strode forward singing. Thus Hannibal led the enemies of Rome to the city's very walls.

He halted the advance on the clear ground an arrow's shot from the walls. Here he turned the elephant and progressed along the walls, commenting on the craftwork and calling out to the enemy. Just who was in charge here? Might one in authority announce himself? Was Fulvius in there, the cunning creature? To whom should he direct his terms? Or would they come out and settle this dispute like warriors? His own men were outnumbered, but they were not against a hard day's work. No? If not today, then on the morrow, perhaps? As an aside he offered fair prices on plots of land in the Forum, if any of them were interested in getting in on the transaction early. He did not discriminate. He would even accept Roman coins as fair tender.

He had surveyed the entire distance between the Colline and Esquiline gates when a sudden barrage of arrows sailed into the air. They did not quite reach Hannibal, but sank squelching into the ground nearby. The commander seemed to find humor in this. He pointed at an individual on the wall, blinked his good eye, and grinned at him, as if the two of them had shared a joke and Hannibal was weighing his rebuttal. A few moments later a missile ripped through the men not far from the commander, shot from a ballista, a mechanically strung bow of great strength. The bolt pierced straight through the soft of one man's neck, severing the artery in an expulsion of blood. It ricocheted off a Bruttian's round shield and caught a Capuan with an upward trajectory that pinned him by the torso to the flank of a mule. The man was dead on the spot, but the beast set up a wheezing cry and threw a series of lopsided kicks. Men laughed at this and commented on Roman spite, asking what the mule had ever done to offend them. They made light of it to demonstrate their fearlessness, but nevertheless they withdrew a short distance.

And so the day passed. Hannibal seemed content to sit on his elephant, munching dates, spitting seeds to the ground like a boy, and chatting with whatever men were near him. The soldiers had come by now to know that half of war is in the waiting. And so they took their lead from their commander's mood; they stoked their fires and roasted animals newly snatched from the local farmers. Those who had musical instruments brought them out and played into the night, so that surely the Romans huddled inside their walls heard a strange chorus of festivity: bone whistles and hand rattles and bells played on the fingers of camp followers or slave women. The complicated rhythms of African drums went on the longest, like the heart of the army beating so loud so that all inside the city would know that Hannibal's army lived, prospered, waited for them.

The next day Hannibal marshaled the army in the wide field east of the city. The sky was heavy with cloud, the light dim beneath it, the ground moist enough that the men's feet stirred no dust. To the commander's joy, Fulvius and the consuls did not shy from meeting him. They emerged from the Esquiline gate to great fanfare, rank after rank of men stepping in unison, bearing tall shields of yellow or red, emblazoned with boars or wolves. People lined the walls, jostling for views, shouting their support like spectators at the Circus. The troops moved with synchronicity, answering the calls of the lituus and tuba promptly, despite the combined clamor of the spectators and Hannibal's soldiers. The velites—wolf, lion, bear-head—prowled forward of the others, creating the usual distractions. Many of them howled or roared like the beasts that adorned them. A few came forward far enough to launch their missiles, and their taunts.

Hannibal waited patiently throughout. He did not orate to the troops—his voice was hoarse from the previous day—but he did make casual comments that passed from one man to the next. He checked the sky as much as he did the enemy army and remarked, “The heavens promise a bath for the first man to draw blood.” Counting the various standards of the consul, the former consuls, and the former dictators, he turned to Gemel and asked, “How many heads does this beast have? They should be careful one doesn't bite the other in the ass.” A little later, having watched a velite stumble and sprawl on top of his shield: “There goes a cub in bear's clothing.”

The sky had grown even darker by the time the Romans were assembled. Both sides seemed anxious to ignore it, but this became impossible. The clouds dropped their load just as the skirmishers stepped forward to start the contest in earnest. But it was not the cleansing shower Hannibal joked about. Rain fell steady for a few moments, and then dropped down in a series of buffeting blankets. A sudden wind whipped the water sideways and snapped and twisted the points of the nearby trees. Scarcely had the men covered their eyes before they looked up again to an entirely different scene. The very air before them had turned to water. Water fell from the sky and jumped up from the turf in a great confusion, so thick that the line of soldiers in the distance faded out of view. As if this were not enough, pellets of ice dashed them, pinging off helmets and shoulders and snapping punishments on bare knuckles, driving the horses to run in circles, looking for escape. Hannibal gave no orders for the men to break ranks, but in the confusion and noise many believed he had. Some units turned and withdrew, others dropped to their knees in the sudden muck and whispered prayers, grasping idols draped around their chests: Divine forces were at work here. There would be no battle that day.

For that matter, it took all of the commander's persuasiveness to convince the men to resume the field the following day. He walked through camp that night, speaking with groups of soldiers privately, joking with them, and belittling the timorous quavers in their eyes. Had they not seen greater storms than that throughout this war? Had they not traversed ice and mountain snow and pushed through tempests? As a child he used to laugh at such storms and run out into them, tilt his face up, and catch the ice stones in his jaws. Let the Romans fear the heavens! For Hannibal's men, it was a blessing. They must remember that Baal was a god of storm. In the downpour he was just announcing his presence.

But his efforts proved to be in vain. His troops drew up in battle formation again, but the enemy did not. They stayed secure behind their walls and, over three consecutive days, would not be baited out. Perhaps their priest deemed the storm a sign. In any event, Rome shut its gates, held its soldiers in its bosom, and watched.

At council, Hannibal listened to his generals' opinions. Isalca, the Gaetulian who had of late risen to prominence, still thought they could lure the enemy out. He proposed starting a rumor that Hannibal was sick. Or they could concoct an ill omen that the Romans would read favorably. Perhaps the commander could fall from his horse near the temple of Hercules and sprain his ankle. . . . Monomachus heard this with disdain. They should crucify some of the prisoners captured as they marched—on open ground for the entire city to see. They would have to answer that. Maharbal and Tusselo proposed a ploy to lure them into opening one of the gates. Imco Vaca was of another mind. They could settle down and proceed with building siege engines. The land around them provided all the necessary supplies. Adherbal had done little more these past years than exercise his legs. Why not call upon the engineer at last? They could build structures such as Rome had never seen and bash their way in. Even if it took eight months, the way Saguntum had, still it would be worth the effort. So argued Imco. Gemel seemed to agree. Hannibal listened to even more voices as he sat there. He heard snatches of earlier opinions uttered by Hasdrubal, by Bostar and Bomilcar. He wondered what Mago would say and what insight Silenus would have shared.

Eventually, Hannibal heard the engineer's report. He sat with his head cradled in his hands and listened as Adherbal rattled off the details in his monotone. The walls were at least as formidable as they looked: nine feet thick at the thinnest points, with a core of packed earth lined on either side by stones connected with metal clamps. Such a construction was not easily knocked down. The inner portion of the wall rose high enough to make firing into the city difficult, especially as the troops could not get very close without coming under attack from above. Nor would tunneling be an easy feat, as the outer wall was sunk down some distance under the soil. There were few weaknesses, and any method that required concentrated work on the outside could be countered with efforts from inside. Adherbal concluded that perhaps the best attack would be one using great towers, built to the height of the wall, that could be wheeled forward to a chosen point. The lumber would need to be gathered from quite a distance, and the construction—

“Enough,” Hannibal said. “Why not just throw a rope around the moon and swing in?”

Adherbal considered this, but Hannibal waved him away and ended the council. His mood had blackened suddenly, and he did not want his men to see it. They would not win Rome by siege. He had always known it; now it was clearer than ever. Certainly he could not lay siege to her with the army he had now. Not without siege engines. Not without reinforcements. Not when Rome had thousands upon thousands of soldiers to flow toward him. Their numbers were such that if he built siege walls around the entire city they might do the same around him. His army would be trapped with walls of Romans on both sides. Perhaps, he thought, after Cannae we might have . . . The situation was different then. Perhaps Maharbal was right. . . . But he did not say this aloud, and fought himself just for thinking it. He spent the rest of the evening in the monumental effort of pushing bleak thoughts from his mind. Nothing was lost yet. He had only to await the news that Capua was free, or that Publius had landed. Either of these things would mean a success of sorts.

Barely had he awoken with this fresh mind-set when a Capuan arrived to reverse it. When Fulvius left Capua he did so with only about fifteen thousand men; at least fifty thousand surrounded the city, showing no intention of going anywhere and stating their demands more forcefully. Capua was still in peril. And a spy who had managed to get out of Rome confirmed that there was no word yet from Publius, nothing to confirm that he had received his summons or had any intention of responding to it. The spy also said that the mood of the capital had changed. The panic had eased. People murmured that they had nothing to fear. Each passing day convinced more of them that Hannibal was powerless against them. Someone had even sold the land on which the Carthaginians were encamped. It had been on the market before their arrival and sold at the asking price. The new owner planned to erect a monument to their victory against Hannibal, surrounded by housing for the city's expanding population.

Ten days after he arrived before the capital, Hannibal sat atop the rise on a small stool, Sacred Band nearby. The evening sky was clearing. Patches of turquoise and crimson peeked from behind the thinning clouds. Rome sprawled before him. Studying it beneath the changing light, he confirmed to himself that he was not in awe of this city. This comforted him in a small way. Some portion of him had always feared that he would look upon this city and know himself inferior to it. He would realize too late that his father's dream had been mistaken and both their lives pursuits of tragic folly. But this was not how he felt. The city was not enormous. It did not look vastly wealthy. It did not, like Carthage, perch majestically above a great port. It was not a diamond embedded in the landscape, like New Carthage. Its leaders were men like other men, but no better. He had almost defeated them. He was sure of it. One more misstep, and they would have been his. Why—with all the effort he had put into it—was that single misstep denied him?

He spotted the Numidian approaching him and tried to wipe any melancholy off his face. But as the man reached him and he saw the strong weight of his features and the long locks that gave him a head like a lion, he forgot pretense. He motioned for the man to sit beside him and take in the view. He spoke to him in Massylii, pronouncing the words slowly, with the slight hesitation that marks internal translation.

“Tusselo, you lived in the city for a long time. This is so?”

“Too many years, my lord,” the Numidian said. He did not actually sit, but squatted in the Massylii way, on one heel, with the other leg straight out to the side. When Hannibal did not follow up on the question he added, “I've been a prisoner here my whole lifetime.”

“Is it so memorable to you as that? You were born in Africa. You became a man there. And you've been free some years now. So how can you have spent a lifetime here?”

“You are a free man, my lord, freer than anyone alive in this age. You have tomorrow.” Tusselo seemed content to leave it at that, but Hannibal prodded him, thinking that he had missed a double meaning. Tusselo explained, “The sunrise that Tusselo sees tomorrow is already claimed by Rome. As my eyes open, I think first of Rome, never first of Tusselo. I feel sometimes that they've tattooed their words inside my skull.”

“Why not take a chisel and destroy their words? Their words don't belong in you. Expel them.”

Tusselo nodded, but the set of his face indicated that he did so out of respect. He did not accept that such an action was possible, but he did not choose to refute it. “You have the promise of immortality. Hannibal may not live forever, but the force inside him may yet walk this earth in a thousand years. In two thousand . . . This is not true for Tusselo. Believe me, I am still their prisoner.”

“Does it trouble you to look upon this place again?”

“No. I look upon it every time I close my eyes.”

“Perhaps you joined me solely to return here,” Hannibal said. “Anyway, you know the city well. I want you to speak truly to me. Will the people give in to a siege, as Imco hopes?”

“No, they will not give in,” Tusselo said.

Hannibal sighed at this, casually, as if he had heard an unfortunate report of the coming weather. “Of course they won't,” he said, turning and gazing back over the seven hills. “Do you realize that I've never once been beaten in a major battle? Not in Iberia. Not here in Italy. Never once has an enemy army slain men under my command with abandon and celebrated it afterward.”

“I know that, Commander.”

“Tusselo, I fear Rome will win this war out of pure stubbornness. How do you defeat a people who won't admit defeat? It's as if you stab a corpse a thousand times and then step back and, to your horror, the body rises to fight on. You slice off its arm and it picks its sword up with the other arm. You slice that one off, only to discover that the first has grown back. You cut off its head, but then the thing rises and slashes blindly at you. . . . How do you defeat a creature like that?”

The Numidian cocked his head and then straightened it.

Hannibal looked at him for some time, as if he had forgotten something and expected it to soon appear on the man's features. “I've killed them by the tens of thousands, scoured their countryside at will, pried their allies away, and humiliated them day after day. I have burned their crops and looted their wealth. I've sent a whole generation of their generals into the afterworld. All the grief and rage . . . Have I changed nothing? They are stronger now than before. They are more than before. They fight more sensibly than before. They win when they used to lose . . .”

“If that's so,” Tusselo said, “you have changed them very greatly.”

The following morning the troops heard Hannibal's order to withdraw with a hushed silence that included both relief and shock. In the coming weeks they were to make haste along the Via Valeria, around Lake Fucinus, and then down through Samnium and into Apulia. When he reached Tarentum a few weeks later, he would learn that Capua had surrendered, from hunger and in fear that Hannibal had abandoned them. And only two days after this, an envoy from Carthage found him, bearing clear orders supported by the full membership of the Council and sealed with the mark of the One Hundred.

Watching him, Tusselo realized that his commander, who excelled in all things, carried also a burden of sorrows such as most other men could only ever imagine. He was sharing a simple meal with Hannibal on the evening when he revealed his recall to Carthage. On a sign from the commander, Gemel reluctantly read the letter aloud to the small company of remaining generals. Sparely worded, it described the situation, named the participants, and concluded that Carthage was under threat. Just as his father had been summoned home years before to quell the mercenaries, Hannibal was called upon to save the city of his birth from invaders both foreign and African. No, he was commanded to do so. He could delay not at all, but must journey home at once, with all the soldiers he could muster. They would send boats to meet him at Metapontum, but only to speed his return. The same demand had, apparently, been sent to Mago, who was either on the Balearic Islands or in northern Italy.

Isalca used the silence after this announcement to spit vitriol on the Council. As a Gaetulian fighting for Carthage by choice, he owed them no blood allegiance. In this order he found an opportunity to condemn all of the Council's earlier failures, the broken promises, the troops not sent, the support not given. If they had not been petty fools, the war would have been won; instead, it was ruined. He was not sure that he would obey. He would have to speak to his men, but he knew that many would feel as he did: that the best battles of this war had already been fought, and that it had been won or lost at some point that was now behind them.

“There are not so many of us left, anyway,” he added, glancing at the commander.

Hannibal heard all this with his eyes closed, just breathing. Nor did he comment when Maharbal asked to have the messenger brought in and interviewed. The Numidian was particularly interested in the power struggle between the Massylii and the Libyans. What, exactly, had happened? The messenger explained. The blood drained from Maharbal's face. He asked no more. Imco Vaca was in attendance as well. But, like Tusselo, he kept his thoughts hidden.

For some time, the men sat in silence, none touching their food; the only noises were Isalca clearing his throat, Gemel rubbing his fingers over his chin beard, Imco shifting uncomfortably and then settling again. Tusselo realized that at some point the commander had opened his eyes.

When Hannibal spoke, it was a comfort just to hear his voice, for that was the same as ever it had been, only gentler, softer, there being no need to project his words in this small chamber. “The One Hundred,” he said, “did not even mention sadness at my brother's death. They tell me Hanno Barca is dead, but they spare not a word to admit that I might be grieved by this. He's only another failed general, best forgotten. I've always loathed this about my nation. If dead generals are all failed generals, then what is the Carthaginian legacy except a catalog of failures? We are all dust eventually. Nations should have memories. Even if people forget, a nation should not.”

Isalca asked, “Will you obey them?”

Hannibal fixed him with his gaze and stared, just stared until the Gaetulian lowered his eyes. “First I'll pray for my brother. And then, yes, I will go home to save my country. What kind of man would I be if I did not?”

Later that night, Tusselo packed his few things and rode out of camp, thinking parting words and wishing them out to the sleeping men, asking the commander for forgiveness and offering thanks for the gift of time they had spent together. It had not been easy to decide to leave, but neither was the decision a sudden one. He had suspected for some time that his journey might not end the way he had imagined when he first joined Hannibal's army, years before, still fresh from winning his freedom and trying to find his place in the world. He had seen so much. He had watched genius at work and witnessed a mighty, hated nation being humbled. He had had some joy. But none of this had changed who he was, or healed the scars, or returned to him the most precious things that had been stripped from him. So he framed a new vision of the statement he might make, and now he determined to see it made real.

Not far out of camp, he sat his horse atop a shallow hill and looked north across the heaving knots pushed up in the landscape. The month had just passed the Nones by the Roman calendar. The moon hung in a cloudless sky, so clear that he could see the weathered skin of it, cracked and pitted and pale like an old Gaul. It would flesh to fullness in a handful of days, on the day called the Ides in the Roman tongue. It was already bright enough that he could make out fields and huts and the ruts of roads. He could even distinguish a few thin streams of smoke that rose from fires. The signs of man were all across the land. It would be no easy task to map his way through it, alone over much the same territory he had just traversed as one among a great host. But so be it. This was his journey. He aimed to reach Campania under the full moon and work his way steadily north through the rest of the month. By the Kalends he would be at the heart of his goal. He would announce the new month in his own special way. The Kalends, the Nones, the Ides . . . he knew too many of their words. They came too often to his head. He had tried to expel them, but this was not as easy as Hannibal believed. No matter. It would all be undone soon enough. He touched his mount on the neck. She stepped forward and the two of them began the slow descent, toward the north, back toward Rome.

At first he backtracked down the wide, barren road Hannibal's withdrawing army had made. He covered as many miles as he could at night and rested in secluded spots through the daylight hours. Twice he roused packs of dogs that chased him to the outskirts of their towns. Once he had to call on all his skills as a horseman to outrun a Roman patrol. And another time he had to chase, capture, and subdue a Campanian boy who stumbled across his daytime hiding place. The boy could not have been more than ten, but Tusselo had to beat him soundly to shut him up. He even explained to the boy in Latin that he meant him no harm. The wide-eyed, frightened youth did not seem to understand a word he said, although the language should have been familiar enough to him.

Two days away from the capital he released his horse and walked away from her. She followed him for some time, until he threw stones at her and frightened her with upraised arms and shouts. That evening he sheltered beneath an overhang of rock, in a moist hollow dripping with springwater. He squatted over the thin stream and, taking a knife he had honed especially for this task, he hacked at the long locks of his hair. The stuff came away in great clumps. He measured the tangled weight in his palms, surprised by it. The knots bound within them moments of his history. He felt them floating free into the air with each new cut. It seemed each day of the last five years had somehow been trapped in there: the essences of different countries, the scent of horses, of flowers budding and leaves bursting with the change of seasons, drying and crumbling. He smelled pine forest in there, the dust of Saguntum, the water of the Rhône, the residue of melting ice, tiny drops of other men's blood flung into the air during battle. He thought of eating fried fish with the old man on the seashore in Iberia. He recalled the frozen morning near the Trebia River when he spat insults at the Roman camp to wake them for the day's conflict. He remembered the Arno swamps, the mists pulling back from Lake Trasimene, the great cloud of dust the Romans sent up as they approached Cannae. There was so much to remember.

It had been good to own his hair again and feel it growing thick around him. But it was good to be free of it also. He pressed the blade against his flesh and slid it carefully across the contours created by his skull, drawing blood here and there, once getting the angle wrong and slicing up a ribbon of flesh. But these were tiny wounds compared to others he had suffered. He had never known that the air had fingers. He felt them that night, gentle pressure against the new skin of his scalp, like the spirits of his ancestors reaching out to caress him. Strange as it was, he felt comforted by the touch.

The next day he traded a large Tarentine gold coin for a farmer's old mule. And the following day he bought a fresh-killed boar, a female and no great burden strapped to the mule's back. He secured his spear beneath the load in such a way as to make it look more like a tool and less like a weapon. He gave his other meager possessions to any field workers who acknowledged him as he passed: a few more coins to this one, his dagger to another, random articles of booty to still others. By the time he reached the city he carried nothing on his person but a long cloak that fell back off his shoulders. He had long ago learned that much of one's identity as a slave was revealed in the eyes. He cast them down in the manner he remembered as he entered the Colline gate. If the guards noticed him at all they kept it to themselves.

Again he was within Rome. It was as it had ever been. The bustle and stench were the same; the noise and clatter of wagons and confusion of tongues had not changed in the slightest. He remembered the route to his old master's home, but he did not take it. This mission was less personal than that. He wound through the cramped streets, down the ridge of the Esquiline hill. He led the mule behind him, lowering his eyes whenever he noticed someone watching him. He did not need to look up often, for he knew this city as if he had never left. There was nothing he needed to see again.

He did not even truly look up when he reached the edge of the Forum. He hung back near the wall of an adjacent building, as if waiting for his master. People thronged the place. He heard their talk and smelled their perfumes and the bodies the fragrances disguised. He even felt the heat radiating off their skin and the cool seeping up from the marble of the flooring and out of the pillars and statues adorning the place. He still did not look up. He did not need to study people's faces to know the expressions they would bear. He could see the wrinkled faces of the old women in his mind as clearly as any around him, the prominent noses of senators, held high. He knew he would catch glimpses of matrons' thighs, of young men's hairy torsos, of children at play in a world of their own.

He placed his fingers on the clasp that held his cloak fastened at the neck. He did not loosen it immediately, for to do so was to change everything that could be changed in his life. He did not feel the fear he might have expected. Neither did he feel the hatred that he had harbored for so many years. Instead, each passing breath filled him with a new portion of something like euphoria. For the first time in his adult life, he felt he had complete control of his place in the world. He understood that the crimes Rome had done to him could never be escaped, never mended, never made right or forgotten; they could only be faced and cleansed through blood and oblivion, and through release from memory. There was no defeat in this. Instead, it was the ultimate revelation, a complete refutation of the single thing that had bound him to slavery—the fact that his own mortality had trapped him. Free of that, he would be free of all the chains that weighed him down.

It was a religious moment, one that must be sanctified with an offering. With that in mind, he loosened his spear and tugged it free of the mule. He smacked the creature on the bottom and watched it trot away. Still, nobody paused to note him, but that was about to change. He unclipped the clasp and yanked the robe from his shoulders. He tossed it high into the air with a snap of his wrist and strode toward the center of the crowd.

“Rome!” he yelled, speaking Latin. “How do you live without my black heart to beat for you?”

He punctuated this by thumping his knuckles against his chest. For a moment all around him he watched images of the world slowing from motion to stillness: the tail end of words spoken fluttered away on the breeze, laughter fell to silence, his cloak rumpled onto the stones, a hundred Roman faces turned and stared at him. He swung his spear into a two-handed grip, squatted slightly, stretched his eyes open wide and frantic, quick as those of a hunting leopard. Already he saw soldiers converging on him from several directions.

Good, he thought. Good. Tusselo will be a slave no longer.

To his amazement, Mago discovered that the sun had turned black. That was why he paused on his mount, turned sideways, and stared at it. He could not take his eyes off it. The black orb pulled at him as if it were a deep well and he were tumbling toward it. It did not matter that battle raged around him. The Romans who had boxed them in for days now had sprung their trap and the full brute force of three legions slammed into him from as many sides. His face was wet with blood that had sprayed up from a man some distance from him whose head had been severed from his standing body, making him a momentary fountain. His lieutenant was screaming that they must withdraw, but for a few seconds none of this mattered as much as the fact that the sun had gone black.

He heard a voice call his name. It was urgent, moist, and close to his ear, a whisper that somehow penetrated the din. As if injured by the impact of the voice, Mago's horse shuddered. He felt its forelegs buckle and thought he was going to fly over its head. He was still staring at the sun, however, and instead of toppling forward the mount kicked out twistingly and tilted to the side. Mago saw the sun flare and thought the orb smiled maliciously. Then the horse smashed against the ground. The impact drew his complete attention. He saw the pilum jutting out of the mare's chest, and saw her kicking and struggling to rise, and realized that his leg was trapped all the way up to his groin. It amazed him that he had not been injured; he felt no pain, although he was aware that the animal's weight was grinding him against an exposed rib of gray rock.

“Mago? General, you must wake for a moment. . . .”

He snapped at the speaker, saying he was not asleep. He was trapped! Help him! But the man would not and Mago had to twist and squirm and shove at the horse. The mount looked back at him, neck bent unnaturally, her eyes like those of a mistreated dog, offended, disappointed. Mago kicked her off with his free leg and rose to survey the scene. But what was this? There was no sign of his army at all, not even of the speaker. Instead he was alone among the enemy host. They encircled him, approaching from all directions, stepping slowly, menacingly, pila pointed at him like thousands of erect, deadly penises. Their helmets caught and reflected the black glow of the sun. He realized that his mouth was awash with wine. It was an evil taste. He exhaled it on each breath and had the momentary thought that blood was the same as wine. Perhaps he had already been pierced. He looked down to find the wound and in the anxiety of the moment his vision blurred and darkened. He realized that his eyes were closed and he pried them open.

One view of the world peeled over another. He looked up into the face of a man named Gadeer, a Moor, one of his captains. Gadeer tilted the mouth of a skin to his lips and tried to pour more wine into him. Mago twisted his head away, cursing.

“I'm sorry,” the Moor said, “but we have found nothing better for you. The physician was lost, perhaps captured. If possible we will get some unction from one of the other boats.”

As the man's mouth moved, the world around them took greater form and substance. Gadeer crouched below wood beams and the slight to-and-fro of his head in contrast to the beams betrayed the rocking of the sea. Mago could feel that more men stood nearby, but he did not wish to address them. One face was enough to focus on. There was a growing sensation spreading over his body that he would have disdained as well, but the swell of it was inescapable, pulsing.

“Where am I?” Mago asked. He knew that he had asked the question before, received an answer, and should remember it still, but he did not.

“Bound for Carthage,” Gadeer said. “It is night. The watch reported passing Aleria on Corsica while you were sleeping. They saw the lights. We are now in open water. I'm sorry to wake you, but we must decide. We have no physician, but all who have seen you believe that we cannot wait any longer. By the gods, we wish we could get you to Carthage first, but in truth we cannot.”

Despite the growing pressure that clenched and released his entire body, Mago understood the words the man spoke. He just did not know what they meant. They had no context. “What are you talking about?”

Gadeer drew back. His wide nose flared and relaxed. He had smooth brown skin untroubled by the passing years, freckled about the nose and forehead. “It's your leg. . . . My friend, your leg must come off.”

This was an even less substantial statement. “Speak truth! I don't understand you.”

It saddened Gadeer to hear this. “Near Genua,” he said, “the Romans pressed us into battle. They repelled our elephants. Your leg was broken in a fall—”

“Genua?”

“In the north of Italy. Our plan was bold, General, but we failed. . . .”

Gadeer went on speaking, but Mago's mind caught on those last two words. With them the horror of it all came back to him. He remembered the last few months in one complete burst. He had left Iberia for the Balearics and on landing heard the first rumor of Hasdrubal's demise. This shocked him almost to immobility, but it also made action that much more urgent. He spent a few hard weeks trying to convince any of the islanders to join his fight. He assured them that Hannibal was on the verge of destroying Roman power. He explained how the landing of one more force in the north would clinch it all. The Ligurians and Gauls would join them and they would sweep down from one direction while Hannibal roared up from the other. They would trap Rome between the two of them and squeeze it like a fat pimple between two sharp nails. Fine hyperbole, but what finally swayed them was his promise that in addition to the normal pay for the season he personally promised them an extra payment of wine and women, just as their ancestors had accepted in days of old.

Midwinter, boatloads of Moors belatedly answered his entreaties and landed on the island, offering themselves as mercenaries. They were a blessing from the gods of Africa, the obverse of Gallic grandeur: big men, lean and tall, with long-fingered hands, bulbous knuckles, and skin as dark and smooth as oiled mahogany. As Mago set about training them he tried to believe his own rhetoric and held on to a daydream in which Hasdrubal had not been killed. He was alive and fooling everyone, perhaps playing out some ploy of Hannibal's.

But like so many bursts of enthusiasm throughout the war, this one proved short-lived. Arriving in Ligurian territory, Mago found that Ligurians and Gauls alike treated him coolly, with a dismissive air verging on outright insult. It turned out that both peoples had of late suffered Roman retribution for their support of Carthage. Two legions operated from well-fortified camps throughout the spring and early summer, hammering at the tribal powers at will. The Ligurians and Gauls had grown bitter toward the Carthaginian cause: angry with Hasdrubal for dying, with Hannibal for failing to aid them, with Mago for letting so much of the summer pass before he arrived.

Again Mago found himself calling on all his powers of persuasion, a task made more difficult when the Romans made him the focus of their campaigns. They shadowed his every move, hemmed him in, blocked his chosen routes, and struck at him during any moment of weakness. They pounced on whatever people he had last visited with such fury that soon no tribe would even consent to meet him. They had him at every disadvantage, and still no word came from Hannibal. Instead he saw only confirmation of Hasdrubal's demise. Reluctantly, he decided to retreat. Maybe, he thought, they could risk sailing south and land nearer to Hannibal.

Before he could break for the sea, a third Roman army appeared. How the Romans could still field new armies confounded him, as did the bold vigor with which they attacked and the underlying events that made the attack possible. That was why he finally came to do battle with all three of them. He was near enough that he could smell the sea, but he had no choice but to turn and fight. His fifteen thousand were vastly outnumbered, low in morale. Mago was caught in the center of this, shouting what direction he could from horseback, and his mount had indeed caught a thrown pilum in her chest. The horse had reared just as in the dream. He had been pinned beneath her on a sharp ridge of rock. But that was where any resemblance to his dream ended. The impact snapped his femur and the pain exploded out of him in a howl of animal intensity. His men rallied around him and pried the horse up using pikes. Someone tugged on him too quickly, before his ankle was free. The thick muscles of his thigh contracted and the leg bone folded. As they dragged him from the field the jagged end of his femur seemed to snag on anything and everything. All manner of debris caught in the wound, dirt and filth, bits of leaves and other men's blood. Each contact sent him into convulsions of pain.

He had sweltered for two evil days in a hut along the shore before a messenger found them with the recall from the Council. He was carried aboard a vessel and had been in its hull since, feverish, in physical anguish, awash in the wine they poured down him and the urine and sweat that drenched the bed, only vaguely understanding that Hannibal too must have been ordered to leave Italy and that the dreaded Publius Scipio was on African soil.

All of this came back to him with Gadeer's admission of their failure. He remembered his wound too vividly to look down at it again, but the pain of it had come back to him fully. It was the center of his being. It was from his left thigh that his heart beat, and each contraction propelled pain through him.

He realized that Gadeer had left him sometime during these musings and was just now returning. Another man followed him, also a Moor. This man carried a sword he had sometimes seen Moors wield. It was similar to the Iberians' curving falcata, except heavier, thicker. It was a weapon to be swung in sweeping arcs with the intention of doing lethal damage with a single blow. Seeing the direction of Mago's eyes, the man carrying it seemed embarrassed and moved the sword out of view.

Gadeer held out a halved gourd. “Drink this. It's an infusion from my people. It won't stop you from feeling pain, but it will prevent you from caring about it. A man jumped across from one of the other boats to bring it. We all want very much for you to be well.”

Mago took the cup between both his quivering hands and craned his neck forward. He managed to get most of the liquid in his mouth, although some poured down into the creases below his chin. The concoction was bitter, grainy, and filled with floating bits of leaf that stuck in his teeth and to the roof of his mouth. But it was cool. It was other than wine. From the moment his head flopped back against the bunk he believed it might help him. If he could only breathe through the pain and pass on to someplace else. . . . Then everything would be better. He felt the promise of someplace else dissolving into the room around him, fizzing in the air like bubbles in water. He closed his eyes and tried to listen to air and think only of breathing, but Gadeer would not let him be.

“This is Kalif,” the Moor said. “He is a strong man. He'll cut clean, with all his force. Two or three strokes at the most and he'll be through. His blade is very sharp . . .”

“Don't do it,” Mago said, eyes shut tight, shaking his head.

“There is no other way.”

“I said don't do it.”

“We clamped your artery to stop the bleeding. The leaking was killing you. Instead you live, but your lower leg is already dead. It's rotten, Mago. It's eating up into you. Let us do what we must. I cannot arrive in Carthage with you dead, not without having done everything to save you.”

“But I said no. You must obey . . .” Mago did not finish the sentence. The effort sapped his energy. “The sun was black,” he said. He knew this would sound strange, but he felt a need to explain it while he could.

“That may have been,” Gadeer said cautiously. “I did not notice that, but it may well have been so.”

“Like the eye of a beast before it kills,” Mago said. Having said that, he felt some amount of completion. The world fizzed around him and the pain was not so important now and he thought he might just fall asleep. He heard Gadeer talking with the others. They were debating whether to bow to his wishes or to treat him. He was no longer a part of the discussion. He was curious and tried to follow them, but his mind would not stay put. He thought of an old man who used to sweep the steps leading into the Council chambers in Carthage. For all he knew, the man was dead. He had hardly ever shared words with him in life, but as a youth he sometimes tossed him coins for his trouble and listened to his toothless mouth give profuse thanks. Why did he think of a man he hardly knew? Why not have visions of Hannibal? Of Hasdrubal and Hanno, of his sisters, of his mother? He could not remember the details of what the man said to him. The old one might have claimed to be a veteran. He might have had wisdom to ease him through this transition. Might have, but he could not remember now.

And then he thought of the Roman senators' rings from Cannae clattering on the floor of the Carthaginian Council chamber. Perhaps the old veteran had commented on this. He had been so proud at that moment, so gleeful at the great killing that Cannae had been. He remembered the way he had grinned as the circles rolled out across the stones, and he regretted his mirth. That grin seemed foul. Of all the things done and undone in his life, he wished he could take back that grin.

Eventually he heard Gadeer say, “All right, let us do it now as he fades.”

He sensed the other man step forward and felt several hands on his body, moving him this way and that. He knew, without looking, at just what moment Kalif raised his sword and he understood why and it saddened him beyond comment. When the blade struck the first time it felt as if a club had hit him. How could the blade be so dull? The second blow was the same. The third and fourth as well. Really, he thought, they were not very good at this. And it was useless, anyway. He felt death coming toward him, no matter these men's efforts.

Most generals would have considered the task of withdrawing an army entrenched throughout southern Italy to be a deadly difficult operation, the kind of test presented to a leader once in his career, a chore for an entire summer, requiring careful planning, fraught with risks equal to those of any offensive campaign. To accomplish it successfully within a month, as Carthage demanded, was impossible, as Hannibal's generals warned him. But if it was, it was simply the latest of many such impossibilities to challenge his leadership.

The commander was, of course, tired now in a way he had never been before: suffering the physical ills of campaign, mentally drained by years of constant leadership, spiritually wrecked by the deaths of his brothers and friends, by the slipping away of a dream so nearly realized. He felt as if the world pulled him toward the ground with twice the normal force. The old falarica injury from Saguntum plagued him with phantom pains, as if the wound were still raw and new, the spear point still probing his flesh. His thoughts came more slowly than they once had. Each idea was somewhat unwieldy now. It had to be rotated in his mind, turned over and identified and set in place. Rest did little to refresh him. Indeed, he dreamed of fatigue, of constant motion, unending hikes. He planned routes in countries far from this one, fought segments of old battles, merging one conflict with another so that they all raged on in him at once, a grand confusion that never came any nearer to an end.

But even in this state he moved through the world looking every bit the commander he had always been. He still managed to accomplish the impossible. Hemmed in as he was in the southern regions of the peninsula, he bade the whole long stretch of Italy farewell in a style befitting his long dominance. He backed his troops in swift, orderly formations, directing his generals to march at night, to move unexpectedly, to survey the land they traversed so that no Roman army might catch them in a trap. He took everything he could from the region, stripped the land of grain and vegetables, beans and livestock. He did not hold these in reserve but instructed his men to feed themselves heartily. He told them to put on weight if they could, to sate themselves now, because they might never see this land again and because they needed strength for the fight to come.

He was not sure what sort of troops he would find waiting for him in Africa. He stirred the Gauls by painting pictures in their minds of the riches to be granted by his grateful nation. On the other hand, he pointed out, if they remained in Italy they would be far from home and with no ship to remove their feet from hostile land. And they would be at the mercy of the vengeful legions. He reminded the Campanians still with him that concluding the war successfully would benefit their people in the long run. He harangued the Lucanian and Bruttian towns about the requirements of friendships; he lured peasants with promises, dragged some from their homes forcibly. He needed men, even if only to stand before his veterans and blunt Roman swords. He drained the foot of Italy of everything he could. At Croton he met the ships dispatched from Carthage, and he put Italy behind him.

It was already late in the season when he landed at Leptis Minor, as the Council had arranged. Apparently, Carthage wanted him near but did not actually favor inviting the whole army inside the city's defenses. Awaiting him were mahouts with seventy-eight elephants. This would have been a welcome sight, except that from his first inspection of them it was obvious that most of the beasts were young, many of them untrained, all of them novices at battle. Vandicar stared at them with tight lips and eventually said he would need three months to train them, at the very least. Hannibal gave him three days, after which they marched to Hadrumetum. He picked up the twelve thousand troops who had served Mago. He knew that there was a well of sorrow possible in contemplating yet another brother's death, but he did not pause to explore it. He put the anguish of it in a compartment of his mind that he would return to later.

Upon receiving detailed reports from the Council, he learned what the enemy had been up to. After securing Cirta and the surrounding area, Publius and Masinissa had turned east and ranged across the flatlands to Hippo Regius, which they took without difficulty. It seemed that Publius had paused there for a week and sent reconnaissance missions into the hills of Naragara, perhaps gathering further troops among the Massylii. Then the whole army marched on Utica, besieged it by land and sea. The Council sent out an army from the city's garrisons, believing they might attack the enemy from the rear while they were engaged with the siege. A mistake. Masinissa outflanked them as if he had dreamed the whole maneuver up in his spare time. Carthage lost nearly four thousand men, many of them from aristocratic families. In pursuing them in retreat toward Carthage, the Romans captured Tunis, which had been abandoned by its garrison. From here the consul could literally gaze across the bay at the target of his enmity. Such was the unease in Carthage that envoys opened peace talks with him, although these were cut short on word of Hannibal's arrival.

Publius did not waste time trying to haggle with the councillors. Neither did he attack Carthage itself. Instead, he turned his army to the south and had them ravage their way down the broad valley of the Bagradas River. Every field they passed was left a blackened inferno, every village and town, every storehouse of grain, every orchard. They took town after town by storm, enslaving everyone with a value as a slave, dispatching the rest. At Thugga they tossed the bodies into the river and let them float toward the ocean, like a great vein bleeding out the life of the continent. When the town of Abba sent out envoys to discuss terms of surrender Publius had the men's hands cut off and spun them around with the message that there were no terms except the complete surrender of Carthage itself. At Kemis he repeated the atrocity of the plains, burning alive an entire village of thatched huts, the young and the old alike, capturing those lucky enough to escape and enslaving them.

The people did not understand who this demon was and why he had dropped down on them with such fury, but Publius was as calculated in his cruelty as he had been in his generosity in Iberia. Hannibal knew exactly what the Roman was doing, for he had used the same tactics himself. The consul bore those poor people no malice, just as Hannibal had not thought of the Latin tribes as naturally inimical to him. But by abusing them Publius prodded the Council to swift action. They, in turn, pressured Hannibal to give chase before he had truly gained his footing in Africa, leaving him little time to raise new troops and none to properly train them.

At first, Hannibal balked at being ordered about in this fashion. He did not move immediately. Instead, he came to terms with the Libyan Tychaeus, who was a relation of Syphax and hungry for revenge. He brought three thousand Libyan veterans into the army, a great gain. But in the days it took him to arrange this, new orders came from Carthage. Hannibal was to track the Romans down and annihilate them while they were still far from the city itself. Should he have any question about following these orders, he should remember that his family still lived in Carthage, by the grace of the Council. They were sure, they said, that Hannibal would not want anything unfortunate to befall them, especially his wife and young son.

As he closed his eyes after reading this Hannibal entertained a vision of turning his army on his own city. He had always believed that he knew the Carthaginian mind intimately. Now he wondered whether Carthage was viler than he had yet imagined, deserving of harsher punishments than he had ever visited on his enemies. Did not his men love him more than Carthage itself? They would rally behind him. He would find no difficulty reminding them of all the many ways the city had neglected them over the years. He would make them believe that together they could reach into the capital and rip out its foul heart and replace it with something to be proud of, something that would enrich them all with treasure beyond booty, beyond gold and slaves. He would build a new Carthage on the foundations of the old. And that city—his creation—could then turn its full resources to anything, even back to the defeat of Rome.

But this was only a fancy, and Hannibal was not one to entertain fancies. Ever since retreating from the walls of Rome he had known that this war would not lead to victory. Rome had taken the worst he could give it, and had lived. He would spend the rest of his life trying to understand just how that had happened, for he still did not fully comprehend it and could not order the events in a way that added up to the outcome Rome achieved. And in a more intimate way it baffled him. For all the years of his remembered life, he had believed that it was his destiny to defeat Rome. The knowledge that he had been mistaken cast everything in doubt. He was not even confident that he could rid Carthage of Publius Scipio, not considering the way Fortune's wind blew in his favor. He would have argued against the Council if he had known what to say, but the words eluded him. So he bowed to their wishes and began his pursuit.

It seemed that nothing in the world alarmed the animals of Africa more than the spectacle of an army of men on the march. As Hannibal pushed southward down the Bagradas valley, he drove herds of gazelle bounding before them across the scarred, smoldering landscape. Ostriches crisscrossed in front of the tide of men with their great, long-legged strides, occasionally becoming so disconcerted as to flap their useless wings in a desire to gain the air like other birds. Hyenas protested their progress each step of the way, retreating just so far before the approaching army, then spinning to challenge them with a chattering cacophony of yelps, only to spin again into bare-bottomed retreat. One evening Hannibal awoke to the calls of a lion, a tortured sound that seemed to warp the very fabric of the air through which it issued. The commander thought his tent fabric shook with each blast of sound, but in the dim light he could not be sure of this. It felt like the beast was communicating with him, but if this were so he knew not the language that it spoke.

As they were not themselves bent on destruction, the army rapidly gained on the Romans. From outside the pit of misery that had once been the trading center of Sicca, Hannibal sent out spies. They returned several days later and told a strange story. Several of them had been captured. When they were brought before Publius, one of his generals, Laelius, unsheathed his sword. They expected the customary fate of captured spies: to have their hands and tongues cut out and then to be released. But the consul laughed and waved for Laelius to sheath his sword. With another motion, he ordered their hands unbound. He called them guests and said that if Hannibal wished to know the state of his army all he had to do was ask. He personally escorted them throughout the camp, showing them everything, pausing long enough so that the men's nervous eyes could count and gauge the numbers they were seeing. This they did.

After they ended their report, the spies stood nervously about, with something more to say although they feared to do so.

“What else?” Hannibal asked.

One of the Libyans answered, “Commander, forgive me, but Publius told us to ask you whether his spies might survey your camp under the same conditions.”

Hannibal sent the same man back with a negative answer. He did say, however, that he would be pleased to meet Publius to discuss the terms of a peace. Without waiting for an answer, he kept to his tasks as he saw them. Maharbal's scouts surveyed the land between the two armies, and the commander maneuvered his troops according to their reports. It soon became clear that Publius had chosen the wide plain east of Zama as the stage for their encounter. A strong decision. The land was perfect for an open engagement, with nothing to favor either side, no traps to spring or avoid, no reason not to judge the ground a fair venue for combat. It was a spot, in fact, that Hannibal could find no excuse to avoid.

Strangely enough, he wished he could. He felt the fingers of another man's hands pushing him this way and that, and he did not like it. In the past he would have found some way to snatch control, but he could see no way to do this now. The consul held all the advantages he had had in Italy. For that reason, Hannibal meant his offer of discourse seriously. The Council wanted him to destroy the Romans, but if they believed that only he was capable of this, they must accept his word if he chose a negotiated peace. That might be just the thing they all needed, to talk peace, and then to go home and be citizens again. He sent a second envoy to the consul.

On the afternoon that he approached Hannibal with the news of Publius' acceptance of his proposal, Gemel found him asleep on his stool. He sat upright, with one hand stretched out before him on his thigh, as if he were reaching to accept an object into his palm. The officer almost commenced speaking, but then he noticed the slump of his head and the labored steadiness of his breathing.

“Hannibal?”

The commander opened his eyes. He did not start or jerk, or give any sign that he had been surprised. He simply straightened his head and turned his gaze on the officer and studied him for a quiet moment. “I was just thinking,” he said, “of how I used to kiss the drool away from my son's chin. There's nothing so soft as a baby's cheek, just there at the corner of their lips. I would like to do this again, but if I ever see young Hamilcar I probably won't even recognize him.”

“Of course you will,” Gemel said. “He is your son. My first son had a Turdetani mother, but still he came out my double.”

Hannibal frowned. “You have young?”

Gemel nodded. “I have three, Hannibal. Two by that Turdetani woman. I do not know their fate, but she was resourceful. They may yet live in Iberia. My youngest is by a Bruttian woman who still travels with me. This child is a girl. Unfortunately for her, she looks like me as well.”

Hannibal's gaze drifted away, moving from one thing to the next but obviously seeing only the thoughts inside him. “I did not know,” he said. “How can it be that I never spoke to you of this before?”

“When we speak it's of other things, Commander. More important things. That's why I'm here now. Scipio has agreed to speak with you. Tomorrow, on the field between the two armies.”

“So he agrees that we may end this with words?”

Gemel looked uncomfortable. “That I cannot say. Commander, are you well? If you wish I will propose a delay.”

Hannibal stood and stepped closer to his secretary. He placed a hand on his shoulder and rocked him gently back and forth, humor on his fatigued features. “You ask whether I am well. . . . You have come very far with me, Gemel, and you have become as dear to me as Bostar was. I remember the morning after Cannae, when you stepped in to fill his position. You had nervous eyes then. You stood very erect and spoke clipped words, such as would make any drill officer proud.”

“Some people have said that I still speak that way.”

“Yes, yes, you do. But I've grown so accustomed to it. I am sorry that we haven't spoken more as friends. This was a mistake on my part. Do you accept my apology?”

Gemel, embarrassed suddenly, nodded crookedly, in a way that both affirmed his acceptance and denied that any slight had been done.

“Good. Send Scipio my word; we will meet on the morrow. There is no need for delay.”

Hannibal slept like the dead that night. He woke in the predawn and automatically began to go over the speech he had to make. But he soon found that the words he meant to use did not need practicing. He felt like speaking the truth, and the truth is never rehearsed. Deciding so, he stilled his mind, stepped out of his tent, and watched the dawn.

Hannibal's forces marched down the slope from the northern boundary of the field of Zama and paused halfway, before them a great stretch of land as flat as a rough-cut paving stone. The Roman army occupied the southern area of this great space. They had drawn up in battle formation, in the checkerboard pattern of cohorts. Behind them rose the dim shapes of hills galloping off into the continent. Hannibal stepped forward before his army and walked toward the enemy without a weapon on his person. No guards—not even the Sacred Band—accompanied him. Only a translator trailed behind, also unarmed, a man of Egyptian blood and fluent in all tongues of consequence. Hannibal had no intention of using him, but it was the arrangement he had agreed to.

Publius likewise emerged as a single figure before the mass of men. His translator walked beside him. For a time he seemed very small, but as they neared the stools set up for them in the middle of the barren field, the man's proportions came into order. Lately, Hannibal had felt the vision of his good eye played tricks with him, especially in bright light. Because of this he opened their discourse abruptly, before either man had even sat down.

“We cannot speak sensibly in such a glare,” he said in Latin. “Would you mind if I called for shade? A single slave. On my word, he'd bear no weapon.”

Publius had clearly not expected this, neither the tone of it, its content or language. It took him a moment to recover. Call whomever you wish.”

Hannibal dispatched his translator to fetch a slave, and the two men sat on the stools, facing at slight angles away from each other. No more than three strides separated them. Publius bore the uniform of his office well. The bronze of his muscled breastplate glinted with fresh polishing, almost to the hue of gold. His empty sheath was attached to his body by a crimson band tight across his torso, and from his helmet rose a great horsehair plume dyed the same color. Hannibal could not help but notice his opponent's youth. By the gods, he was only a boy! His eyes set widely on his face, a sharp nose cutting between them, with thin lips closed and waiting. Not exactly a handsome face, not fierce as Marcellus' had been even in death, not spiteful like the faces of so many Roman prisoners, but even silently and in stillness he conveyed his intelligence.

Hannibal knew it was upon him to open the discourse. And so he did. He simply opened his mouth and let the thoughts within him out. He spoke in Latin.

“It is strange to finally look upon you,” he said. “I fought your father and knew much of your uncle, but never sat as close to them as I now do to you. Nor had I as much to fear from them. Publius Scipio, the conqueror of Iberia . . . the victor of the plains . . . I've heard so much of your exploits that in meeting you I expected to see either a man kissed by the gods or some demon, with the touch of death in his eyes. You are neither of these. You are younger-looking than I expected.”

Hannibal turned to watch the interpreter returning, beside him a slave with two large palm-leaf shades. The slave was clearly an Umbrian, naturally pale, although tanned by the African sun. He stood near them, completely naked, and perched the bases of the two palm fronds between the crooks of his arms and his back. Somehow he managed to cast shadows on both the men. Hannibal regretted that they had sent a Latin, both because of the unnecessary insult it suggested and because the man would have to be killed afterward for being able to understand them.

Shade in place, Hannibal continued. “Fortune has been my fickle mistress for several years now,” he said. “When I raged down into your land, winning battle after battle, Fortune always asked for pieces of me in return. She took my eye. She took first friends and comrades, and then my brothers one by one. I lost never a single open battle, but still she held ultimate victory just beyond my arm's reach. Now, when Fortune has decreed that I must come to meet a Roman consul and sue for peace, she does me the kindness that it be you to whom I come. At least by that I am honored. Strange, isn't it? The first battle I fought was with the father; now the last may be with the son.”

The commander paused a moment. Publius—intentionally or not—nodded: Yes, this was indeed a strange way for events to play out. He waited passively, but with a set of his jaw that showed his formal reserve undiminished. Hannibal smiled. Publius could speak of his own losses, but he rejected the invitation to admit common ground between them. Hannibal noted this and silently commended it.

“I'll speak honestly to you. And I'd have you do the same to me. Nobody listens to us now. The rabble of rich men who rule our countries are not now in attendance. This matter is for us to decide. Let us discard pride and instead rely on reason. This is not hard for me to do. I have little pride left, but I fear from the eyes you set upon me that you have yet to learn many of the things war has taught me. You are like me after the Trebia, after Trasimene and Cannae. Young men often long for victory instead of peace. I know this well. Such is the difference between the old and the young. But if we clash tomorrow neither you nor I will decide the victor. We are the twin sons of Fortune. Who can say which of us will prevail? You might even lose your own life. At this point—when you've come so far—that would be tragic. Hear this wisdom and let us end this today, without the loss of many thousands more. Far too many have died already, and the brave men who stand behind us desire life—not death on this field tomorrow.

“Here is the peace that I propose. It's a way to end the war this very day, and I'm sure I can persuade my city's Council to honor it. You may keep everything for which I began this war. Sicily is yours. Sardinia. All the islands between our two nations. In addition, I release all claims to our possessions in Iberia. That rich country, which we tamed, is ours no longer. My people will remain on African soil. We will not rebuild our navy. We will not attack any Roman possession. Nor will we challenge what I now believe is inevitable—that Rome will reach into new provinces and grow stronger yet. Carthage is chastened, Publius. Leave us to live simply, as we were, looking only away from you and no longer causing Rome grief. That is what I can offer you.”

The Roman consul received all this without giving the slightest outward sign as to his thoughts. When Hannibal concluded, Publius studied him a little longer. Beads of moisture had swelled to fullness on his forehead. A few trickled into others and slipped along his hairline and down under his jaw.

“You are mistaken about my character,” Publius said. “I don't think I'm unbeatable. If ever a man was unbeatable, you were; and here as I look at you I see defeat draped over you like a shawl. You are a lesson to me. But I cannot accept these terms. I am not a king standing before you, but a representative of my people. And I know they would not accept the peace you offer. Before you arrived in Africa, I began talks with your Council. Then, perhaps, I could've accepted the terms you propose. But not now, not after your Council backed out and sent you to do their work for them.”

“If the terms were fair then, they are so now,” Hannibal said. “The world has not changed so much in these few weeks.”

Publius cocked his head questioningly. “You asked me to speak plainly. Hannibal, I believe that if our armies meet I will defeat you.”

“Others have thought that also,” Hannibal said.

“Nevertheless, this is what I believe. I also believe that your people cannot be trusted to honor any terms. If Carthage kept control of Africa, she would grow rich again by the morrow, war-hungry again the day after that. I'm in allegiance with Masinissa of the Massylii. It was with his help that I fought Syphax and came to know this country. He is now the king of all of Numidia and a friend of Rome. So you see, the very forces that brought me here demand that I present you with these terms: You are allowed to remain Carthage, with your customs and laws. But you will abandon all possessions outside of the immediate surroundings of your capitol. To Masinissa, you return all territories that once belonged to him or to his ancestors. You may never make war—either inside or outside Africa—without Rome's permission. We will have all your warships, military transports, and elephants, and you are forbidden to train more. There will be a fine as well. I don't know the amount, but it will be considerable, paid out, perhaps, over fifty years or so. You must return all prisoners, slaves, and deserters—”

“Are you making this up as you go along?” Hannibal asked.

“And I will personally pick one hundred hostages from your people's children. From any group, councillors, generals, even from among the Barcas.”

The Umbrian slave adjusted his position slightly, whether from fatigue or as an inadvertent comment on what he had just heard, it was hard to tell. Beads of sweat dotted the man's entire chest now. Occasionally—set loose by his minute movements in steadying the parasols—droplets ran freely down his form, some falling from him to splat on the sand. Hannibal watched the spot where they landed for a few moments, stilling himself. Although he gave no outward sign of it, the import of the last demand froze the air in his lungs. He had to consciously draw a fresh breath and blow it out before he could answer.

“What you propose is not acceptable. The Council would kill me for bearing them such terms, and it wouldn't accomplish your wish. Their hatred for Rome would burn undiminished. That would not be a peace at all, just a pretext for . . .” Hannibal let whatever he was going to say drop. He blinked it away and resumed: “But this isn't about terms. Don't be so foolish as to take personal revenge. Revenge doesn't bring back those who've been lost; it only taints their memories. Must we risk everything in a clash of arms?”

Publius grinned, not a joyful expression but one that suggested somber humor. “Can it be that Hannibal now disdains war? None in my country would believe this. Of course this is personal! It was personal from the moment you set foot on Roman lands. You should know by now that no Roman fights alone. Be an enemy to one and you are an enemy to all of us. I would happily die tomorrow in battle with you; as I fell, another would step into my place. Can you say the same?”

Hannibal did not answer.

“We are all the walking dead,” Publius said. “It's illusion to think otherwise. If I did not know better, I'd think that you've misjudged the situation you find yourself in. The outcome of this war has already been decided. No wind can blow Rome back from victory. You know that. We fight tomorrow only to determine the terms of your surrender: fair or less than. But either way, Rome has won.”

The commander brought a hand to his face and gripped his chin. He let his fingers slide up far enough to press against the closed lid of his bad eye. “Then we have failed the men behind us.”

The consul rose to his feet. “One of us has,” he said.

Hannibal did not address the army collectively the next morning. He could not conjure any words to encourage them that he had not already used and that did not sound hollow to his ears. If he could have spoken honestly to them, he would have told them to fight with all their courage for no other reward than the continuation of their own lives. Fight so that they might stop fighting. Fight so that they could throw down their arms and trudge back to wherever their homes were. Fight so that Hannibal would not see his family made prisoner to Rome. This seemed as important a factor as any. Publius was right. This was all personal. But he had no desire to admit as much to his army.

Indeed, as Hannibal set up his command on the slope behind and above the field of battle, he was not sure that the army he commanded was, in fact, his. His mind stuck on the unfortunate thought that he had few trusted comrades left. A man named Hasdrubal led his first line of Gauls and Balearics and Ligurians, but this was an imposter bearing his brother's name. In the second line—the Libyans, Moors, and Balearics of Mago's army, along with other newly recruited Africans—he recognized the color and feel of the men, but he barely recalled their officers' names. And the third line, his veterans, composed of Carthaginians and Libyans who had been with him all up and down Italy . . . well, they were fewer than he would have liked. True, Monomachus commanded there, as did Isalca and Imco Vaca; he was thankful for them, but even more aware of those not present. He could not look to one of his brothers and know that their fates were bound by blood, that they had shared a womb, entered the world the same way, and suckled first from the same breast. There was no Bomilcar among them, no model of unwavering strength. No Bostar, with his nimble mind for details. On his right there mustered a contingent of Carthaginian cavalry, but the man who led it was not Carthalo. And where was Silenus, the Greek who had so often murmured mischief in his ear? He could not even call upon Mandarbal's dark arts, for the priest had left him at Hadrumetum to conduct holy rites in Carthage. He felt almost completely alone, set apart from the many brave soldiers readying themselves to fight under his direction, privy to a vision of what might come that was very different from theirs.

But fading into melancholy served no one on this day. He wrested his focus back and studied the enemy deployment, searching in it for anything that required a change in his own tactics. The Roman formation was plain enough: a wide front line of infantry, three maniples deep, with a further line of veteran triarii held in reserve. On his western wing was the Italian cavalry, led, he knew, by Laelius, the consul's trusted friend. An even stronger contingent of Numidians composed the eastern wing, directed by Masinissa. There was something strange about the quincunx, the checkerboard pattern of their infantry, but Hannibal registered this without addressing it.

Surveying the enemy helped straighten his spine. As the skirmishers began to exchange missile fire, there was a comforting familiarity with the scene before him. He had watched such mass movements before, and every time he had pulled strings and moved men at his will. Perhaps he could do so one more time. The two forces were of nearly equal number, about forty thousand troops each. Many of his men were raw, some only marginally loyal, but they all knew what was at stake. And it was not as if he had no strategy in his deployment. The lines were spaced with distance between them for a reason, each with a role he had secretly assigned. And the elephants, all of which he had placed along the front line—with a small breath of Fortune they would open the battle marvelously.

Motion caught the corner of his eye and drew his complete attention. Into the general skirmishing, the cavalry on the right flank, under Maharbal, streamed forward at a full gallop. Hannibal, surprised, yelled for them to halt. He snapped around and shouted for the confused signaler to raise his horn and stop them. But even as he spoke, he knew it would not work. He changed his order to one that would steady the rest of the army, just tell them that nothing had changed, not to break ranks or move. Looking back again he still could not understand. He thought the flamboyant general might have a plan in mind, but could not imagine what it was, why they had not discussed it.

From the Roman side, Masinissa's Numidians rode out to meet them. They flew toward each other as if they would collide at a full gallop and rip each other to shreds. But at the last moment—just before the crash of men and horses, teeth and hooves and spears—the two sides turned. They carried their speed into a coordinated movement that brought them together, riding side by side, not engaging at all but merging like two rivers mixing currents. Even from the distance at which he watched, Hannibal heard their trilling flying up from tilted chins. And then he understood completely. Maharbal and the bulk of his men had just deserted to Masinissa, their tribal king. Of course they had! They were Massylii.

Hannibal issued new orders. He pulled a portion of the left-flank Carthaginian cavalry out, had them traverse behind the army and position themselves in the vacated position. It was the correct response, but even as he oversaw it he breathed hard to recover from the shock. The fact that he had not seen this coming stunned him. He had fought so long with Maharbal at his side that he had not paused to consider whether the arrival in Africa would change his sympathies. It was a shocking oversight, one that he never would have made before. But he had no time to ponder it. The Romans had begun their forward march.

To answer them, Hannibal ordered the pachyderms to advance. As they shuffled forward, he gave the order for the front line to ready their spears. These soldiers were hard to direct from a distance, but he hoped to get them to launch at least one unified volley of missiles to further fracture whatever the elephants did not break of the Roman ranks. But just after he spoke, Hannibal received his second shock of the morning.

Halfway across the field a number of the elephants stopped dead in their tracks. A few others trembled and tossed their heads and changed direction. The sound reached him later than the sight, so it took him a moment to hear the blast of noise that had met the elephants. The Romans, all at once, had unleashed a barrage of sound. Nearly all the men of the front line carried war horns. These they blew on. Behind them the others shouted in unison, on signals given to various cohorts, so that the sound pulsed, first from one place and the another. All the men banged their swords or spears on their shields, on their breastplates, on their helmets. The elephants, especially the young ones, had never heard anything like it. They must have wondered what sort of beast they were approaching and why.

As soon as the first of the elephants neared pilum range, hundreds of missiles flew at them, piercing the creatures between the eyes or in the ears, catching them in their open mouths, dangling from their chests as they ran. For many of them, this was too much. They turned and retreated, adding their maddened trumpeting to the tumult. The thirty or so that did manage to enter the enemy ranks found the troops drawn into an alternating pattern of tightly wedged men or wide, open avenues. This was what had been strange about the quincunx. They had been positioned in such a way that the troops could step out of the elephants' path and slot into each other. Faced with the path of least resistance, the elephants, no matter what their mahouts tried to convince them, hurtled down through the open stretches as if racing to exit the far end. Few of them made it, however, for the Romans turned and pelted them in passing. Pila and stones, javelins and smaller missiles: all so great in number that the creatures stumbled and fell beneath them, roaring, crying, tears dripping from their long lashes, their hides stuck like pincushions. Some soldiers even began to approach them, stick a foot up, and yank out the missiles to see if they could be used again.

As all this took place on the Roman side, the Carthaginian side suffered conversely. Several of the elephants stampeded straight back and through the infantry, cutting a path through the men like four-legged boulders. To the left, four elephants in close formation drove a wedge through the cavalry, sending them into complete chaos, a situation which Masinissa soon exploited, appearing among them out of the elephants' dusty wake. He drove the confused horsemen from the field. Before long Maharbal and Laelius set the right wing to flight as well. They rushed up the slope at an angle off to the north, and for the next hour the horsemen were to play no part in the main conflict.

The Romans resumed their march toward Hannibal's first line. They did not have many missiles left, but Hannibal could not get his troops to take advantage of this. They did not launch the volley he had hoped for, but tried to pick out singular targets and met with little success. The Romans stepped up to them slowly and began the cut, block, and thrust, cut, block, and thrust that they were so efficient at, using their shields to knock their opponents off their guard or even off their feet. The mixed troops trying to fight them in a variety of styles had no chance against the relentless uniformity of the Roman advance. As the Gauls jostled for room to swing their long swords, the Romans jabbed at their naked torsos, slit their trouser legs open, and sent them to their knees. The slight Ligurians fought well at close quarters, quick with short swords, standing up and squatting, striking high and low, whirlwinds of movement, but rarely landing fatal blows. Many of the Africans fought with spears, but they struggled as individuals trying to fight their way into an impenetrable wall.

Hannibal was not surprised when they began to crumble. First one soldier and then several and then large groups from the first line retreated toward the second. They thought they would sink into their masses. As they approached they discovered the second line would not accept them, no matter how they tried to push through, cursing and indignant. Spears and swords and grim faces met them, held them in place until the Romans caught them up again and they had to turn and fight once more. This was just as he had ordered. Treacherous, yes, but the circumstances left little room for anything else.

Before long the Romans fought standing on the corpses of the first line. The Libyans, Moors, and Balearics of Mago's army fought with fresh vigor. They had a higher level of discipline and during the first moments they stopped the Roman advance dead. But as a river builds slowly to protest a new dam, so the Romans' collective weight began to move them forward again. When the second line broke they were not prepared for the shock they faced on their retreat. The third line would not allow them refuge, just as they had spurned the first. They were cut down fighting, their backs pricked by a wall of their troops' spears.

As the Romans made contact with his veterans, Hannibal thought he might have them. The legionaries would be exhausted by now. The front ranks, facing the fresh veterans, would fall in great numbers. His officers would pull back slowly, leading them on, making them climb, slip, stumble over the bodies of the dead to reach them. They might at least maul them badly enough in the first few minutes as to work a change in the collective psychology of the soldiers.

But Publius must have seen these possibilities as well as Hannibal. He pulled his men back. Even with the blood fury on them, he spoke a command; it translated through the horns; the men listened. They withdrew in semiorderly manner, treading backward in high, careful steps over bodies and weapons and viscera. They regrouped, speaking to each other, finding their places in line, and forming up tightly, panting, wiping sweat from their eyes, spitting blood.

By the time they marched forward again they looked as orderly as if the battle had just begun. The two sides collided, shield to shield, the veterans meeting them in kind, with much the same equipment and technique. The impact sent an echoing clap fanning out in all directions, like the thud of a hundred mountain rams all colliding at once. From then on it was butchery, both sides equally matched, each man dancing with one malignant partner after another, the armies eating into each other. Hannibal could not see as much as he wished. Dust clouded the scene, and the spray of blood above the field seemed a dark rain falling on that one spot in all the world. But he could tell from the general steadiness of the mass of men and from the noise that the issue was not yet decided against him. Somewhere in there Monomachus led the killing. Isalca rallied his woolly-haired Gaetulians. Imco Vaca worked his magic. Perhaps the gods would bless the fresh-faced Vaca again and raise him up as the hero of this battle. Maybe, if they could just hold long enough, the consul would pull his men back, afraid to find himself stranded deep in Africa with only a few shattered men to protect him. Each passing breath increased the chance that they would both concede this contest as a draw. Then, surely, he and the consul would reach a peace agreement. He would even give a little more if he had to. This seemed so possible that the commander began to plan how best to retract the veterans.

But then, from off to the west, he heard a familiar thunder. Because of the slope he could see nothing for a few moments. The sound grew and grew and seemed to engulf him from the opposite side as well. At almost the same moment, cavalry crested the rise to the west and emerged from the scoop of a gentle ravine to the east. Hannibal needed no more than a glance at their speed and vigor and numbers to know that both forces belonged to the enemy. His horsemen had obviously been vanquished. And with this the battle was decided. Masinissa first, but then Laelius and Maharbal rode in with their thousands of soldiers, attacking the veterans from all available sides. The infantry faced about to meet them, but it was a losing effort. The Numidians must have gathered up fallen spears before they returned. They carried extras that they flung at leisure, looking from a distance as if they were betting with each other, telling jokes, laughing. They never got close enough for the foot soldiers to injure them. They just whirled and darted, trilled and darted.

When a few of them caught sight of him and turned their horses toward him, Hannibal knew there was no need to stay a moment longer. Part of him wanted to throw himself into it and meet his end. There before him were thousands of men who hungered to spill his blood. For a moment, he almost gave it to them. But even in his fatigue, even in defeat, he could not help but remember his duty, both to his nation and to his family. It would be cowardly to die now, irresponsible. So he agreed to the Sacred Band's entreaty that they fly. As their horses were rested, they soon outstripped their pursuers and ate up Africa toward the northern horizon.

He was four days on the journey to Hadrumetum. He paused there only long enough to dispatch a seaborne messenger to Carthage, stating his defeat simply, warning the Council that he was on the way and that he brought with him the end of the war. They must concede and accept any terms offered, he wrote. They had to prepare themselves.

Then he set out again. For some reason that he could not explain even to himself, he chose to walk the final days to Carthage. No matter what Publius might have planned, he would be delayed for weeks by the aftermath of such a success and by the need to move an entire army. Hannibal, for this last journey, did not have to rush. He walked with the Sacred Band trailing behind him. At first they were a party of fifteen, but as they passed people gathered to watch them, whispering to themselves.

Someone quickly named him as Hannibal, swearing that he recognized his likeness from a coin. But many protested that this could not be Hannibal. His beard was wild and unkempt. He stumbled as he walked and the sole of one sandal had begun to flap with each step. He looked like some terrible beggar, a veteran of an ancient war, a man lost in the southern desert and surely insane.

But what of his eye? others asked. He has sight in a single eye, just like Hannibal. And does not he wear the garb of a commander? Is he not guarded by the Sacred Band? They threw question after question at his guards, who refused to answer and for some time chased them away. Eventually the numbers grew large enough that they chose instead to ignore them.

Across fields and orchards and pastureland, Hannibal walked at the vanguard of an ever-increasing horde. They were sure now that he was indeed the famous commander, coming home, bearing news to shape the future of the nation. This news, to judge by the look of him, could not be good. He stopped eating on the second day and drank water only from the streams he passed over or waded through. He was emaciated, and beneath the thinness of his skin the muscles of his arms stood out, the striations in his legs. He did not stop to sleep. He walked on through the night and lost many of his followers, but by the middle of the third day they had caught him up again. He walked through the next night, and again the same thing happened. He was so near to Carthage now that curious pilgrims from the city came out to meet him. They shouted greetings to him, prayers, questions. What was their fate to be? Was the wrath of Rome upon them?

Monomachus rode up beside him just after he had come in sight of Carthage. He had yet to wash or clean his armor. He was coated in dust and grime that had dried into the blood over every inch of him. He looked like a corpse moving in imitation of life. The general offered a report on the last moments of the battle. He named specific officers and described their fate, explained how he and a small contingent had cut their way out through the Romans and escaped. Few others had been so lucky. “Only the ones blessed to kill another day,” he said. He understood that the Romans had begun the northerly march once more, although they showed no haste and might take a couple of weeks to reach Carthage.

When he was done, Hannibal said nothing. Indeed, he had hardly listened at all. He kept walking. Monomachus rode along beside the commander for some time, and then, as if it had just occurred to him, he asked if Hannibal had need of a horse.

“The way would be much quicker mounted,” he said. “If we are to fight on perhaps we should make haste.”

“The war is over,” Hannibal said, uttering the first words to escape his parched lips in days. “The only fight left in me is the fight for peace.”

“Moloch abhors peace,” Monomachus said.

“And I abhor Moloch,” Hannibal snapped. “He's your god; not mine. Not anymore.”

Monomachus—stunned, angered, frightened by the blasphemy, all of these—yanked his horse to a halt and sat on the creature immobile as the crowd issued around him.

Hannibal walked on.

Late in the morning, he paused to stare at the full grandeur of his native city, its great walls, the thick foundations, the hill of Byrsa upon which Elissa had first laid claim to this blessed and accursed portion of Africa. Had that beautiful Phoenician queen known what she was starting when she landed here?

By midday he walked down an avenue hemmed in by throngs from the city: young men jostling for position, laborers who had dropped their tasks, women of the lower classes who managed to watch every move he made while simultaneously keeping their eyes lowered, priests looking on from beneath the hoods that hid them from the light of day, slaves and children, aged crones who greeted him in the old way, kneeling on the ground with their wrinkled foreheads against the dust. Vendors sold food, offered water from gourds. Even dogs peered out between legs, curious in their own way.

It was both wonderful and sad to see their many faces, so different in features and skin tone, persons born in this land and those drawn here, some with black curls tight to their scalps, or locks flowing in waves, or hair straight and fine as silk. These were his people. They were the embodiment of all the nations of the world.

Several times councillors stepped out of the crowd and approached him with an air of importance, wearing the robes and the stern faces of their rank. He passed them by, but not out of malice. He would speak to them soon, but first he had other business.

He saw the figures standing on the walls from a long way out, and those gathered at the top of the main ramp leading into the city. He was calm until the moment he saw his family banner hoisted. The Barca lion. It marked the place where his family stood. At the foot of the granite incline he paused and squinted his single eye. He squeezed the figures up there into better focus. There stood his mother, cloaked in a purple robe, her hair bound up into an intricate crown rising above her head. Beside her Sapanibal, touching at the shoulder with a man whom Hannibal could not name just then, an old friend of his father's. It took him a moment to pick out Imilce from among the numerous household servants. But she was there, and before her stood a boy. Her hands rested on his shoulders and though he bore no resemblance to the two-year-old he had left five years ago, Hannibal knew who the boy must be. He hesitated for a few moments, and then he turned to one of the Sacred Band. He sent the man up with a message.

As he stood waiting his heart beat at an ever more furious pace. He called for water and someone brought him some. He drank deeply, but felt bloated suddenly, decided he hated water, and tossed the gourd to the ground. When he looked up again, the guard was leading the boy down the slope toward him. Hannibal could only stare. They seemed to approach so quickly. In an instant they were in front of him. The guard presented him, saying, “Commander, here is your son, Hamilcar.” The man stepped away and then the father stood, weak-kneed, before the child.

Hamilcar was not as he had been before. He was tall, lean, and as finely formed as a father could have wished. He wore a gown of Eastern silk, light green, upon which a bird had been embroidered with blue thread, its wings flecked with gold. He stood with his arms pressed down to either side, a posture that accentuated the lines of his collarbones and the thinness of his shoulders. Hannibal could see the contours beneath the fabric and he wanted to place his hands atop them. His ears jutted out from his head, visible even though his hair hung in loose curls around his face, ringlets just the size to slip around a finger. Most of his features were entirely unfamiliar, nothing like they had been. They needed to be memorized anew. All except his eyes . . . His two large, bright eyes contained both the mother and the father in them: brown at the center, grayish along the outer rim. They sheltered beneath a strong brow line, like his, and yet the shape of them was all Imilce. He was magnificent.

Thinking so, Hannibal was completely unprepared for what happened next. The child's lower lip began to quiver. His chin flexed and convulsed as if tiny creatures writhed below the skin. His nostrils flared, his eyebrows twitched, and it began: the boy cried. Hannibal realized all of sudden what the boy must see. While he was looking on the child's beauty the boy was gazing at a beast. A gape-mouthed ogre with a single eye, with blistered skin and cracked lips, with great hands scarred by battle, pockmarks in the flesh of his knuckles, his hair wild about him like the mane of a dying lion, his beard unkempt, bearing bits of debris in it. The blood of millions tainted him and he must have smelled of it, a stench of such magnitude that no bathing would ever cleanse him completely. He loomed over the boy, casting him in shadow, worse than any demon of Moloch. He reached for him, wanting to bring his goodness close to him, but the boy flinched and took a half-step back.

“No, no, don't cry, Little Hammer. Don't cry. I . . . I am your father returned to you. It's all over.”

The boy's face twisted into a mask of misery at this. Tears poured down his cheeks. Hannibal scooped him up in one arm and tried to comfort him with the other. He felt the boy go stiff against him, tense and sobbing even more, twisting as if he would reach out to someone for salvation but feared to. Hannibal began to ascend the ramp. He supported the child with a single arm, the other swaying at his side as a countermeasure to his careful steps. He murmured as softly as he could to ease the child's fear, asking him not to cry, saying that he was not the monster he seemed. “There is no need to cry,” he said, over and over again, speaking the truth and lying at the same time, unsure which was which anymore.

All the while his eye stared fixedly at his wife. He watched the distance between them close and inside, silently, he asked for forgiveness.