Pride of Carthage

“This is Balatur's watchtower,” Masinissa had said. “Many times I've come here and thought about my future, about the world I will shape and the woman who will stand beside me as I do.”

Sophonisba could tell she was supposed to be impressed, curious. So she showed neither sentiment. “Where is this Balatur?” she asked. “He should be chided for the state of this place.”

Masinissa said that Balatur no longer was. He had died many years ago. The tale went that he had been an officer of much repute. While on a campaign against a tribe to the south, he had met a princess of the dark people there. He fell in love with her so completely that his life as a mercenary for Carthage seemed of little value anymore. He believed that she loved him as well, and yet he would not desert the army. He returned to Carthage after the campaign, but he never forgot her. He thought of her always, day and night, and with such hunger that he felt a portion of flesh had been ripped from him. He came to believe that she had bewitched him and that his failure to forget her meant she wanted him just as much. Eventually, he had himself assigned to this watchtower. He sent word to her that if she would come and meet him here, they could be together. If she, too, pledged her love they could flee together and find a life elsewhere. He swore that he would be mercenary or beggar, fisherman or a carpenter: anything and anywhere, so long as he could be with her. From the tower he looked day and night to the south, waiting for a messenger from his princess. He did this for a full forty years. She never came; he died in waiting.

“Such is the tale of Balatur,” Masinissa had said, finishing his story with somber theatricality.

Sophonisba burst into laughter and admonished him to speak no more nonsense. “Of course she did not come to him,” she said. “What princess would abandon her people to join a man who wished to be a beggar? Such devotion is not at all attractive. Anyway, never was there born a Massylii that loved one single woman.”

The prince took exception to all of this. He dropped to his knees and said that he was another Balatur, a man possessed of a love so complete it eclipsed all others, as the sun does the stars. When they were joined, their love would be a tale for the ages. After he helped Carthage to defeat Rome, he would become king. Sophonisba would be his queen and together they would rule an empire second only to Carthage in its glory. He reminded her that he was no mere boy. He was the son of King Gaia and he would prove himself worthy of the Barca family very soon. He promised this with his very life.

Sophonisba's voice had taken on a passionate urgency as she recalled the prince's words. She breathed them in and out so that they had a husky quality, as if heated with desire. But when she finished this portion of her story, she laughed and let the emotion drop from her face, like a mask lowered by the hand that held it.

“Can you imagine such a show?” she asked. “I almost burst into tears right there at that moment. Tears of laughter, that is.”

“Sophonisba!” Imilce said. “Are you so cruel? Never has a man spoken to me thus. Not even my husband!”

“And in that is a measure of my brother's truthfulness,” she answered. “You see, I did not tell you that during all of this poetry the young prince managed to move next to me and take me in his arms. He bade me look out at the sky and the land and wonder at it—as if he'd created it all for me! And all the time he was trying to rub himself against me. He pretended that he was not, but I could feel his stiffness. He is truly a man of two parts: one of them a poet and the other a serpent with searching tongue. Yes, his words were fine, but fast upon them he was breathing in my ear, begging me for a taste of our wedding night, saying I cannot possibly keep him waiting till then. I told him I could do just that, and that I'd have him hunted down and quartered if he took me against my will.”

“Sophonisba!”

The girl laughed. “That is just what he said. ‘Sophonisba!' He looked ready to cry. He would have, I am sure, except that I did him a small favor.”

She let this statement linger, waiting for Imilce to rise to it. “What sort of favor?”

“I touched it,” Sophonisba said, showing with an outstretched finger how gentle and innocent the gesture had been. “I asked him to show me the length of his love, and when he did I gave it a touch. Just a fingertip and he shot his praise to the gods.”

Imilce did not know how to configure her face. It wavered between amusement and incredulity and outright reproach. Eventually, she said, “Sophonisba, hear me and believe me: You cannot play with men's affections this way.”

“You should not fear, Imilce, he is only a boy, not yet a man. Though enthusiastic, yes. And handsomely gifted, if you understand me . . . Think of it, sister! The future king of Numidia, brave Masinissa, who says he's going to join Hasdrubal in Iberia this spring—conquered by the touch of a finger! Boys are such strange creatures.”

“Boys grow to men quickly,” Imilce said. “As do girls to women.”

“Yes, yes.” Sophonisba poured herself a drink of lemon-flavored water. She drained the glass in a few long drafts, as quickly as any thirsty worker. But when she glanced up, her face was again a beguiling conglomeration of features. Imilce realized that the trick of her beauty was that her face was always surprising. Somehow, each time one saw her she seemed newly created, as if her features were still wet from the touch of a sculptor's fingers. It took Imilce's breath away and filled her with warmth just because of their proximity. Masinissa did not stand a chance.

On a morning early in the spring, Hannibal found the letter waiting for him like any other piece of mail. It lay upon his desk among several other scrolls: dispatches from Carthage; inventories and figures compiled by Bostar; noncommittal missives from several Roman ally states, whose chiefs were willing to speak secretly with him but as yet gave him nothing; and a document from the king of Macedon. Compared to these, it had the least authority on a commander's desk, but his eyes settled on it alone out of all the rest. He recognized the size of the papyrus and the emblem on the seal. His own.

Hannibal dismissed his secretaries with instructions that he not be disturbed. Alone in the small cottage, he took a seat, plucked up the scroll, and wiped the others to the side with his forearm. He dug under the seal with his fingernail and rolled out the brittle material. It crackled under his fingers, ridged and imperfect, an ancient fabric born of the most aged of lands.

The words had been written upon it by a passionless hand, precise, formal, looking as official as any correspondence from the Council itself. But the words were Imilce's. They drew him with all the force of a witch's incantation. He heard her greeting as if she were whispering in his ear. He mumbled aloud in response to her questions of his safety, reassuring her of his health. Just the mention of his homeland's names brought forth a host of memories, images not dimmed by time. The mention of perfidy in the Council touched him with anger, reminded him that he never had to hide his emotions completely from this woman. Had she been with him he would have cursed the old men, the misers, those jealous of him and thwarting their own success because of it. How he would have liked to speak of these things with her, naked, in bed, sated and moist from being inside her.

The reading was over all too quickly. The space of minutes it took to finish the document was painfully insufficient, and the letter left too much unanswered. There was no mention of Little Hammer, not a word of how he grew, whether he spoke now, whether he remembered his father and still looked so much like him. And who was this Sophonisba? His sister, yes, but a person wholly unknown to him. He could not imagine her at all. He had lived apart from her almost all of her life, a strange thought now that she was nearly an adult. Stranger still that he wished to protect her, to meet this young prince, Masinissa, for himself and judge him as men do each other. And no, he was not sure of the wisdom of his decision to send Imilce to Carthage. Of course he wanted her with him, but how could he be the man he must be with her near at hand, drawing emotions out of him that he would have no other man witness? Surely, separation was the best course.

Not yet ready to roll the papyrus away, he lifted it, absently, to his nose and inhaled. The scents were faint at first, reluctant and shy. The longer he breathed in, the more he found traces of fragrances beyond the papyrus's dry flavor. Something of his mother's fragrant oils came to him. Something of Carthaginian palms. A taste of sea air and of dust blown high and far-traveled on desert winds. And there was Imilce. Her scent was the last to come to him. When it finally revealed itself it was the most potent. It filled him with a longing so painful that he pulled himself forcibly from it. He threw the letter on the table and stared at it as if he expected it to rise and attack him. He had searched for her scent, but having found it he knew that such passions had no place in a commander's chambers. They were more dangerous than Roman steel or cunning.

He called Gemel and ordered the letter rolled and stored away. “Put it somewhere safe,” he said. “Safe and distant.”

This done, he sorted through the other scrolls with an absent hand. Nowhere among them was the one he wished for, the one from Rome itself. Such obstinate fools they were. Other races would have conceded the war already. They could have come to terms, as strong peoples always had. Though he knew Romans were shaping themselves into a different sort of nation—that was why this war was necessary, after all—it still confounded him that they did not behave in accordance with age-old practice. He tried to imagine the men of Rome, the senators in the chamber, the citizens in their homes throughout the city, the allies in all their various forms. He even spoke inside himself in their language, trying to divine what their hearts told them. Over the years he had done this time and again with different races, sometimes with his focus on individual persons. It was a technique his father had schooled him in. To know the mind of the enemy was to defeat him, Hamilcar had said. Many times this wisdom had proved to be true. With the Romans, however, he was never at ease with what he imagined.

He paced the room absently. He moved to the doorway and looked out over the fields, just beginning to bud in the strengthening sun. Something in the smell of the air reminded him of riding through the Carthaginian spring with his father, surveying the family's lands. He had believed, in his early years, that his father was chief among the men of the world, wiser than any, stronger, braver. Almost as early, he understood that with these traits came responsibilities. That was why his father was called upon to put down the mercenary revolt so harshly. That was why he went to Iberia to carve out an empire. That was why he could never forgive Rome for its crimes against Carthage. This had all been completely right to him, undeniable certainties.

He thought of an incident he had not recalled for some time. It was in his ninth year. He had just learned that his father was to leave Africa for Iberia for a long campaign. Perhaps because Hamilcar had been absent for so much of his childhood, hearing this cut him with new agony. He accosted his father in the public square and begged to be taken with him. He grasped at his legs and swore that he was man enough for it. He was strong and could throw a spear and knew no fear of war.

Hamilcar had at first swatted him away, but the more the boy spoke the bolder his claims became and more the man began to listen. Eventually, he grabbed the boy by the wrist and dragged him to the temple of Baal, shouting as he entered that the priest should prepare a sacrifice. In Carthage the custom of infanticide was an ancient one, rarely practiced at that time but prevalent a little earlier. Hannibal, staring at the altar of the god for a few stunned moments, believed his father had had enough of him and was about to offer him up.

But then he heard the baying of the goat led in by the priests. The animal was solid white, its eyes pinkish in hue and horns so pale they seemed almost translucent. They had brought a fine animal, unblemished and likely to please the god. The priests were like all such that he had seen since, often deformed men, men strange in one way or another from birth and suited to the priesthood because of this.

His father knelt next to him. He felt the gnarled strength of his hand clasped over his, the skin of his palm like rough stone. “Listen to me,” Hamilcar said. “I am not a priest, but you are my son. I hold the right to tell you the history of our gods. In a time long ago the father of gods, El, mistakenly decided to place Yam, the Sea-River, above all other gods. Yam reveled in this and became a tyrant and imposed his will upon all others. No other god had the courage to fight him. All thought him too mighty, even El who had blessed him. To appease him, Asherah, the wife of El, offered herself to Yam, so that he might learn joy and treat them all more kindly. When Baal heard this he was furious. He, alone among the gods, knew that Yam was an impostor who would never treat them justly. He made two great weapons—Yagrush, the chaser, and Aymur, the driver. With them, he strode toward Yam. He struck him in the chest with Yagrush, but this did not slay the god. So he smote him on the forehead with Aymur. Yam fell to the earth. So balance was restored to the world, with Baal as the supreme, yet just, deity.”

Hamilcar turned his son to face the goat. He knelt close behind him and with one arm pulled the boy against his chest. “Understand me now. Carthage is the servant of Baal; Rome is like those who followed Yam. Rome has been placed above us now by a mistake of Fortune, but it will not remain so. You and I, we can be Yagrush and Aymur, the chaser and the driver. I do not claim that we are divine. This is a human affair, based more on justice than on the gods' favor. I do not ask you to hate without reason. I do not condemn Rome simply because it is full of Romans. It is Rome's actions I hate. It is the way Rome seeks to make slaves of all the world. So, I ask you now, will you swear your life to avenge the wrongs done us by Rome? Will you stand beside me as I take justice to them? Will you devote your life to seeing them brought down, as Baal brought down Yam?”

To all these questions the boy answered, simply, “Yes, I will do that, Father.”

The priest handed Hamilcar the sacrificial knife. This the father slipped into the boy's hand. Together they pressed the curved blade against the trembling creature's neck and sank it home, the young hand and the old acting in one motion. So the sacrifice was made; Hannibal consecrated and bound with Baal. Days later, he set out for Iberia, and he had known no life but war ever since.

How far he had come since that day. . . . How much he had seen. . . . The trajectory of his life surprised him sometimes—not often, for usually his mind was actively engaged in shaping the future, and the art of war at which he excelled seemed the natural way of the world. But there were rare, quiet moments when melancholy pulled more heavily on him. He sometimes woke from visions of battle and felt—in the foggy moments of transition to waking—joy at the notion that it was all a dream, that he was not truly in so deeply, that the years might not have passed as he believed they had. This was always a short-lived notion, however. His single eye always opened upon scenes of men in armor, his ears filled with the noises of camp: constant reminders that his dreams were no more than mirrors projecting back the world he had created.

He turned and withdrew to his desk. He did not savor these moments of weakness. This was not the best of him. He would return to himself soon and plan a victory for the coming season like none in history. But he had one more indulgence he wished to allow himself. He thought of calling Mago to write for him, but he decided that the emotions, the truths and deceptions he was to write were too personal, too full of portents, better left unrevealed to others. He prepared a pallet and lifted the stylus himself. He could not help himself, even if the letter was destined to go unread, to end in glowing red embers as his earlier efforts had.

“Dearest Imilce,” he wrote, “how I wish you here with me so that you could tell me of yourself and of our son, of my present and our future . . .”

For the soldiers of Hannibal's army, the spring and early summer of their third year at war passed in a haze of almost idyllic tranquillity. Instead of marching into action with the first warm weather, they planted crops under the direction of captured locals. The soldiers tended the herd animals, watched new calves born and nursed, and put themselves to practical trades such as leather working and iron smelting. They sent occasional, almost recreational, foraging parties to secure other goods from neighboring communities, but in general they were well fed on their own provisions. Their bodies returned to states of health they had not known since leaving Iberia. Late in the spring, as they pulled in the early harvest, more than one soldier joked that the commander must have taken a liking to the country and chosen to stay, content with the blooming weather and salt-tinged breeze off the ocean. But just as many voices argued that the commander had lost none of his hunger for war. Each action was calculated—even the duration of inaction. Who really doubted that the great man was concocting yet another unbeatable strategy?

Not Imco Vaca. If this was the best way to win a war, then he was all for it. Actually, though he followed orders that came to him and even on occasion delegated tasks to others, his attentions were more acutely focused on matters of a carnal nature. He had never truly recovered from the previous summer's meeting with the naked, swimming beauty. The Saguntine girl also continued to haunt him. She sat at a distance and watched his actions disapprovingly and sometimes shouted at him so loudly he was sure others would hear her. But she was nothing more than a buzzing fly compared to the torment the woman and her donkey inflicted upon him.

For months he found no trace of her. It seemed she had disappeared from the earth. Knowing this was not possible, he worried even more about what might have befallen her. He roamed the neighboring camp villages, meandered through the Gallic settlement, and even tried to win the trust of the camp followers. But it was difficult to search for someone he had seen for only a few moments, whom he knew nothing about and whom he would not describe in true detail because he did not want anyone else to know she existed. He knew many would call this search a folly unbefitting a veteran soldier, but Imco no longer knew how to separate reasonable behavior from obsession. Perhaps the insanity of war had damaged him. He thought this was likely, but so be it. He just wanted to find that girl again.

But then, as unexpectedly as the first time, she appeared. He had not even begun the day looking for her. He had accompanied a band of Numidian scouts, and as he did not know how to ride he sat behind one of the horsemen. Imco was thoroughly jarred and shaken by the experience. He would never have guessed that a horse's back was so hard, with such an array of knobs to prod at his legs and backside. Partway through the return journey he begged off the horse and set to walking.

Thus he came upon a cluster of dwellings belonging to some camp followers, a community he probably would not have noticed from the back of a galloping horse. Not having known there were camp followers living here, he thought he had come upon locals displaced by the army. But a few moments observing them marked them as foreigners from a variety of nationalities. They seemed to have a life of bare subsistence. The settlement huddled between the saddle of two hills, on a slope dotted with small trees. In this stood a humble conglomeration of tents and skin shelters. On the far hills, a herd of thin goats cropped the grass. In the center, a large cook fire burned in preparation for the evening meal. An old woman sat weaving. Two men debated the best way to erect a sun shelter. A baby cried briefly and then hushed. A young woman bent to fasten a rope around the back legs of a recently slaughtered goat—

Imco's head turned as if to move on to the next object, but his eyes stayed anchored to the woman. For a moment his pupils seemed to stretch and contract: into focus and then out and back in, as if something had gone wrong with his eyes. He felt a part of himself fly out of his sockets and hiss across the distance and touch the girl's backside. He darted behind a tree for fear that she could feel this touch physically. But she just kept at her work.

She ran the rope from the goat's bound legs up over the crook of a branch and back to the ground again. Using her body weight, she tugged until the creature swung, dripping blood. She worked up close to it, slashing at the hide with practiced strokes of what must have been a very sharp tool, spinning the corpse this way and that, each gesture cool and practiced. Next, she slipped her fingers beneath the goat's skin and began to peel it free. She pulled so hard that the creature hung taut for a moment, at an angle to her, before finally relinquishing its hide and dangling, naked now, utterly defeated.

It was brutal work, and there was no mistaking the butcher's identity. Her legs were just as slim and muscular as he remembered. Her calves stood out with an almost masculine definition. The thin summer shift followed the curve of her hips and even revealed the depression that split her backside into two round portions. Her arms were bare to the shoulder and her hair had grown considerably. It flowed down her back in a black tumult of curls. And if all this was not enough, there was the donkey, standing a few yards from the woman, somewhat dejected, neither watching her nor eating nor doing anything save supporting itself on the four feeble posts of its legs.

The woman spun on her bare heel and moved away from the carcass. He pressed himself against the prickly ground and followed her with his eyes. She first spoke to the old woman, then shouted something to the men, and set off climbing into the hills. Imco was on his feet a moment later. He backed away from the camp and then circled it widely and walked quietly through a stand of pine trees. He lost the woman for a few moments and grew frantic. He tried to divine her destination from the lay of the land so that he could follow her from hiding, but no sooner had he begun this than he lost faith in the strategy. He dashed a short distance and then froze, tilting his head to catch any betraying sound, but he heard nothing except the wind shouldering its way through the trees. He ran on again, along the near side of a long ridge, through a confused jumble of boulders, then over the rise and down the pine-covered slope at a headlong run.

He burst into the open in a panting explosion, realizing too late that he had bounded out onto a path a few strides in front of the woman and the donkey, which trailed behind her. The woman pulled up in mid-step. She froze and stared at him for a shocked few breaths. But her surprise did not last long. With the fingers of one hand she grasped a handful of hair from high on her head and raked it forward, covering her face. She said something to him in a Celtiberian dialect. She parted the screen of black curls wide enough to spit, and then began to scramble up the embankment from which he had descended.

Imco saw the spit fan out on the air and shift away on the breeze. Before his gaze had even shifted to follow her, the donkey was occupying the space she had vacated. How the creature got there so quickly, he could not say, for it now stood completely still. It was a pitiful animal to look upon, ragged of coat, with ears tattered as if shredded by the teeth of some carnivore. Though it was faithful to the woman, she seemed to pay it no heed whatsoever.

“Do not forget your ass!” Imco called.

The woman paused in her tracks. She slowly turned around and took a few tentative steps down toward him. “What?” she asked. Her Carthaginian was heavily accented, but he could not from the single word guess what her first language might be.

“Do not forget your ass,” Imco repeated. “Your donkey, I mean.”

The woman cocked her head to the side and studied him. He could just barely make out her features through her hair. He thought he saw something written on them that was other than anger. It was a deep bafflement, but this was something he believed he could build upon. When she spoke, however, her voice was venomous and resolute. Unfortunately, she had reverted to the Iberian dialect and Imco could not understand a word of it.

She must have known this, for she concluded by making her point visually concrete. Her hands grasped something like an imaginary twig, snapped it, and tossed the two ends in different directions. Having made herself clear, the woman turned and scrambled up the bank and away. Imco stood for a moment staring at the spot over which she had vanished. Half of him wanted to chase after her, but what would he do upon reaching her again? He did not have the cold heart of a rapist. And anyway, he had accomplished something with the encounter. He knew that she lived safely in the arms of a small community. As he turned back to the camp, he realized that the donkey was no longer in sight. It had not scrambled up the bank, but must have found some other route by which to follow the girl. Would that he were as fortunate.

But he was not. Instead, he marched out with the body of the army a week later. He could find no valid reason to exclude himself and, it seemed, Hannibal wanted each and every able body. They marched at half-speed, angling to the south of the old consuls' forces, crossed the river Aufidus, and—with barely a grumble of protest—seized a Roman grain depot near an old settlement called Cannae.

It did not take long for rumors of the Roman approach to spread. First a few long-riders brought word of a great mass of men on the march, an army innumerable to the human eye, like a horde of Persia spilling across the land. And then spies brought in further details. The two new consuls were marching toward them at full speed. They whipped before them a massive army, thousands upon thousands of well-armed soldiers, both Roman citizens and legions from the allied cities. If the Carthaginians stayed where they were and met this force, they would not just be fighting the arrogant men of Rome; they would be clashing with all Italy.

Imco had many times before questioned Hannibal's wisdom only to see the commander's judgments proven right. But this did not stop him from doubting once more. No one man can harness Fortune indefinitely. So prolonged a war could not have been what he wanted, and now, perhaps, the winds of fate had shifted to blow the Romans forward to victory. Imco, in his foreboding at the coming conflict, could not help but ask for news and opinions from any man near at hand. It was because of this that he first met a young soldier who claimed to have overheard a conversation between the commander and his brother.

The soldier swore his tale was true, and he told it as he shared Imco's supper beside the fire. He had stood within listening distance, he said, assigned as a guard to the storehouse that the commander happened to check on personally. He had stood as unobtrusively as he could, straight-backed and still as a pillar. The two paid him no mind whatsoever. When Mago voiced anxiety about the Roman contingent's size, Hannibal said it was as it should be. He said he had recently heard voices inside his head. No, not as a madman does, for he understood that the voices came not from without but were born inside him. Sometimes the voice was recognizable as his own; at other times it was his father's, or the low grumble he believed to be the language of the gods. But they all told him the same thing. They all came to him with a single message. . . .

The young soldier paused here and contemplated the fire, seeming for all the world to have nothing more to say. Imco nudged him on.

“It is coming.”

“What?” Imco asked. “What is coming? It is no secret they are coming. Is this—”

The soldier, forgetting the silent drama of a moment before, raised his voice. “That is what he said. ‘It is coming.' He said, ‘The coming battle determines everything. We look upon a space of hours that lead up to the moment I was born for.' That is what the voices tell the commander is coming: the moment he was born for. And you and I will witness it.”

The soldier resumed his portentous air, but Imco clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and turned away. What sort of tale was this? One of the teller's own invention, probably. He would not flatter the fellow with questions. So he thought, but instead he found within himself a chorus of questions and answers. What is the moment he was born for? So vague a statement, like something an oracle would say. Did it indicate a day of glory? But was not the most obvious sense always the wrong sense when interpreting oracles? Perhaps the day he was born for meant the day of his death. Was that not the only certainty in all beings' lives? Had the commander seen his own demise? If so, why did he not flee it? For a moment this thought gave Imco comfort, but then he recalled how stubborn a character Hannibal was. Perhaps he planned to defy death, to spit in its eye and push it out of the way.

When Imco lay down that evening, sleep eluded him completely, like a creature that knows it is being tracked. He tried to think only of his beautiful camp follower, but when she looked at him he heard her voice repeating the message he wished to avoid.

“It is coming. It is coming. . . .”

During the first two weeks of the march from Rome, the consuls shared a single intention. They had to cover the distance quickly, make contact with Hannibal, and find the right occasion on which to bring him to battle. There was no debate on this much, at least. But as they came nearer, the strains of their dueling commands began to show. Varro believed that they should pour forth over the Carthaginians in one great wave, unstoppable. He argued that the location and terrain had no strategic importance, considering the overwhelming shock the enemy would feel on the first sight of them. He imagined their wide-eyed horror, the slack mouths, and the thumping in their chests as they beheld their doom striding toward them in a cloud of dust. That was the true strength of the army they commanded. They should use it to best effect, wherever they found the invader hiding.

Paullus held a different view. If they were to learn but one thing from the lessons of the Ticinus, of Trebia, of Trasimene, it must be caution. They were marching toward Hannibal; and he appeared to be simply waiting for them. Paullus found something disquieting in this. They should approach slowly. They should carefully assess just what the enemy might have planned for them. They should learn beforehand everything they could as to the lay of the land and Hannibal's current numbers and the morale of his troops and their state of health and supply. All of these things should weigh in their decisions. War was not as straightforward as Varro seemed to think it was.

In keeping with this, on Paullus' days in command he slowed the pace of the march and sent out scouts and surveyors to detail the features of the land around Cannae. What he learned troubled him. He was sure Hannibal's chosen spot was not a favorable place for battle. The land was too open. Apart from the rise atop which Cannae sat, the land stretched for flat miles in all directions, dotted sparsely with brush and stunted trees and cut by shallow, easily fordable rivers. It favored the African cavalry in every way. He spoke cautiously of this with his fellow consul, for it was hard for a Roman horseman to acknowledge the supremacy of any other. But Paullus believed they had to do just that. The last few years had proven that the Africans, especially the Numidians, were superior to them when astride a horse. He proposed that they move elsewhere.

“Listen to me,” he said. He sat facing Varro in the war tent, between them the tribunes and officers of the horse and various others. Paullus had called the meeting toward the end of one of his days in command. He had opened it with his now familiar arguments and listened to the equally well-known rebuttals. But as he was giving up power on the morn he wished to do all he could to sway his fellow consul's opinion. They were so close to the Carthaginians now that any mistake could doom them.

He said, “Let us turn the column and march for more broken ground to the west, with hills enough to hamper the enemy's horsemen. We need someplace not of Hannibal's choosing but of our own instead.”

Varro could barely contain his loathing of this line of thinking. “If Hannibal is so brilliant,” he said, “how do we know that he is not hoping for just such a move? Perhaps he anticipates such cowardice. If we do as you say, we might simply be turning into another of his traps.”

“I do not think so,” Paullus said. He spoke gravely, with the fingers of both hands massaging his temples. “Varro, I beg you to temper your vigor with wisdom. Fabius fought hard to avoid situations that—”

“Fabius fought?” Varro asked, cutting in with a raised voice. He cocked his head at an angle, as if his hearing troubled him. “Fought? Never has that word been so misused. I was there beside Fabius and I can tell you that he never raised a hand against the enemy. Fighting is not in that man's nature. And now you, Paullus, would do the same as he. You're nothing more than the old man's puppet. You think not for yourself but do his bidding—just as he does Hannibal's. Do you really believe Rome could survive another year like the one Fabius inflicted upon us? He made us out to be fools, cowards, sheep trembling at the sight of an approaching wolf. Perhaps you are those things, but I am none of them. We have let half the summer pass already. Believe me, if we do not strike now we will start losing allies. It will take just one defector for them all to crumble. But why am I telling you these things? You know them already. You only lack the heart or courage to grasp them and act!”

Paullus had gone red under this barrage of insults. He glanced at the officers around the chamber, all of whom shifted uncomfortably, eyes lowered to suggest no particular allegiance, faces as expressionless as possible. “We should speak privately,” Paullus said. “It is not seemly for—”

“I don't care what is seemly!” Varro shouted.

“And I will not commit our troops to disaster!” Paullus roared back at him, his anger bursting out so suddenly that several of the officers started. “Truly, Terentius Varro, you're worthy of the butchers from whom you're descended. Would that your people had kept to their labors and left important matters to those suited to them!”

Varro shot to his feet; Paullus mirrored the motion. They stepped toward each other, first tentatively, and then, as if at some choreographed signal, they fell toward each other like two rams in the season of rut. The room was a flurry of motion. Some jumped back against the tent walls. A few sat frozen. More than one cowered as if the consuls' anger was meant for them. Only one person wedged himself between the two.

Publius Scipio was faster on his feet than either consul. He stepped forward and took the full brunt of the impact, Varro at his back, Paullus against his chest. He shouted to them to find reason. He batted their arms down and twirled to separate them with his shoulders. Heartened, others grappled the men and tried to calm them. Publius managed to get a hand to either consul's chest and push them to the full length of his outstretched arms.

“If you two were not the most important Romans in all of Italy right now I would sit and watch one of you overman the other,” he said. “But there is no place for dueling now. Rome depends on you; be worthy of her. By the gods, find your senses! Our enemy lies outside this tent, not within.”

Publius' fellow tribunes looked between him and the two senior officers, unsure just how his outburst would be received and therefore unsure how they would comment on it. He was the youngest among them and had up until that moment been the quietest. Varro seemed to be deciding just how best to take off Publius' head, but when Paullus withdrew a half-step he did likewise.

“The young tribune is imprudent, but he speaks some truth,” Varro said. “You call me rash, but will you hear my plan?”

“You have a plan?”

“I am not a fool, Paullus.”

“Tell me, then. I'd love to hear sensible words from your mouth.”

Varro glared at him a moment, then motioned that they should all sit again. “We command the largest army Rome has ever fielded,” he said, “perhaps the largest ever mustered by any civilized nation. This is our strength, and Hannibal will know it. We should show him from his first sighting of us that we are a hammer, and he the nail that we will drive into the soil of Cannae. We must use the full overwhelming grandeur of our numbers to best effect. To do this, we reduce the frontage of each maniple by a third and shrink the intervals between them. This will stretch the line so that the enemy will look out at an unending river heading toward him. Hannibal's men will shake at the sight of us, and some will run. Imagine it, Paullus. Remember that this is the first time we will meet them face-to-face and in the full light of day. You and I will command the cavalry on either wing. This is the weak point, but we need not defeat our counterparts. All we have to do is hold them for a time, keep them from flanking long enough to let the body of our infantry drive through. By then it will be too late for their horse to matter. We'll punch right through their center, divide them into two smaller forces, and attack each at will.”

Paullus stared at his fellow consul with an intensity that made the edges of his eyes quiver. “You may be right,” he said, “but I do not know that it is wise to modify our formations like this without first practicing it.”

“Impossible,” Varro said. “We are engaged already. And this plan works precisely because the troops are raw. Just as the enemy will see their uncountable numbers, so the troops in the front will take heart from the lines of men behind them. They will see that they are undefeatable. As a whole, they will become braver than they could be in thin ranks. This formation makes it impossible for cowardice to sway the battle. A man in the middle of this river will have nowhere to flee but forward, over the bodies of the enemy. Paullus, refrain from finding fault and be one with me.”

“I am unsure,” Paullus said, sincerely and without a trace of malice. Though they talked late into the night, he could offer no more than that.

As the day dawned the consuls were not exactly at odds, but neither were they of a single mind. Varro—in control—broke camp and moved even closer to Hannibal, so close, in fact, that it would be impossible for Paullus to retreat even if he wished to. He set up camp on the near side of the river Aufidus and ordered a small deployment to claim a spot on the far bank. He sent out units to harass the Carthaginian foragers, but ended the day more exasperated than vindicated. Numidian raiders ambushed the Roman water carriers instead, launching their spears at them so that the workers had to drop their jugs and run. And yet Varro had accomplished his main objective. He was locked in the preliminary stages of the struggle. The following day Paullus received word that the enemy was moving as if to offer battle, but he did not answer them. He shifted troops from one place to another, hesitating, trying to think of a way to better their position, knowing that on the morrow control went back to Varro. Wriggle as he might, he was pinned to the spot as surely as if his fellow consul had speared him through the foot. There was nothing to be done. The clash would come with the rising sun. Their fate was in Varro's hands.

Mago had already been up for hours by the time he met with Hannibal and a mounted contingent of his generals atop the rise of Cannae. Together they watched the armies assemble upon the wide plain. The sight approaching them was like nothing any of them had ever imagined. Mago had learned from his brother to approximate numbers of men by visual clues, to weigh on internal scales the density of troops and the area of land they covered, and to account for the receding scale of distance. But the number of Romans now before him was beyond his reckoning. Eighty thousand? Ninety? One hundred thousand? He could not possibly count them, and the exact number would have seemed arbitrary. What mattered was that the Romans' front line stretched to fill the entire field, so wide it would have daunted even the best of runners to sprint from one edge to the other. It was completely uniform, no portion lagging behind or preceding the others. This was all formidable enough, but it was the depth of the ranks that truly stunned him: they came row upon row with no end in sight, fading into the dust and distance so that it seemed they were marching out of the haze, an army born of the landscape itself.

“They have the wind in their eyes,” Hannibal said. A simple statement, acknowledged with nods and a few grunts. “And more of the sun's glare than we do. I like this advantage.”

Mago never ceased to be amazed by his brother's calm. Looking at him, he felt buoyed by his confidence. If Hannibal believed they would win this conflict, then who was he to doubt it? The day previous, the commander had presented his multiple strategies with calm, reasoned assurance. Even when he proposed the most improbable of maneuvers they sounded like testimony given after the events and not a plan suggested before. He had traced the bowed line the first ranks were meant to form, a convex front made up entirely of Gauls, headed by Mago and Hannibal himself. With this he intended to meet the first lines of the enemy. “We must keep this crescent from breaking,” he had said. “Let it not snap but instead slowly manage a retreat. So carefully that the Romans are fooled into feeling themselves winning. So gradually that the Gauls are not frightened into fleeing.”

When Mago questioned whether the Gauls would rebel against setting themselves up for slaughter, Hannibal answered, “You do not understand the Celtic mind, brother. These people do not conceive of the world as you and I do. Consider that they believe creation to be a balance between two worlds. Death in this one means rebirth in the other. Thus they mourn at a newborn's birth and celebrate upon that man's eventual demise. They have no fear of dying tomorrow; they run to death, headlong.”

Mago had sworn that he would do everything Hannibal instructed, but after a sleepless night the immensity of the day's challenges left him staring in awe. Even the cloud of dust stirred by the Romans' feet filled him with dread. It was a great brown shadow that rose up into the heavens and stretched so far as to all but obscure the horizon.

“Look at them,” he said. There was a tight quaver in his voice, as that of a man who has been punched in the abdomen but is trying to speak through the pain of the blow. “I never imagined there were so many of them.”

Hannibal straightened in his saddle. He spoke without a hint of irony. “Yes, they are many, but not one among them is my brother. Not one is named Mago.”

The others laughed, but it took a moment for this cool statement to roll over in Mago's mind, revealing its humor.

Monomachus was the first to respond, dry of voice, giving no indication that he spoke in jest. “They have among them few who would eat human flesh.”

“What is more,” Maharbal added, “they are not commanded by a man named Hannibal. I am sure this fact troubles them.”

“And, unless I am mistaken,” Bostar said, “nowhere among them is there a Bomilcar or a Himilco or even a Gisgo, not a single Barca, not one of them who prays to Baal or Melkart, none who were pushed through the thighs of an African mother. Truly, never have I seen so many unfortunate men gathered in a single place.”

Hannibal's stern expression gave way to a grin. “I see your amazement, Mago, and I understand your point: we should have issued the men with two swords each, one for either hand to make the killing faster.”

Mago ducked his head and ran the palm of his hand over his horse's neck and then looked up again. Just listening to them humbled him. Who had ever been as fortunate as he, to learn warfare from men such as these? He searched for a jest of his own to add to theirs, but jesting before battle was not a skill he had learned yet.

Soon the generals parted company, each riding off to lead different contingents of the troops, each with a different purpose in the coming battle. Mago stayed a little longer with Hannibal. They were to command quite near each other and did not need to separate until the battle was well begun. Even with the armies facing each other—paused with a wide gap between them—there were maneuvers to go through before the bulk of them met in earnest. The enemy's forward line glistened in the glare of the sun, armor reflecting the light in thousands of tiny bursts. At first their shields seemed as tightly wedged together as the scales on a snake's belly, but there were gaps enough between them to allow their skirmishers forward. These poured through onto the field. This battle would open in the manner that suited the Roman style, just as Hannibal had predicted.

“Velites,” Hannibal said. “Let us see whether these pups have teeth.”

The young soldiers moved not like men but like half-beasts, agile. They wove through each other, barking courage and yelling curses at the Carthaginians. They wore helmets draped in animal skins: the heads of wolves mostly, some bears, and a few mountain cats. At first, they were frightening to look upon, as if the animal world had united with humans and fought on the Romans' side. They came armed with several javelins each, which they hurled with all the strength their bodies could muster, sending them high into the air in deadly arcs. So it seemed to Mago, but Hannibal saw them differently.

“They are tentative,” he said. “Afraid. Look, Mago, they seem to step forward boldly, but they come only near enough to loose their weapons. Then they retreat to gather up courage to repeat the maneuver. They have taken on the skins of warriors but not the hearts.”

Mago had not realized this at first, but soon he saw that Hannibal was right. The velites were not so impressive after all. Their inexperience left them no match for veteran skirmishers. Balearic slingers swirled their tiny missiles into the air almost casually, picking out velites at will, breaking arms and ribs and occasionally dropping one when a stone broke a velite's head.

This went on for an hour or so, until Hannibal signaled that the slingers should be called back. They pulled up, shouted last taunts at the Romans, and withdrew into the body of the infantry. The Romans did the same. The velites vanished through the snake scales so that within a few minutes all motion stopped, save for the struggles of the wounded left on the field.

At about the same time, both sides began to move forward toward each other. The Romans accelerated to a trot and held it. Watching them, Mago found his insides knotted so intensely that he almost pitched forward in the saddle. He knew to look past the tricks of visual intimidation: the swirls and patterns and animal features painted on their shields, the high feathered plumes that rose up from their helmets to make them seem taller, the layered wall of shields and upright pila and glinting metal and legs beneath, shifting steadily forward so that from a distance they seemed not individuals at all but rather a single force eating up the land. Knowing these tricks did not make it any easier to watch the advance. The Romans moved in more skillful unison than even the Libyans, and there was no trickery in the amazing mass of them.

More than any of the visual drama, what struck the young Barca was the silence, the awful, unearthly hush of the oncoming enemy. They spoke not a word, no chant or instructions or shouts of rage. No sound came from them at all but the rhythmic pounding of their feet and the thrum of their swords upon their shields. This was noise, yes, but devoid of emotion. Mechanical. Frightening, for it seemed to be the beat of death. The various contingents within the Carthaginian army yelled and chanted and spurred themselves to fury by releasing deep-bellied roars. The Gauls sent forth a tremendous racket through their horns, the tall, animal-shaped heads of these stretching high into the air above them. It should have been ferocious cacophony, but the answering silence proved even more unnerving. It was as if Carthage had thrown a punch at a visible target but missed it and cleaved only the air. If the Romans felt any fear they did not show it, and the best the Carthaginian troops could do was to scream louder.

Mago knew what came next, but still it was a shock when it happened. The Roman vanguard—at some signal or position known only to them—all hefted their pila up and hurled them in the same instant. Two, three thousand missiles suddenly flew through the air. Several hundred soldiers went down, twisting, shouting in pain or silenced. From where Mago sat beside his brother, he saw whole portions of the front ranks buckle forward and disappear.

“As it should be,” Hannibal said. “There will be a second wave. And then a third, remember that. This is what we've come for. We've prevailed previously through good fortune and Roman foolishness. Today we face them on their own terms. This is all as I would have it be. Take your position and remember everything I've taught you. Go now. And do not forget your name!”

With that, Hannibal slipped from his horse and joined the lieutenants and messengers and guards who would be around him throughout the battle. They headed off through the ranks down corridors left clear for them. Mago heard a soldier call to him, telling him they were awaiting him. He dismounted and handed his horse to a keeper and joined with the contingent of men sworn to protect his life. Something happened in him as he felt the earth beneath him and his feet moving him across it. He stopped trying to fight the passing of time, stopped wishing for more moments to process and think through the things he faced. He stepped into the present and felt an enormous rush of energy push him forward. He was about to fight as he never had before. The forces at play in the world had finally converged. He strode forward behind his lieutenants, growing more into his skin at every step. He was a Barca, after all.

The two cavalry units—one composed of Numidians, the other a mixed company of Carthaginians, Iberians, and Gauls—took up positions on either wing of the infantry. Their general orders were clear: Attack the opposing Roman horse. Hit them, hard and fast. Break them in the first moments of the struggle, wipe them from the field, and strip the main body of the Roman infantry naked on either flank. A good part of Hannibal's strategy depended on this. But not only on this. He also chose to fracture and confuse the enemy in smaller ways. That is why Tusselo and four hundred other Numidians went out on a specific mission. They understood that there was a danger in it greater than that of straightforward combat. It required both military prowess and cunning. They took up the arms customary to them, but each also carried an extra sword hidden beneath his tunic, wrapped in oddments of cloth to protect its wielder from the honed blades.

They rode in the wake created by Maharbal's cavalry, which was quite a trail to follow. They moved in a great, trilling herd at full gallop, launching their spears once, twice, and yet again before they even reached the enemy. By the time they collided with them, many of the Romans had already dropped, impaled by cool iron, and then pummeled beneath a barrage of hooves. Other horses wheeled and darted in confusion, their riders suddenly gone limp. Tusselo watched Maharbal sword-stab a wounded Roman under the arm and pull a spear from the man's thigh in something like a single motion. He planted this new spear in another's throat. He stabbed the weapon forward and back. The pierced Roman grabbed it desperately, jerked this way and that by a playful hand, recognition of his coming death splattered across his face with the stain of his own blood. Maharbal finally yanked the spear free and left the man slumped over his horse's neck. Without another thought, he surged toward a new target.

Tusselo lost sight of their captain, but he was only one among many. All the others were similarly engaged. That was the way it was with Numidians. They should have made easy targets, unarmored as they were, with only hide shields and no saddles to secure them to their mounts. Instead they moved without fear, so swiftly that it seemed there was no interval between their thoughts and the movements of their horse. The Romans had to yank on reins and fight with their mounts to control them before they could attempt a strike. They might have been skilled by their own standards, but that was not enough to help them here. The Numidians anticipated the spears to be thrown at them before they were even launched. They batted away the sword points aimed at close quarters, because they saw the preparations a Roman had to go through to ready himself for the thrust, and they always managed to be exactly where the Romans wished they were not because they recognized the flow of this mounted dance before the Italians ever could. They functioned on an entirely different scale of speed and dexterity.

The Romans pulled back, re-formed, and charged again. A repeat of the initial slaughter met them. They dismounted in an attempt to make the battle into an infantry contest. To their surprise, the Africans did not join them on the dirt but rode among them, darting them with even greater ease. Moments later all the Romans who could scrambled up into their saddles again, before any order to do this had been issued. And in this remounting was the first seed of panic. Such a seed germinates in an instant, grows, and flowers. The Romans turned and fled. The Numidians paused long enough to retrieve spears and to wipe their bloodstained palms. A few grabbed up pieces of treasure too appealing to leave behind. Then they set out after their quarry, smiling and joking with each other, like huntsmen on the trail of their favorite prey.

The time had come to make real the plan Tusselo had set forth to Hannibal several days earlier. Hannibal had initially found it improbable that the Romans would believe the deception it depended on, but Tusselo knew them better. He pointed out that the Romans far back in the army's rear would know little of how their cavalry fared against the Africans. They would have no true picture of the whole of the battle and would—in their arrogance—find it easy to accept what he proposed. And it would work because no Roman could conceive of such a deception; therefore neither would they recognize it in the actions of others. Having won the commander's trust, Tusselo set out to deserve it. He reminded the others to follow his lead and have faith.

With that, he and the four hundred pressed north. They rode parallel to the rows and rows of Roman legions, out at a distance beyond missile range. They progressed largely unhindered. There were few horsemen left to confront them, and the legions ignored them, so focused were they on their advance. When he saw open space behind the army, Tusselo turned toward the Romans. Once he was sure the Numidians had been sighted, he spoke the first order loudly. His comrades obeyed. They slung their shields behind their backs. A little farther on he shouted again. They each tossed their spears out upon the ground, swords and daggers also, small darts. They advanced as unarmed men, with arms held out to either side, professing harmlessness.

Alarmed by their approach, a company of soldiers held in reserve fanned out to meet them. Tusselo took his position and ran over the words he would soon utter in the language he had not used in years now. He rode at the vanguard of the group and was therefore the first to be unhorsed. A legionary reached up for his outstretched hand, grabbed it, and nearly yanked his shoulder from its socket. He hit the ground on his back, hard enough to knock the air out of him. The soldier stood him up and punched him square in the mouth. He unsheathed his sword and made as if to run him through, but a nearby officer strode in, took the weapon from him, and pressed the point up under Tusselo's chin with enough pressure that the iron pierced his flesh and released a thin stream of blood that ran down the blade.

“Why do you come to us?” he demanded. “Give me reason not to kill you all right now!”

Poised atop the sword, Tusselo did not know if he could speak. He bit back the pain of the iron point grinding into his jawbone and managed to say, “You will win this day. Our gods . . . gave us signs of this. Hannibal ignored them. He walks toward death. We want no part of it anymore. You are the greater power.”

The officer stared at him a moment in surprise. He had not expected an African to speak perfect Latin. Judging by his face this seemed to unnerve him. “How do you come to speak Latin?”

“I am an educated man,” Tusselo said.

The Roman seemed unsure what to make of this. His face held firm, but the point of the sword drooped. Tusselo, feeling an opening, carried on. “Spare us,” he said. “We are not cowards. I am a prince among our people. By my word, the Massylii will desert Carthage in your favor. You, master, can bring Rome the Numidian people. And we can bring all of Africa.”

“You do not look royal to me,” the Roman said, his eyes on Tusselo's knotted mass of hair.

“Our people are different from yours, but I am as I've said. Ask any of the men who follow me.”

For the first time the Roman wavered visibly. He looked up and found in the solemn faces of the mounted warriors enough to stay his death threat. He released Tusselo and stepped back. “You are wise to realize our superiority,” he said. “Perhaps cowardly as well, but you will live at least a little longer for it.” The legionary who had hit Tusselo began to object, but the officer spoke over him. “The Roman army still takes prisoners! We are not barbarians who kill men who come to us in defeat. Captured is just as good as dead, in some ways even better. Think what good slaves these will make.”

Though he spoke this forcefully he seemed to doubt it a moment later. He muttered, “I would not want to act mistakenly here, would you? Find a tribune, at least. But in the meantime get them off their horses and keep them under guard.”

They forced the Numidians to dismount and march between a company of armored guards who smacked them with the flats of swords, poked them with the butts of spears, taunted and threatened them, insulted the bitch creatures that had birthed them, and ridiculed the commander who had led them to their enslavement. Finally—collected in a tight group on a flat stretch of barren, sun-baked ground—they were told to sit on their black asses and not to move.

Few of them spoke. They looked at each other with their somber eyes, and this sufficed as communication. The man in front of Tusselo looked over his shoulder and offered him a strip of dried meat. Tusselo nodded in affirmation of the man's calm, but refused the food. He still tasted the Roman legionary's sweat on his sore lips. This reminded him of things he wished to forget, and yet something in him wanted to remember what he wished to forget. He thought that if ever a race of people shared an identity it was the Romans, even down to the consistency and taste of their sweat.

Tusselo alone among his countrymen spoke the enemy's language. He listened as reports came in, each more optimistic than the last. Word passed from man to man that Varro believed victory was theirs. Apparently, they were punching right through the Gallic center. They were a moving point of iron that Hannibal was powerless to stop. The plan was progressing so perfectly that Varro ordered men pulled from the wings to the center, to make them narrower yet and to drive the wedge further into the Carthaginians.

The man beside Tusselo nudged him, ribbed him, and then hissed in his ear, asking what the Romans were saying. Tusselo slammed him with his elbow and spoke from the side of his mouth. “They say the hour of their death approaches,” he said.

This was spoken with cold force and fully convincing, but in truth the Roman news filled him with dread. Yes, he knew Hannibal had said as much would happen, but what if he was wrong? Despite all his faith in the commander, it did seem impossible that they could combat the Roman numbers. If only a quarter of the enemy managed to kill or wound an opponent, Hannibal's cause was lost. He realized that—strange as it seemed—he alone among the army at that moment was balanced between allegiances. To betray Hannibal, he need do nothing but sit where he was. He gazed out at the distant rear of the Roman army, all those many backs turned toward him. Nearer, before and behind them, swarmed the noncombatants, camp followers, horse boys, and slaves, all engaged in various tasks in support of the army. So many slaves. What people on the earth had ever so thrived, or ever would, on the suffering of others?

Tusselo chose his moment at random. Deserting was no real possibility. His loyalty was not simply to Hannibal, not even simply to his people. His loyalty was first to himself, and he knew his enemy better than anyone. He rose to his feet. He dusted himself off and stretched his neck from side to side. One of the guards shouted something at him and walked toward him, hand on the hilt of his gladius in threat. Tusselo uttered a single word, a clipped syllable that let loose a flurry of motion.

An African seated near the passing Roman pulled a sword from beneath his tunic. He struck the man with a swinging blow to the back of his knees. By the time the Roman fell to the dust the whole four hundred were on their feet: first a commotion of brown skin and tribal garments; then a bristling flurry of cloth-covered blades. They cut down all the guards, hacking them to death with the advantage of surprise and pure numbers. They then stood staring at the various noncombatants, some of whom just gawked, most of whom turned and fled in all directions.

Tusselo, knowing he needed to keep the men focused on combat instead of plunder, clucked his tongue and began walking. The others followed him. As they walked they stripped the remaining stray bits of material from their weapons and dropped them to flap and skitter across the ground, propelled by a dry wind. A little ways on they came to their shields and picked them up, and most of them managed to regain their horses, which had been hastily abandoned by the boys handling them.

So it was that, four hundred strong, they fell upon the Romans' rear. Not one of the Romans turned to look at them. Not one expected the attack about to come. Tusselo was only a few feet away from his target when that Roman soldier turned his young face around in sudden, short-lived terror.

Before the battle commenced, the commander had sent out a message, in every possible language and to each quadrant of his army, to all the men of his army's many nations. He said, “We are the enemies of Rome, all of us from races beleaguered by the men of the Tiber. Today Hannibal asks you to honor your ancestors with offerings of Roman blood. Follow his call and you cannot help but prevail. When the Gallic horns blast, know that in them is the voice of your commander shouting to you. When you hear cries of anger from any tongue, recognize Hannibal's roar within them. Know that the clamor of arms clashing is Hannibal's will transmitted through iron. Even when an enemy opens his mouth, it is our commander who you will hear. If he yells at you in threat, he is reminding you of your duty. If you twist an enemy on the point of your sword, it is Hannibal's praise that spurts from his mouth. It is his joy at your deed and his order that you step over the corpse and carry on. Hear the Lion of Carthage in everything, and this day will be ours. Whenever men speak of war in the future, they will speak of today. Let it be your names they utter in awe.”

Fine words, Imco thought, but bravery is more easily spoken of than demonstrated. Perhaps Hannibal contained within himself such brutal confidence, but Imco cared more that morning about saving a life—his own, that is. The years in the army had shaped him into a skilled warrior, often against his will and without his consent. His hands and body and mind moved nimbly during combat, faster than his thinking mind, with instincts of their own. His eyes found weaknesses to press home attacks. Only he knew that he fought simply for self-preservation, so that he might live while some other died in his place. He knew this was not entirely noble. Was it not better to kill for the pure joy of it, fearlessly? That was the type of man the gods rewarded and bred in abundance.

Imco gazed at the veteran killers milling around him. Already the bowed front ranks of the center of the army were engaged with the enemy, but these soldiers stood about cool and seemingly unconcerned with the chaos soon to descend upon them. They chatted among themselves and calmly stretched. They tested the fit of their armor, scratched absently at their scruffy beards. One man urinated where he stood; another pulled up his garments and squatted to defecate. A few kicks and jibes discouraged him from this. He stood and cursed them, but then agreed to wait and crap on a Latin corpse instead. Many of them were outfitted as Roman legionaries, from captured gear that made them a grotesque parody of their enemies. Some ran their hands up and down their tall spears; a few hefted these and practiced the overhand thrust with which they struck; still others tested the feel of the Roman swords in their hands. Imco felt as he had high up in the Alps: as if some mistake had been made a long time back and never corrected. He did not belong in this company. He was sure that the world never had created a more reluctant soldier than he. Never had Fortune played so mischievously with an individual, time and time again placing him in the maw of human folly.

The din grew as the minutes passed. Carthalo's horsemen galloped past on their way to meet the eastern wing of the Roman horse, a confusion of hooves and battle cries that soon faded into the haze. Still Imco's company waited. It was nearing the noon hour and the heat of the late-summer sun pressed down upon the heavy air. Clouds of dust blew over them, propelled by blistering gusts, foul-scented like breaths from some giant, tooth-rotted mouth. Sweat poured first from Imco's armpits, soon after from his forehead, his groin, his feet and hands. The moisture found its way into his eyes and they, in turn, dripped salty tears. From somewhere behind, a shout came for them to tighten up. They did so, each man measuring the small space around him, fitting himself in close to the man beside him, testing the position of their shields. Few spoke now; none stretched or joked; but still they waited.

When the shout came, Imco could not quite make out the order. He felt a press at his back and saw the man before him shift forward. He stepped into the space thus vacated. For a moment, that was all there was to it. He stared at the dented iron of the man's helmet and saw in it his own reflection. It was too dim to provide details, just a shadow in human form. Then a series of horn blasts finished their orders, driving them into a forward march. Still he did not fully understand. There was nothing in front of them, just a flat stretch off to the side of the main battle, but the horns were insistent. Like the others, he took short, shuffling steps, barely lifting his feet. Forward into nothing. For five minutes and then nearing ten. Forward farther.

Then the horns spoke once more, some turning maneuver. Again, Imco did not know how to interpret it. Fortunately, others did. The whole block of men, thousands strong, careened around a slow pivot, one side stationary, the other in full motion, as if swinging on the hinges of a great door. The man behind Imco savaged his heels, stepping on them every few moments. Imco was about to turn and curse him when a horn blasted a halt.

They all stopped in a single breath. Armor clattered to silence. Only then, peering around the man in front of him, did Imco see their goal. They had completed the turn. Before them, less than a hundred strides away, ran the long, exposed flank of the enemy army. By their dress it appeared they were not actually Romans but an allied legion. They were tightly packed, part of one tremendous body. Not one of them was turned outward. All had eyes forward. They had no idea they had suddenly become targets of Hannibal's finest infantrymen. The next order was easy enough to understand. They charged.

Few of the Roman allies seemed to notice the approaching Africans until the last moments. The ones most exposed tried to re-form, but the soldiers next to them were pieces of a much larger formation and they held to their positions. Imco did not know what people these were but he would always remember the sunlike emblem embossed in red upon their white shields. The Carthaginians hit them not at a dead run, but at a slow jog, with a weight of impact that sent shock waves echoing through the close-packed men.

With the moment of first contact all ordered movements ceased. From then on it was pure blood work, different even from what they had trained for. Instead of the phalanx formation—shields locked, thrusting overhand in a deadly bristle of spears—they instantly spread out. Everyone already seemed to understand that this was no ordinary battle. The Latins almost refused to turn and face them, leaving open vulnerable spots at the side of the neck, down the arm, on the outer thigh, portions of the face. There were so many spots to strike and so many targets to choose from that the attackers fanned out in ravenous chaos, each man searching for the best place to enter the fray. Thus Imco was presented with his first enemy more quickly than he might have been otherwise.

There were men all around him, but he and a Latin spotted each other and both knew destiny asked them to contest their lives. Imco—not yet in full possession of his courage—let his spear fly. The man batted it down with his shield and stepped over it. It would not be that easy. Imco's early swordplay was tentative. He found it hard to find a place to strike. The Latin's shield was heavy and tall, the sunburst on it most distracting. It covered almost all his body. The high crown of his helmet looked impenetrable. Imco struck small blows, aiming at the face, at the man's sword arm, at the sword itself, trying to knock it free of his hand. For each attack he made he had to parry one in return, staying close behind his shield, taking a blow that nearly knocked his helmet off, receiving a thrust that just nicked his shoulder blade. He could not help but notice that the man's cheeks trembled spasmodically and that he closed his eyes each time he struck and that he seemed to suck in more air than he ever expelled. He realized that he might well be dueling with the single soldier more frightened by all of this than he.

At that moment something so strange and questionable happened that Imco would never afterward tell it to anyone, not even when they praised his murderous prowess. Hot air seemed to gather in a swirl beneath his legs, sweep up under his tunic, and enter him through his ass. His chest billowed, his head hummed, his arms and legs trembled with the power of it. He would later believe that it was a breath of fury sent to him by the beautiful woman, a blessing for poor Imco, a command to prove himself worthy and to live, to live.

Almost by accident—as his own body convulsed away from a thrust—the point of his sword sliced up from the tip of the man's chin, through both his lips, and on to split his nose into two equal portions. The man howled in anguish, spraying blood over Imco's head. He ducked beneath it and drove his sword up under the Roman soldier's chin. He felt it catch in the vertebra at the base of the head and he felt the snap as this gave way and let the blade drive up into the lower portion of the man's brain. Imco yanked the sword free and watched the man collapse, stunned that he had prevailed, amazed at the way a body lost all dignity in a single instant. The man hit the dirt, eyes opened but staring at the worst of possible views. But Imco was not to contemplate him for long.

Another Latin came at him, shield-smacked him, and sliced at his head. Imco punched him with his own shield, slammed a heel down on his foot, and struck until his blade bit the man at the neck. He then struck several more times just out of rage, until the soldier's helmet slipped up over his head and Imco's blade split the man's skull. Two deaths down and he had warmed to the work. The next one died even faster.

An hour later his arms felt like ropes of molten lead and his legs only supported him by finding footing among the dead below, wedged into the crook of an arm or jammed under someone's crotch. He had no idea how many he had killed. Nor could he gauge which side was winning the battle. For him the contest was smaller than that, decided moment by moment between him and one other. He kept reminding himself that he was still alive. He knew he could respectably retreat. Part of him almost wished to go on, but he could barely lift his sword. He stepped backward and shouted over his shoulder and another man stepped into his place. A few moments later he knelt in the filth with others from the front, panting, gasping for breath, spitting blood, calling for water. In this way, he found a few moments of rest, although no water appeared.

Imco might have stayed there indefinitely except that the giant named Bomilcar fell upon the resting men with orders that they rejoin the mêlée. “Rome dies this day!” he yelled. “Right now, this moment! This moment!” He roared through them, kicking men to their feet and slamming others with the flat of his hand and even knocking a few across the helmet with his sword. He was a strange sight, simultaneously furious and joyful. “Keep your blades wet! Let none of your weapons go thirsty!”

He picked Imco out from the group at random. He clapped his hands down on his shoulders and lifted him to his feet in one heave. He demanded to know Imco's name. On hearing it he asked, “Is your sword dry?” Imco turned to check, but the giant grabbed him by the chin. “A man does not have to check. He knows. A dry sword is like a limp penis. A limp penis never fucks. If you never fuck you are like a woman: you get fucked instead. Understand me?”

Imco barely followed a word the man said, but he nodded.

Bomilcar grinned wide enough for two men. “Imco Vaca, we are winning this. Live through the day and Hannibal will hear of your bravery.” He turned Imco around, shoved him toward the battle, and carried on yelling.

When Imco returned to the front line something had changed. He felt little fear. His body did not jerk and bounce in defensive maneuvers. He carried a new calm within him, and he knew he was not the only one. The men on either side of him possessed it too. They moved not so much like skirmishing soldiers as like a slow tide enveloping the enemy. Perhaps they were winning. His blade increasingly found its way into the bellies and necks and through the arms of the men facing him. He thought less about each action. He wondered if his beauty would approve of this. Maybe he could find her a gift among the dead, a ring or medallion, perhaps a jewel-encrusted helmet. He could tell when he hit bone and stuck on it, or when the blade slipped between two ribs. He could capture her by surprise, wrap his arm around her belly, and drape her head in soft loops of rope. He began to feel he could sense just which organs he was slicing through by their different textures, by the way the tissues parted before or resisted his blade. Maybe he would buy her something someday, perhaps a string of pearls, in a place far from here, different altogether. His weapon became an extension of his hand, a sharp finger that shredded all that it touched. A quiet island, a single great rock rising up from an azure sea, a tree-covered home to sheep and goats, fig trees and olive groves . . .

At some point his exhaustion bypassed even this merging of gore and fantasy. His head pounded with tight-wrapped pain that appeared from nowhere. He did not retreat to rest this time. He just sat down on the tangle of the dead and half-dead before him, ignoring the stench of blood and viscera and feces. Without knowing he was going to—or that such a thing was even possible on a battlefield—Imco drifted off into a short slumber. He awoke with his face pressed against that of a Latin, their lips linked as if in passion. Of all the sensations he felt that day, the one that would linger with him the longest and haunt him most was the rough scratch of the man's beard against his cheek and the taste of the man's saliva on the tip of his tongue, the knowledge that he could name the very foods this stranger had breakfasted on.

The fighting still raged somewhere. He could hear it, but he had not the strength to seek it out. The world moved. The haze above shifted and thickened and dispersed. Cries broke the air occasionally, although a lower, more muffled anguish hung beneath them now. Looking down at his body he could not tell where his parts ended and another man's began. He was entwined with all of them. Together they created a new organism, an enormous being composed of dead and dying flesh, a thing that shifted with a million tiny, almost imperceptible motions. Squelching, sliding, settling, liquids pooling, eyes glazing. The struggles of wounded men translated through hundreds of bodies, all touching as they were, interwoven into some ghastly stitch, part of the carpet of Cannae.

And still he could not say who would win the day. Indeed, he found it quite possible that they had all lost, living and dead of whatever nation. He did not know whether he should be proud or disgraced, whether he had fought well or like a coward. It all seemed the same, a single nightmare named differently by different men but the same in substance. He wanted badly, very badly, to see his beauty again.

How surprised he was when she eventually appeared.

On the Roman side, the signs should have been obvious from the start. Usually the manipular formation of the legions allowed them amazing fluidity. They held together like a weave of men at just the right distance apart, with spaces enough for fatigued soldiers to retreat and allow the waiting replacements to come forward into the fray. But from the moment Varro ordered the maniples drawn together this give-and-flow vanished. The momentum of the army was so great and the soldiers packed together so tightly that anyone who sank down beneath injury was soon trodden on, first by a single foot and then another and then countless others. They died a suffocating death, feet grinding against the backs of their ankles, up their legs, and over their torsos, the flesh and bone of them pounded into the soil they were defending.

Publius Scipio would never forgive himself for not realizing sooner that the whole conflict was a choreographed sacrifice of massive proportions. He spent the early parts of the battle mounted, shouting courage to his infantrymen, himself taking strength from the resolute expressions on their innumerable faces. At some point his horse went lame from an unseen injury, refusing to move farther and shifting from foot to foot as if standing on a giant, red-hot skillet. Publius dismounted. To his surprise, the horse bolted, churning through the mass of men in a crazed effort to flee.

From then on, the tribune was one with his men. His legion was near the center of the Roman army. He took up a position near the rear of the soldiers entrusted to him, from which he could follow the flow of events and issue orders if necessary. With each passing hour, he found himself nearer and nearer to the front. The forward progress of the army continued, but instead of pressing through the foe they increasingly seemed to disappear into them. By the middle hours of the afternoon, the whole legion ahead of his had vanished. His men became the front and, unable to retreat, they fought like wild animals with their backs to a wall.

The fighting was beyond all norms. There seemed to be no pauses in the enemy's attack. The blond giants came at them like the demons of the bitter north that they were. They were all motion, roaring, white skin splattered with blood, their swords swinging in wild arcs. His men—compact, tight, disciplined—cut them down in great numbers. But where the Romans were packed tight, the Gauls were just the opposite. They were a mob as tumultuous as the sea in storm, always throwing new waves of men and sucking back others to rest. Against this, his men could only fight until they fell from pure exhaustion.

Caught up in the conflict, shouting orders and rallying his men, Publius forgot about the danger he himself was in and how his position required more caution. He fought in the ranks as he had been taught in boyhood, so savagely for so long that he could not lift his eyes to the bigger picture for some time. Publius might have died in the fray if his companion, Laelius, had not jammed his fingers down the rim of his breastplate and yanked him back. For a moment he stumbled backward, arms grasping the air before him. A most undignified display. When he finally regained his footing, he turned to give Laelius a tongue-lashing, but the man would have none of it. He pulled Publius up onto a hillock surrounding an old tree stump. He clamped his fingers across the tribune's jaw and indicated that he should look forward, above the mêlée, at a figure in the middle distance, among the enemy.

This man was raised above the rest by almost his full height, standing perhaps on a pile of bodies or an overturned cart. Several guards ringed him, lower than he but each with a shield and spear at the ready. For a few moments he surveyed the scene before him. Then, unexpectedly, he burst out with a barrage of words. Publius could not make them out, but he almost thought he heard the boom of them cut through the din. A moment later, his vision lifted again and took in the whole scene before him. Publius knew without a doubt that this was Hannibal.

“A pilum!” the tribune yelled. “Give me a pilum!”

“Do not be stupid!” Laelius said. “You're not Achilles; you'd never reach him. Don't look at him, Publius; look instead at what he sees!”

Publius did as requested, first looking again at the commander, then trying to follow his gaze back over the Romans, out on either side. Doing this, he realized almost instantly what Laelius must already have gathered. The near edge of the army showed it clearly, and, though he could not make out the other edge, the signs he could see indicated that the situation there was just the same. They were hemmed in on at least three sides. The struggle now was not one for ultimate victory. It was a fight to survive.

The next few hours passed in a singular effort at odds with the collective mind of the army. Publius tried to turn as many men as he could toward the wings, to have them punch a hole out the side of the column instead of through the front. Hannibal's troops could not be that deep. The tribune could not find a signaler to issue orders by horn, so instead he yelled himself hoarse. He elbowed his way through the throng, shoving soldiers, punching them to get their attention. He grasped men by the shoulders and shouted right into their faces.

With Laelius at his side, echoing his orders, Publius did manage to lead a turn among the troops. He slowly began to feel a shift in the collective body. The late hours of the afternoon found him at the head of the new movement, cutting a bloody path through a line of Iberians three deep. For a moment in the fighting Publius was taken by a vision of beauty—that of the splashes of blood on the Iberians' white tunics, every possible variety of swirl and slash, a million variations on red and brown and dark almost to black. He had a notion that he would like to keep one of these tunics as a souvenir, a wall hanging to be viewed at leisure, a story to be read through close study.

They poured forward, slashing and screaming, for a good distance thinking they were still fighting the enemy, only slowly realizing that their way was clogged not by enemy warriors but by dead bodies piled three and four deep. It was such an overwhelming relief to be freed that Publius believed the whole of the army would gush out after him. He found rising ground in the distance and set out for it. He tried to sheathe his sword but found he could not do so. It was bent twice along its length, in different directions, no straighter than any stick he might have snatched up from the ground. He ran with it in hand.

Small bands and lone Numidians plagued them much of the way, tormenting them for the pleasure of it. When he reached the slope, Publius turned around and viewed the chaos he had fled. He had not drained the center, as he had hoped to do. Indeed, the breach his men had created was all but sealed now. The entirety of it was finally clear to him, painfully, tragically obvious. Hannibal had planned it all. Each and every thing the Roman forces strove to do had played into his hands. As they had planned, they punched through the Gauls and Iberians in the middle; but Hannibal had wished for just that move. He had cleared the cavalry from either side of them so that as the wedge pushed forward his most veteran troops swung in upon either side. Then, once the Carthaginian cavalry had vanquished their counterparts, they returned and fell upon the Roman rear. And that was it. After that it was just butchery. A series of masterstrokes. An army of ninety thousand had been completely surrounded by a lesser force in the space of a few hours. They were immobile, the vast mass of them stuck in the middle, able to do nothing but await the moment when their lives were cut out of them.

Varro rode toward him at a canter, his closest attendants mounted and close behind him, many of them glancing again and again over their shoulders, as if they feared the whole of the enemy's army would turn to follow them. The consul gave no indication that he planned to speak to the tribune, but Publius darted in front of him, snatched his horse's reins, and stopped him.

“What news of Paullus?” he asked. “Where is the other consul?”

Varro fixed on him a momentary gaze of utter loathing. “Where do you think? He's back on that field. Dead. As is Rome's future. Out of my way!”

Publius jumped back as the consul swatted at him. He let the man ride away, shocked as much by his words and attitude as by anything he had seen that day. He looked back at the battlefield and, amazingly, all was as it had been before. Men still died in their hundreds and thousands. It took all of his discipline to move him on into action. Nothing could be done for the men trapped in the death circle, though he would have given his life to save them. He shouted to those who had escaped with him and those who trailed behind. He directed them toward Canusium.

They reached the town late that evening, finding it alight with torches and open to them. The guards native to the place stood nervously, looking out beyond the straggling line of soldiers in the clear-eyed dread they all felt—fear of Hannibal's pursuit. Battered soldiers occupied every available inch. Laelius went off to locate other officers. Publius never even paused to catch his breath from the long march. He moved straight in among the men, speaking to them with what cheer he could muster, commending them for surviving the day, asking after their leaders.

He did all this in a fog, however. He barely heard the soldiers' responses. He functioned as if another being altogether propelled him, something intelligent enough to move his body and form words with his mouth. But the true Publius Scipio occupied a more confused space. He saw again images of the day's bloodshed superimposed on the world before him. He heard in the din the voice of his father and remembered the many lessons his father had tried to teach him in preparation for his manly duties. To think of those quiet moments now cut him with a pain more acute than any of the numb aches of his body. What a child he had been! Up until this very morning he had known nothing! Even now he knew nothing! The great awakening that hammered at his head was the simple knowledge of his ignorance; the awesome possibility that the world might never be as he imagined and that he could never again occupy it with a child's vain authority.

Barely had the tribune dropped for a moment of rest when he was called again, with news that woke him from his stupor.

Laelius ran to him panting. “They're talking of abandoning the country.”

“Who?”

“The younger Fabius Maximus, Lucius Bibulus, Appius Pulcher . . . All the tribunes I could find. They're talking of turning to the sea and seeking refuge—”

Before he could finish, Publius jumped to his feet. “Take me to them.”

The officers had gathered in a hall used for public debates. Publius strode into it without a plan. In his first glance at the gathered officers he saw the defeat in their faces, the shame of conspiring men. He still carried his battered sword unsheathed. With the weapon upraised, he shouldered through the company toward the center. The former dictator's son was speaking, but Publius silenced him by shouting his name. The words that followed came out of him before thought, propelled by a strange mixture of fury and calm. Despite all the defeat and death he had seen that day, he felt a throbbing serenity inside him. In seeing these men's faces he was reminded that nothing mattered now save the certainty of honor. There was so little else that one could rely on in the world.

“Fabius Maximus!” he said. “I worked under your father. I know his greatness despite all those who malign him. Do you think he would ever consider the plan you here devise? Have you all forgotten yourselves? If so, then Rome truly died today. We are no more than the corpse; your words, the first stink of decay.”

The younger Fabius began to explain himself, but Publius brought his sword hand down and punched him square on the mouth. The man dropped like a deadweight, unconscious.

“I swear to you all,” Publius said, “that I will allow no man to abandon our country, nor will I betray it myself! I swear a dying oath to Rome. If ever I fail it, may Jupiter bring down upon me a shameful death. May he destroy my family honor and cast all I possess into the hungry mouths of my enemies. I swear this; who among you swear with me? And who among you die on my sword?”

Having spoken, he stood surrounded by a room full of mutinous officers, his single blade raised against them. Laelius flanked him, his hand in a white-knuckled grip around the hilt of his sword. But the others did not attack. Instead they each and all lowered their eyes. As he listened to first one man and then another take the oath, Publius told himself that this was not the end, not of the war, not of his nation. The sun would rise tomorrow. The war would carry on. Publius Scipio had not died at Cannae as he might. Instead he recognized his life's greatest challenge. He would meet Hannibal again. He was sure of it.

Aradna would have forgotten about the young Carthaginian soldier if she had not stumbled upon him in the festering, open-air graveyard of Cannae. She and her band and other bands of camp followers rose before the dawn and greeted the sun at the edge of the battlefield. Usually, they would have swarmed through the dead at the first tentative light, but the sight before them was an unusual horror. The carnage of the day before was past belief. Looking upon the great, jutting, tangled, shadowed devastation, none of them dared enter. Moans filled the air with a low, unnatural tone of anguish. Even the least superstitious among the camp followers feared to tread carelessly among so many soulless creatures. The various afterworlds to which these men hurtled headlong could only hold so many new souls. Surely many of them lingered on this plain, angry at their lot and dangerous to the living.

Aradna, standing to the east of the field, felt the heat of the sun touch the back of her head and slant down her shoulders. She watched as the first touches of gold illuminated portions of the dead and crept down into crevices and gashes, across faces and private parts alike. The human form lost all reason in the jumble. Arms and legs twisted at angles impossible for the living, reaching up from the piles of bodies three, four, and sometimes even more bodies deep. Wounds lay open to flies. Slivers of bone jutted into the air. Flesh had taken on infinite coloration: shades of blue and purple, white as bright ivory, yellow and brown and sometimes strangely crimson. On several occasions Aradna's eyes tricked her into believing that among the human forms were the half-roasted carcasses of swine. But this was, of course, not the case. It was just that some men, in death, failed to look human. The view was no better in the light than before, save that now the carnage was betrayed for what it was—nothing ghostly, just the barbarous work of men on a scale never seen before. This, at least, was something the camp followers understood. They began their labor.

Why she stopped above the young soldier she could not later say, except to explain that she often had to pause that day and steady herself and take shallow breaths. He was buried to mid-torso in the arms and limbs of others. They propped him up so that he was almost vertical, with his head tilted back. Grime caked his face, sweat and blood and dirt commingled into a mask all men shared alike. His mouth gaped open to the air like so many others. A fly buzzed about the cavity, landing on his teeth, crawling over his lips and around the rim of his nostrils. Recognition crept into her slowly. She stared at his face so long that the strange, naked soldier she had met twice and still thought about occasionally emerged from beneath the mask. His features slowly aligned themselves into shapes and contours she recognized. She bent close to him, thinking him dead and feeling no threat from a dead man, touched by curiosity and the slightest notion of sadness.

The soldier grunted, stirred a little, and raised an arm partway up from the muck. That was the first indication she had that he lived. She set down the sack she had already stuffed full with items of jewelry and coins and sacred tokens, jeweled daggers and gilded bits pried from helmets and armor, anything that struck her as valuable in relation to its weight and size. She sat on top of her treasure and reached out a hand toward the man. The flesh at his neck was warm to the touch. She found a pulse and felt it beat beneath her fingers. He might have been unconscious, but the life inside him still seemed strong. She pulled her hand away and sat a while longer, studying him. Already she felt a strange intimacy between them. She had touched his flesh. She stared at him now as he really was, unconscious of her. What, she asked herself, could she learn of this man from his sleeping face?

She did not have time to consider this for too long. The surviving soldiers were up now, moving in small groups across the battlefield. They scavenged also, but they went armed. Judging by the occasional cries of pain, she knew they were dispatching the wounded: the enemy certainly, but also some of their own if they believed them beyond mending. What might they make of the soldier before her?

Aware that she could only do what she wanted to if she did not think about it fully, Aradna put the consequences out of her mind and searched out the men of her band. With their bewildered aid, she wrenched the soldier free from the rest and dragged him to their camp. They did not question her; each in his own way loved her. In this they were more like family than anyone she had known since childhood. She thanked them and said no more and with her gestures warned them to be still if they wished to stay near the light of her favor.

That evening she sat beside the soldier beneath her hide shelter. He still slept soundly, snoring now that he was on his back.

“Never has a man been so tired,” she muttered. “Only men can sleep so deeply.”

She unbuckled his armor, lifted it from him, and set it to the side. She peeled his tunic away from his flesh. The fabric was stiff with dried sweat and grime, with blood, though she did not know whether it was his or other men's. She probed him with her fingers, searching for wounds. And there were many: cuts all over his arms and legs, a piercing wound under his collarbone, a gash in one of his nostrils. Bruises bloomed over every inch of him. These blood wounds must have drained his soul force terribly, but to her eyes none seemed fatal.

The soldier stirred.

Aradna snatched the torch up and held it between them. His eyes cracked open and seemed to focus on the hide above him. She believed she saw conscious thought in his gaze, but perhaps this was not so. He closed his eyes again and the rhythm of his slumber returned.

She carried on with her work. She dipped a cloth in herbed water and gently touched it to his face. She held the fabric there for a moment. When he did not react, she drew it across his forehead, wiping away the grime to reveal the rich, sun-browned skin beneath. As she peeled away the concealing layers, the soldier's face emerged. He had a small mouth, a somewhat wide forehead, and a perfectly formed nose, evenly placed and uniform, save for the scab of the small cut. His eyes pressed against the thin skin of their lids in such a way that she believed she could make out their character. She had to lean close to verify her impression, near enough that she held her breath for fear that he would feel it brushing against his moist skin. Still she saw the same thing. His eyes, they were gentle.

During this process the old woman, Atneh, had come over to the shelter and peered in several times. On each occasion she turned away without speaking and sat by the fire. Aradna knew Atneh had asked that the men stay near in case the soldier woke up in a rage. She fed them a soup she cooked on occasion, made from ingredients she did not name and about which they did not ask. They all sat quietly and talked over their departure on the coming morning. They were loaded beyond their capacity; best to make for the coast and on to whatever destination they chose after that. Eventually, Atneh squatted beside the younger woman and watched her for some time in silence.

“I never thought I would see that look on your face,” Atneh said.

“What?” Aradna asked. She felt her cheeks flush and she turned her face away.

“We women are all fools in our youth. I was. My mother was before me. The gods wish it, so that they may sport with us. Men are fools as well, but that is different. . . . Women more often grow to wisdom. I had hoped that was true of you. I see I was mistaken.”

“I don't know what you speak of.”

“Yes, you do. Don't lie to me. It's useless and insults us both.”

Aradna said, “Aunt, it's just that his face isn't like other men's. In sleep he looks like a boy I would choose as a son, as a brother.”

This did not move the old woman. “Leave him,” she said. “Tomorrow we go; he doesn't. Who can judge a man by his face? Better to judge him by his genitals and be wary of what hangs there. This one will bring you nothing but trouble. Do you hear? Leave him and carry on toward your goal. What is it you want of life?”

“Very little,” Aradna said.

“But say it to me. What do you want? What are the things you told me in confidence? Say them again.”

Aradna shook her head. “Very little,” she repeated. “I want to go home to Father's island. I want to herd goats on the hills and watch boats pass at a distance. I want a quiet corner of the world away from all of this. Every day I want a little less. . . . Aunt, I just want peace.”

The old woman nodded through this, solemn, her eyes fixed on the young woman and full of sadness. “Tell me, then: What place has this murderer on that island? Hmm? Do you truly think this killer of Romans, this African, would allow you the peace you have earned? Be no fool, dear one. Leave this man. He lives. That's more than he deserves.”

Aradna could not dispute any of this. She knew Atneh was right, and yet she could not help making one last protest. “Aunt, several times already I have met this man. Twice before and now yet again. What does it mean that I found him a third time?”

The old woman answered quickly, struggling to her feet in the process. “It means you should have no doubt. He's more devious than he looks. Perhaps he's entrapped you in a spell. Either way, leave him.”

And so she did. The next morning, she dragged away everything that she could from Cannae on a sledge harnessed to her back. They were to return to the coast, where, she believed, she would arrange passage across the sea to Greece. She was going home. Only a fool would do otherwise. It wasn't until late that day that she realized she did not know the man's name. Three times now, Fortune had brought them together, but she could not think of him by name.

Hannibal made sure that the body was tended in a manner commensurate with the quality of the man. He helped the attendants lay him out on the beam. He wound ribbons of white cloth around his ankles and across the groin, over the arms at the elbows and across his forehead, securing him into a rigid, disciplined posture. An officer's body should not be seen to flop about like others. He deserved better than that. That was why his innards had been scooped up from where they had escaped him, cleaned, replaced, and sewn into the cavity that housed them. Hannibal watched as the priests anointed his flesh with fragrant oils and tucked a small charm bag beneath the fold of cloth near his hands. Mandarbal entered once all this had been concluded and spoke his strange words over the corpse. He dotted the man's forehead and shoulders, hands and feet with his warm blood, drawn just moments before from a slit in the priest's wrist.

After Mandarbal departed, the commander dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against his friend's chest and murmured the man's name. Bostar. He repeated it softly, over and over again, a single word made into a prayer and a speech, a confession and an apology. He spoke as if he were alone with his deceased secretary, but his remaining officers rimmed the walls of the council tent. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with revelry at their victory, but the aftermath of the battle provided no respite from toil. There had been, and still were, a thousand different matters to attend to. This pause to mourn the passing of one of their own provided for most of them the first hushed moment for reflection.

Each of them had been wounded in some way. Maharbal had been hacked down to the bone of his lower leg with a dullish sword. He could barely stand, but claimed that he did not notice the injury when mounted. Bomilcar bore a gash across his forehead where a passing spear point had carried away a strip of flesh. He would wear the scar of it ever after, the first point on his massive visage that any newcomer's eyes settled on. He joked that he could tap the bone of his skull directly to clear his muddled head. Monomachus' arms were battered with bruised, oozing wounds, and he wore a cloth wrapped around his left hand, the material tainted a reddish brown where he had received the point of a dart thrown at close range. Carthalo lay on a cot in his tent, a spear wound in his thigh. Several lesser officers stood or sat about the chamber as their injuries allowed.

Mago watched his brother with a pained expression that had nothing to do with the physical. By the grace of Baal, he had survived the battle largely unscathed. He and his handful of attendants had fought near the front ranks of Gauls. His voice was still raw from all the yelling, from his crazed attempt to manage the wild energy of barbarians, to control their retreat and stay alive and watch Hannibal close the jaws of his trap. In the hours of battle, moment after chaotic moment passed as if it might be his last, each instant laced with a hundred ways for him to die. He had personally killed more men than he could count. He had stepped back, always at the edge of the retreat, receding before the Roman line as it trod over his soldier's bodies.

One of his guards had been impaled beneath the chin by a Roman spear. The weapon struck so hard that Mago, standing just beside him, heard the vertebrae snap under the pressure and saw how strangely the man's head hung from the spear point, attached to the body by tendrils of flesh but no longer connected to the framework hidden beneath. He still carried the sickening image in his head, ready to impose itself on any person walking past, any face he looked at. Nor was it the only disturbing image. He tried to flush these out with reasoned thought and celebration, but as ever he hid within himself the strange duality of character he had always found in battle. He was both inordinately skilled at it and absurdly haunted by it afterward. Strangely, it was he and Hannibal—the two most slightly injured—who seemed most troubled.

Hannibal was still whispering the dead man's name when Gemel stepped into the tent. He had assisted the commander for some years now, but he seemed nervous in his new role as Bostar's replacement, clumsy in it and hesitant in his speech. He lowered his head and stood in silence.

But Hannibal must have sensed his presence. Without lifting his head he asked, “What do we know for certain?”

Gemel glanced around at the others, but they all knew whom the commander addressed and with what question. “We can be sure of little, sir,” he began. “The Gauls suffered most. They are still counting, but they may have lost more than four thousand. We cannot account for two thousand Iberians and African troops, and we lost at least two hundred from the combined cavalry. Commander, I am sure of none of these figures. This is just the best we could gather throughout the day.”

“And of the enemy?”

“Your estimate, sir, would surpass mine in accuracy. We've captured a full twenty thousand—many of them wounded and dying—and taken both their camps. Some hid in Cannae itself. We are still rounding them up. A few escaped to Canusium and Venusia—”

Hannibal lifted his head. “Just give me numbers, Gemel, a simple tally.”

“The best figure I can give this morning comes from the Romans themselves. They say they were ninety thousand strong. Twenty thousand of these we captured. Perhaps another ten thousand escaped us. So . . . This field may well be the death of sixty thousand of them.”

Maharbal could not help but speak up. “Do you hear that, Hannibal? Think of it—sixty thousand! And the figure may be higher than that! Let me do what I proposed earlier. My men could ride before the dawn. Do not consider me injured—”

“I've already answered you, Maharbal,” Hannibal said. He touched on the horseman with his one-eyed gaze, briefly. “I rejoice that you are so hungry to sack Rome. But he is a fool who does not place himself within a framework of other men's actions. We are not the first to conquer Roman legions on their own land. The Gauls sacked the city of Rome and had their way with her as if she were a whore. They left loaded with plunder and stories of their own greatness. But what did it come to? Rome went on. The Romans crept back into their city and built it again and spread their power and now have little to fear from the Gauls except annoyance.”

“We are not barbarians,” Maharbal said. “Their story is not the same as ours.”

“Pyrrhus of Epirus did battle here—”

“Nor are you Pyrrhus!” Maharbal cut in. “He knew how to win a victory, but not how to use one. Do not make a different form of the same mistake.”

Hannibal glanced up at him again, studying him as he might a stranger who had spoken out of turn. But after a moment he seemed to find the man he recognized and spoke to him with tired patience. “Pyrrhus defeated Rome on the battlefield,” he said, “a deed that earns him my respect. Again and again he emerged victorious, but still he gained no foothold. Though he won, he lost. Rome replaced its soldiers like the Hydra replacing heads. That's what Pyrrhus never understood. Rome always has more men. Not because their women push them out of the womb any faster, but because they use the wombs of others. If they run low, they call upon their municipal cities, upon the colonies, and, beyond that, upon the allied states. It is that that gives them power. Sever those heads, and the picture is much different. That is something Pyrrhus never succeeded at. He never isolated the Romans. That is the key, to cut them off from the outside world, hack at her bonds with her neighbors. This done, Rome is just a city like any other. And then any city—not only Carthage—may deal with her as she deserves. Rome will find herself the most hated creature the world has known. This, Maharbal, is as true today as when I first explained it to you. I know my mind on this. I will strike Rome not with the greatest force, but with just the right blows to find vulnerable flesh.”

He indicated this with the edge of his hand, cutting the air before him. Then, remembering the body of his friend, he pulled his hand back. “This talk is pounding my head to pain. Gemel, have they found the slain consul yet?”

“No. He may've been stripped by camp followers already.”

“Keep looking for him. He deserves an honorable burial, even if he was a fool. And see to it that the allied prisoners aren't mistreated tonight. I'll speak to them tomorrow morning. I want to send them home to their people friends instead of enemies. Have special presents sent to the Gauls, along with wine and heaps of praise and the cuts of meat they most favor. And Gemel, have careful counts for me before the dawn.”

As the secretary withdrew, Monomachus said, “The gods, too, deserve praise for our victory. We should offer sacrifice. With your permission, I'll select a hundred Romans from the prisoners. We should torture them in the old ways, and offer sacrifices—”

“No. We offered enough sacrifices yesterday. And what is this man lying before me if not a sacrifice?”

This did not move Monomachus. “You know I'm sworn to Moloch. I can feel his hunger. This battle did not sate him.”

“Don't talk to me of this.”

“In your father's time, we—”

“Stop!” Hannibal snapped to his feet. “Have all my generals gone mad? There will be no sacrifice! We will not march on Rome and this is not my father's time! You are my councillor only as long as I tolerate you and that may not be much longer. Leave me now. All of you. Go!”

Monomachus turned away without comment and filed out with the others. Mago started to leave also, but Hannibal stayed him with a glance.

Alone with his brother, the commander asked, “Why is my heart so troubled? I should rejoice, but instead I feel a new weight draped over my shoulders. I should honor my generals with praise; instead, I only find fault with them. I craved Roman blood for so many years; yet I do not want another victory like this. Mago, when I looked upon Bostar's face it was as if I were looking at yours, or at my own.”

“I know,” Mago said, “or I upon yours.”

“This victory was not worth his life. I would undo it all to have him back. How strange, my brother, that a man like me, who wants only to defeat his enemy . . . How strange that in mourning I would trade everything that this companion might live.”

“No good can come from talking so,” Mago said. “You will not have to look upon a field like Cannae again. You will not have to bury your brothers. Surely, this is the end of war. Never will the world see another day like this. That is what you have accomplished. Bostar would reverse nothing that happened here.”

Hannibal placed his fingers on the wood of the funeral table and pressed till his fingertips went white. “I know nothing of what Bostar thinks now. By the gods, I want to win this! It is all the work of my own hands, but at moments I look down and realize that I'm seated on a monster fouler than anything I could have conceived. Sixty thousand of them dead? Sometimes I wonder who is more bound to Moloch—Monomachus, or myself.”

Hannibal dismissed the thought with a tic that upset and then released the muscles of one side of his face. Mago had noticed this tic several times in the past few weeks. He did not care for it, for during it Hannibal's face was briefly not his own. It was an ugly mask, similar to his, but different in disturbing ways. One of the torches began sputtering, a few loud bursts of oil combusting. Mago turned and watched it, wary lest an accidental blaze disturb the solemnity of the chamber. “You surprise me, brother,” he said. “Do you pity yourself now, at the moment of your greatest glory?”

“I do not pity myself,” the commander said. “I know no pity. Neither do I yet have the word for what I feel. Even the gods in whose names we fight remind us not to think of war always. Think of Anath. After the defeat of Yam she hosted a feast in Baal's honor. When the gods were all assembled, she slammed the doors closed and began to slay everyone. She would have killed them all, for they had all betrayed Baal in the earlier war. You remember who stopped her?”

“Baal himself. He convinced her that the bloodshed had gone on long enough and that a time of peace and forgiveness was needed.”

“Just so . . .” The tic disfigured Hannibal's face again. He closed his eyes and for some time seemed to focus only on his breathing. Watching his visage grow calm, Mago was reminded of the clay masks street players wore during the winter months. They were vague, almost featureless faces that hinted at human attributes without rendering the details. They betrayed no emotion, and one could tell the tenor of the play only by listening and watching that much more carefully. Even as a child he had found it strange that the same mask could at one moment indicate mirth, and in the very next embody sorrow. He was, then, both surprised and not surprised by what his brother said next.

“Let us forget this conversation,” Hannibal said, opening his eyes and straightening to his full height. “It does nobody any good and we've much to attend to. Here is what we do, brother. You must go to Carthage on my behalf. . . .”

Never before had Rome endured so dreadful an hour. Each of the previous battles had struck its blow, but Cannae beggared belief. For days after the first news of the disaster trickled in, the people had no clear understanding of any of it. Just who had been killed, who captured, and who spared? Was there an army left? Was Hannibal already beating a path toward them with gleaming eyes? Was he truly, truly unstoppable? Questions multiplied with few answers rising to match them. Rome's people knew only that every aspect of their lives had been altered; now everything was at risk of imminent destruction. The streets and the Forum became roiling sluiceways of despair. The living and the dead were mourned simultaneously, in a jumble, for there seemed no way of separating the two.

On the suggestion of Fabius Maximus, horsemen rode out along the Via Appia and Via Latina to gather what news they could from the battered survivors—if any could be found. The gates to the city slammed shut behind them. All believed that Hannibal would come for them now. What object could there be but the destruction of Rome itself? The death of her men, the despoiling of her women, the theft of her riches: what greater temptation for the monsters of Carthage? For a people so buoyed by their enslavement of others, it was easy to imagine the trials ahead for them should the barbarians breach the gates. Masters crouched beside servants and wept with them and made declarations never heard before and whispered apologies previously inconceivable. All awaited the coming tempest.

Amazing, then, barely believable, mysterious . . . that Hannibal did not appear on the horizon. Yes, the details that reached them were horrendous, the death toll shocking, no portion of the news fair or welcome . . . but Hannibal did not come. He did not come. And with the passing of days into weeks and more weeks, people's thoughts turned from impending doom to other matters. Amid the fervor of war and hope in the city as Paullus and Varro marched out, none had taken note that prodigies had been occurring with unusual frequency. In the sealed, waiting city these events were recalled.

There had been lightning strikes at the Atrium Publicum in the Capitol, as also upon the shrine of Vulcan and the temple of Vacuna and upon the stones of the road in the Sabine district. This latter had left a gaping hole at the center of a crossroads, inside which a child found the handle of an ancient's dagger. There had been other strikes on lonely spots that set the hills on fire. In a village in the far south, a flaming goat ran through the street calling out, “Hurrah, hurrah!” It was assumed that the creature had likewise been the victim of a malicious lightning strike, though there were no witnesses to this.

All of this had taken place the previous year. As the new year dawned, the land seemed rife with signs. The earth split and peeled and offered up amazements that proved time and again that the natural order had been reversed. At Mantua there was a swamp that captured and held the overflow from the river Mincius. It was a foul place even in the best of times, damp and smelling of decay, rich in substance and yet somehow rank with death as well. All this was of nature's own design. But a man chanced upon the place one twilight to find that the waters had turned to blood: not just in color but also in substance, thick and congealed and metallic in his nostrils, as if the earth itself bled like humans.

At Spoletium, a woman awoke one day changed into a man. At Hadria, white forms were seen floating in the sky. Great numbers of dead fish washed ashore near Brundisium. And some said that the tunic on the statue of Mars at Praeneste protruded each sunset under pressure from the god's great, granite erection. Rumors to explain this flew as fast and chaotic as bats in the night sky. Some said the god was instructing them to procreate. Still others suggested that they should look to a leader endowed with a similar length and regularity. Before long the notion took hold that the local whores had sold themselves into the employ of Carthage. They had taken to servicing the god to distract him from the war effort. Reliable persons, however, never confirmed this, so this tale was best considered with skepticism.

For augury it was an abundant season, and the results fueled the deepening suspicion that the gods abhorred the Roman cause. The city had forgotten to honor them properly. That was why this Carthaginian conqueror prevailed so easily against them. The people responded according to the advice of the magistrates and priests. An edict was issued for a period of prayer to all the gods of Rome, lest one go neglected and feel slighted. Lambs were sacrificed, fat ones with fine coats and handsome faces. Their blood ran freely to appease the gods. Their entrails betrayed more omens too bleakly numerous to detail, so the priests looked to still darker measures. Two Gallic slaves were publicly beheaded in an elaborate offering to Apollo. It was rumored that even older rites were enacted across the Tiber at night, but what went on over there had no place in the public record. Some people even turned to soothsayers—unusual for a Roman as such a practice was more Greek in nature—and these questionable persons produced all sort of varied and contradictory advice. Some people hammered nails into sacred objects and offered them at the gods' temples; others left food outside their houses for certain animals or washed with a single hand only, refrained from saying certain words, or pricked their skin with needles and licked the blood clean.

Though some believed that these practices improved their fortunes, others found that unnatural incidents proceeded unabated. It was truly a volatile time, in which reason was hard to come by and quiet voices seldom heard. Two of the Vestal Virgins were discovered in unchaste acts. One killed herself with a dagger; the other had not the courage to take her own life but was instead buried alive by a raging mob. Gangs of youths swarmed the streets, flagellating beggars and rooting out poor souls they named as spies for Carthage. For weeks after the news from Cannae, the soldiers' widows walked the streets in tears, dragging their fingernails across their faces and arms and chests. Their mourning was so disruptive that the Senate roused itself to action. They banned any display of sorrow, calling it treasonous and un-Roman, and conscripted the raucous youths to police the ban.

And yet through all this turmoil and distress not a single voice of prominence suggested settlement. Rome sent no envoys to treat with the Carthaginian, nor did the city receive his messengers with anything but scorn. Without even discussing the matter, the citizens of Rome chose ultimate war over a compromised peace. They would live by their own rules, or they would perish.