Pride of Carthage

This last point drew Hasdrubal's attention, but then the chieftain surprised him by barking out, “Bayala! Bayala! Come over here, girl.”

The veiled form rose and wove toward them through the crowded banquet hall. She knelt before them, close enough to touch. Still the fabric of her veil revealed nothing. Hasdrubal barely heard the transaction that followed but understood enough of such moments to know that the Iberian was giving him the girl formally. Andobales grasped each of them by the hand. Serving as a connection between them, he named them wed, declared the two families and the two nations joined for eternity.

And that was all there was to it. The shawled form nodded and withdrew to the nuptial chambers, Hasdrubal's eyes following until she had exited the room. The chieftain crashed down onto the cushion beside him. He lost his balance for a moment, and strained to pull himself upright, clenching his massive fingers around Hasdrubal's arm to do so. As he was so near him, Andobales took advantage of the moment to whisper to his new son-in-law. His breath was like liquid wine itself, mixed with the fouler scent that marked some decay in his teeth. “My daughter has been kept pure. Pure! She is yours to pierce for the first time. Enjoy her, my new son, and fill her with many young. Make her the womb of a new army. The mother of men to slay Romans!”

Hasdrubal did not hear the news of his wife's purity with eagerness: He preferred his women soiled and debauched. But he kept this information to himself. Nor did the notion of merging sex with his wife and Roman conquest sit right with him either. He was sure he would never rid himself of the image of tiny, fully formed, armored soldiers stepping out from between the girl's legs, swords in hand, evil expressions on their faces. He tried to follow Andobales' example and drink himself toward oblivion.

Later that evening Hasdrubal stood in the hall beside the curtain that hung between him and his wife, leaning hard against the wall. The wine had been savage to his body, but seemed to have had little impact upon the clarity of his thoughts. He stared at the thick purple fabric, utterly powerless to push it out of the way and stride through. It was silly, childish, shameful even, but he was terrified to enter his bedchamber. He imagined turning and slipping away to the company of familiar women, of the young officers he was so comfortable with. He might say he had fulfilled his husbandly duties already and was out for further leisure. But he did not welcome the questions his comrades would pose, the jokes they would make, the way his lovers would sniff his groin for a scent of his wife. No, he could not bear that. Strange that he had ultimate power over so many, and yet now he felt suspended from a spider's web, stuck fast, afraid to flinch for awareness that his movement would be translated out through a hundred invisible threads, bringing untold horrors . . .

He paused in mid-thought. A feminine hand pushed through the curtain and drew it slowly to one side. There stood his wife, still hooded, though she had changed her garments to a thinner gown, a weave so loose it was nearly transparent. She had, he was pleased to note, breasts, a flat belly, hips with something of a curve. But still he could see nothing of her face, and something in this felt ominous indeed.

“Come, husband,” she said in a quiet voice, soft and young. She grasped the fabric of his tunic and drew him into the room, letting the curtain fall closed behind him. Then, to his surprise, she dropped to her knees, slipped her hand up under his tunic, and grasped his flaccid sex.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but I've heard such tales. I must see this tool for myself.”

So saying, she lifted his tunic up and tucked it out of the way. She leaned close and adjusted her veil. After a moment of silent examination, she said, “The gods have blessed you. And me as well.”

Hasdrubal had as yet found nothing exciting in this examination, but that changed quickly enough. Bayala began to knead his soft member, pulling on it and drawing it out, squeezing it between her fingers. She dipped her hands in a fragrant oil and the warm moisture of this did much to stiffen him. Hasdrubal looked down on her, amazed. There was a skill in her fingers that surpassed any former lover's. She worked him to full length, moving one hand and then the other in a choreographed, twisting, sliding dance.

Pinned as he was to the new center of his being, Hasdrubal was at a loss for what to do with the rest of his body. He reached out to either side as if to grab hold of something, but his hands just hung there, twitching. Even his toes flexed and strained and seemed to cry out. His breaths came sporadically, in gasps that corresponded with the touch of the young woman's hand. It seemed that she had taken complete control of him, even of his capacity to inhale and exhale. He could not deny that the fact that he had yet to see her face added to his excitement, but neither could he resist the need to set eyes on her. With great effort he lowered one arm and got a fold of the veil in his fingers. After waiting for a spasm to pass, he yanked the fabric back.

The subtle hands paused in their work. Bayala looked up. Her face was not beautiful. Her nose drew a thin line, just off-center. Her lips, likewise, were not as full as he usually favored. The bones of her cheeks sat high, giving a gaunt aspect to her face. But she was young, her eyes were gray and devious, her teeth reasonably straight, and her gums, presumably, larvae-free. Inadvertently, Hasdrubal raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

“Hello, wife,” he said.

Bayala grinned wider, seeming to find the greeting perfectly appropriate to the situation. “Greetings, husband. Forgive my boldness, but I've never seen a monument like this one,” she said, squeezing the feature in question. “I have heard tales, but now I know them to be true. I could hang on this pole and exercise my arms by lifting my weight.”

Hasdrubal, unnerved by the suggestion and the seeming possibility that she might just attempt it, said, “True enough. But do not try that just now.”

Bayala fluttered her eyelids. “Why do you look so surprised, husband?”

“Your father . . .”

“Does not know me as well as he thinks. I would not have arranged this wedding had my own tastes not matched yours.” Saying this, Bayala set her upper teeth on the tip of his penis and slid her tongue out against his foreskin.

Hasdrubal knew then that he had much to learn about marriage. He realized that there was a suggestion of feminine hubris in her statement that he should treat firmly. But he forgot this as the suction of her lips drew him. Marriage, despite his reservations, suddenly seemed to be an institution blessed by the gods.

On learning that Hannibal was attempting an inland crossing of the Alps, Cornelius Scipio acted quickly. He sent a dispatch to Gnaeus, ordering him to carry on with the attack on Carthaginian Iberia. He and Publius, on the other hand, would return to Italy and take control of the army in Gaul. A consul deserting his army, leaving an unelected relative to a command in the pursuit of battle, and then heading off to raise a new army of his own accord was an unprecedented moment in Roman history. But so, it appeared, was the conflict facing them. Cornelius already knew that he had underestimated Hannibal. He was intent that the damage should go no further.

As father and son traveled—first by warship, then by foot and horseback, then by river barge—news reached them piece by troubling piece. Hannibal had descended from the heights into lands dominated by the Gauls of northern Italy. His army was half starved and ragged and weak, but this gave Cornelius comfort for only a few days, until he learned that Hannibal had attacked the capital of the Taurini. It was into their territory that his descent had brought him; as the Taurini were at war with the Insubres, and the Insubres were known to have allied with Hannibal, they refused the Carthaginians' requests for help. The African took the town in three days. He put every adult male to death and enslaved the entire population of women and children.

His Numidian horsemen rode on wide-ranging raids of other Gallic settlements—even settlements of the Insubres, his erstwhile allies—killing many and robbing them of winter supplies and showing their superiority in each encounter. They even went so far as to taunt the Roman garrison at Placentia, one of the few centers of Roman control in the area. The Numidians rode close to the soldiers, singly or in small groups, challenging them to battle. Inspired by this bravery and losing faith in their Roman overseers, five hundred Gallic allies rose in the night and deserted to Hannibal's cause. Many of them carried the heads of their Roman camp mates as a token of their sincerity.

Though the men around him cited this as proof of the Carthaginian's simple avarice and unreasoning cruelty, the consul recognized a deadly logic that chilled him. This was not simply a barbarian grasping for quick riches. Each thrust had a dual purpose. In one stroke, the capture of Taurin had replenished his depleted supplies, renewed his men's confidence, and rewarded them with food, treasure, sex, new clothes and weapons, and even slaves to serve them. The capture also made it plain to every other Gallic tribe that Hannibal's power could not be ignored. And it had robbed Cornelius of a potential base. The attacks on the Insubres? Cornelius knew this tribe would have intelligence of the Roman approach. With their fickle nature they had probably reneged on promises they had made to Hannibal. They would have preferred to wait a few weeks and side with the victor after the two forces had met. Hannibal's punishment of them may have come from anger, but, too, he was defining them as reliable allies or beaten foes, either being preferable to simple bystanders. There was no madness in this, only cold logic.

They disembarked from a river barge near Placentia, mounted the horses awaiting them, and rode with haste. They dismounted in the late afternoon at the edge of the field stretching to the outpost. Cornelius wanted to walk into the fort, to greet his troops and be greeted by them, to make immediate contact and win them to him. The sight from a distance was actually heartening: the fort perched high and solid-looking, the tents pitched about the fields near it, abutting the bustle of the late harvest. It was comforting to note that the crops had not been destroyed, for they would need these supplies in the coming weeks.

But as he strode nearer to the soldiers' tents a dread crept up into him. It grew even before he realized what had prompted it. There was nothing peculiar in the things he saw, but something in the quality of dejection betrayed by them. The fires burned low and smoky. The men huddled near the warmth, heads low and shoulders hunched forward, gathered as if in mourning. There was little conversation, no laughter; none were engaged in vigorous exercise. Even the fabric of the tents hung limp, as if the tents, too, had been emaciated by the difficult summer. He knew these soldiers were the last battered remnants of an army who had experienced a series of near-defeats at Gallic hands. Now, at the end of the warring season, they were exhausted and war-weary. They would have been made fearful by the news of Hannibal's doings. But what Cornelius saw on the soldiers' faces was an emotion surpassing even this. They wore the expressions of men who had just learned the prophecy of their deaths.

The consul might have proceeded straight through the grounds without making himself known, but before he could, an observant centurion recognized him. He shouted the consul's presence to the others. Men glanced up and took him in skeptically. They rose to their feet, but not smartly, not with the spirit and discipline he would have liked.

“Be at ease, men,” Cornelius said. “Rest now. We will soon need your strong arms.”

That evening the consul wrote new letters. Of the Senate, he asked that the other consul, Sempronius Longus, be recalled and at once. The army here was not adequate to the task before it. He had nothing to rely upon but battered and fatigued veterans and a host of raw recruits barely able to march in unison. They were no match for Hannibal, especially not if he could muster the Gauls into mischief. The plan to send Sempronius to attack Carthage was no longer tenable, not with a foreign invader already on Italian soil.

He sent a letter to Sempronius, too. He began it: “Dear Comrade, read this and fly to me. The thunder of Baal has descended upon us.”

Inside the thick fabric of the tent was a world viewed through weak tea. A small fire burned in a pit in the earthen floor. The melancholy quality of the room reflected the heavy skies and the inactivity of the past week. The struggles of the crossing were forgotten, followed as they had been by the quick moves that introduced Hannibal's army to the people of this region. But even the capture of Taurin and the Gallic raids now seemed old memories. The foe they wanted was Roman, and him they had yet to lure into confrontation. Hannibal had even assembled the entire army near Placentia and offered battle formally, but they had stood in the field unanswered all afternoon. Now Scipio was a short ride away, camped on the far bank of the river Ticinus. But his proximity only increased his caution. He would have to be caught off guard. In the meantime, Hannibal stayed focused on the larger battles to come.

“Let us go over it again,” Hannibal said. He tossed a dried fig into his mouth and chewed it viciously, as was necessary to soften the shriveled stone into something edible. The sound of Hannibal's jaw abusing the fig brought up Mago and Carthalo's gazes from their study of the diagram the commander had carved into the tabletop with a dagger. It was a surprisingly precise sketch, illustrating the makeup and usual deployment of the Roman army. Bostar stood a little distance away, preoccupied, while Bomilcar lay on the couch, his large frame cast as if at ease, although somehow betraying a tight-wound annoyance.

Hannibal had incubated a vicious cough for several days now, and with it a sore throat so painful that each time he swallowed, a dull, rusty dagger pierced his larynx. He felt alternately hot and then cold; his vision was sensitive to light; when he rose, the world shifted like a vessel at sea. His frailty disturbed his mind almost more than his body. Physical pains were nothing new; and these hardly deserved comment compared to the injuries of war. But the very fact that he had succumbed to this illness seemed a defeat, a refutation of his discipline. Throughout the mountain journey and in the days since, he had recalled his father's training, the wisdom he, in turn, had learned from Xanthippus, the Spartan who for a time commanded the Carthaginian army in the earlier war with Rome. Xanthippus taught that a soldier only needed to ignore the bitter weather to defeat it. It was a man's acknowledgment of discomfort that allowed malignant humors to enter his body. The gods looked favorably on the Stoic; likewise, they disdained the weak-willed. Such thinking had seemed right enough and had served Hannibal thus far. He had rarely been ill in his adult life and had never been bed-bound by fever. He had been uncomfortable before, but he had beaten back the elements, fatigue, and pain. He wielded a stick inside his mind and struck at any part of him that suggested weakness as one strikes at a rabid dog. And yet the creature had somehow found a soft spot and sunk its teeth in deep. He had a strange, unmanly wish for Imilce's company, but he pushed the image of her away each time it appeared.

He swallowed the fig and spoke firmly. “A legion is composed of four thousand soldiers,” he said. “These are divided into maniples of four hundred men. Each maniple is three lines deep, positioned so that there is space between them to retreat or charge through the various lines. The velites precede the heavy infantry with javelins, small shield, and sword. They usually lack armor, as they are the poorest of citizens. The first line of the heavy infantry is the least experienced, the hastati. They are helmeted and lightly armored. They hurl their spears, which they call pila, in unison at a predetermined moment to catch their opponents by surprise and break their front ranks. If the enemy does not break, the hastati pull back through the spaces and the second line, of the principes, attacks, first with pilum and then with sword. They do not swing wildly but instead try to knock away their opponents' shields with their own, then offer one jab in an exposed place. No wasted energy, but just enough to kill. And then the third line, of veterans, the triarii, follows to finish the work, with the first and second lines both able to return to the fighting at a moment's notice. And they do most of this in near silence: no shouts or ululations or boasting. Just action, with direction coming from the consul, through six tribunes and thence to the centurions, some sixty in number. They always seek to engage and do so without apparent hesitation. This is how it has been described to me.”

Bomilcar guffawed. “‘Always seek to engage' . . . You should run through the idiot who said that.”

Hannibal stood erect, though his eyes stayed on the diagram. “Where is the weakness in this?”

Mago glanced at Carthalo. He raised his eyes and cocked his head to show that he would defer if Carthalo had an answer prepared. The cavalry lieutenant, however, just furrowed his brow and leaned to study the diagram. They had all been over this material before, many times, in fact, but they each knew—perhaps the commander knew better than any—that the tactics they had conceived to fight the legion were insufficient, at least on paper. The Roman formation was more versatile than the phalanx, more disciplined than hordes of barbarians, more a machine than a temperamental beast. Some argued that it was the development of this formation that led the Romans to break with the old custom of seasonal skirmishes and begin to subjugate their neighbors completely. They had conquered in an ever-widening circle around them, had defeated most of the Carthaginian commanders during the first war, and had even humbled Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose military machine many had thought unstoppable. Hannibal had always said he was confident that his Libyan veterans could stand toe to toe against any soldiers the world had ever known. But they were only part of the army, few in number compared with the newly trained Iberians and the untested Gauls.

“I was hoping you would tell us,” Mago finally said. “I cannot find the fault in it.”

“Neither can I,” Hannibal said, coughing abruptly. He cleared his throat and ran his palm over his mouth, as if he were drawing the illness from it and depositing it elsewhere. “If the men are well trained I think this formation is nearly unbeatable. A phalanx may be a bristling bull in full armor, but these Romans have created a creature with numerous eyes and many limbs. It may be that we cannot defeat them on an open field, not if the circumstances favor them. But discipline can be a flaw as well as a virtue. They will react as they have been trained, to each circumstance they've come to expect. So we must always present them with the unexpected. We must make sure that we never engage except under conditions to our advantage. We must fight intelligently, unpredictably.”

Bomilcar had been waiting for a pause in his commander's address. “This talk was fine last winter, back in New Carthage, but what good is such chatter now? How can we prevail against a foe that will not fight us? That is the trick I'd like to hear explained.”

Bostar glanced between Hannibal and Bomilcar, uneasy. His face had suffered more than most from the cold. The tip of his nose and a portion of his cheeks still dripped raw from the damage of exposure. Synhalus had coated his face with one of his salves, but whether the Egyptian knew anything about frost-damaged skin was doubtful. “What would you have us do?” he asked.

“March for Rome!” Bomilcar said. “It is south of us, and to the south is warmth. Is not that what we came for? I've never known Hannibal to hesitate. I pray he will not do so now.”

Hannibal fixed Bomilcar in his gaze, a dangerous look that was not anger but could easily become it. He had trimmed his beard recently, close enough that one could note the tense trembling around his mouth. “I'll consider your words,” he said. “Now leave me—all of you. We all know the situation we're in, so let us ponder it separately. Leave me and attend to your business.”

Alone in the smoky chamber, the commander sat down on his stool and pulled his tiny field desk toward him. Bomilcar was right, of course—at least in that they must force an engagement before hard winter set in. Their situation was not so different from what he had anticipated back in the warmth of New Carthage. He knew that the campaign had thus far been more successful than most men would have dreamed, despite the death toll of the mountain crossing. But in some childish area at the back of his mind he had harbored notions of a great, swift victory. He had believed—and still believed—that the Romans would suffer only a few defeats before pleading for peace. They had gained too much in recent years to risk it all with a death struggle.

He lifted a quill and dipped for ink and ran his hand through the pages Silenus had left until he found a blank one. He had no clear thought of why he searched out these tools. He had a vague notion that he would scribble a few lines to inspire himself, that through the pressure of the quill point on the papyrus he would scratch out the words to frame the actions to come. But when his hand moved—tremulous and large around the instrument and half-cramped even at the first stroke—he wrote something very different.

“Beloved Imilce.”

He gazed at the name a moment, taking it in, remembering it.

“It gives me pleasure to write out the letters of your name, to form the sounds on my lips. Here in my warrior's tent, in frigid Gaul, your name is like a revelation. When I recall that you live in this world . . .”

He paused, feeling a flood of maudlin words pressing against his will. It was almost overpowering, the desire to unburden himself to her, as a man can only do to a woman, to someone so much a part of his life and yet wholly separate from his violent work. But he could not give in to this desire—for many reasons, chief among them that such soft thoughts did nothing to hone his military mind. So he wrote a different truth than he had first intended.

“. . . I am reminded why I fight. I am nothing if not a warrior, but I do not love to be far from you. I do not covet victory so much that I forget the softer things of life. Believe me in this. Even Hannibal . . .”

He cupped his hand tightly over his mouth, coughed into it, and checked his palm for discharge. There was none. Looking over his words, he frowned at them. “Even Hannibal” what? His quill swayed over the words, undecided, half of a mind to strike them and begin again, reading them with one meaning and then, instantly, seeing another. It seemed foolish to pen a love note, but almost sacrilegious not to. The words were true, and yet they were lies also. He could not pin them down. He searched for a way to explain the progress of the campaign instead. He thought of writing that they had come through the mountains unscathed, but he could not write such a blatant falsehood. He thought to describe military matters but did not progress far on such lines. Details of distances traveled, of soldiers and supplies lost, of allegiances made and broken: it would sound like men's babble to her, just another nightmare of masculine misery. It would make no sense in the luxury of Carthage. Nor could he find the words to describe the war in brief. Nor did he want her mind tainted by things martial. Another line of thought came to him.

“How fares Little Hammer? Perhaps he speaks some words by now. This seems an impossible thing, but speech comes to all of us. Do not let him grow soft in my absence. He is just a boy, but he will be a man sooner than you can imagine. Have him tutored by a Greek. And also in swordplay and archery. Even very young boys can fashion bows in the African style. Remember that he is a child of Carthage and he should pay daily homage to Melkart and Baal, and to all the gods of my people. Teach him to temper his passions. Also . . .”

He impaled the point of the quill in the papyrus, cutting the flow of words. What was he doing? It had been less than a year since he left. Only a few months, one season fading into another and that into another. Why write of passions when his son was a tiny child? Why act as if he could raise his son from a distance, through words on a page?

Maharbal entered the tent just then. He moved as swiftly on foot as he did on horseback and spoke in character with his face: sharply, directly, like a hatchet blade. “Scipio is near! If we want him we can engage him today.”

Hannibal asked for details. The cavalry commander explained that one of his horsemen had sighted the Romans on the move on this side of the Ticinus River. They were mostly cavalry, perhaps a large scouting force, followed by pikemen and some infantry. They were an easy ride away, although foot soldiers might fail to reach them if they decided to retreat across the pontoon bridge they had used to span the Ticinus.

Hannibal made his decisions so quickly that they followed Maharbal's report without a pause. They were to mount and ride that instant. No infantry, but all the cavalry they could call up on a moment's notice. “We must move swiftly,” he said. “Let's stick the Romans and draw a taste of blood.”

As he rose, Hannibal grasped up the unfinished letter, smashing the flat of his palm against it and then pinching his fingers together like talons. He tossed the crumpled note into the small fire. He watched long enough to assure that all of it wilted in the heat and burst into flame. It had been a mistake, anyway. The musings of a tired mind at a weak moment. But that was behind him already. He stepped out of his tent into the damp chill of the morning, calling out orders as he walked.

And so it was only a few hours later that he set eyes on the Roman contingent. For the first time Hannibal saw a Roman consul's standard on the field before him. He thanked the gods for allowing this moment, and then he set about to please them through action. He took in the land and knew in an instant how he would proceed.

Cornelius Scipio had seen many battles. He had always fought well and believed he would until the hour he died. But in the days after the skirmish beside the Ticinus he lay twinging, haunted by nightmares and struggling to understand just what had occurred and how. The battle had started too quickly, changed too suddenly, and been decided too rapidly. The mounted Carthaginians appeared before them; the velites hurled their missiles; the two forces met; a sword slipped into the soft spot beneath his upraised arm; the Africans fell upon them from the rear. As quickly as that, the battle became a wild scramble. Someone jerked him from his mount. He struggled in the mud as shapes moved above him and horse hooves fell from the sky and battered him. He took the blows in the face and chest, his upraised arms, and his skull. Three teeth were knocked clean out and the whole of his jaw became a drooping joint of pain. He had his surgeon wrap it tightly and refused to talk. He gave orders only in writing and by nods or shakes of the head.

Two days passed before he understood just how his life had been saved and whom he had to thank. Publius. The younger Scipio was fighting near his father when the wind of the battle shifted. He saw his father take the sword point and topple from his horse into the mêlée below him. The young man rode as near as he could, hacking at anyone remotely foreign looking. When he could go no nearer on horseback, he slid off and scrambled through the horses' churning legs. He stabbed an African straight through one eye and sliced deep into the hamstring of another. He stepped upon the man as he fell, pressing his heel to the back of the man's neck, aware of the moment the man's scream of rage was silenced with a mouthful of mud. An Iberian nearly took his head off with a sweep of his curved sword, but Publius shifted his feet so quickly that they came out from under him. He dropped straight down, the sword cleaving the air above him. He looked up for the following blow but the Iberian was gone in the confusion.

Publius was on his knees when he reached his father. He beat away a Roman horse that stood dangerously close to him and cradled the man's battered head in one crooked arm. He held his sword waving above him and shouted orders in the clipped, strong Latin that his father used in battle. A small band of soldiers heard the cries. Soon they had formed a ring around the fallen consul. Publius lifted his father onto his back and stumbled from the field, a ring of soldiers close around him. They made it back into Roman protection and away.

Such was the story conveyed to the consul. He was thankful for his life and proud that the rescue cast a ray of glory upon his son, but he hated to learn of events from others' mouths. In those first feverish days, he also listened as his generals tried to explain the events of the skirmish; their conflicting accounts further confused him. The first true clarity came from a scout who described the events as he had seen them from high in the hills to the west, whence he had been returning from a solitary patrol.

The two forces had met with equal vigor, he explained, though the Carthaginians greatly outnumbered the Roman party. After the initial chaos of the horsemen cutting into each other's ranks, they dismounted and fought among their horses' legs. Nothing seemed unusual until a group of Numidian cavalry near the rear of the enemy force turned from the field. They surged off toward the south as if abandoning the battle, but then veered back a moment later, riding to the west, in a thin line heading toward the Roman rear. The main mêlée raged on with little change, save that the Carthaginian forces stretched the line of battle by rolling out along the northern edge of the Roman forces, as if individual riders were attempting to flank on that side. The Roman line stretched to resist this, forming a bent, thin front.

Watching that desperate struggle, the scout temporarily forgot about the detached cavalry unit. When he turned to seek them again, they had ridden into a set of hills behind the Roman contingent. They weaved into the trees and bunched together near the ridgeline, gathering like a swell thrown up onto a shore. Then they roared down through the trees in a tight wedge that caught the unsuspecting Romans from behind.

A moment later the scout saw the consul's standard falter and disappear. After that, he had watched no more. He rode at a gallop down toward the field to be of what aid he could. He saw no more from that high vantage, but he did have more to tell. The scout had wondered why the flanking cavalry had gone unnoticed. It seemed a mystery, and he feared that the hand of a god had hidden them for those few important moments. Only on inspecting the field the following day did he realize that the Numidian riders had conducted their maneuver on the far side of the ridge. They had moved through a narrow depression just deep enough to hide them. The lay of the land could not have been designed any better for the ploy; nor could the enemy commander have recognized it and played it to his advantage any more precisely.

Cornelius broke camp in the dead of night and forced a march to Placentia, destroying the bridge over the Padus in the process. Hannibal followed, constructed a new pontoon bridge, and within a few days mustered his troops in the open field once again. He called the consul to battle, but Cornelius would have none of it. Not on that day, nor on the days that followed as he waited, writhing and uncomfortable, for his fellow consul and the aid he would surely bring. He did not have to wait long.

Sempronius Longus arrived in a gale of motion, panting from his forced march, claiming that he had already clashed with a company of Numidian cavalrymen and thoroughly routed them. He had seen nothing but the backside of the Africans' horses, fleeing, the so-called soldiers showing their true nature when confronted by a superior force. His men had cut down more than a few and left them as feed for wild beasts.

“Already we have the bastard on his back foot,” Sempronius said. “Another thrust and we'll topple him.”

Studying his face, Cornelius saw all the features he knew so well: the familiar black bristling of his hair, the eyes set close together, the jagged scar from a childhood injury across his chin. But these features were pushed out of place, jostled, by the indignant anger in his brow, by pride in the smirk of his lips. Most of all, naked ambition gleamed in Sempronius' eyes. Instead of the joy he had expected to feel in his colleague's arrival, Cornelius discovered another form of trepidation, which only grew with subsequent meetings.

News came to them in pieces and none of it was good. They learned that the Roman depot of Clastidium had accepted four hundred pieces of gold for its surrender, thereby making a gift to the Carthaginians of its well-stocked granary. Several more of the local Gallic tribes quit their wavering and went over to Hannibal. Then word came that a contingent from the Boii to the east had arrived, swelling the Carthaginian's force further. Sempronius fed on all of this as a hungry wolf chews leather.

Watching him, Cornelius barely recognized his old friend anymore. He sat up in his sickbed and preached patience to his fellow consul. He argued that the Gauls now flocking to Hannibal would desert him in midwinter. Rome's cause would suffer gravely from a defeat, but would not gain equally from a victory. “Let Hannibal fight the winter,” he said. “We can drill the army into true readiness and meet him at advantage in the spring.”

But Sempronius would have none of this. He sat tracing his facial scar with his fingers, unmoved by the injured man's reasoning. He even offered the opinion that Cornelius' judgment had been clouded by the mauling he had so recently received. Sempronius wanted action, swift retribution, before Hannibal truly found his footing. Each hour the African spent on the soil of their land was an insult to the gods of Rome. He argued that the only right course was the direct course. Such was, after all, the Roman way.

Throughout these debates, the army shifted camps and marched and jostled for position with the Carthaginians, who seemed to own the land now and rarely left them in peace. As was the custom when two consuls joined forces, they shared command by alternating ultimate authority from one day to the next. On Cornelius' days, he backed and showed caution; when Sempronius held command, he moved forward, eventually setting up a new camp along the river Trebia. It was there, one dawn, that he got the battle he believed would bring him glory.

Following the orders received directly from Hannibal the day before, Tusselo and the other Massylii rose in the hours before dawn. This was no easy feat, for the night was the coldest he had yet experienced in his life, worse even than in the mountains. The air was raw enough that a dusting of frost covered the earth, but it was also heavy with a wet chill that thickened the very texture of the ether. As quickly as he could, he found one of the camp's raging fires and huddled next to it. He feasted on strips of meat from a sheep slaughtered the night before. He rubbed his face and limbs with oil, as did all the rousing, expectant soldiers. A few minutes of this and the weather did not seem so bad.

Even more significantly, Hannibal roamed among them, spurring them on, loud and cheerful, joking that a fine day was dawning, just right for a slaughter. The reckless consul was to command the day, and he was finally so nearby, so impatient, that Hannibal believed their moment had come. The commander knew exactly the method to win them victory. But he said, it depended wholly on them for its execution.

Once, he walked around the perimeter of the fire Tusselo sat beside. He patted men's shoulders and slapped helmets into place and encouraged them in their preparations. He reminded the men that they were far from home, deep in an enemy's land. A day of judgment was now upon them. They could not run from it or skirt it. Their very lives hung in the balance. But so, too, did their greater glory. All the riches they had imagined for themselves when they began this quest were within reach. Rome still lay to the south of them, a fat jewel staring anxiously north, watching and waiting to see what Hannibal's army was capable of.

Tusselo's stomach was full and warm when he mounted. He knew he might get a knot in it from riding, but Hannibal wanted them to face the frigid day with fires burning within them. He rode away to the sound of his commander's voice fading behind him, part of him wishing he could stay on and listen longer; he found—as did other men, he was sure—something fascinating in their leader's person. But he had work to do, and his devotion was best demonstrated through action.

He rode as one among a thousand, all dark-skinned and well fed and glistening, many thickly maned. They moved through the trees, their horses fast and thundering in the open stretches, nimble and tiny-footed when stepping over fallen limbs. At some point in the journey each rider snapped a dead branch from a tree or dismounted and picked up sticks from the ground. They carried these secured in their fists, clamped in the iron grip of their fingers, just as they carried their javelins.

In the clearing on the near bank of the Trebia, they found scouts dispatched even earlier than they, led by the general Bomilcar. He did not speak at all, but simply rose from his squatting position and pointed to the ford. The horsemen turned as bidden. The stones on the bank of the river wore ice helmets, crystal rings licked by the moving current. Tusselo tried to ignore this and speak confidently as he urged his horse into the water. He gritted his teeth when the chill touched his feet and exhaled a sharp curse when the water invaded his damaged genitals. He heard other men gasp and tried to believe he was not so different than they.

Soon they emerged on the far bank, hooves making clipped, muted sounds as they smacked against the stones. The horses were quivering, nervous now and wary, for this whole venture seemed a strange one. A short gallop brought them within sight of the Roman camp. They emerged from the trees in steaming, panting clouds of vapor. Before them stretched a field of tall grass, each blade bent into delicate arches by the weight of its icy garment. And beyond this stood the Roman camp: earthworks piled high, freshly hewn trees cut and bound into lookout towers, thousands of jagged points penetrating the sky, tilted outward like a great beast's teeth. The camp was largely quiet, sleeping, the fires low, the wisps of smoke from them rising thin and fading into the low, heavy sky. The Numidian riders beheld the scene in silence and stepped forward slowly, gradually moving to well within missile range.

The calm was short-lived. They were spotted. Shouts issued from the camp, followed soon after by a blast of horns to awaken the entire camp.

The Numidians waited for Maharbal's command, and on the first shout from his clipped, strong voice, they all began the verbal attack they had been instructed in. They shouted in heavily accented Latin, taunting the Romans to come out and make merry, calling them children and women and goat-fuckers, offering them sexual favors, candied assholes and open mouths, all the things they had heard Romans enjoyed. They threw sticks at them—not spears, not javelins, but the dry wood they had snatched up earlier. Not weapons at all, but branches best suited for kindling.

At first the Romans scurried about in preparation for an attack. But as the twigs and insults flew their alarm changed to surprise. Head after head peered above the battlements. They were close enough that Tusselo could make out their openmouthed bewilderment, the confusion and then disbelief and—just beyond this—anger. They gesticulated insults of their own. A few even hurled back the mock weapons, as if the affront could be so easily returned. They stood in clear view and motioned the Africans closer. Then they remembered their lethal potential and began to loose their weapons.

The rain of javelins picked up, interspersed with arrows. Men began to fall, impaled. One riderless horse caught a javelin in its flank and went down in screeching, writhing confusion. A mounted man very near Tusselo was struck full in the chest with a bolt shot from one of the Roman crossbows. The force of the impact yanked him from the creature's back and sprawled him out upon the frozen tangle of grass. The field had suddenly grown deadly, the pristine carpet of moments before already trampled and churned up and stained here and there with blood. Maharbal signaled for the men to pull back slightly, just enough to bait the trap.

Sempronius ruled the day, and his first waking thought was that he was going to use it somehow. When he heard of the Numidians' antics he decided that the insult was too much to bear. He ordered full battle readiness. He knew the soldiers had not eaten yet, that they had not truly shaken off the night, or prepared their weapons or clothed themselves as they might have liked. These facts were unfortunate, but the enemy was near and so was victory. They could complete this work in a morning and dine as owners of the enemy's camp. At least, so the consul yelled to his officers when they expressed reservations. When Cornelius summoned him he sent back a messenger explaining that he was busy. There was no time for chat. But, he said, his fellow consul could rest assured that by the close of the day Rome would be safe again.

When they marched out through the camp gate, the Numidians jumped onto their mounts, spun a few circles, called out a few more oaths, and showed the approaching Romans their rumps. Watching this, Sempronius believed even more assuredly that victory was near. Less than an hour later, he reached the banks of the Trebia. On the far side, the consul saw the growing mass of the enemy, waiting for them under the first drops of icy rain that soon became a steady sleet. The Numidians were nearest, milling about like the savages they were, trilling to each other and slapping their horses into short gallops and acting as if they had achieved some victory. Behind them Sempronius distinguished the components he had expected, units sectioned off by ethnicity and fighting style: Libyans and Gauls and Celtiberians. The elephant-beasts churned the ground fretfully near the front. They had about them a fearsome aspect, but he had already instructed his men to aim their missiles at the riders, whose loss would make the creatures of little use, randomly floating islands of damage to all, but an aid to neither side. The army was a confused polyglot monster, unnatural and ill-suited to this part of the world. Sempronius had expected as much. He even caught sight of Hannibal's standard. He picked out the tight contingent of guards around a central figure and knew that finally the villain was within his grasp. He ordered his men forward.

The legions strode steadily into the river. They pushed through grim-faced, teeth clenched against the cold, clumsy because of the current pressing against them and the uneven stones beneath them, fighting for balance even as they held their weapons up out of the water. By the middle of the crossing the men were in icy water up to their chests. More than one soldier lost his footing and knocked his neighbors loose as well. Some dropped their weapons as they fought for purchase and a few went under and came up sputtering, white-skinned and dazed. Most made it across and emerged sodden, feet numb and clumsy beneath them and weapons held awkwardly in their stiff fingers.

The first of the Romans fell as stones whirled through the air with an audible hiss, nearly invisible projectiles that smashed sudden dents in helmets and broke ribs, snapped forearms, and pierced skulls through the eyes and nose. This was the work of the Balearic slingers. They were short men, not armored at all but dressed only against the cold because they did their damage from a distance. They taunted the Romans and called out oaths and swirled their stones into blinding speed. Sempronius, who had crossed the river on horseback, shouted for calm in his men. He told them to scorn these womanish weapons and form up into ranks. The words were scarcely out of his mouth, however, when a stone smashed into his mount's skull, splattering his face with blood.

He was on his feet screaming for another mount when the second wave of attackers hit. Several thousand Carthaginian pikemen moved into striking range, their absurdly long spears at the ready. Sempronius called for his men to throw their javelins, but the response he got was feeble. He and his men realized all at once, in a silent moment, that most had used their missiles already, either trying to hit the Numidians, or, moments before, when they tried to answer the slingers, who even now sent stones whizzing over the heads of their allies and home to their targets.

The pikemen picked their prey individually, skewering them from outside sword range. Some came with their weapon held in two hands and drove it toward abdomen or groin. Others hefted the spear up and thrust it single-handed into face or chest. Lightly armored, they danced away as the soldiers charged them, waiting for openings into which to drive their spearheads home. They retreated only when the sheer numbers of soldiers on the shore pressed them back.

Sempronius called his men to order yet again. He gave the instructions to form up for battle and proceed. He was still focused and confident. He loathed the unmanly tactics of his enemy and shouted as much so that all would know his disdain. And yet some part of him felt that something was amiss. He tried not to acknowledge it. Tried to recover from each successive surprise and shape his men into the disciplined ranks he knew to be unbeatable. But when he heard the trumpeting of the pachyderms, saw the raging bulk, witnessed the power with which a single creature swatted four soldiers and left them broken pieces of men—then, for the first time, he felt a knot low in his abdomen, a ball of fear that pulsed with the possibility that events were not about to unfold as he wished.

Though he was pressed to the ground—still and chilled as he had been since the dark hours of the night—Mago's heart pounded in his chest as if he were already in the battle. He saw it all happening and wanted to believe that all was as it should be, but he kept reminding himself not to let his expectations get ahead of events. He waited as the first Romans fell on the riverside. Watching through plumes of his own breath, he saw the legions mass and engage his brother's main forces. He recognized their attempt at order, the way the velites came to the fore to throw their missiles. They staggered forward, some already weaponless, many dropping before the slingers' pellets. Those who could hurled their weapons with remarkable accuracy, but they never launched their single, massive volley. Mago could find no fault with their efforts. It was simply that, from the first moments, the battle proceeded on Hannibal's terms, not on theirs.

Soon the elephants churned through the ranks, trumpeting and bellowing as their drivers smacked their skulls and urged them on. In the confusion men were trampled and swatted into the air or impaled on tusks. The Romans feared these animals, as any sane men would, but they did not give way. They aimed their sword thrusts at their eyes, hacked at their trunks, and jabbed their blades into their flanks. More than one mahout was jerked from his post at the point of a spear.

Despite these stampeding boulders, despite the sleet and the spray kicked up from the ground, the Romans still managed to form and re-form their ranks. They still inflicted damage. Their style of battle was tight and organized. They leaned forward, closely guarded by their shields, and cut down the wildly swinging Gauls particularly well, jabbing their short swords into their unprotected abdomens and pulling back and then jabbing the next. They ate steadily through the Gallic center of the Carthaginian forces, fighting with surprising efficiency considering the circumstances. But still the pieces came together against them. The Numidian cavalry rode circles around their Roman counterparts and soon had them on the run, pushed clear of the legions' edges and leaving their flanks open.

This, Mago recognized, was where he came in. He nodded to the soldier beside him, who snapped himself to his feet and bellowed out the call to the rest. They peeled themselves from the ground, stiff from the long wait, many of them chilled beyond shivering. They hefted their swords and shields and began shouting out, grunting and chanting, each invoking his favored gods, whispering prayers to them. Mago strode forward. He did not look back but trusted that the rest were behind him. For the first few steps, he barely felt his legs working beneath him. He smacked his feet down as heavily as he could to ensure his footing, and soon warmed to the work. He heard the clink of their armor and the thump of their feet against the semi-frozen ground. Initially there was something ghostly in the noise, but as they drew closer to the battle the men found further voice. Their jaws loosened, bodies fired with sudden heat. The discordant tongues blended as they ran, and became a wild bellowing that was beyond words, rooted in something earlier and deeper in the brain than language. The distance they had to cover was considerable and in the running their fury grew. Individuals picked out their targets and envisioned the damage they were about to inflict.

Mago saw the infantryman he wanted from a hundred strides out and homed in on him. He took the man with a swinging blow that cut his neck to the spine. A warm spray of blood coated Mago's clenched fist at the sword hilt and splashed up his arm. The man never knew what hit him. Nor was he alone. Mago's group drove into the side of the legions like famished locusts, stepping over the bodies they had slain to get to more. The legionaries in the center could not yet have known what had happened, but they must have felt the shifting press of the men on both sides of them and with it the first hints of panic. Their forward progress ground to a halt. Instead of slicing through unarmored Gauls, the front ranks were now toe to toe with the spears of the Libyan veterans, soldiers fresh from the fires, well oiled and salivating for Roman blood and urged on by Bomilcar, whose voice boomed above the din.

For Mago, the battle lasted no more than a few blurred moments. His arms lashed and thrust, his legs stepped over bodies, his ankles stiffened to steady him on the earth or on the abdomens or backs or necks of those beneath him. He turned and ducked and screamed at the top of his lungs, all at a speed beyond thought. A primal fury took hold of him completely and rendered him, for a few moments, a furious agent of death. He would remember afterward that he sliced open the unprotected belly of a velite with a right-handed stroke. On some impulse previously unknown to him, he punched a fist into the man's abdomen and ripped out the warm, steaming loops of viscera. He flicked them from his fingers and pushed the man from his path and carried on. He would later find images like this troubling, but in the heat of those short moments he was his father's son and Hannibal's brother, gifted at death, fighting not with his deliberative mind but with pure instinct.

He was among the first to drive the Romans into the river. He felt the euphoria of blood but the work was no clear rout. The Romans managed some order in their retreat. He was ankle deep in the crimson water when he realized Hannibal had called the battle to a halt. He stood panting, watching the remnants of the legions retreat behind the screen of falling sleet, which was turning gradually to snow. When he turned and looked upon the carnage, it took his breath away, not in elation or even relief. He knelt as if to pray and, thus disguised, spat chunks of his breakfast into the river.

His first true battle was behind him.

Waiting in the dank cell in Emporiae, Hanno had hour after slow hour to think about the mistakes that had led to his capture. But he did not consider the tactical maneuvers that Gnaeus Scipio had so easily countered. Instead he could not shake the memory of his hands' trembling in the hours leading up to the battle. He had first felt it as he lay awake in the predawn hours. He knew something was wrong with his hands, although he could not tell what. They alternately felt as if they were being pricked by thousands of tiny needles, or as if they crawled with ants, or as if they had been submerged in icy water and had turned blue with cold. He slid them under his buttocks and stilled them with the weight and warmth of his body, but after he rose the tremble continued, gaining strength.

At his meeting with his generals he tried to disguise the trouble, but they clearly noticed that he did not reach for the charts offered him, that he had one of them draw out the lay of the land with a stick instead of doing it himself, that he sat with his hands wedged between his knees. After he dismissed them, he stayed inside his tent and banged his hands against the table before him. This changed nothing. He bashed them on the hard floor of his tent. He sat on them, his mind roiling with fury that his own body spurned him so. None of these methods changed anything, and as he rode out to battle he could only still his hands by making sure they were always clenched on something: his helmet, the creases of his breastplate, the hilt of his sword, which he prayed would be drenched with Roman blood before the day waned.

This, however, was not to be. He knew it from the moment he saw the Romans on the field before him. The battle was a blundering fiasco. He tried to push it from his mind, unsure how he could even learn from such a jumbled collage of images, none of them making any sense, none offering him any alternative to help him escape the outcome. It was as if he had looked over a game board and made the move of ordering his men forward, only to discover that he had already fallen into some classic mistake—recognized immediately by his opponent—and that nothing now could avert his failure. He lost his entire army of ten thousand. Most of them were killed. Many were captured. He could not even be sure how many, because he himself was seized. His guards fought to the death with the swarm of Romans that surrounded him. But when he tried to goad them into murdering him they would not. Instead they worked toward him slowly, in vast numbers, pressing in on him from behind their shields until he was so boxed in that he could not even move. They disarmed him and bound him and kicked him before them in stumbling indignity, a prisoner, a Barca in chains, denied even a mount, so that he eventually entered Emporiae as an amusement for the astonished faces of the Greek townspeople. He would so very much rather have died.

Instead he found himself shoved into a tiny subterranean room, dim and wet from groundwater and frequented by rats. Holes the size of a man's fist lined the upper wall along one side. Through them torchlight from the hallway shone into the cell, casting shadow and highlight across the aged wooden beams that supported the roof. This was all that illuminated the chamber, but Hanno's eyes quickly adjusted. The four walls were carved from a whitish stone, roughly, as if the chamber had been intended for storage, not human habitation. He felt the chalkiness of the stone in the back of his throat. The film of it stuck to his skin. The chill seeped into him slowly, as if the longer he sat the more he himself took on the quality, texture, and substance of the stone. Once deposited here, he was left alone, passing time that he could only estimate by the movements of the guards outside his door, their rotations of duty, and the occasional meals they slipped under the door for him. His hands no longer trembled. They were still, stiff, and aching. Whatever fear he had held in them plagued him no more. This galled him nearly as much as their shaking had.

What type of place was this to keep someone of his stature? He realized that he had no idea what to expect from these Romans. They might treat him with dignity if it suited them, as Hannibal instructed his generals to do with prisoners of note. They might make overtures to Carthage, using him as a negotiating point. But nothing in their behavior so far made dignified treatment seem likely. The Romans were likely ignorant of Hannibal's policies on dealing with prisoners. If they remembered anything, it would be the atrocities of the earlier war between the two nations, when barbarity had reached its zenith. In truth, there were no shared traditions that his captors were obliged to uphold. If they wished, they could peel the skin from his living body and douse him in vinegar and take pleasure commensurate with his pain. He simply could not predict the course ahead of him. Being hit by the full force of this reality, he recognized the truth beneath it: He had never had control of his own destiny; never had the future been certain. So in this piece of knowledge, at least, he exceeded Hannibal in wisdom.

For all of the foulness of the cell and the possible tortures awaiting him, what troubled him most was more mundane. There was no latrine in the cell, neither a hole nor a sewage channel nor any space designated for the purpose. For the first six days he would not squat to relieve himself. He ate nothing and drank water sparingly. He swore that he would not shit until the Romans offered him a proper toilet of their own accord. This they did not do. By the third day he had to clench his buttocks tight. On the fourth day he focused in on the muscles right around his anus and scrunched them to fight the rhythmic churning power of his bowels.

When his feces final escaped it was in a moment of weakness, while he was drowsy and dream-racked. He found himself squatting in a corner of the cell and felt his backside open up before he even knew what he was doing. As he felt the euphoric release of the stuff curving out of him he tried to convince himself that this was an act of defiance. He was shitting on Rome, throwing his waste in their faces, soiling them. But a moment later he balled up on the other side of the cell and watched helplessly as his eyes watered over and tears spilled from them. Strange that this one thing struck him as such an indignity, but it did. It made him feel like a child without even the control of his own bodily functions. Through the wavering, dim scene before him he prayed to Baal, to El and Anath, to Moloch. The names of the gods felt dead on his tongue, but still he called on them, promising that if he lived he would inflict all manner of mayhem in their names, trying to convince himself that he was still a man who could make such promises into realities.

After a full week of complete solitude, Hanno welcomed the moment the door swung open and a Roman stepped through. At least something was now to happen, whatever it might be. The man dressed as an officer, with a red cloak flowing down his back. He carried a lamp before him, the single flame of which cast highlights on the long, prominent muscles of his arms. He stood for a moment surveying the room, looking from Hanno around the cell, pausing on the pile of waste. Then he fixed his gaze on Hanno and spoke with haughty confidence, without pausing to ask whether the Carthaginian could understand his Latin.

“Do you know me? I am Gnaeus Scipio, the victor in our battle. You, Barca, are the first joyful piece of news for Rome since your brother began this madness. Your failure will light fires in the hearts of my people, flames that no rain can douse, no wind extinguish. How does it feel to know you so hearten your enemies?”

Gnaeus moved closer. He bent and studied Hanno's face. He had heavy eyebrows, bushy and chaotic, and a rounded nose that might have been broken in his youth. “I can see that you understand me, so don't feign ignorance of my language. I truly mean what I am saying. You have done me a great service. When I first saw events unfolding at Hannibal's direction I feared the worst. But when I met you on the field I was reassured. Barcas can be defeated. I know, because I've witnessed it. And now you know it, too. You understand that we will send you to Rome eventually, don't you? You are, and will continue to be, a prisoner of the Roman Republic, but before you journey to my capital I will use you for a purpose or two here in Iberia. I've already sent word to every Iberian tribe that called you an ally. I've invited them all here to see you, to look upon a captured Barca and see you for what you are. Imagine the effect on them when they see you live in a tiny room, alone except for your own filth.”

Gnaeus straightened and stepped away. “When you do go to Rome, I cannot say how the Senate will dispose of you. To some extent that depends on yourself, and on your brothers. Think carefully on what may be possible, because your lot need not be so foul as you might fear. Hannibal will lose this war. You do not have to lose it with him. You might, actually, manage to find favor with us. You might aid us and subsequently find yourself elevated even as your brother is defeated. For example, should you choose to speak reason to the tribes and dissuade them from their allegiance to Carthage . . . Or if you open your mouth and tell us things valuable to our fight against Carthage here in Iberia . . . There are many ways you can be helpful. Need I detail them to you?”

Hanno, having grasped the thrust of the man's comments clearly enough, answered him. “I will never betray my family, or Carthage.”

“Better men than you have done just that, and no one calls a man a fool if he succeeds while his brother perishes. How can you be sure your brothers would not sell you to save their own skins?”

“You know nothing of us.”

The Roman considered the prisoner from a different angle, and then twisted his head away as if to indicate that he saw nothing new. “In any event, you have already betrayed your nation. Do your people not frown on failure as a man's greatest sin? Perhaps I should put you on a boat bound for Carthage and let them deal with you. It's crucifixion they favor, isn't it? Or is it impaling?”

Hanno spat on the ground and then covered the spot with his foot. “I curse you and your line, your brother and your sons. May you father only girls and may all of them be whores to your enemies.”

Gnaeus smiled. He held his chin in his hand a moment and seemed to think bemusedly on the curse. “Is it by your own gods that you curse me? I do not fear them. And you, you should not trust them. Look at how they've abandoned you.” He knocked on the door and waited for the guards to let him out. Once the door was cracked he paused and addressed himself once more to Hanno. “Whether you like it or not, we will ask you many questions. It would behoove you to answer them. If you do not, we will find which torture persuades you most forcefully. By the gods—yours or mine—I would not wish to be inside your skin in the weeks to come.”

With that he pulled the door fast behind him, leaving Hanno alone with the man's words echoing in his head.

After the battle beside the Trebia, a howling blizzard blew in. Snow fell for two days straight. On the third a new cold crept down from the mountains. It stung exposed flesh so that men could only walk blindly, faces shrouded, stumbling toward whatever goal spurred them to move. There was little rejoicing among the men and no real mention was made of following after the ragged Roman survivors. Few even ventured out to scavenge on the battlefield. That graveyard was left to the wolves and ravens and other creatures fond of human flesh and impervious to the weather. The elephants that had traveled so far and inflicted such great damage could not withstand the relentless cold. All but one of them died within the week; this last creature, called Cyrus, was looked after with care, for now he was Vandicar's sole ward. The chief mahout swore he would keep the creature alive to see the heat of an Italian summer.

Despite the hardships, Hannibal was pleased that they had won their first battle against Rome. Over the winter, he managed to receive several reports from spies and what they told him of events in Rome brought him pure joy. News of the defeat had traveled quickly to the capital and rocked the population's confidence. During his first meeting with the Senate, Sempronius minimized the full extent of the tragedy and his role as the author of it. They had suffered this setback for a variety of reasons, he claimed. The rawness of so many of the troops. The bitter weather that impeded their deployment. The morale boost that the Carthaginians had fed upon after the skirmish on the Ticinus. The Trebia battle was no major defeat, he said, just an unfortunate incident.

Cornelius, arriving somewhat later, described the situation as he recalled it. He responded to the senators' questions as flatly and simply as possible, but still each answer fell like dirt filling into his fellow consul's grave. Among other things, he provided the most accurate estimate of the dead—more than thirteen thousand killed outright, more dead of infection. Questioned as to whether Sempronius had acted with gross negligence, Cornelius, surprisingly, said that he did not believe so. The events that benefited Hannibal that morning were too numerous to explain. No man could orchestrate such a thing. Perhaps only the gods could.

Nor was he the only one to arrive at this conclusion. Soon after the news of the defeat, tales began to circulate of prodigies that should have warned of the gods' displeasure. In Sardinia, a cavalry officer's staff had burst into flames. Some soldiers on Sicily had been struck by lightning while at exercise. At Praeneste, the rat population doubled in just a few days, and at Antium reapers swore that their hay had left traces of blood upon their blades. In more than one place it rained red-hot stones large enough to crack the skulls of the unwary. And these were not mere rumors. In each case of such an unnatural occurrence, a witness journeyed to Rome and told the story to the Senate. The Board of Ten consulted the Divine Writings, and on their recommendation the city spent much of the winter making offerings to Jupiter, to Juno, and to Minerva, conducting rites and holding public banquets like the Strewing of Couches, sacrificing pigs in Saturn's honor.

Fine, Hannibal thought. Let them pray themselves into a frenzy.

The early spring brought the news that Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius had been elected consuls. They were both charged to prosecute the war by extreme measures. They were to take control of all the routes through the Apennines and bar Hannibal's southward progress. There were now to be two legions with each consul, another two for Rome itself, two more for Sicily, and a further legion to protect Sardinia. The two legions in Iberia were to continue their efforts there. Flaminius—a new man in the Senate and the first in his family to attain consulship—especially burned for action. He announced his plans to leave the city and commence the campaign immediately, eschewing the traditional ceremonies that would have delayed him well into the spring.

This was equally pleasant news to Hannibal. Religious fervor on one hand, arrogant impatience on the other: What more could he ask for?

In the days just preceding the first tentative signs of spring, the commander met in council after council, studying charts and interviewing scouts and debating the course ahead of them. His goal lay to the south, toward Rome and her prominent allies, but just which route to take was not easy to decide. They could march toward the east coast, take or bypass Ariminum, and roar down the Via Flaminia directly toward Rome. Another way lay across the Apennines toward the Etruscan town of Faesulae, from where they could weave their way south through several different channels, not as direct as the Flaminia, but a reasonable course that might provide them just enough forage and geographic protection to fight their way to the peninsula's heart. Or they could attempt a crossing of the Ligurian range, difficult terrain that merited consideration only because of the possibility of resupply from the Carthaginian fleet along the Tyrrhenian coast.

As usual, the commander's generals came to him with differing opinions and expressed them freely. Bomilcar and Mago argued for a march on Ariminum, for direct engagement with Servilius, the consul in command there: All of Italy would be open to them if they defeated him. Maharbal and Carthalo preferred some variation on the central route, a way that would suit their swift and far-ranging riders and let them fight the skirmishes they excelled at. Only Bostar favored the difficult march toward the western coast and the benefits of meeting up with the fleet. Monomachus did not seem to think the route mattered that much; each of them led to Roman blood and that was sufficient for him.

None of the routes suited Hannibal perfectly. He wanted something more devious, more disconcerting, a way forward that would again throw the Romans into confusion. When he heard that among Maharbal's horsemen was a man who claimed to know of just such a course, he had him brought forward at once.

The man in question joined Hannibal, Mago, and Silenus in Hannibal's tent late on a pleasantly mild morning. He entered humbly behind Maharbal, head down, eyes fixed upon the earthen floor. He was gaunt in a way that indicated he had suffered from months of poor diet. He stood like a stick figure dressed to scare birds from a field. His clothes hung off him, a collection of skins and furs piled upon each other against the cold. His hair was wild, grown long and matted. It did not flow down his back but stood out around him like a lion's mane.

“He is called Tusselo,” Maharbal said. “He has been with us since Saguntum. He is a good rider, though I cannot say how he comes to know this land.”

“You are Massylii?” Hannibal asked.

Tusselo nodded.

“Why do you know Roman geography?”

Tusselo did not raise his eyes, but his voice was steady and calm when he spoke. “I was a slave to the Romans. I lived twelve years in this land. My master was a merchant. We traveled much. I learned the land through walking it. Many places and the ways between them are still clear in my mind.”

“Do you find the land different when looked upon with free eyes?”

“Different, yes. And the same.”

“It cannot be easy to return to the land that enslaved you, especially not for a Massylii. Your people were not put on the earth to be slaves. Do you return to seek revenge?”

The Numidian did not answer immediately. He cleared his throat and waited and made no sign that he would respond. But Hannibal let the silence linger.

“I cannot answer you with certainty,” Tusselo eventually said. “I have much anger, yes. I was robbed of many things, but not physical things that I can reclaim as such. I do want revenge, Commander, but I also want things I do not have words to explain.”

“I will not press you to find those words,” Hannibal said, “so long as there is always conviction in your actions. What is this route south that you know of?”

Tusselo explained that there was a neglected and difficult road to the north of Arretium. He pointed it out on the chart the generals had been using in their debates. It ran just south of the Arno River, through a marshy, swampy land. There was little forage on this route, the ground being so constantly soaked that only water plants flourished there. Trees had been drowned long ago and stood bare and rotting. Grass would be difficult to find. This time of the year it would be a chilly wasteland, a wide swath of country knee deep in water. The route had a single thing to recommend it, and that was that nobody would imagine they would choose it. They could emerge well into the center of Italy, behind the armies sent to bar their passage.

“My master once took this route to avoid the debt collectors who were hunting him,” Tusselo said. “It proved a good choice. But even in the height of summer it was a wetland. It will be wetter in the spring.”

“You still call him your master?” Silenus asked.

Tusselo turned his gaze on him, took him in, and then looked back in Hannibal's general direction. “It is just a word, the easiest for me to use. The truth is something different.”

Mago placed his fingers on the papyrus and turned it toward himself. “If these marshlands are as you describe they'll be as deadly as the mountain crossing.”

“It is the least favorable route imaginable,” Tusselo said, “but if we managed it the army might pass both consuls undiscovered. We'd appear to vanish from the world in one place—”

“—and later appear in another,” Hannibal concluded.

Tusselo nodded. For the first time he looked directly into the commander's eyes. “Like witchcraft,” he said.

There was a silence. After a moment, Hannibal dismissed the Numidian. To Maharbal he said, “Do you trust this man?”

“I don't know how he came to us,” Maharbal said, “but he has never given me reason to doubt him. I believe he knows this land. And I believe he is no friend to the Romans.”

“I see as much in his eyes,” Hannibal said. “Sometimes I wonder at the workings of the gods. I would not have found this route without this man, and yet I feel a drum beating inside me. This is part of our destiny. I must believe the gods placed him among us to make us see that which we would not have seen.”

“Or to lead us astray,” Mago said. “Not all gods look kindly on us. Brother, I do not favor defeating our cause by a march. We cannot survive another victory like the mountain crossing. I fear this will cost us too heavily.”

“At times our fate is presented to us through unlikely vessels,” Hannibal said. “I believe this Numidian is such a vessel. Why else would he return to the land that enslaved him? Even he cannot answer that question. This route is like an arrow loosed in the dark. The Romans will neither hear nor see the missile's flight. They will simply feel the shaft as it runs deep into their chest.”

To Maharbal he said, “Tell this Tusselo that he rides at my side on this march. If we succeed I will be the first to credit him. If anything goes awry . . . he will learn the wrath of a new master.”

When the meeting concluded a little later, Hannibal asked Silenus to remain. Once they were alone, the commander stood and paced the room. He cleared his throat, then touched his neck with his fingers, took a fold of flesh between them, and tugged. “You are loyal to me, are you not?”

Silenus, uncomfortable with the tone of the question, rose and said, “I've no notion of what has been said against me, but my loyalty is complete. Has someone spoken ill of me?”

Hannibal stopped pacing. He lifted his head and turned it just enough to focus on the scribe. “No, no one has spoken ill of you. The truth is, I have something to ask of you. It is a mission far beyond our agreement, but I have need of your help. It regards my brother, Hanno. I've just learned that his troops were badly defeated by Gnaeus Scipio. He was captured and is being held at Emporiae. You know this place, don't you?”

Silenus lowered himself back onto his stool. Clearly, this news struck him with a heavy significance.

“He's been there for too long already,” Hannibal said. “The news was slow in reaching me. When I imagine my brother a captive to them . . . at their mercy . . . it boils my blood as few things ever have. He must be freed. I curse myself for not learning of his capture earlier. I would offer to ransom him, but I've no faith the Romans would oblige me this. Do you?”

The Greek cleared his throat. “It would give them great pleasure to receive that request,” he said. “But no, they would not free him. I'm surprised they haven't transported him to Rome already.”

“He's more use to them in Iberia. They've been parading him before the various tribes, degrading him, winning my allies from me by showing them a captured, powerless Barca. Someone over there understands that the unified might of Iberia—if ever harnessed—could push New Carthage into the sea, and with it everything I've striven for. Even so, I must assume they will send him to Rome soon, to display him yet again, but to the people of Italy. That cannot happen. Do you know a magistrate in Emporiae named Diodorus?”

The Greek nodded. “He's my sister's husband.” After a long moment, as the two of them contemplated this, Silenus asked, “What would you have me do?”

Sapanibal waited for Imago Messano in her private garden, a secluded spot at the far end of the familial palace. Her chambers were less lavish than they had been at the height of her marriage to Hasdrubal the Handsome, but they suited her tastes well enough. Her sitting room extended from inside to out with hardly a boundary between the two. She sat on a stone stool beneath the shade of several massive palm trees. Water trickled down from a high, hidden cistern and ran in a tiny stream to feed the pond just behind her, rich with reeds and water lilies, home to several species of fish and a water snake that had grown fat and lazy in such bounty.

She had requested a meeting with the councillor for three reasons. One, because she knew he would be fresh from the Council and he was her best source for the things discussed there. Two, because she knew him to be utterly loyal to her family. This was something not to be taken for granted among the Carthaginian aristocracy. And thirdly, because she found the widower's obvious reverence of her appealing. She had not had many suitors before the politically important marriage to her late husband. Nor had she seen much interest in the years since his death. She attributed this to her strength of character, to the peculiar position of her family, to the unmatchable reputation of her brothers. And, beyond all that, she was no beauty. In light of all these things, Imago's interest in her was interesting to her as well.

Sapanibal did not rise when Imago appeared. For a moment—watching him walk toward her across the polished granite, his garments loose about him, flowing, his face aged just enough so that the awkwardness of his youth had been transformed into a more suitable composure—Sapanibal felt her pulse quicken. Though she promised herself she would never show it to him, this man appealed to her as few others had. She had first admired him in her girlhood, and some spark of that early devotion lingered. He was not a warrior, but he had ridden out with her father to put down the mercenary rebellion. This was no small act. That war had been one of incredible brutality. He would have known that capture by that rabble would have meant a horrible death. He had been a young man, with a considerable future ahead of him. That he put his life in danger confirmed his valor, even if his inclinations since had been of a tamer nature. He had also proved himself more recently by answering Fabius Maximus with Carthage's acceptance of war.

“Imago Messano,” she said, “welcome. Thank you for favoring me with your presence.”

“It is nothing,” he said, taking a seat on the stool she indicated. “I am always happy to answer the call of a Barca.”

Sapanibal offered him food and refreshments. She made small talk for a few moments, asking after his health and that of his children, avoiding any mention of his late wife. But it was not long before she asked him for a report on the debate in the Council. Before he answered, Imago sipped the lime-flavored drink a servant offered him. He closed his eyes in enjoyment of it.

“I've a fondness for bitter things,” he said. Opening his eyes, he met Sapanibal's gaze. “You know, of course, what befell your brother Hanno. The Council received the news of his defeat and capture gravely. It's no small thing to lose ten thousand men. It was quite a resounding failure, really, and it puts our hold on Iberia in grave jeopardy.”

Sapanibal felt the hair at the back of her neck lift to attention. “My brother had no choice, as I understand it. The Romans had landed and were welcomed at Emporiae. What would you have had him do? He fought for our interests. If the Council cared for justice they'd be negotiating for his release. Why aren't they?”

Imago considered his answer carefully. His hands were heavily jeweled. Thrumming his fingers in thought, the rings seemed almost some sort of armor. “It's unlikely that the Romans would release a general just so that he could turn around and fight them on the morrow. That's the only reason we've not pursued it. Time will provide another way.”

“No, Hannibal will provide another way. Once he's reinforced and sent new troops, he will once more be unconquerable. I've no doubt he'll free Hanno himself.”

Imago inhaled in a way that suggested deep import. “Let us hope that proves so. I should tell you, though, that the Council has decided to continue sending reinforcements to Iberia, but not to Italy.”

“Not to Hannibal?”

“When the situation in Iberia is stabilized, Hasdrubal will be released to join your eldest brother.”

Sapanibal flicked her fingers up and showed Imago her palm. Like some snake charmer's trick, this single motion silenced him. “But surely our councillors are more farsighted than that. Our strength still lies in Hannibal! His success means the safety of Iberia. But he needs reinforcements. You will not deny him this.”

“It is complicated, my dear,” Imago said, smiling an invitation to leave the discussion at that.

“As am I. Tell me what you know and I will explain what you do not understand.”

Imago considered this a moment, turned it over, finally deciding that such wit was just the thing he liked about this woman. “Many in the Council do not support your brother with their whole hearts,” he said. “They fear that this war has put our interests in danger. Iberia was barely contained under your brother's firm hand. With him gone, the Iberians may yet rise against us. Or—as Hanno has demonstrated—the Romans may manage to replace us there. And also they fear for Carthage itself. No one wants to find the Romans knocking at the gates, should your brother fail.”

“And yet Hannibal did not declare this war, did he? That oath was sworn here in Carthage, by the same tongue that speaks to me now.”

“Well, yes, but . . . Ours are a conservative people, Sapanibal. We do not want the world. We are not like Hannibal in that. What the Council wants most is to regain the possessions that have been lost. Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica. To hold Iberia—”

“Which my family alone conquered,” Sapanibal snapped.

Imago pursed his lips. “Just so. And in this lies the further problem. Few could stomach the return of a victorious Hannibal. Jealousy is stronger than reason at times. The Hannons plead peace, now as ever, but what they really fear is that your brother will achieve his goals. That result would make them rich beyond all reason—but it would make Hannibal's fame immortal. Greatness always makes enemies, Sapanibal. The Hannons, like Hadus, hate and fear Hannibal as much as they hated and feared Hamilcar before him. I say this so that you understand that those who love your family—as I do—must move carefully in such circles.”

“I pray you are wrong,” Sapanibal replied. “My brother is the pride of Carthage. Perhaps the councillors don't truly know him. He has been nothing but a name here for so many years. Remind them of his virtues; make them proud of him, not envious.”

“I think that you and I have a different understanding of men's natures.”

“Then speak directly to the Council of Elders, the One Hundred. Invoke the memory of Hamilcar—”

This time it was Imago's turn to silence Sapanibal with a gesture. “Your brother has few friends among the One Hundred,” he said. “He too closely represents the glory of youth, and this is troubling to old men. Councillors are not like foot soldiers. They do not risk their lives for those they adore, nor must they put true faith in the men they elect leaders. They would rather have a hero-less victory, so that no glory shines on another. Believe me, no councillor wants to see Hannibal worshipped in such a great triumph. This they just cannot accept.”

“And you, Imago? What can you accept?”

“I would happily adorn your brother's shoulders with flower petals. I would be the first to bow before him. I've always been a friend to your family. I was loyal to your father and supported him even when his success made him enemies.”

Sapanibal lifted her fruit drink for the first time, sipped it, and then put it down, a slight tremor in her hands. “I know, Imago. My father told me of your friendship. I do not doubt you, but what you report troubles me. If our councillors are already prepared to abandon my brother—when he has had nothing but hard-fought success—what will they do should he really falter?”

“Pray that he does not falter,” Imago said. He averted his eyes to signal a change of the subject. He asked after Didobal's health. Sapanibal was reluctant to let the conversation drift, but she had learned much and they were both aware of it. She answered that her mother was well, as ever. Asked about her younger sister, she said the same. At first she was surprised that he would ask after a girl, but then he betrayed his real interest.

“I understand she is fond of King Gaia's son, Masinissa,” Imago said. “But your mother has not confirmed their engagement, has she?”

Sapanibal had, in fact, spoken to her mother on this subject just the day previous, but the whole discussion had made her uneasy. It reminded her too much of the machinations that had led to her own ill-fated marriage. True enough, a union with the Massylii would bring them that much further under Carthage's sway, ensuring that the king would always supply them with his gifted horsemen, but she did not wish to think of her sister being delivered to a man who could use or abuse her as he saw fit. Who can know what lies behind a man's smile? She responded that Didobal thought the two in question were still quite young. There was time yet, and Didobal hoped that her eldest son would be able to bless the union in person, when he returned.

Imago smiled through all of this but responded with some gravity edging his voice. “I pray she does not wait too long. Hannibal may not return soon enough for this matter. Masinissa is a fine young man. He's destined for great things. Many in the Council believe so. But there are many others who vie to wed their daughters to a son of the Massylii. Either to Masinissa, or to some other who might usurp his power. For this reason, your mother should concede promptly. We need stability along the seacoast, now more than ever. If Rome were ever to attack us here, we'd need our allies more than we like to admit. Certainly Sophonisba should stay away from the Libyan, Syphax.”

“What has he to do with it?”

“Did you not hear about the banquet during his last visit? Your sister danced. Hers was a brief appearance, yes, but it left the king salivating. He spent the rest of the night trying to learn all he could about her. He's a lecher, but we can't pretend he's not important. I fear he'll be the cause of trouble soon. He is eyeing King Gaia's domain as we speak. It's hard to see how it will all unravel, but I'm sure there is no better union for Carthage than one between Masinissa and a Barca. The prophets say the boy has a role to play in Carthage's future. They are never wrong. Consider what I say and sound out your mother.”

Imago lifted his stool and scooted it closer. He changed his tone yet again: business was concluded. “You are looking well, Sapanibal. I believe the sun agrees with you. Truly it is a blessing to have you so near . . .”

Never in his whole miserable life had Imco Vaca seen anything like the marshes of the Arno. He thought the mountains had been a hell of ice and rock, a horrible place worse than any other in creation. He had dreamed of those heights throughout the long winter, nightmares in which he had yet to complete the crossing. He would awake knowing that thousands of souls were trapped in the ice and might be there forever. He thanked the gods daily that he had lived through the ordeal, and he had no plans to ever relive it in his waking hours.

That is why it seemed particularly cruel—almost a personal affront—that Hannibal chose to drive them through such sopping desolation. Imco had emerged into the spring as a sickly, paltry version of his former beauty. His body was not accustomed to months of snowy cold. He had watched in horror as a surgeon hacked off his frost-damaged finger with a serrated knife. The surgery, miraculously, did not lead to infection, but Imco believed the wound allowed malignant spirits easy entry to his body. How else did the fever creep into him? And what about the cough? Try as he might, he could not expel whatever was growing inside his chest. Nor could he stop the flow of green mucus that clogged his nasal passages. Some men managed to scavenge decent food, but Imco barely had the energy to search for sustenance. Though he ate meat cut from pack animals, he had not had a piece of fruit or a serving of anything remotely like a vegetable since the stores grabbed from Taurin.

By the spring he could see in his arms and abdomen that he had shrunk. His thighs and calves and forearms ached all day long, but not just from labor. His muscles pulsed with pain even at quiet moments. His teeth jiggled in his gums and, he was sure, his hair was falling out at an unnatural rate. His vision seemed to be disturbed as well. He could see objects clearly enough, but he had difficulty translating what his eyes saw into meaningful messages. Thus, though he noticed the horse's rump, he did not fully comprehend how ill-placed he was behind it until the creature kicked him with a muddy hoof. Other times he misstepped and fell to his knees in the muck, not because he had not seen the object that tripped him up, but because it had not fully registered that he needed to consider its influence on his life.

By the end of the first day in the swamp, he had fully reconsidered his notions of suffering. Hell was not frozen and hard. It was wet, damp, soft. It was ankle-deep water. It was mud sucking at your feet. It was not even being able to sit down and take a moment's rest. He should have known that something horrific was in the making when he learned of the placement of troops in the line of march. The best infantry, the Libyans, strode in the front of the line, so that the ground held firm for the first few thousand of them. Behind them came the other African troops, including Imco. Then the Iberian allies pressed through the increasingly sticky churned-up mud. In the rear of all the infantry came the Gauls. By now thousands of feet and hooves had so churned up the swamp that the men were wading and slipping through deep muck, clawing at it with their hands, struggling vainly to keep their loads from becoming soiled.

Watching them, Imco paused long enough to thank the gods for birthing him an African, for the sorry lot of the pale ones was nothing to wish for. Such was the Gauls' misery that they would probably have deserted, each and every one of them, except that Mago and Bomilcar followed them up with the Numidian cavalry. They rode through the swamp like ill-tempered, heavily armed herdsmen, pushing the army forward no matter what. Hannibal provided no one a choice in the matter.

It was a forlorn land; the only plants were thick, leathery grasses and reedlike tufts. Insects rose from the water and danced in swarms as big around as elephants. These seemed to appear spontaneously, deviously, so that if he glanced away for a moment Imco was likely to find himself spun in a confusion of the creatures, inhaling them and catching them in the corners of his eyes and his nose hairs. The white skeletons of long-dead trees dotted the landscape, some reaching for the sky, others lying as if they had finally given up and collapsed from fatigue. Imco had been told they were following a road. Looking through the haze of insects and mist, he saw no sign of such a thing. He had thought it before and now he could not help thinking it again: Hannibal was mad, a raving demon in a warrior's body, a despot who reveled in the misery of those around him. He did not go so far as to share this assessment with anyone, but silently he spoke a tirade against the man.

They could not stop to camp for the night, and so they kept up a squelching, dripping progress straight through and into the dawn. By the time the sun rose again all semblance of organized marching had evaporated. Fever coursed through innumerable men. The ill and dying, the ranting and pitiful were so close around him that sometimes maneuvering through them was like navigating a rough landscape. Imco—again thinking of spirits, as he had begun to do daily—thought he could see the contagion floating through the air from man to man, a diaphanous creature that touched the unwary with contaminated fingers. He ducked and shifted to avoid it, sometimes looking like a man swatting at bats that he could not see.

The only relatively dry spots were the corpses of pack animals. Men tried to catch moments of rest by perching on the flanks of mules and wrapping their arms around the necks of dead horses. Imco saw one man lying on two goats. It was a sorry enough sight in that there was no comfort in his posture, draped as he was across them, toes and fingers and buttocks each dipping into the muck. But it seemed even stranger when one of the goats lifted its head and stared at Imco piteously. It was not dead at all, just sunk up to its neck and disconsolate, its gaze a direct communication from beast to man. What is the point? it seemed to be asking. Imco had no answer. He just walked on. By that evening he was passing as many dead men as animals.

On the third day he caught sight of Hannibal in the distance. The commander rode behind the ears of the only living elephant. He was too far away for Imco to see his features, but others must have. Word spread that Hannibal had been infected by a fever. Some said that he had lost his sight, others that his hearing had gone as well. Strangely, Imco found this news a prod to keep him moving. If it was true, then this journey had reached heights of absurdity that he never imagined possible. Would Hannibal the Blind and Deaf lead them to the gates of Rome? He was sure the commander would try, sitting atop his elephant, barking at them, devising clever ploys that he could neither hear nor see the result of. It was too much to imagine. The more reasonable possibility was that they would soon find themselves swimming amid sharks, leaderless and cut off from home or rescue. No other general could prosecute this war with Hannibal's determination. Without him, they would be pounced upon within a fortnight. The absurdity of this kept Imco going. He had to witness this farce played out. What a tale of woe he would have to tell in the underworld.

They had been four days and three nights in the dismal swamplands when Imco realized his feet were finding better purchase. In the afternoon of the fourth day he stepped out of the water and onto merely soggy ground. That evening he cast himself down and felt the earth's hard contours again. And the morning of the fifth day found him looking out over a land they said was called Etruria. This time, Imco had no difficulty translating what his eyes saw to what his mind understood: rolling farmland, pastures, a rich land in the full bloom of spring. With Hannibal's blessing they were about to plunder it to their heart's content.

Releasing the men to pillage was more than a simple reward for them, more even than a necessary measure to revive their physical strength and morale. In fact, Hannibal needed to keep them busy while he struggled with the curse he carried from the marshes. He was not yet blind, as rumor suggested. Not deaf. But he had emerged with a raging infection in his left eye. He had never felt so malignant a force at work inside his body before. It sought to gouge the organ out and leave the hole lifeless. It ate toward the center of him and left his very understanding of the world in disarray. Synhalus warned him that the infection could well spread, both to his other eye and beyond. The surgeon rinsed the eye often with fresh water, plastered it with salves, and nightly sprinkled it with precious drops of seawater to keep the orb moist and return it to its natural state. He had the commander drink herb teas specially designed to restore health and made him lie facedown so that the evil might loosen its grip and fall from him. But none of this curbed the infection.

As important as these clinical measures were Mandarbal's services. Hannibal knew the priest had been feeling slighted since the campaign began. Though he offered sacrifices at the beginning of each stage of the journey and read portents often among the Libyan and Numidian troops, Hannibal had not consulted him in military matters. Why ask for an opinion he might not wish to accept? With the mark of the divine to give them weight, the grim proclamations Mandarbal enjoyed making could hamper his efforts. And yet Hannibal did request that he intercede with the gods concerning his health. Mandarbal led sessions of prayer and sacrifice, calling upon the gods to drive the illness back whence it had sprung. He slit the necks of three goats, a young, unblemished calf, and a mature bull, offering them up to the deities he believed responsible. All to no effect.

In his own mind, Hannibal knew that there was no mystery concerning whence the illness had sprung. He had felt it leap up from the sodden ground beneath his mount's feet. A single drop of mud stuck to the edge of his eye. He had rubbed at it absently. A grain of the dirt bit into him, slipped around his eyeball and into cover, where it slowly went to work. He had not been the same since. The fluctuations in temperature had not helped. Nor had the constant moisture, the insects, the fevers, the smell of death in the air.

It was not that the march had been any worse than he had anticipated. He looked around at scenes he might have imagined beforehand. The death rate did not surprise him. The losses were at the extreme edge of what he thought possible, but Hannibal was rarely mistaken in his understanding of mortality. It was the fact that he had been personally struck that troubled him. He recalled that only a few years ago he had stood almost unblemished before Imilce, and he remembered once joking with Sapanibal that no simple cold, nothing so mundane, could ever harm him. Now the tissue of his leg bore the scars of that Saguntine spear; his body had failed to fight off the ill spirits transmitted through cold; his very eyes no longer perceived the world completely. He felt the bite of his own arrogance. Some, viewing his accomplishments from a distance, might think that he drove Fortune before him like a mule before the lash. It suited him that they thought this, of course, but he knew the dance between him and the Fates was more precarious than that.

The afternoon after emerging from the marshes he held a council. Throughout it, Mago stared at him in sullen amazement. He hardly uttered a word throughout the meeting, but as it closed he indicated that he would speak to his brother in private. Alone, he wasted no time in voicing his mind.

“How could this happen to you?” he asked. “You are nearly blinded! I can see even now that you only half perceive me. This is all the fault of that Numidian. We should take his eyes for the evil he has done you. Hannibal, surely we can reverse this. You must fight it more forcefully. Have you not heard Mandarbal's proposal? He believes a human sacrifice might appease the god who's afflicted you.”

Noting the fear in his brother's face, Hannibal found his answer coming automatically. He knew how he should respond, and realizing it he also understood that he had been too long wrestling with the same doubts himself. He smiled. Unwittingly, Mago had prompted Hannibal to remember himself.

He said, “Our soldiers kill in our names daily. If a human sacrifice were the cure for this, then I would be immortal by now. No, it would seem that Hannibal cannot take his wounds as a commander should.”

“But this is no wound! No spear did this to you! It is a curse brought down from—”

Hannibal shook his head. “Listen. You have heard of the general Bagora, yes? There is a tale Father told me about him. I've never heard it repeated, but Father believed it to be true. One of Bagora's captains, a brave fighter, was skilled with the spear and famous for his overhand thrust. He was a hero of the early wars with the Libyans, gifted in violence even before he'd taken a woman. But one day, while he worked his damage, he stepped over a man he believed to be dead. The man was not dead, though. He reached up and sliced the hero's spear hand clean off. The captain healed quickly enough, but without that hand he was no longer himself. He refused to resume his post, refused even to aid in training recruits. When summoned to explain himself to his general the young man complained that he was useless. He could not hold his spear! The gods had betrayed him, he who had only strived to honor them. Without another word, Bagora drew his sword and sliced off the soldier's other hand. The hero dropped to his knees and begged to understand. Do you know how Bagora answered?”

Mago shook his head.

“He said, ‘You are useless to me now. But not because you lack one hand, nor because you lack two. You became useless the moment you called yourself useless, when you failed to realize that the gods despise self-pity.”

Hannibal cleared his throat and raised his chin. After a moment of silence, he said, “Mago, I will not be despised by the gods. Let this be the last time I hear you bemoan damage to the body—mine or yours. There should be no such weakness in either of us. Thank you for reminding me of this.”

The second morning in the dry lands of Etruria, scouts returned with word that the Roman forces under Flaminius were encamped near the city of Arretium. This meant that time was short. Word of the Carthaginian presence would reach the consul in days, if it had not already. As he pondered their next move, Hannibal thought of Tusselo. The Numidian had ridden beside him through the marshes. They had exchanged few words, for the route was as Tusselo had described and Hannibal's mind had been otherwise occupied, but now he felt a need to speak to him.

When Tusselo stepped through the open door of the tent, Hannibal acknowledged him by clearing his throat. He had just dabbed at the fluid oozing from his eye; his fingers were dripping with a pungent yellow liquid. He had seen all sorts of fluids emanate from men's bodies over the years. This substance, he knew, had no place issuing from the eyes. He wiped his fingers clean on his tunic.

“You have lost me half my vision,” Hannibal said.

Tusselo did not dispute this. “If I could carve out my eye and give it you, I would.”

“My surgeon is skilled, but not gifted enough for such a transaction. You make a tempting offer, though. My brother thinks I should have your eye as a tribute. I could wear it around my neck as a reminder that my powers of retribution are equal to whatever force did this to me.”

Hannibal let the threat sit for a long time.

Tusselo finally said, “You may have my eye for that as well, if you choose.”

“Hannibal does not inflict damage simply to sate his own vanity. The truth is, I thank you for the path you showed us. I am now where I wanted to be. Italy is before us, her armies behind—just as you said. Come, sit here and look on this map.”

He motioned the Numidian to a stool on the other side of the small table before him. As directed, Tusselo gazed at the chart of Italy. His light brown eyes drifted over the lines and pictures for some time, but when he looked up his face showed little comprehension. “This is different from the land that lives in my mind,” he said.

“Then shape the map in your mind into words and lay it before me. I wish to find a trap hidden in the land. Help me with this and you will make your life one I value.”

The Numidian barely hesitated. He opened his mouth and began speaking. The words came out smooth and even, as if he had actually rehearsed them for this moment. Hannibal sat back and closed his eyes and realized that the view of the world thrown against the back of his eyelids was not dimmed by the infection. It was still possible to see clearly. He listened to the African speak for some time, learning the land in a way that all of his previous chart study had not approached.

That evening his physician came to him and after a long examination confirmed what Hannibal already knew: His eye was dead. Forever after, he would see the world through a single lens only. So be it, he thought. Knowing this, he felt there was no need to delay. Starting the next day, the army moved in a herd of flaming destruction. He turned them away from the Roman legions at Arretium and marched upon Faesulae, a fortified town which they took by the sword. They ravished it: the men killed, the women brutalized, the children kicked fleeing into the hills. They took what they could carry, torched the rest, and marched southward, repeating the pattern as they went. Their wake was a blackened wasteland of despair. On this march, Hannibal showed no mercy. It would take a hundred thousand deaths to end this war, so he might as well up the count daily. It was therefore up to the Romans to acknowledge his supremacy and call the bloodshed to a halt.

Passing Cortona, Hannibal's scouts brought him the news he had hoped for. Flaminius was behind him. His army pursued them at a headlong run, heedless that they were not chasing a quarry at all. They were being baited.

As he was nearer to the western coast than to the eastern, Silenus sailed from a nameless village port on the coast downstream from the city of Asculum. The entire journey was to take place clandestinely, with no mention of a Carthaginian cause and no use of an African vessel. The latter would make the journey time-consuming, but it was deemed best. The Romans, never sea-lovers, had as late gained some naval mastery. Silenus could not afford to be aboard a ship that might be targeted for attack.

Despite his secrecy he was stopped three times by random Roman patrols. The first time, Silenus claimed to be a merchant from Heraclea, plying his trade in leather goods along the Adriatic coast. Asked if this were not a risky undertaking, considering the war, he answered that he had complete confidence that Rome would vanquish the African foe soon enough, after which the fruits of his intrepid labor would richly reward him. When he produced samples of his wares and offered a sales pitch, he was soon released.

The second time, at the port of Syracuse, he named no concrete purpose to his life but simply wagged his tongue evasively during questioning. As he had grown to manhood in the city, he spoke with inflections that marked him as a native. The soldiers dismissed him for a nuisance, not a threat. Thereafter he stood for some time staring up at the city. It was—as ever—a wonder to look upon, an architectural marvel, a museum housing much of the world's knowledge and artwork. He longed to take a few hours away from his mission and climb up into the familiar environs, to look out over the views he loved and to search out old friends and share with them tales of the things he had seen in the last few years. He wanted the company of Greek men so much that he felt the desire for them deep inside his abdomen. Looking up at the accomplishments of Greek minds and labors, he wondered why he had so tied his life to the fortunes of another race. Maybe this was foolish.

As he stood thinking this, word came to him of a ship that would take him on to Emporiae, embarking that very afternoon. He turned to the man who brought him this news and asked how to find the vessel. He did not think the action through fully, but simply carried on with his mission. The prompting, defying all else, was of a personal nature. Though he had said nothing of it to Hannibal, the news of Hanno's capture had rocked him. To imagine any Barca in Roman custody was shocking enough, but this one he had a particular fondness for. It was hard for him to explain, even to himself, but he had always found something endearing in the traits others might call Hanno's faults. Hanno's taciturn nature brought Silenus a new pleasure in his own mirth. Hanno's superstitious fear of signs and symbols in the world made him smile at his own irreverence. Never had he met a person who took life so seriously, who stood so near to greatness and got less joy from it. Hanno was not impressive in the manly way of Hannibal, nor strikingly handsome like Hasdrubal, nor good-natured like Mago, but Silenus could not help himself. He liked the taciturn soldier best of all, and wished very much for a future in which they had the leisure to figure out the nature and depth of their relationship.

There could be no sight more offensive to Roman eyes than the horizon-wide view of farmland and villages burning under an invader's torch. Flaminius could scarcely believe the visions that assaulted his eyes as he pursued the Carthaginian army through Etruria. How had they appeared south of him, out of nowhere? The news sent him reeling with amazement. Somehow, Hannibal had already bested him. In his first move, he had slipped by without so much as a skirmish. Anger followed fast on shock, and Flaminius wasted no time in striking camp and setting the full two legions in pursuit.

And a strange pursuit it was. If Hannibal had been invisible a moment before, now he chose to leave signs of his passing in the sky and on the land and written on people's faces. Smoke billowed up into the sky from a thousand different fires. Even among the Roman officers there were whispers that this invader was blessed by some new gods and could not be stopped. It was foolish rumor, but a seed of doubt had sprouted within them. Flaminius decided to check this before it grew into outright fear.

One evening he had a great fire kindled. He stood with his back to it, stared into the red faces of his men, and harangued them at length. Could they not see that this invasion was a new version of the first barbarian wave? The first time Romans had come face-to-face with Gauls, they believed the brutes were divine warriors, sent to herald the end of the world as Rome knew it. Those yellow-haired monsters strode out of the north, a horde of giants, invincible, bone-crushing. The Romans who met them were so frightened they turned and ran. The Gauls found Rome an empty city, save for the Capitol, which a few soldiers held with their lives. They had plundered the land just as Hannibal was doing now, undisciplined, bestial.

“And yet here we are,” Flaminius said, “generations later, rulers of all of Italy, branching out into the world. How is that possible? Because of the fortitude of a single man. A single citizen reversed the tide of Fate. That man was Camillus, as great a man as Cincinnatus. Camillus loathed these barbarians. He said, ‘Look at them. They're not gods. Not demons. They're not harbingers of change. They're men like us, except beneath us. They have no discipline. They sleep in the open. They erect no fortifications. They gorge themselves on food and wine and women and collapse upon the ground.' Camillus saw them for what they truly were, and he taught the others how to vanquish them. With a corps of picked men he stole into their sprawling camp one night, walked quietly through their snoring masses until his men were everywhere among them. Then they fell upon the Gauls. They slit their throats and left them gasping, waking from their drunken dreams to see the face of hell.”

Flaminius raised his hands out to either side, embracing the whole company before him, in silhouette with the fire bright behind him. “Never since that night has a Roman feared a barbarian. Let us not forget the teachings of our ancestors. We are Rome; we fear not the invaders now among us. We've only to remember ourselves to triumph.”

At the morning meal the next day, scouts reported that Hannibal was heading toward Perusia, from which he would, presumably, make a dash for the south. Hearing this, Flaminius rejoiced. He could not have had better news. Little did Hannibal know that he would soon find himself trapped between two consular armies: Flaminius' own and that of Geminus, who even then was marching south in haste. It was perfect. The gods were with him. If he had his way, he would sever Hannibal's head from the body that bore it and carry it aloft on a spear. Rome would greet him with a triumphal welcome of unprecedented proportions.

In haste, both from impatience and also to demonstrate his determination to those around him, Flaminius left his breakfast half-eaten. He rose and hurried toward his horse, shouting out orders to the officers who scrambled to keep up with him. They must quicken the pace of march. At the same time, they would send word to Geminus and ask him for cavalry reinforcement. It just might be possible to pinch the enemy between the full weight of both their armies. “Then,” he said, “by the gods we'll have them all.”

Having spoken thus, he attempted to mount his horse with likewise conviction. He leaped directly from the ground. The move began sharply enough, with some of the grace of a mounted entertainer. Some of it, but not all. The horse skittered, backed, and then reared as the consul sought purchase. It spun in a tight circle and yanked the reins from the rider's hands. This flurry of motion ended in stillness: the horse standing a few paces away, calm and instantly undisturbed, the consul on his backside in the mud, gazing at his stained garments as if completely mystified by this outcome. It was an ill omen if ever there was one, but Flaminius swatted at the hands that offered him aid.

“Just a mishap!” he snapped. “Has no one ever fallen from a horse before me?”

Then, as if he had not already enough prods to rage, a report came that one of the standard-bearers could not pull his burden up from the ground. Before the gaze of astonished onlookers who were reluctant to touch the pole themselves, the young man strained and groaned and tired himself with the effort. True enough that the ground was damp, yielding stuff, but its grip on the shaft seemed unnatural to all onlookers, as if the earth itself wished to delay them in action.

Flaminius, however, tilted his gaze skyward and asked the heavens if ever a consul had led an army less inclined to action. He ordered the standard dug out of the ground and called for the march to begin. Omens be damned; the consul was determined to make contact with the enemy and bring him to a full test. And so he would, three days later, beside a lake called Trasimene.

A year ago, Aradna would not have imagined that she and her donkey would still be following the Carthaginians, but come the spring she had to set aside her plans of escape. Though she still had her treasure tied and snug between her breasts, it did not seem like enough. And also she had come together with the remnant band of camp followers over the long winter. They had aided each other by pooling their food and foraging in bands, although scavenging items of value was still a solitary, secretive pursuit. They were several groups—some composed entirely of Gallic women attending their husbands—of which hers was the smallest, fifteen in total. Even this modest number provided some measure of security above traveling alone. It was a mixed company of men and women, young and old. She managed to fend off the attentions of the men and live with them peaceably. And, better yet, she had come up with a proposal that had bettered their lot and won credit for it.

Like any army's livestock, the Carthaginians' had to be transported alive and afoot. There had once been a horde of slaves and servants and ambitious boys to attend to this, but their numbers had dwindled. Many of those still living were recruited as soldiers, now that every willing man—and some not willing—was needed. Why not let the followers aid in herding the beasts? Aradna passed this proposal to Hannibal's secretary through the large Celtiberian who thought himself their leader. The Carthaginian, Bostar she believed his name was, had agreed, and so the ragged followers became sheep and goat and cow herders. They got no pay for their labor except the poor portions of the slaughtered animals, but that was no small thing. And, of course, it placed them in a prime position to scavenge should a great battle soon reward them.

The evening that the army marched through the defile and down into the valley of the lake, Aradna believed that the time had come. No one thought to consult with or give directions to the followers, but they judged the signs for themselves and reacted to them. She and the others herded the few surviving goats and steers onto a high, grassy knoll. From it they had a vantage point that encompassed the entire valley below. The lower elevations were just slipping into shadow, but the air above seemed to suspend particles of the sun's amber vibrancy. The shore of the lake curved in a wide, irregular arch that slipped out of and then back into view. Beside it stretched a relatively flat expanse. This soon tilted and rose to a gradual, undulating slope dotted with trees and low vegetation. A little higher, the incline increased, leading up the rocky mountain ridge that hemmed in that side of the valley completely. The only easy access to the lakeside came from the narrow defile through which they had passed and from another similar gap at the far end. An army entering the field would have to march thinly through the pass, spread over a distance, with little room to move on either side until well down onto the flats.

The main contingent of Hannibal's infantry took up a position in the center of the far end of the plain, as if they were preparing to meet the Romans in a traditional combat on the morn. But the plain itself was not wide enough for the two armies to march toward each other in battle formation. Aradna recognized that the troop movements before her were made with guile. Units of cavalry took up positions near the mouth of the defile, on fairly open ground, but hidden behind the hills and ridges that marked that area. Slingers and light infantrymen were deployed in small groups along the whole length of the plain. They moved up toward the hills and slipped between the folds of earth there. Within a short time they had all but disappeared.

Aradna waited through the night, plagued by a nervous energy. She stared up at the stars, low-hung and gentle, near enough to touch if she had had the desire to disturb them. She wondered whether it was true that the lights floating up there were the souls of the departed. An old woman had told her so once, but she knew not whether this came from any particular doctrine. Her father might be up there. She tried to pick him out, but there were so many and they were so similar. If the old woman had spoken truly, then each night would see new stars born. The night would soon glow brighter than the day.

She did not intentionally drift to sleep, but upon waking she realized she had slept hard and she knew she had been awakened by something. She was damp with the night cool and felt the chill touch of a moist vapor slipping over her. The sky above was white with high cloud. The stars had retreated to wherever they passed the daylight hours. She took this in while still in the hold of a dreamy half-consciousness, but then she heard again the sound that had stirred her, a throbbing conducted through the earth beneath her. It took her a moment to place it—the rhythmic stamp of feet over the ground. She jumped up and, calling to the others, ran to the viewing point. The sight before her both surprised and exasperated her.

What had been a wide sweep of lakeside and a perfect view of the plains the day before was now hidden beneath a blanket of low fog. In the higher reaches, only stray bands of white vapor clung to a few hollows, but the rest of the valley was completely shrouded. She could, however, see the opening in the mountains through which the Roman army marched. They must have broken camp before the dawn to reach this point so early. They kept to a tight formation, moving in ordered lines, so disciplined that even their steps fell in unison. Looking toward the other end of the plain Aradna could just make out the movements of the main body of Hannibal's infantry. It was hard to know whether the Romans would have been able to see them. But whether they did or not, they marched on at full pace. She watched the whole column until the straggling ends of the army slipped down into the mist.

Aradna could only guess at what followed from things she heard. She imagined the Carthaginian army silent and hiding, listening to the same tramp of Roman feet that had woken her. They waited, waited, waited. And then a scream broke the hush, from a single voice, two tones that hung in the air for a long moment. Next came a Gallic horn blast. Then the roar of thousands of voices merging in a similar purpose. She imagined the Carthaginians breaking from cover and sweeping down upon all sections of the Roman line. Though barely able to see, they must have run forward by whatever route they had chosen the previous evening. To the Romans their enemy would first have been a wall of sound, suddenly surging from a blank place that had moments before been silence. The Romans would not have had time to draw their weapons. Certainly not time to form ranks and receive instructions. When the Carthaginian forces materialized, they must have seemed like demons stepping out of the unknown, slashing and stabbing, sending missiles slicing through moist air.

“What god works here today?”

The voice that asked this question surprised Aradna. For a moment she had forgotten her companions, but then she recognized the voice as that of an older woman she had first met in the winter, one rarely impressed by anything. It was not a question meant to be answered, and no one tried. They kept their ears open to the valley below. Despite the yell of voices and clash of weapons and bellow of horns, the symphony of the combat was strangely muted. Aradna knew war as well as any soldier and therefore knew that the work of men slaughtering each other was punctuated as much by silence as by noise. Flesh makes no cry when it is pierced. Limbs lopped off and dropped to the ground barely make a thud. Men slipping in blood and tangled in entrails are unlikely to project any reasoned, measured complaint. A slung iron pellet squelches into flesh, a sound no louder than that of a pebble dropped into still water.

Because Aradna knew this, she listened with all of her being tuned to her ears. She listened for some indication that the Romans had managed to regroup, but there was nothing in the confusion to indicate this. According to her ears, the Romans were being carved to pieces. She could envision it no other way, even though her knowledge of the world whispered that this was not possible. Rome's soldiers were not supposed to die so easily. Hannibal had massacred them once already. But a second time in as many encounters?

She could not have guessed how much time passed like this. At some point, the very earth shook. The woman next to her grabbed her arm and the two of them waited it out together, both wondering if even that was something orchestrated by Hannibal, hearts beating faster for the possibility that he truly had some divine power working with him. When patches of the mist cleared, a wide stretch of the lake emerged, materializing with a sudden, disconcerting solidity. There was a disturbance in the water. It seemed that a great school of fish churned the surface at many places. As strange as the whole morning had been, Aradna half-believed that some creatures from the marine world were rising to comment on the battle, whether in praise or anger she knew not.

It took only a moment to understand the reality. It was the splash of soldiers rushing into the water, the slash of their arms and frantic kick of their legs. The Romans were fleeing. In their haste they threw off their helmets and flung away weapons and even tried to yank off armor that impeded them. Numidian and Celtiberian horsemen churned through the water behind them, slashing at the backs of men's heads, splitting them open like hard-shelled fruit, spearing them like fishermen. Eventually, even the most distant swimmers had to turn back. The far shore was beyond their reach, and few found the courage to drown themselves. As they neared the shore they were cut down one and all by the cavalry, creating a red stain so dark it blackened the whole shoreline of the lake. When the mist peeled away further, revealing the plain, Aradna caught her first full sight of the carnage. It was worse even than she had imagined.

Though she was no longer squeamish about violent death, Aradna turned her back on the scene and lowered herself to the turf. She had long ago learned something of the art of war, but of late she had found Hannibal a teacher of an altogether different sort. Sitting there, slowly taking in what she had seen, Aradna had a thought she had not previously considered. Hannibal just might do it. He just might win this war. Rome could not produce new soldiers for slaughter forever. They could not raise new generations of leaders overnight. They could not feed a thronging, hostile army on their own soil indefinitely. Through all her travels she had thought mostly of herself and her path back to her homeland. She had not really cared about or given much thought to the success of the war. Now, for the first time, she realized its outcome might well affect the course of her life, no matter in what quiet corner she searched for solace. This man, with his genius for death, just might change the world.