Hannibal, page 53
‘You have affection for Greek things, don’t you?’ Publius said, his tone familiar and conversational. ‘I recognize this in your eyes.’
As if seeking to refute this, Hanno lifted his gaze and stared straight at him. ‘I might have once, but no longer. Now I take little joy from life except that which comes from slaying my people’s enemies.’
The consul laughed. ‘Then you must be an unhappy—’ But even before finishing the sentence, Publius raised a hand in apology.
Syphax entered then, flanked by attendants, men of various ages, some armed and some cloaked as civilian advisers. Hanno turned and solemnly faced the king. He was not a tall man, but his shoulders were wide and the thin fabric of his gown highlighted the strength of his chest. His skin and eyes were of the same grainy brown as the walls of the city, as if he were made of the same stuff. Knobs of curled locks reached up out of the tight weave of his hair. He wore a beard of sorts, made up of tiny balls of hair tied with string, running down his jawline to under his chin.
‘Please, sit,’ he said, grinning and speaking his native tongue. Over his shoulders he wore a necklace of beads, cheetah fur and gold, an indicator of his rank. He touched this as he said, ‘We are all equals here. We should speak as such. Perhaps Syphax will one day be famed for mediating the peace between Carthage and Rome.’
Neither visitor smiled at this, as Syphax obviously wished them to do. Publius, after hearing a translation, cordially managed to say that the differences he had with Carthage were not such as could be talked through on this occasion. Hanno did not dispute this, and Syphax, clearly amused by the position he found himself in, sat them down and commenced the banquet.
Throughout the meal Publius managed to keep the conversation lively, always complimentary to the host, but amusing also, quick to find humour, tactful in steering clear of the matter of war. Amazingly – despite everything – Hanno found himself enjoying the man’s company for the brief moments during which he forgot just who he was and what suffering he had caused.
The king, on the other hand, was somewhat less engaging. As he drank more of the thick malt he favoured, he grew loquacious, self-congratulatory, almost maudlin. He had tattoos on the backs of his hands. They were stylized drawings that looked familiar, but Hanno could not quite place them. He rubbed each with the fingers of the other hand, changing hands occasionally, with something feline in his gestures. Though neither guest spoke openly about seeking his alliance, he seemed to believe himself on the verge of a great advance in fortune and spoke as if his past were fading into history.
‘Do you know that I was always ambitious?’ he asked. ‘Even as a boy, I tested myself against other boys. There was one in particular who always bested me and my peers at games. He was the fastest afoot, the nimblest with a staff. He had a man’s hands and feet even before he sprouted hair on his groin. You know the pure hate one boy can feel for another?’
The two guests nodded.
‘Such was the hate I felt for him. One day I had an idea, yes? A small cruelty. I could’ve been no more than six, seven years of age. I saw Marcor walking towards me across a courtyard. It was crowded with men, and I saw a chance to embarrass him greatly. As our paths crossed I stuck out my foot to trip him. I thought to catch him unawares and spill him flat on the stones. But his foot was better rooted than mine. It was as if I’d kicked a tree stump. I went tumbling instead, landed like a fool, sprawled out and ashamed. Marcor turned and stared at me as if he thought me mad. He knew my intentions and yet was amazed that I was foolish enough to believe I could upset him. He stuck out his hand and helped me rise.’
When the king paused, Publius asked, ‘And what became of this Marcor? Did he grow into as strong a man as he was a boy? I sense some moral soon to be revealed.’
Syphax pondered the question. He twirled a massive ring round his thumb, tugged on it, and twirled it again. ‘Yes. He was my superior in many ways. In most things, really, all but one very important thing. He wasn’t my father’s son. So on the day that I stepped in to rule my people I had Marcor beheaded. I impaled his body on a stake and set it to rot outside the city. Vultures pecked at him and then hyenas and jackals, and within a few days there was no flesh left for even maggots to eat. So I would say that in the end I tripped him after all.’
‘I’m sure there is a lesson in this,’ the consul said.
‘Moral?’ Syphax asked. ‘Lesson? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s just something that happened. Many things happen, don’t they?’ He dropped the subject and turned to Hanno. ‘How’s that sister of yours? I trust she grows in health?’
‘Sapanibal?’
The king laughed through his nose. ‘No, not that one. The beauty, Sophonisba. Why am I asking you, though? You’ve not been home in years.’ The king leaned forward. He motioned Hanno closer with his fingers, his hand like a cat’s paw. ‘I caught a glimpse of her the last time I visited your homeland. Several years ago, this was. She was just a girl, really, but she wore a woman’s gown. Her breasts were firm like fruit just about to ripen. Her face . . . Her face was like . . . It was something you could stare at and stare at. I mean no offence to your family, but had I the chance I’d fuck that one till her legs bowed. A mystery of beauty like that should be possessed.’
Syphax broke off and flopped back against his cushions. He seemed drunker now than he had just a moment before. Without a thought to his guests he scratched his groin, lingered a moment on the stirring there. He looked up and fixed his gaze on Hanno, the first time that evening that he had looked at him with particular import. ‘Truly, Sophonisba could drive a sane man crazy. Remember that I mean no disrespect, friend. But she’s been in my dreams, waking and sleeping. I’ve seen bits and pieces of her in other women, but never the whole. Never has a bitch stirred me as she does. I’d even marry her if that’s what it took.’
Out of the corner of his eye Hanno could tell that Publius, just having been given the translation of the king’s words, was shifting his gaze between the two of them. He knew that the artery on his forehead was beating visibly. There flashed before him the sudden image of him clamping one hand round Syphax’s neck and driving the other into his face. He wanted to look away, but he held the man’s bloodshot gaze for as long as he had to.
Syphax broke away. He moved his chin to the side, towards Publius. The rest of his face seemed to follow a moment after. ‘But he wouldn’t know about this, would he?’ he asked the Roman. ‘She is his sister. He’s not an Egyptian, after all . . .’
Syphax cupped his large hands over his knees. At the gesture, Hanno realized that the tattoos were a stylized rendering of lion’s claws, the pattern they made on wet soil. The king rose, saying he needed a woman. They would talk more on the morrow, he promised. They would talk much more.
But in his three days in Cirta, Hanno never had more than a few moments alone with the king. They met briefly in the mornings and in passing in the afternoons; both he and Publius shared the man’s table for the main meal, required to sit across from each other, to speak politely, neither one wanting to show his hand or to flare up in frustration. He was not sure whether the consul managed any more genuine discussion himself, but still he could barely contain the simmering anger this kindled in him. Syphax, a petty king, was exploiting the situation to feed his own pride. He seemed to have forgotten the strength of Carthage and to be ignoring the old history of Roman treachery, living in the short glow of his own self-importance. He was a fool, Hanno thought, but he kept this opinion decidedly to himself.
By the time Syphax escorted the two guests out towards the harbour to depart, Hanno still was not sure where his nation stood in relation to Libya. Were they allies or not? It seemed that both sides had tacitly agreed not to press the issue while in each other’s company, and as far as he could tell, neither had either of them gained anything certain. Syphax seemed as he had when they arrived – an amused, neutral party. Not wanting to discourage the Roman’s departure, Hanno decided to pretend to leave, and then to circle back as soon as he could. He hoped the consul would not attempt the same.
‘We have concluded our business, then?’ Syphax asked.
Hanno nodded. ‘As ever, you have the best wishes of Carthage,’ he said. ‘May we always be brothers.’
Syphax smirked at this. ‘Indeed. Take my blessings to your countrymen, and to the women of your family.’
Hanno half turned, one arm vaguely pointing towards the docks. It was an invitation for Scipio to precede him, but the other did not do so. The consul scanned his face quickly, and then stepped close to Syphax. He spoke softly, but with no real attempt at secrecy.
‘Good king,’ he said in the Libyan tongue, ‘since your business with Carthage is now concluded, I would speak to you of a few more matters. Just a few moments of your time in private. You will find interest in what I have to say.’
Hanno, fuming, watched the two men ascend towards the palace, the Roman close beside the Libyan, their heads bent in towards each other. He almost set out after them, but he had already been beaten, in diplomacy as in the field. Before he sailed, though, he composed a letter to the king. He stated his wishes in the clearest terms and alluded to all manner of grand rewards for his friendship. He admitted that he had no power to agree to anything on his own, but he assured Syphax that his nation valued his friendship above all others. Staying true to it could only serve Syphax’s people, and make the king rich beyond his present imaginings, and as powerful as he had the capacity to become. Carthage would give him anything he asked. Anything it was within the city’s power to give. He wrote that he would dock near Hippo Regius.
Only a few days later, a messenger brought word of the possibility that – despite the generous overtures Rome had made to him – Syphax would become an ally of Carthage once more. Little was needed to secure the bond, because they were two nations with roots deep in the same land. Theirs was a partnership to be nurtured, to be enlarged, to be sanctified. They were old friends, but they could be more. There were just two things he must have in return. First, he wanted a guarantee that Carthage would recognize his dominion over the Massylii. King Gaia was ill and sure to die soon. Syphax wanted his nation for his own, and Carthage must acknowledge him over Masinissa.
This was bad enough, but as he read the second demand Hanno felt his pulse through the fingers that touched the parchment. There was one sure way to unite them, Syphax wrote. One way to truly merge their two peoples for ever.
Each morning, Imco awoke with a start. As soon as his eyes fluttered the world into existence and his conscious mind recalled the dream of a life he had been living for some weeks now, he flung himself upright. He cast around, searching for the woman to confirm that she was real. If she lay nearby he would stare at her in awe. He would move closer, trying not to wake her, his gaze roaming over her long, muscular legs, over the gentle curve described by her hip; he would imagine the weight of her breast so innocently resting on the soft skin of her inner arm. He would study the fall of her dark hair over her golden skin, the intake and exhalation of her breathing. the flecks of sunburned skin on her nose, the tiny ridges of her lips. Then, as her stillness always made him nervous, he would jab her with a finger until her eyes opened, slowly, clear in their opal grandeur from the first moment, as if she had never truly slept but had simply rested in imitation of slumber. If – as on several occasions already – she was not inside his tent, he was on his feet in an instant. He charged outside – clothed or naked, it did not matter – calling the name she had mouthed for him with her own precious lips. Aradna. Aradna!
The simple truth was that he did not fully believe in her. Did not trust that he had actually found her or that she was anything other than a phantom created in his own wandering mind. It had all come from his walk behind the donkey. The creature took him up onto a ridge of wooded hills, down along a lentil field. For a time they walked one each in the two ruts of a wagon road, and then they crossed a flat, fallow field. At times it seemed the donkey stood just near him; at other moments he realized the creature was far away, hurrying him on. He lost sight of it several times, but always found it again. When he stopped at the edge of a settlement and could not see the donkey he had the feeling that he had reached whatever it was the creature was leading him to.
He entered the settlement nervously. The hair on the back of his neck flexed and quivered. He felt himself walking into an ambush, although he knew this did not make sense. What bandits employ donkeys to lure their prey? He slid a hand down his side and fingered the hilt of his sword. It was a group of camp followers. A poor lot of mixed race. There were tents in the Carthaginian style, but there were also skin structures, hovels made of sticks, lean-tos covered over with hides. The place smelled of human waste, of dogs and unwashed people. Smoke from numerous low fires drifted up in the still air like columns stretching to the sky. From round the fires hostile faces glared. A group of men stood and watched him, a few of them picking up sticks and axes. A woman snatched up a running child by the hair and then slapped him as he began to cry. Others went about their work without seeming to have noticed him, but he still suspected devious intention in their erstwhile endeavours.
In his alertness to danger he must have looked everywhere except just in front of him, for suddenly a woman stood and her torso rose into view. Just then noticing him, she spun round and froze facing him, holding in her arms the sticks she had just gathered. Just like that. She stood before him, so near that if they had both stretched out their arms they could have touched. Her face drained of colour as she stared at him.
She was exactly as he remembered. Well, not exactly. Her hair jutted up from her head in several matted plaits. Black lines of dirt clung to the creases of her forehead and under her chin. A sore glistened red and painful at the corner of her lips. The simple gown she wore had no shape whatsoever. It was caked in mud and spotted with oil stains and with a thousand shades of brown. Imco took all this in but none of it mattered. Behind the disguise he recognized her as clearly as if she stood before him naked and dripping with cold, fresh water. Picene.
He almost called her by the name he had given her, but he had not taken leave of his senses completely. Not knowing what else to do, he motioned for her to take a seat. The only spot available in their immediate vicinity was the mangled stump of a felled tree. Realizing this, Imco flushed with embarrassment. He looked about for another seat, but as he was doing so the woman sat on the stump and watched him, sticks balanced on her knees. It then took him a few moments to decide to sit on the bare ground. Having done this, he was again at a loss. He heard himself speaking before he really knew what he was saying. He told her his name, his rank in the army, and the unit he ran. He suspected vaguely that this was an absurd way to begin but he could not stop himself and went on blabbering until the woman shook her head. She said something in a language he found familiar, but he did not catch her meaning.
‘I can’t understand you,’ he said, shocked by this realization, and by the unexamined difficulties it signified.
The woman smiled, and Imco saw the humour as well. They had both said that they did not understand the other in a language that the other could not understand. Imco thought this a serious problem, but the woman’s smile hinted that it might not be. She said something else to him. It seemed friendly enough, but he had no idea of her meaning, and his bewildered face showed it. The woman seemed to find further amusement in this. She spoke on. From the stream of words he at least gleaned that she was speaking Greek. As the Carthaginian army used Greek for battle commands he knew a few words of the language, but hardly enough for this type of conversation. The woman solved this temporarily.
Motioning that he should stay where he was, she set down her bundle of sticks and moved off quickly. A few moments later she returned, accompanied by a girl of no more than ten years. She was thin as a stick, and blonde. To Imco’s surprise, however, she spoke Carthaginian. From the flashes of quick anger in her eyes, it seemed best not to ask how she came by this language.
She sat between the two of them and translated. Her interpretations were rough, presumably inexact, but they both listened as if every word mattered. Imco did not have the earlier difficulty of stating the irrelevant. Instead he said the things he actually meant. He said that he had thought of her ever since he first saw her. He meant her no harm, but he had dreamed of her often. He had been plagued with anxiety for her, wondering where in the world she was, how she fared amid the turmoil of a land at war. A woman should not be alone in a place like this. She was alone, yes? She was not bound to a man, for example?
In answer to all of this, the woman said she fared very well. A cold answer, Imco thought, although this might have been a product more of the translator than the speaker. She did not address the issue of whether she was bound to anyone, but she admitted that she had not forgotten him either. She wanted to understand why their paths had crossed three, and now four times. This was more than chance, she believed. Was he hunting her? Imco swore that he was not. He never had. Not, at least, until the donkey came and got him. It was the donkey that led him to—
‘What?’ the girl asked, for herself and with no prompting from the woman.
Imco went on. He had been living his soldier’s existence with no real aim except to survive. It had come as pure shock to him each time they bumped into each other. The fact that she found him on the battlefield of Cannae stunned him with disbelief every day. Nor did the way he found her this time seem any more probable. He had followed the donkey he recognized as hers and here he was. He knew this would sound strange, but it was not the strangest true thing that he could disclose. The dead Saguntine girl who had been following him, for example. She had been no end of annoyance—
