The Beast in the Labyrinth, page 43
Once admitted by the guards, I found a slave already waiting inside the passageway to escort me to the king. He led me around the small garden, up a flight of stairs and through a succession of loudly painted but sparsely furnished chambers that I had never previously seen. Although I have a soldier’s brain for topography, I could never quite understand the internal layout of Hieron’s apartments. They contained more rooms than seemed possible, and if you looked out of a window, you were likely to find that you were not at all where you expected to be in relation to the external world.
The room into which I was finally shown was cavernous. Five couches had been arranged in a circle at its centre. Hieron and Gelon occupied two of them. Two men in togas, both in their mid-fifties, lay on two of the others. No one stood as I entered, but at least Gelon gave me a broad smile and a nod. I bowed to the king.
“Ah, Dion,” rasped Hieron. “At last. Come on over here. Torquatus, my dear fellow, allow me to introduce you to your future son-in-law.”
One of the Romans got up. He had a red, heavy face and small, sharp eyes. His grey hair was cropped very short. He was broad and seemed surprisingly fit and powerful for a man of his age. I bowed courteously. He looked me up and down without expression and then, to my surprise, came to stand so close to me that our chests were almost touching. He must have been more than a head shorter than me but he tilted his face back and gazed up aggressively.
“So,” he said, speaking Greek with a near perfect accent, “you’re the man who draws his sword against his fellow citizens to defend Carthaginian scum?”
I looked down at him evenly and shrugged.
“No, Senator,” I replied. “I draw my sword to serve my king. Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans: I don’t really care whom I fight. Their blood all looks the same to me.”
“So you think all races are just the same, do you?” he demanded.
I rolled my tongue around my cheek.
“They’re the same to me if they’re my king’s enemies,” I replied. “I’m honoured that you are to be my father-in-law, Senator, but if my king told me to take that noble head of yours off your shoulders, I wouldn’t think twice about it.”
Torquatus stared at me for a moment longer. And then, to my surprise, he put his hands on his hips and burst out laughing. Behind him, I saw the other Roman grinning too.
“You were quite right, King Hieron,” Torquatus boomed. “I do like him. I like him very much. I think he’s going to make me fine grandsons.”
He clapped his hands to the sides of my shoulders, smiled up at me and gave me a friendly shake. I met his gaze warily.
“Now, listen to me, lad,” he said, lowering his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Promise me you’ll look after Vita. You don’t have to love her, but treat her with respect and protect her for me. That’s all I ask of you. Just do that, and I shall always be your friend.”
He stared up at me with his intense brown eyes. I fancied I could see fire smoldering there.
“Do we understand each other?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I promise, Senator,” I replied. “And I look forward finally to meeting her.”
“Good man,” he said, and gave me another hearty shake. “Now, come and meet my friend Marcellus.”
Torquatus put his hand on my back and led me over to where the other Roman had risen to his feet. He was taller than I had first realised. I bowed again.
“Dion, of the House of Dionysius,” I said formally.
“And I’m Marcus Claudius Marcellus,” the man replied with a thin smile. His Greek was not nearly as polished as the senator’s and his accent was thick. “I’m pleased to meet you, Captain.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“You’re General Marcellus? It’s a privilege to meet the hero of the Gallic War, sir. My old general, Lepides, made us all study your campaign.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
Marcellus’s thin face was brown and deeply lined, like crumpled papyrus. He was half-bald with a broken nose and broad shoulders. There was no fat on him at all. At first glance, you might have taken him for a farmer, who had spent his life toiling in the sun, but the way he moved was sharp and fast. It was the only clue that he was Rome’s most decorated soldier.
“I’m honoured that you’re to be a guest at my wedding, General,” I said, with what must have been obvious sincerity. “I’m afraid I had no idea you were coming.”
“Sadly, I can’t stay for your celebrations, Captain, much as I would wish to. I sail back to Italy this evening. I’m here to discuss other matters.”
“Matters that concern you too, Dion,” Torquatus interjected.
“So, Dion,” Marcellus said, eyeing me coldly, “Prince Gelon was just entertaining us with a story of how you recently charged a thousand men by yourself. You sound quite the warrior.”
I laughed in embarrassment.
“Sadly, General, I’m not in your league. You rode out in front of your army and killed the king of the Gauls in single combat. And apparently he was twenty years younger than you. I just charged an unarmed mob. It’s hardly the same thing.”
“I suspect it is exactly the same thing, Captain,” said Marcellus, without smiling. “You and I both enjoy killing people, I think, but it is only by putting ourselves in danger that we can justify indulging our appetites.”
I looked at him more closely.
“It is not the killing I enjoy, General, it is the thrill of surviving.”
“Perhaps so, Captain. Although that thrill wears off soon enough, does it not? And then the yearning to kill or be killed takes hold of us again. I find it is like fucking. One can only be satisfied for a day or two, before one yearns to fuck again.”
I laughed once more, but this time more awkwardly.
I had always assumed that the beast I kept penned up inside me was unique. I wondered if I might have been wrong about that.
“Well, if that really is your nature, gentlemen,” interrupted Hieron, “you are certainly fortunate to be living in the time of Hannibal. I suspect he will provide you both with all the fucking a man could ever want, before we are done with him… So, shall we get down to it? Please make yourselves comfortable.” The king gestured towards the couches with his hand. It seemed I had been invited to a breakfast without food.
When we had settled ourselves, Torquatus began.
“Dion, allow me to fill you in. Marcellus now has under his command a force of some fifteen thousand men, consisting principally of those who escaped from Cannae. In the event that Hannibal remains in the south of Italy for the winter, so too will Marcellus, to try and protect our remaining allies and interests there. However, we believe it more likely that Hannibal will march on Rome. If Rome is besieged, a more radical strategy will be required…”
He folded his arms and stretched out his legs.
“The senate has of course been preparing for just such an eventuality for some time – in fact, ever since Hannibal crossed the Alps two years ago. Your king and Prince Gelon have been closely involved with those preparations from the outset. As it happens, it was King Hieron who first proposed the plan that we may now be forced to implement.”
Torquatus paused and nodded respectfully towards Hieron, who smiled thinly in acknowledgement. I waited for the senator to resume, but it was Marcellus who picked up from his friend.
“Captain, if Hannibal marches on Rome, my men and I will cross into Sicily. Torquatus has already laid the groundwork for that in the senate. Hopefully, Hannibal will believe that the legions really have been sent here in punishment and will not guess our true intentions. King Hieron has agreed to make available his fleet and an additional thirty thousand men. Our forces will sail with yours, and together we will surprise the Carthaginians and force them to raise the siege.”
For several moments I didn’t know what to say. I glanced at Hieron in dismay but his wizened face was blank.
“Do you have a question, Dion?” Gelon asked, looking rather amused.
“It is certainly a bold plan, my Prince,” I replied cautiously. “But if I may make the obvious point: Rome has just failed to defeat Hannibal with an army nearly twice the size of his. What makes you believe you can defeat him with one much smaller than his own?”
Marcellus smiled.
“I am sorry, Captain, I have not explained myself well. I’m afraid my Greek is not very good.”
“You nitwit, Dion,” Hieron interrupted irritably. “The army won’t be sailing to Italy to fight Hannibal. It will be sailing to Africa. We are going to sack Carthage.”
*
My jaw probably dropped open, as I tried to comprehend the plan. It sounded no less suicidal than going up against Hannibal himself. It was much the same tactic that Agathocles had pursued a century earlier, resulting in the glorious loss of all his men. And, mad as he was, even Agathocles hadn’t been mad enough to try to assault Carthage itself. Sited on a rocky promontory, and surrounded on three sides by the sea, the only approach to the city is blocked by no fewer than three lines of gigantic walls. There were drawings of them in my office.
“Forgive me, my King, but how exactly do you intend to sack Carthage?” I asked.
It was Gelon who answered for his father.
“Just as Alexander sacked Tyre,” the prince replied, almost casually. “We shall attack them from the sea.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“But, sir, Alexander controlled the whole coast, and he had to have equipment specially built for the purpose, and even then it took him seven months. I don’t see how that could work.”
“No one is saying it will be easy, Dion,” Gelon replied. “The obvious difficulty is that the sea wall of Carthage is almost impossible to scale. For most of its length, the water is too shallow to bring our ships directly alongside it, but it is also too deep to disembark our men. You must have still been a baby, Dion, when my father first asked Archimedes to consider the problem. And of course, being the man he is, your great-uncle proposed a solution.”
I stared at Hieron.
“Just how long have you been planning this, Your Majesty?”
“What sort of a king do you take me for, Dion?” he snapped. “The Carthaginians have been trying to prise us off our rock for five centuries. Do you really imagine I have not anticipated a day when we might try to prise them off theirs instead? Every man who has ever worn my crown must have asked himself how we could rid ourselves of this menace once and for all… Archimedes, Lepides and I spent years planning how it might be done.”
“And if I may ask, my King, exactly what was my great-uncle’s solution?”
“He designed a ship for me, Dion,” Hieron wheezed. “The largest ship in the world, in fact. It took over two years to build.”
“The Syracusia?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes Dion, The Syracusia,” said Gelon gently. “Although apparently it’s known as The Alexandria now.”
“Hieron’s Folly is what they used to call it behind my back,” chuckled the king. “Not surprising, really. It’s a complete pig, unbelievably hard to handle by all accounts. Did you ever see it, Dion? It’s more than double the length and breadth of a quinquereme, and three times the height. At a pinch, it can carry three thousand men. There are two towers on each side, towers that rise nearly forty feet above the water. The sea wall of Carthage rises thirty-four feet above the water at its highest point. What a surprise that will be for the Carthaginians, eh? When they see our men looking down on them, instead of the other way round… And those towers have hinged gangplanks fitted to their sides, which can be lifted high into the air and then dropped onto a wall…”
He widened his eyes, as if showing a child a trick, then raised his forearm and let it flop down again.
I was bewildered.
“But you sent The Syracusia to Egypt, Your Majesty,” I said.
“Of course I did,” the king snorted. “I couldn’t just leave the blasted thing sitting here in our own harbour, could I? The Carthaginians would have wondered what on earth it was for, and sooner or later they would have worked it out. So I fitted it out as a pleasure boat, and filled its hold with grain, and sent it over to old King Ptolemy as a present, on the understanding that I could have it back whenever I wanted. Even he had no idea why I really built it. It’s so useless for any normal purpose that it hasn’t left its berth in Alexandria for twenty years. I gather the present Ptolemy uses it as a royal brothel. But at least he keeps it seaworthy.”
“All we lack,” said Gelon, “is some artillery powerful enough to send the Carthaginians scurrying from their walls.”
“And do you have a solution for that, too, sir?”
“Tell me, Dion,” interjected Torquatus mildly, “what exactly do you think your great-uncle has been working on these past few months?”
I blinked and Hieron gave me a toothless smirk.
“Ah yes, Dion. All those ostentatious tours of our walls that you and Archimedes undertook… Hannibal’s fool of an ambassador just couldn’t resist showing off how much they know about Plymmerium, could he? But all he accomplished was to reassure me how little they really know.”
“And not just machines for The Syracusia,” Gelon added. “Archimedes has some ideas to convert a dozen of our quinqueremes into floating platforms for artillery. Instead of masts, they will have huge catapults of some sort. The problem is stability, of course, but your great-uncle believes he’s cracked that.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever read his treatise on the stable equilibrium positions of floating paraboloids, have you, Dion?” asked Hieron. “No…? No, I can’t say I blame you: I have to confess most of it went completely over my head. But he tells me it was really all about ships… Anyway, Archimedes reckons everything should be ready in just two or three more weeks, although we won’t be fitting out the fleet till the last minute.”
“Naturally, we will be taking steps to soften Carthage up beforehand,” Gelon continued. “Ptolemy has agreed to assemble his army on the border when the time comes. With Hannibal in Italy, the Carthaginians will fear an attack and will have to send a force to meet it. There shouldn’t be too many men left to defend their walls. And my father has a few other little surprises in store for them, too.”
Hieron smiled malevolently.
“Carthage is ruled by its nobles, Dion, and they are even more fractious than our own. I shall have two or three of the leading ones murdered. That should be enough to set them all at each other’s throats before the fleet sails.”
“You can do that?”
“Oh yes, Dion. I can do that. And more besides.”
“May I ask, why you are telling me all this, my King?” I asked eventually.
“Because you will have your own part to play in this enterprise, Dion,” Hieron replied. “Gelon will command the fleet, and Marcellus the army. You will be Marcellus’s second-in-command.”
My heart must have skipped a beat as I bowed towards the Roman. Perhaps my time had come at last, I thought.
“It would be an honour to serve under you, General,” I said.
“We have agreed that you will lead the attack from The Syracusia, Captain,” Marcellus said. “There is a point near the harbour where the ship can be brought directly alongside the wall. Your task will be to create a bridgehead by capturing the harbour. That is where we will disembark the rest of the army, and from there we will advance through the city.”
I began to experience a sensation in the back of my mind, almost like a rustling of leaves. For all its promise of glory, the plan was obviously fraught with danger: even the largest ship can be burnt or sunk. But that wasn’t it. There was something else missing… Why had they waited till now, I wondered? Why had they not attempted to destroy Carthage as soon as Hannibal crossed the Alps?
And then it dawned on me. Because Hieron had a price, of course, and not until Hannibal was at their gates would the Romans agree to pay it.
All four of them were watching me.
I knew I was on dangerous ground, so I chose my words carefully.
“My King, perhaps it is not my place to ask, but if I may, exactly what does Syracuse stand to gain from this? We are being asked to risk our entire fleet and thirty thousand men to help save Rome. Is it for friendship alone?”
“You were right, King Hieron,” said Torquatus with apparent satisfaction. “He’s no fool.”
“And you are quite right too, Dion: it is not your place to ask,” replied Hieron coldly. “But on this occasion, I shall answer you. In exchange for my help in sacking Carthage, Gelon will be king of all Sicily when I am dead. He will continue to pay a tribute to Rome of course, and my idiot grandson will be found a Roman wife, but our island will have peace at last. My people will finally be safe, Dion. Safe.”
“And of course, my dear boy,” the senator added happily, “when Prince Gelon is crowned king, my daughter will find herself married to the new general of his army. The army of the Kingdom of Sicily.”
I felt myself blushing.
Hieron rubbed his bony hands together and cackled.
“Does Hannibal really believe he can burn my city with impunity?” he rasped. “Well, just wait till he sees what I am going to do to his.”
The king’s eyes glinted with joy.
Marcellus turned to gaze at Hieron with raised eyebrows. Perhaps he was a little shocked that someone so old could still be capable of such ferocity. But then, Hieron was not at all like other men.
