Ben Kane - Fields of Blood

With a sneer, the officer moved his hand a fraction, bringing the poker back into contact with Hanno’s flesh. This time, he could not move away from it. There was a sizzling sound, and his nostrils filled with the smell of cooking flesh. He shrieked again. To his shame, his bladder voided itself. Warm urine soaked through his garments and ran down his legs.

‘Look! The gugga has pissed himself!’ crowed the officer. He stepped back to study his handiwork.

Hanno mustered his strength, and what was left of his pride. ‘Come closer. I was trying to piss on you,’ he croaked.

‘You filth. Still got a bit of spirit, eh?’

Hanno glowered at him.

‘So you’re this maggot’s commander?’

‘I am.’

‘You’re young to lead a phalanx. Hannibal must have few choices if he selects a child to command some of his best men.’

‘There were many casualties crossing the Alps.’ Hanno said nothing about his father having Hannibal’s ear.

A phhhh of contempt. ‘There must have been junior officers who had survived, or veterans who had proved themselves.’

Hanno didn’t reply.

The officer’s face grew crafty. ‘In the Roman army, it’s often about whom you know. I doubt it’s any different among the guggas. Who’s your father? Or your brother?’ Hanno didn’t answer, so he brought the poker towards his face.

Hanno’s fear swelled. What’s in a name? he thought. ‘My father is called Malchus.’

‘What rank does he hold?’

‘He’s just a phalanx commander, like me.’

‘You’re lying, I can tell!’

‘I’m not.’

‘We’ll see about that later,’ retorted the officer, eyeing Bogu. ‘Was your man telling the truth about the size of Hannibal’s army? Thirty-odd thousand soldiers?’

Answering truthfully wouldn’t tell the Roman anything more than a good scout would find out. ‘That’d be about right, but it’s growing in size. More Gauls and Ligurians are joining every day.’

‘Tribal scum! Most of them would turn on their own mothers if they thought there was any gain to it.’ The officer paced up and down, brooding. ‘Hannibal wants our grain, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if we give it to him?’

Hanno doubted the officer had the authority to open the gates. He was asking because he was scared. That gave him a little satisfaction. Hanno had no idea how many of the inhabitants of Victumulae were citizens. Most, he supposed. Non-citizens had no need to live behind the protection of high walls. Did they know what lay in store for them when the town fell? Hannibal had begun using a clever new tactic, exploiting the fact that Cisalpine Gaul was not fully under the Republic’s control. All non-Romans who surrendered to his forces were being spared. They were told that Carthage had no quarrel with them, and sent on their way. Captured Romans, on the other hand, were executed or enslaved. The policy was designed to foment unrest among Rome’s allies. The strategy was in its early stages, but Hannibal had high hopes for its success.

The officer would know, or at least suspect, what might happen when Hannibal’s army stormed in, Hanno decided. That knowledge alone would ensure him an agonising death. He might as well put the fear of Hades into the whoreson. ‘Most of the citizens here will be enslaved; some will be executed. Their properties will be confiscated or destroyed.’

His tormentor’s lips pinched white; behind him, the triarii growled with anger. ‘And the non-citizens?’ asked the officer.

‘They will not be harmed. Carthage wishes them no ill.’ Hannibal’s concept was a bloody clever one, Hanno thought.

‘D’you hear this whoreson?’ cried the officer. ‘He’s got some nerve, eh?’

‘Let me have a turn with him, sir,’ pleaded the wall-eyed soldier.

‘And me!’ added his companion.

The officer studied Hanno’s face. Although his fear was rising to new heights, Hanno managed to glare back. A long moment passed, but neither would look down first.

‘I know a better way of making the dog suffer,’ said the officer. ‘What made him most angry was when I called him a slave.’

Sheer terror convulsed Hanno as the Roman pulled the iron with the ‘F’ on the end of it from the fire. Not that, Eshmoun, please! Baal Hammon, save me! Melqart, do something!

His pleas were in vain.

‘This is what stings your gugga pride, isn’t it?’ The officer brandished the iron as he approached. ‘The fact that you’ll be marked as a slave for the rest of your miserable life!’

More than anything, Hanno longed to have a sword in his hand, so he could run his tormentor through. But his reality could not have been more different. Gritting his teeth, he steeled himself for the worst pain of all.

The officer glanced at the triarii. ‘Of course he’ll be halfway to Hades in a few hours, but who’s counting?’

The soldiers’ roars of laughter rang in Hanno’s ears as the ‘F’ moved up towards his face.

His fear got the better of him. ‘Don’t do it. I spared your life.’

‘What are you talking about? Have you gone mad?’ cried the officer, but he stayed his arm.

‘About a week ago, you and your men were ambushed in your camp. The fighting was vicious and many of your men were slain. You were retreating when I got the better of you. I let you go, when I could have killed you.’ As shock filled the officer’s face, Hanno prayed that he didn’t know the real reason that he yet lived. All he, Hanno, had been trying to do was save Mutt’s life.

His prayer seemed to have been answered, as the officer smiled. ‘By Jupiter, you were there! How else could you know those details?’

‘I ask for a quick end, that’s all,’ said Hanno quickly.

Silence fell.

Let him just kill me. Please .

‘You should have slain me. It’s what I would have done to you,’ said the officer with a cruel smile. ‘It changes nothing. For invading our land, you guggas deserve everything that comes your way. Hold him,’ he ordered. ‘He’ll buck like a mule.’

Hanno bit down on his disappointment and terror, and gambled all on something utterly crazy. ‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘I can take the pain.’

The officer’s eyebrows rose. ‘The gugga reconciles himself to his fate.’

His tormentor took great care to aim the iron right at the centre of Hanno’s forehead. The heat radiating from it was unbearable, but Hanno waited until the last moment before he jerked his head up and to the left. The officer swore, but was unable to stop himself planting the ‘F’ on the right side of Hanno’s neck, just below the angle of his jaw.

Hiss . Stars of white-hot agony burst across Hanno’s vision. Waves of it tore from his neck and down into his chest. They shot up into his very brain. He screeched at the top of his voice. He cursed. His bladder emptied itself again. As his legs gave way beneath him, his shoulders took all of his body weight. Yet the pain of that was as nothing compared to the excruciating hurt where the iron had met his flesh. The smell of burned meat filled his nostrils, caught in the back of his throat. He retched; up came a few mouthfuls of bile. And then he was falling, falling, down a bottomless well. At the mouth of the well, he could dimly make out the officer’s face, which was twisted with fury. The Roman was shouting something, but Hanno could not make out the words. He wanted to reply, to say, ‘I’m no slave,’ but his throat wouldn’t work. A door slammed; other voices were raised. They too were unintelligible.

Confusion filled Hanno as he slipped away into the blackness.

Bostar burned with anger as he gazed at Victumulae, which lay a quarter of a mile distant. It was entirely surrounded by the antlike figures of thousands of men. The air was filled with the tramp of feet on the hard ground and shouted orders as the units designated for the attack marched into position. There were regular twangs from the light ballistae as they shot at the ramparts. The stones landed with dull thumps, which were often followed by screams. Bands of Balearic slingers in light tunics whirled and spun before the walls, adding their slingshots to the showers of missiles. Large formations of Gauls advanced, chanting war songs and blowing their carnyxes in a deafening crescendo of sound. Ringed by his senior officers and a group of scutarii , his best Iberian infantry, Hannibal watched the operation from the back of his horse, some two hundred paces away. The remaining elephants stood nearby, their mere presence designed to intimidate the defenders.