Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

It was after Metellus Pius had seen Balbus Senior and read Memmius's letter that he began to think about how he might extricate Memmius from his incarceration in New Carthage. There had been changes in the man Sertorius dismissed as an old woman too, changes wrought by the crushing blow to his pride the Senate had dealt him in bestowing an equal imperium upon Kid Butcher, of all people. Perhaps nothing less than this monumental insult could have stripped away sufficient layers of the Piglet's defensive armor to allow the metal inside to show, for the Piglet had been cursed or blessed with an autocratic father of superb courage, incredible haughtiness and a stubbornness that had sometimes amounted to intellectual imbecility. Metellus Numidicus had been cheated of his war against Jugurtha by Gaius Marius, cheated time and time again or so he had seen it by that same New Man. And in turn cheated his son of anything more than a reputation for filial devotion in piously striving to have his hugely admired father recalled from an exile inflicted by Gaius Marius. Then just when the son might have congratulated himself that he stood highest in Sulla's estimation, along came the twenty two year old Pompey with a bigger and better army to offer. His punctilious attention to what was the proper thing for a Roman nobleman to do forbade Metellus Pius the satisfaction of trying to make his tormentor, Pompey, look insignificant by any underhanded means. And so without his realizing it a new and better general was busy jerking and tugging himself free of the Piglet's tired old stammering skin. To make Pompey look small by winning more battles more decisively was unimpeachable, a fitting revenge because it emerged out of what a Roman nobleman could be when he was pushed to it by a Picentine upstart. Or an upstart from Arpinum, for that matter! Having learned that particular lesson very early on, he chose his scouts from among the ranks of his own Roman men and the men of Phoenician Gades who feared the Spanish barbarians far more than they did the Romans. So it was that Metellus Pius had learned the whereabouts of Lucius Hirtuleius and his younger brother not very long after they had sat themselves down with the Spanish army in the neighborhood of Laminium, in south central Spain. With one of his new sour smiles, the Piglet leaned back and appreciated this strategy to the full before flicking a mental obscene gesture in the direction of Laminium and vowing that ten years would not see him fool enough to venture up the headwaters of either Anas or Baetis. Let Hirtuleius rot from sheer inactivity! He had ensconced himself on the Anas fairly close to its mouth, thinking that it was wiser to let the Lusitani see how well prepared he was to deal with them than to reside more comfortably along the Baetis, a hundred miles to the east. But he had busied himself to such purpose by June that he felt the defenses of his province were in good enough state to resist the wall of waiting Lusitani without his personal presence on the Anas and without more than two of his six remaining legions to garrison his fortifications. By now the old woman of the Further province knew perfectly well who were Sertorius's informants; so he proceeded to put his new policies about intelligence into practice, and leaked in the most innocent way to these men the news that he was moving away from his position on the lower Anas. Not up the headwaters of the Anas or the Baetis and thus into the arms of Lucius Hirtuleius at Laminium but to relieve Gaius Memmius in New Carthage. He would (the informants were telling Hirtuleius not many days later) cross the Baetis from Italica to Hispalis, then move up the Singilis River toward the massif of the Solorius, cross it on its northwestern flank at Acci, proceed thence to Basti, and so down onto the Campus Spartarius through Eliocroca. In actual fact this was the way Metellus Pius might have gone; but what was important to him was that Hirtuleius should believe it. The Piglet was well aware that Herennius, Perperna and Sertorius himself were thoroughly absorbed in teaching Pompey a much needed lesson, and that Sertorius reposed full confidence in the ability of Hirtuleius and the Spanish army to pen the Piglet up inside his own provincial sty. But New Carthage was a way out of his own provincial sty that could possibly lead to a northward march from New Carthage to relieve Pompey at Lauro; the five legions the Piglet would have were a possible tipping of the balance from Sertorius's way to Pompey's. The march of Metellus Pius could therefore not be allowed to happen. What Metellus Pius hoped was that Hirtuleius would decide to leave Laminium and come down onto the easy terrain between the Anas and the Baetis. Away from the crags in which any Sertorian general was likely to be victorious, Hirtuleius would be easier to beat. No Sertorian general trusted the peoples of the Further province east of the Baetis, which was why Sertorius had never attempted to invade that area. So when Hirtuleius heard the news of Metellus Pius's projected march, he would have to intercept it before Metellus Pius could cross the Baetis into safe territory. Of course Hirtuleius's most prudent course would have been to travel well to the north of the Further province and wait to intercept Metellus Pius on the Campus Spartarius itself, this certainly being country friendly to Sertorius. But Hirtuleius was too canny to make this logical move; if he left central Spain for a place so far away, all the Piglet had to do was to double back and romp through the pass at Laminium, then choose the quickest line of march to join Pompey at Lauro. There was only one thing Hirtuleius could do: move down onto the easy terrain between the Anas and the Baetis, and stop Metellus Pius before he crossed the Baetis. But Metellus Pius marched more quickly than Hirtuleius thought he could, was already close to Italica and the Baetis when Hirtuleius and the Spanish army were still a hard day's slog away. So Hirtuleius hurried, unwilling to let his prey slip across the broad deep river. The month was Quinctilis and southern Spain was in the grip of that summer's first fierce heat wave; the sun sprang up from behind the Solorius Mountains fully armed to smite lands not yet recovered from the previous day's onslaught and only slightly relieved by the breathless, humid night. With extraordinary solicitude for his troops, Metellus Pius gently inserted them into big, airy, shady tents, encouraged them to hold cloths soaked in cold spring water to brows and napes of necks, made sure they had drunk well of that same cold spring water, then issued each man with a novel item of extra equipment to carry into battle a skin full of cold water strapped to his belt. Even when the merciless sun was glinting off the forest of Hirtuleius's spears rapidly approaching down the road from the north, Metellus Pius kept his men in the shade of their tents and made sure there were enough tubs of cold water to keep the cold compresses coming. At the very last moment he moved, his soldiers fresh and keen, chattering cheerfully to each other as they marched into position about how they would manage to help each other snatch a much needed drink in the middle of the fight. The Spanish army had tramped ten hard miles in the sun already. Though it was well provided with water donkeys, it had not the time to pause and drink before battle was joined. His men wilting, Hirtuleius stood no chance of winning. At one time he and Metellus Pius actually fought hand to hand a rare occurrence in any conflict since the days of Homer and though Hirtuleius was younger and stronger, his well watered and well cooled opponent got the better of him. The struggle carried them apart before the contest came to an end, but Hirtuleius bore a wound in his thigh and Metellus Pius the glory. Within an hour it was over. The Spanish army broke and fled into the west, leaving many dead or exhausted upon the field; Hirtuleius had to cross the Anas into Lusitania before he could allow his men to stop. "Isn't that nice? asked Metellus Pius of his son as they stood surveying the diminishing dust to the west of Italica. "Tata, you were wonderful!" cried the young man, forgetting that he was too grown up to use the diminutive of childhood. The Piglet swelled, huffed. "And now we'll all have a good swim in the river and a good night's sleep before we march tomorrow for Gades," he said happily, composing letters in his mind to the Senate and to Pompey. Metellus Scipio stared. "Gades? Why Gades?" "Certainly Gades!" Metellus Pius shoved his son between the shoulder blades. "Come on, lad, into the shade! I'll have no man down with sunstroke, I need every last one of you. Don't you fancy a long sea voyage to escape this heat?" "A long sea voyage? To where?" "To New Carthage, of course, to relieve Gaius Memmius." "Father, you are absolutely beyond a doubt brilliant!" And that, reflected the Piglet as he drew his son into the shade of the command tent, was every bit as thrilling to hear as the rousing volley of cheers and the shouts of "Imperator!" with which his army had greeted him after the battle was over. He had done it! He had inflicted a decisive defeat upon Quintus Sertorius's best general.