David Durham - Pride of Carthage

“Is this love or just passion?” Mago asked.

“It is the love of passion, my brother. The love of passion.”

The two brothers were among the first to climb the winding stone staircase to the top of the citadel, where the meeting of the generals was to take place. The tower was open to the air, a round platform ringed by a waist-high stone wall. It offered a view of both the fortress and the turquoise sea stretching out to the horizon. A wind whipped and buffeted the brothers, cold and mischievous. It made talking a challenge, but what Hannibal had to discuss he did not mind shouting out. And they were far from prying ears anyway.

Most of the officers were still settling in after the Arbocala campaign. If they were surprised to be called to a meeting so soon, they did not show it. They mounted the platform, shadowed by their squires, with a variety of characters reflected on their faces, as different in temperament as in the shades of their skin.

Maharbal, the captain of the Numidian cavalry, stepped onto the platform with a stern demeanor throughout his entire body. He wore his hair long. The thick, wiry strands gathered at the back, secured with a strip of leather. His dark skin had a reddish hue, as if baked by the sun and ripened to a rough, thick coat. His nose was slim and sharp; his chin protruded as if his face were a hatchet meant to slice the wind. Indeed this was just what he was famous for, the speed and precision of his riding.

“He is new to leadership,” Hasdrubal said, “sent by King Gaia of the Massylii. He knows his men and their horses and commands a devotion that almost rivals their admiration of Hannibal himself. He has almost too much power, but he has thus far proved true to us. We would be legless without Numidian horsemen.”

Adherbal, the chief engineer, also arrived early, dressed in a flowing Carthaginian tunic. He set his palms upon the stone wall and gazed out over the city he had helped create. His eyes moved with a singular intelligence, as if the wheels of his thoughts spun behind them, figuring calculations and making measurements even as he smiled and spoke and listened. Recently, his skills at building and knowledge of the laws of physics had been used to destroy cities rather than create them.

“If we lay siege to the Saguntines it'll be his machines that win it for us,” Hasdrubal said.

Just before the meeting, the others arrived in quick succession. Young Carthalo commanded the light cavalry under Maharbal. Bostar and Bomilcar: the first Hannibal's secretary and the second a favored general. Synhalus, the oldest man of the group, had served as the Barcas' surgeon since Hamilcar's time. He was the slimmest of them all, fine-featured and intelligent, of Egyptian blood. He had quiet eyes and full lips and a face not given to showing emotion or betraying any thoughts whatsoever. A man named Vandicar stood beside him, the chief mahout, a native of the distant land of the Indians. His complexion was a touch darker than the Carthaginians', but his closely cropped black hair was absolutely straight, oily and dense. Behind each of the primary players stood their squires and assistants, quiet shadows like Noba who heard all with blank faces, trusted aides and friends, battle-hardened soldiers in their own right, some free, some bound by slavery.

Most of these men Hasdrubal knew both from the rigors of campaign and from the pleasures provided by leisure moments. He greeted them with nods and an easy grin. There was in his movements and posture the swagger of a young lion confident with his place among his peers. So he seemed until the first sighting of the crown of one man's black mane. This man was Monomachus. He took the company in with a disdainful glance that touched on everyone but moved on quickly, as if none of those he saw proved to be of sufficient interest. His eyes were intense and bulbous, seemingly too large for his face. Or perhaps they only seemed so because of his shrunken cheeks and the withered, dry pucker of his mouth.

Hasdrubal's glib expression vanished. He whispered to his brother, a little lower than previously, his eyes not upon the man in question but looking off at nothing in particular. “There stands a more ancient form of man than most.”

“I remember him,” Mago said. “He's Monomachus. He created the Lion's Way, did not he?”

Hasdrubal nodded. “And he's no saner now than he was then. He's devoted his works to Moloch, the Eater of Children. He leaves very few of his opponents alive. At least he fights for us. Of this be thankful.”

When Hannibal appeared he swept up onto the platform in a flourish of purposeful energy. He wore the leather corselet he sometimes sparred in. Its polished blackness was as impressively sculpted as hammered iron. He wore a red cloak that fell almost to the ground, but beneath this his arms were bare, as were his legs below the thigh. He gave the impression that he had just come from training, still flushed and warm from it. When his eyes touched on Hasdrubal, the young man felt a warm flush on his face despite himself. His brother's gaze in joy was like the sun bursting from behind a cloud.

Hanno appeared just after him. He nodded at his younger siblings, then crossed his arms and waited.

When he began, Hannibal's voice rang loud and clear, despite the wind trying to spirit his words away. “Remember with me for a moment the grandeur of our nation and the work we've accomplished here in Iberia,” he said. “We who were beaten through treachery have here carved one of the world's great empires. We who should be poor are rich. We who should be defeated know only victory after victory. We've much to be proud of. Be so in the name of my father, Hamilcar, and my brother by marriage, Hasdrubal the Handsome, for they made this possible. Their work was well begun, but it's not yet complete. As they have passed on to Baal, it passes to us to make real the world they both envisioned. We still have an enemy, a single foe, but a foe like none other. You know of whom I speak. . . . Not the Greeks whom we fought so often in times past. Not those Celts still defiant in the north of this very country. Not even the Saguntines, to whom I will direct your attention in a moment. I speak now of that den of thieves and pirates that they call Rome. Need I recount their crimes against us?”

The group murmured that these crimes were well known to them all.

Hannibal said the names anyway, slowly, each word broken into its separate syllables. “Sicily. Sardinia. Corsica. All taken from us. Our wealth. Blood. Possessions. All taken from us. The enormous cost of a war we did not start . . . Heaped upon us to pay for far into the years to come. Our navy destroyed. A people who were above all seamen now limited to a few vessels, cursed to walk instead of follow the wind. These losses are too great for a proud people to bear. And we are proud, are we not?”

All agreed that they were. Monomachus grunted low in his throat.

“Now, friends, the wolf's nose is sniffing even here in Iberia. Again the Romans are on the verge of ignoring honor. They wait not for right but only for opportunity. Some back in Carthage call themselves the Peace Party. They would have us avoid all conflict with Rome—would have us bow and bow again. They argue that we should accept the rule of our betters and profit from what commerce we can, like street peddlers scrounging for business in back alleyways. But what do these peaceable sorts know of the things we have created here? They know only that wealth pours from us to them, and that is as it should be. They need know little else, because it is we here on this citadel who determine the future of our nation. Make no mistake—we are Carthage, the heart and arm of it both. We are a small group here, but each of you is key to this army. Each of you makes Carthage great through your work. Each of you owns some portion of this empire. And what we've built thus far is but the foundation for something larger.