David Durham - Pride of Carthage

In the weeks after his victory the proconsul made allies of Edeco, Indibilis, and Mandonius, three of the most powerful chieftains of the peninsula. Once again the various tribes of Iberia were like so many balls thrown in the air. Hasdrubal could not possibly catch them all, so which should he grasp for and which let fall? With Noba's calm voice speaking in his ear, Hasdrubal pulled his army up by the roots and headed inland. They had to stanch the bleeding away of allies without delay. They sent riders ahead with orders for several tribes to gather at Oretani. This also meant Hasdrubal would see Bayala again.

The army moved quickly, without hostile incident, although not without discomfiture. On the third day, they came upon a town that none had heard of before. The place was a conglomeration of stone huts spread out across a wide valley, huts that from a distance looked inhabited. Some even claimed to have seen smoke drifting up from cook fires. But as Hasdrubal's force marched by the settlement, they saw the tattered roofs of the buildings, the tumbling decay, the silent interiors, the fire pits so long undisturbed that the charred scars had been washed clean long ago. Not a person to be seen among the structures, no animal or fresh food or any sign of life save that left there by the ancients. It was a strange place that all were relieved to see recede into the distance. From then on Hasdrubal saw messages written everywhere on the land: in the wavering rusty stains dripping down from rock faces; in the form of a great boulder the size of a fortress, cracked into four equal parts, as if some giant had dropped it to the earth; in the strange cloud formation that appeared above them one evening, a fish scale pattern complete in its perfection from one horizon to the other. But these were not signs he could interpret, only greater mysteries that filled him with a rising dread.

As he neared the lands of the Oretani, a messenger approached him with instructions he claimed to have received from Bayala. Hasdrubal was not to enter Oretani land. Instead, he should meet his wife in Baecula, to the southeast. Hasdrubal exchanged glances with Noba. The Ethiopian sucked his cheeks and muttered that he did not favor this. He asked the messenger to explain himself. And where was Andobales? Their business was that of men. This army did not turn at the whim of any woman, even Bayala. Did the other tribes not await them?

The messenger said that everything would be explained at Baecula. It was only three days' march away. Noba still had questions and he framed them one after another, so intensely that the messenger finally looked away from him and addressed Hasdrubal simply. “Bayala calls for you, Commander,” he said. “You know Baecula is loyal to you and has been since your father's time. Bayala is there and she begs you to make haste to her. You will understand the rest when you see her.”

But at the gates of Baecula the messenger approached Hasdrubal again, stopped him, and said he had one last message to convey. “It is meant for your ears alone,” he said. Once Hasdrubal had sent the others onward and had his guards back up a few steps, the messenger said, “Andobales says you are no longer his son.”

Hasdrubal stared at him dumbly a moment. Then scowled. Then grinned and then scowled again. “How? How? Did I not marry his daughter? Does she not have my child in her? He hasn't turned to embrace this Scipio, has he? Andobales is not such a fool! Go back and tell him to be no pawn to Rome. I am his family, now and forever. We are wed by blood.”

The messenger took this barrage silently. Like all the Oretani, he wore a leather band around his forehead, into which he slipped the feathers of certain birds. Hasdrubal, in his sudden exasperation, ripped this from the man's head. This insult got no response. When Hasdrubal concluded, the man said, “Sit with this news and you will come to understand it. But—have no doubt—you are Andobales' son no more.” Without waiting for dismissal, the man mounted and galloped back along the marching army. Hasdrubal watched him for a few moments, confounded, filled now to the crown of his head with unease.

This grew worse as he walked into the city. A band of ten mounted Oretani surged past him without so much as a glance. And inside the palace reserved for the Barcas, he did not receive the usual welcome but found only a chattering confusion among the servants and city officials. He heard Noba yelling. Guards of the Sacred Band rushed past him in a clatter of armor and unsheathed weapons and black cloaks. Silenus, who had entered early to summon Bayala, met him with outstretched arms. He grasped the commander and repeated something over and over again, though Hasdrubal did not listen to him. He threw the Greek off. Moments later he had to elbow through his men, who for some reason barred him from Bayala's chambers.

A crowd of women servants sprung from their hunched grouping around the central bed and scattered. Bayala lay supine on the platform, her arms cast out to either side, her shift high on one thigh. For a moment he was mystified—why would she lie in such a position in a crowded room? The thought had not fully matured before it was silenced. He moved nearer, calling her name, even though he knew already that she could not answer. Again he knew the Greek was at his side, trying to pull him away. He could have swatted the bowlegged man to the far side of the room. But one glimpse of the gaping crescent carved in Bayala's neck stole all anger from him. He crumpled and crawled forward across the floor and clawed his way up onto the blood-drenched bed. She was still warm. She was still warm! He yelled this as if somehow it was the key to everything. Then he felt himself enveloped, first by Silenus' arms, soon after by Noba's. He knew both men were speaking to him. Did neither of them realize that she was still warm?

To say Hasdrubal mourned his wife's death puts a complex thing too simply. He beat his chest and pounded his fists against his eyes and shouted curses into the night sky. He wished he had listened to her and never trusted her father. He wished he had cut Andobales' head from his shoulders when he had the chance. He wished that he had never met her, that he had no memories of her, that he was not cursed to recall a thousand different pleasures now turned around and revealed as tortures.

His first impulse was to fall on the Oretani. Although the messenger who had led him to Baecula escaped, the Sacred Band did catch the fleeing assassins. Only three of the ten survived to become prisoners. One of these proved impervious to torture, but the other two spoke before they died. They swore that Bayala had been murdered on her father's orders. It was meant to be an irreversible declaration: Andobales severed all bonds with Carthage. He was an ally to the young Roman now. Hasdrubal hated the chieftain with blinding ferocity. It seemed he had always loathed Andobales but only now understood how completely. He was a waste of the life breathed into him. He was vermin. He was a murderer. He had killed his future and killed beauty and killed a child as yet unseen by human eyes. He had slit a most perfect neck. He had split flesh that should never have known pain. He had coldly ordered the blood drained from her body. The shock she must have felt . . . The fear in those last moments . . . Andobales deserved the worst possible of deaths and Hasdrubal ached to bring it to him.

Noba, however, convinced him that Romans were too near for him to risk engaging with Iberians. The council he had called would never come. Everyone, it seemed, was anxious to befriend this Publius. To attack when fueled by passion would surely be to blunder; it must have been what Andobales hoped for. So he could not give it to them. The two men argued long about this. At times they even came to blows, each man leaning into the other and pounding his frustrations into the other's torso, jolts that would have doubled lesser men over in pain.