David Durham - Pride of Carthage

“How long have you known?”

Mago looked up from the correspondence he had been reading. His first answer was a frown, his eyes nervous and—the Numidian thought—deceitful. “What news have you heard?”

“You know what I've heard. I've been told the sky is falling and my head is uncovered.”

This seemed to confuse the Barca. His frown deepened for a moment; then he dropped the pretense. “The news comes to me just this day as well. By the gods, Masinissa, I had no part in this. Syphax saw an opportunity and he grasped for it. But do not be rash. We can yet mend this.”

“How? How, when everything has been taken from me? My father is dead! I am no longer a son, and I am not a father. Now another man takes my Sophonisba to his bed and fucks her full of my enemies. Instead of my children she will push out Libyans, beasts that will bark for my blood. How can this be mended? Things done cannot be undone. There is only one way forward. I resign my command in your army; I leave Iberia—”

“You cannot!” Mago said, up on his feet now and coming toward him. “Don't be a fool, Masinissa. I know your blood is hot. I'm sorry they have done this. It was done without my knowledge. Nor would Hanno betray you, or Sophonisba herself. This is the work of the Council. Fight on with me, brother, and we will one day set things right again.”

“Again I ask you, how? Would you have me fight for you still, when you are allied to the man who has grasped my kingdom as his own? Have you not understood?” Masinissa blinked his eyes furiously. The conflicted reality of the situation flashed across his face in bursts, as if he were still being pelted by new realizations, continuously putting together how one thing rebounded against another. “All along I've been played for a fool. Sophonisba . . . Sophonisba herself trapped me. She made me a dog, leashed by Carthage. . . .”

“No, that's not so. I know my sister's heart is true to you. I saw her with you. I saw the flush of her cheeks and the joy you kindled in her. If she betrays you, it's with a knife to her throat and no other choice. Tell me you believe me, and we can make anything possible.”

The emotion in his heart was too much for Masinissa to bear showing another man. He gripped Mago and pulled him in so forcefully that the solid impact of their chests took away his breath. He pressed his cheek against the rough grain of Mago's neck. “I wish I could believe you,” he said, “but this morning a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I see everything differently.”

“I cannot be your enemy,” Mago said.

“And I cannot be your brother,” Masinissa whispered. “I loved you, but think of my position. I am a king without a kingdom and a husband without a bride. I don't know about the bride, but I must at least claim my nation back.”

As he walked away he counted each step toward his horse, listening for the call, the shout for him to halt, the order for the soldiers of the Sacred Band to rise up and grapple him to the ground. But the shout never came. Perhaps this was a last act of brotherly affection; perhaps it was a sign of weakness. Either way, he was soon up on a high ridge, riding with his guards around him. With the wind in his face and his horse beneath him he thought most clearly. He sent a messenger to the Romans the next day. He swore allegiance to them on the terms Publius had earlier offered, with the new condition that Rome would help restore his kingdom to him and help him make war against Syphax. It was strange to make promises to Romans. It meant, of course, that he was now at war with Carthage, but it could be no other way. He was a Massylii. With his father's death he had become a king. Strange that he had not heard of this for several weeks. Strange that someone had to whisper in his ear for him to know the whole world had changed.

Telling the Romans that he was returning to his country to raise an army, Masinissa departed Iberia with two hundred of his most loyal horsemen. He could have pulled more of his men if he had the time or ships to aid him, but he did not. Only his friendship with Moorish traders made his flight possible. He considered sending word to Maharbal in Italy, asking him to forsake Hannibal and return to Numidia, but he had not the resources to do this. Not yet, at least. Perhaps he also feared the answer he might receive. Maharbal did not know him. Who was to say he would even acknowledge him as his king? He had first to make sure any of his people would.

The events that unfolded from the moment his feet touched African soil came so fast and furious that the prince barely rested. He slept no more than a quarter of the night's cycle and yet still the waking moments were so full of shifting providence that he felt a lifetime passing in what should have been weeks. He landed on a barren stretch of beach east of Hippo Regius. His men disembarked beneath the light of a waxing moon, the world cast in bone highlights, full of shadow and light, with little gradation in between. They rode their horses right from the transports into the water. They churned up onto the shore in a froth of spray, propelled by bubbling rows of waves. The mounts neighed and tossed their heads and kicked sand into the wind. Not a soul moved on this lip of the continent except for them. This was as it should have been. Masinissa hoped to arrive home unannounced.

But Syphax, he soon learned, had anticipated him. As soon as he received confirmation from Carthage, he had shouted his men to arms. He called in soldiers from throughout his vast empire, making the usual promises: riches and women and the rule of all North Africa. He sent multiple armies marching into Massylii territory, a many-pronged attack that took the city of Thugga with barely a fight and stormed Zama with great violence and cast a net of terror over the plains of the upper Tell. He had King Gaia's grave identified and dug up. He set his corpse aflame and erased all monuments to the ruler's reign and set about placing his own name on all that had been Gaia's. The Massylii were a brave people but without a unifying leader they could not withstand such onslaught; without Carthage's blanket of protection they suddenly seemed a small nation. Syphax pressed them beneath his heel and took joy in it, for to do so had been his hunger all his life long. The summer was not yet half over, but he retired to Cirta to await his new wife and the pleasures he was sure she would provide him.

Masinissa had landed in a country in turmoil. He was branded a bandit from the moment he arrived, a wanted man, treasure to the killer who severed his head and offered it to Syphax, a greater fortune to the man who brought him in alive for the king's amusement. Scouts roamed the shoreline in competing bands. Though he missed him by a day, a Libyan captain named Bucar spotted signs of Masinissa's arrival and set out after him. He ambushed the young king's men a few days later, on the flatlands outside Clupea; he swept down on their riverside camp, trapping the small band between a force of two thousand horsemen and four thousand foot soldiers. There could be no contest between such numbers, so Masinissa's men simply struggled to escape the tightening vise. They fled the horsemen but everywhere found pikes aimed at them from the ground, javelins flung at them in numbers and thickness like a school of barracudas.

By the time they sprung clear of the foot soldiers they numbered less than fifty. In the daylong running skirmish they killed three times as many as they lost, but this was a losing equation. To their honor, his men protected Masinissa with their own lives. That was why there were only four of them alive when Masinissa led them at a full gallop into the river Bagradas. The current lifted them and tumbled them in the brown, silt-laden water. They slid obliquely past their pursuers, at a steady speed faster than the horsemen could make over the irregular terrain, gnarled and choked as it was with bushes. Some of Bucar's men plunged in after them, but three of these went under and disappeared. Seeing the same happen to at least two of Masinissa's men, Bucar pulled up the chase. The prince learned later that he had declared him dead and ridden for Cirta to bring Syphax the news.