David Durham - Pride of Carthage

His tone, once more, suggested that further discussion was not an option. He refilled Publius' goblet and offered it to him. He said, “All considered, I think we can continue our preparations with little fear.”

None could call the journey to the Rhône uneventful for the Carthaginians. They expanded their dominion to the farthest extent it had ever known, through strong-worded negotiation, at times through open war or siege or ambush. Hannibal knew he must keep control of the lands between him and New Carthage. The army traveled in three war columns, separated by miles, each with its own trials to face and each led by a Barca. They sent before them emissaries of peace, but it was hard for any people to look upon this massed power and not grasp for sword or spear. The small, sturdy Balearic Islanders marched in the fore, their slings held at the ready, able in an instant to send a stone whirling through the air at blinding speed; beside them strode the strange gray beasts ridden by men whose nation could only be guessed at. The gray beasts were big-eared and massive, with a nose as flexible and strong as any limb. Behind them came rank after rank of soldiers, marching in their various companies and in tribal groups and followed by horsemen; in the wake of it all, a baggage train that fed the beast of war. Carthage's army churned the spring ground into a wide wasteland. The land to either side of them was stripped clean as if by a swarm of locusts, and behind them came wolves and foxes, buzzards and ravens and swarms of flies.

They came to an agreement to pass through the territory of the Ruscino, but there were other tribes and factions of tribes to contend with. No leader could govern each and every member of a people. Although no Carthaginian head rested easy at night, toward the end of the summer they could claim a tenuous dominion over all of Catalonia. No Roman legion had appeared on the horizon, so Hannibal left Hanno in command of the tribes washing right up to the foothills of the Pyrenees. He then marched the army over the mountains and came down into the plain leading toward the Rhône.

At that river, the Volcae massed to make their stand. Standing on the west bank, Hannibal got his first glimpse of the wild creatures whom Monomachus had barely escaped on his earlier expedition. They were longhaired and half-clothed, pale as pine flesh, some painted in shades of blue and green. Their calls carried across the flat, slick expanse of steady current, taunts spoken in the strangest gibberish, a guttural dialect totally foreign to an African's ear. And yet the meaning behind the words was clear enough when twinned with their gestures. They gesticulated with their arms and fingers, exposed their buttocks and grabbed at their crotches, stuck out their tongues and waved their long swords in the air above them. Clearly, they were not a people open to negotiation.

Mago, standing beside his brother, said, “Those people are out of their minds.”

Hannibal took it all in with an impassive face. “Insane or no,” he said, “they are in our way.”

And so he constructed a plan to remove them. To fulfill it, Mago marched out just after dark, a contingent of the Sacred Band close around him. Behind them came the bulk of the war party, Iberians chosen for their comfort in the water, several with Gallic horns tied to their backs and protruding above them as if long-necked birds were growing out of their flesh. They followed the lead of two Gallic guides, who risked their lives and their family's freedom if they led the soldiers astray. They progressed not in ordered ranks but weaving through the trees, ducking low branches and jumping across creek beds, into shadow and out. They followed the Rhône for some time. Then they left the Rhône to climb into a hilly area, from which they sometimes caught glimpses of the distant river, a black snake across the landscape, save where the light of the moon touched upon it in gleaming silver. They camped for the day in a high pine wood, careful to move little and to keep fires small. Mago found the bedding of needles almost luxurious. He pinched the needles between his forefinger and thumb and snapped them, one after another, for some time. There was something comforting in the action.

When they dropped down to the river again the next evening, the guides led them to the area they wished for. It was as promised: A tree-covered island split the current. The riverbed out to it was shallow enough that the men waded most of the distance across and lost their footing for only a few moments, though frantic ones for those who could not swim. Mago's heart pounded in his chest the moment his feet slipped free of the bottom. His chin dipped under the water. He spat and gagged and tilted his head so far back that he looked straight up at the sky and felt it moving above him and had the momentary sensation that each pinprick of light was an eye looking down on him. But then his foot brushed a stone. One, then another, then a large one that clipped both his legs and sent him tumbling. After that it grew shallower. He made it to the island in no worse shape than the others.

But that was only half the crossing; the far side was deeper and swifter. They set to work hewing pines, chopping the branches from them, and lashing them together into rafts. It was hard work in only the moonlight, but they completed it before the moon dipped and cast them into deeper darkness. They pushed off onto the swaying, hard-to-steer rafts, paddling toward the dark woodland on the far bank.

They were barely ashore when the light of day grew on them. They pulled the rafts up into the trees and gathered together in a narrow valley to warm themselves before fires and be fed. Mago posted guards, but most of the men spent the day at rest, falling asleep as they hit the ground. The Barca was not so quick to fall into slumber. He lay staring up at the thick canopy of trees above them, the myriad branches layering and crosshatching across each other. His eyes sought out patterns in the lines and shadows but there was none to be found. Something in this troubled him, for it seemed that nature so rarely displayed order in the chaos of the earth. Why was this so? Why were no two branches the same, no two leaves true replicas of each other? He did sleep eventually, but it was not a restful slumber.

Few stirred until the late afternoon. Hunger awoke them and consciousness reminded them of the task before them. The third night was devoted to the march back downstream, a difficult venture as they feared being discovered. They moved with such stealth that the head of the party stumbled upon a group of deer caught unawares. The buck of the group stood at the crest of a bare hill, feeding on the low shrubs growing up in the scar of a fire a few years old. Around him were five does and two young males, all heads down and content in their nighttime dining. The two Gauls spotted them first. One flung an arm out to stop the other. The sudden motion was enough in the tense night to send a shock wave back through the group and man after man froze in his tracks. This must have been a stranger sound than that of their motion, for the buck looked up, lifted his nose, and studied on the silence. He grunted a warning and bolted, leaving the does momentarily at a loss. Then they, too, found motion. They bounded up the hillside and out of view, backsides taunting in their spring, somehow deceptive as compared to the speed of the creatures. In the empty stillness after this the two Gauls looked long at each other. They began mumbling at the profundity of such a sighting and might have carried on for some time had Mago not hissed them into silence.

The trip was uneventful after that. They were in place as planned on the morning of the fourth day. Mago had the signal fire kindled and the agreed message went up into the air in billows of white smoke. Watching the plumes rise, he whispered a prayer to Baal, beseeching his attention and blessing on the venture just before him. This done, he signaled the men forward.