David Durham - Pride of Carthage

The leader of the delegation, Visotrex, stepped forward to speak for them. A screen of unkempt hair hid his face; the dull silver strands must have once been blond. His words came out with a rasping deepness that made them completely beyond Hannibal's comprehension, so that for once he had to rely entirely on his translator. Visotrex claimed that his tribe had heard all they needed to of Hannibal and the powerful army he led; they had no wish to clash in arms. He came to offer free passage through their lands, guides even, for the routes were difficult and only a local's knowledge would see them through without grave loss.

Hannibal asked the man to pull his hair back from his face. Visotrex did so. His visage was one of caved depressions, his eyes so deep-set they huddled in shadow, his cheeks receding beneath his facial bones, his mouth a pucker sucked back against his teeth. There was a growth on his neck that might have accounted for the strange constriction of his speech; it bulged as if the man had swallowed a lime whole and carried it stuffed to one side of his throat. For all this, the Gaul's face was unreadable, a fact that Hannibal noted well.

“You speak for all your people in making this offer?”

Visotrex said that he did, looking to his companions for verification. They nodded and spoke in their tongue until Hannibal waved them to silence.

“And are you a chieftain, or simply a messenger?”

The Gaul said that he was a chieftain, as his father before him had been, and that his son would lead his people after his death. Saying this, Visotrex indicated the young man standing behind his left shoulder. Hannibal took him in. He was a head taller than his father, wide-shouldered, with little in his well-formed face to connect him with his sire.

“This one is your son?” Hannibal asked. “He looks to be blessed by the gods.”

Visotrex, for the first time, showed an emotion. Pride. He said, “In him I see the future of my people. This is a fine thing.”

“Yes, it is,” Hannibal said. “You are wise to come to me like this, as a friend, with no suspicion, no hostility. As you have been told, we've no quarrel with you. Our enemy is Rome alone. But the path to them takes us through your lands. If you're true to your word, you will find our passage no great burden. You may profit from it, in fact. I ask only that you travel at my side while we're in your country. If I may offer you our hospitalities even as you offer us yours . . .”

Visotrex, who had followed the speech with one ear tilted toward the translator, stiffened at the last suggestion. He seemed unsure of how to answer it, even glancing to the others for some direction. Finally, he gestured with spread hands: This was not possible. A chieftain had many duties. There were ceremonies he must preside over, so what the commander suggested could not be—

“Then I will have your son,” Hannibal cut in, “as my guest. I will show him the same courtesy I would show you. The son of the chief is the future of the people, yes? I'd be honored to have him as my escort. Thank you for your wise counsel. My generals will speak with you of our route.”

Without awaiting a reply, Hannibal rose from his stool and retreated into his tent. He stood there a moment, just inside the flap, listening to the short, confused conversation that followed. Visotrex, once he fully understood the commander's words, tried vainly to dispute them: A mistake had been made; for many reasons, he could not agree to leave his son. But, just as he would have instructed them, Hannibal heard Bostar and Bomilcar close down the discussion and move the party away.

As they receded, Mago and Monomachus entered the tent. Hannibal saw the questions on their faces, but spoke as if they had simply come to hear his instructions. “Tomorrow morning we'll call the men to full dress and have them march in battle order,” he said. “Tell them it is meant as a display and that the grander the spectacle they make, the less trouble we'll have with these Allobroges. I will speak to the assembly then. And when we march, I want the chief's son always at my side.”

“You do not take the Gauls at their word, do you?” Mago asked.

“No, you should not,” Monomachus said. “I fear there is treachery in this. I would slice the man's throat and listen for what truth escapes without his tongue to first twist it.”

“I hear you both,” Hannibal said, “but we cannot deny that these people offer us much. Baal knows that we will all benefit if they are true to their word.” He parted the tent flaps with the wedge of his hand and watched the receding backs of the Gauls and the escort that flanked them. “But do not think me misled in this. We can trust them no more than one does a captive wolf. We must hold close to our swords that which the chief values most highly. His heir; his people's future.”

That evening Hannibal lay staring up at the fabric of the tent above him. He had to quash the whispered fears eating at his army's morale, and he had to do so in a single speech. He would offer encouragement to his men every step of the way, but he could not be seen to be fighting a losing battle, like a mother imploring her children to behave. He tried to compose in his mind the words he would say on the morrow, but each time he began, his thoughts ordered themselves differently and looped off in varying directions. He pushed all such thoughts from his head toward the middle hours of the night. He knew what his men needed to hear, what his father would have said. Best simply to stand before them and speak the truth as it came from his heart.

Having dismissed the subject, he worked his way through a catalog of other difficulties. He searched in his short conversation with Visotrex for signs of deception. He reviewed his knowledge of the names and histories of Gallic tribes, but could retrieve no memory of having heard of Visotrex. He did believe, however, that the young man he called his son was indeed his offspring. Fatherly pride is easy to spot and hard to hide. Hannibal knew the threat implicit in his securing the young man as hostage, but whether Visotrex would eschew any treachery to preserve his son's life he could not measure. He put the issue in its place and moved on.

He would press Visotrex for extra supplies as soon as he could: skins and furs, dried meats that were easily carried, footwear suited to ice and snow, grease for the men to cover their bare skin with. He would demand more than they could spare and therefore get somewhat more than they would like to give. He wondered if he should paint the elephants with a mixture of animal fat and herbs, as some had suggested. Vandicar was against it, but even he could not say what would become of the beasts. Hannibal needed them alive and impressive, especially for the descent into the Padus valley. His men would be weakened, half-starved, frostbitten, feverish by the time they emerged. The army he would speak to tomorrow bore little resemblance to the one that would stumble into Italy in several weeks' time, even as the current army was diminished from the one he had left Iberia with months ago. But if the elephants still walked upright they might distract the Carthaginians' enemies from their army's other weaknesses. Yes, they should be covered in animal fat, he decided. It could do them no harm, and he could not afford to neglect them.

He went once more through the mental map he had of the distribution of the Gallic tribes in the Padus valley, deciding on the best entry point, the preferred route by which to reach the Insubres and the Boii, the two tribes who were already in revolt against Rome. And he decided to issue a new warning to the camp followers: if they chose to follow farther, they would be tolerated only so long as they were not a burden. The first sign of delay or weakness and they would be dispatched and left unburied, unburned, unmourned, food for wolves. They should abandon this journey and make their way home as well as they could. He would say this, but he already knew it was too late. Cut off from the army, the camp followers would be pounced upon by marauding Gauls before an hour had passed. This issue decided, he went through others yet waiting for his attention. This list was long. Only when he felt sleep truly weighing heavy on his lids did he let his mind wander to Imilce, and that only for a few moments. More was hard to bear.