David Durham - Pride of Carthage

Fine, Hannibal thought. Let them pray themselves into a frenzy.

The early spring brought the news that Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius had been elected consuls. They were both charged to prosecute the war by extreme measures. They were to take control of all the routes through the Apennines and bar Hannibal's southward progress. There were now to be two legions with each consul, another two for Rome itself, two more for Sicily, and a further legion to protect Sardinia. The two legions in Iberia were to continue their efforts there. Flaminius—a new man in the Senate and the first in his family to attain consulship—especially burned for action. He announced his plans to leave the city and commence the campaign immediately, eschewing the traditional ceremonies that would have delayed him well into the spring.

This was equally pleasant news to Hannibal. Religious fervor on one hand, arrogant impatience on the other: What more could he ask for?

In the days just preceding the first tentative signs of spring, the commander met in council after council, studying charts and interviewing scouts and debating the course ahead of them. His goal lay to the south, toward Rome and her prominent allies, but just which route to take was not easy to decide. They could march toward the east coast, take or bypass Ariminum, and roar down the Via Flaminia directly toward Rome. Another way lay across the Apennines toward the Etruscan town of Faesulae, from where they could weave their way south through several different channels, not as direct as the Flaminia, but a reasonable course that might provide them just enough forage and geographic protection to fight their way to the peninsula's heart. Or they could attempt a crossing of the Ligurian range, difficult terrain that merited consideration only because of the possibility of resupply from the Carthaginian fleet along the Tyrrhenian coast.

As usual, the commander's generals came to him with differing opinions and expressed them freely. Bomilcar and Mago argued for a march on Ariminum, for direct engagement with Servilius, the consul in command there: All of Italy would be open to them if they defeated him. Maharbal and Carthalo preferred some variation on the central route, a way that would suit their swift and far-ranging riders and let them fight the skirmishes they excelled at. Only Bostar favored the difficult march toward the western coast and the benefits of meeting up with the fleet. Monomachus did not seem to think the route mattered that much; each of them led to Roman blood and that was sufficient for him.

None of the routes suited Hannibal perfectly. He wanted something more devious, more disconcerting, a way forward that would again throw the Romans into confusion. When he heard that among Maharbal's horsemen was a man who claimed to know of just such a course, he had him brought forward at once.

The man in question joined Hannibal, Mago, and Silenus in Hannibal's tent late on a pleasantly mild morning. He entered humbly behind Maharbal, head down, eyes fixed upon the earthen floor. He was gaunt in a way that indicated he had suffered from months of poor diet. He stood like a stick figure dressed to scare birds from a field. His clothes hung off him, a collection of skins and furs piled upon each other against the cold. His hair was wild, grown long and matted. It did not flow down his back but stood out around him like a lion's mane.

“He is called Tusselo,” Maharbal said. “He has been with us since Saguntum. He is a good rider, though I cannot say how he comes to know this land.”

“You are Massylii?” Hannibal asked.

Tusselo nodded.

“Why do you know Roman geography?”

Tusselo did not raise his eyes, but his voice was steady and calm when he spoke. “I was a slave to the Romans. I lived twelve years in this land. My master was a merchant. We traveled much. I learned the land through walking it. Many places and the ways between them are still clear in my mind.”

“Do you find the land different when looked upon with free eyes?”

“Different, yes. And the same.”

“It cannot be easy to return to the land that enslaved you, especially not for a Massylii. Your people were not put on the earth to be slaves. Do you return to seek revenge?”

The Numidian did not answer immediately. He cleared his throat and waited and made no sign that he would respond. But Hannibal let the silence linger.

“I cannot answer you with certainty,” Tusselo eventually said. “I have much anger, yes. I was robbed of many things, but not physical things that I can reclaim as such. I do want revenge, Commander, but I also want things I do not have words to explain.”

“I will not press you to find those words,” Hannibal said, “so long as there is always conviction in your actions. What is this route south that you know of?”

Tusselo explained that there was a neglected and difficult road to the north of Arretium. He pointed it out on the chart the generals had been using in their debates. It ran just south of the Arno River, through a marshy, swampy land. There was little forage on this route, the ground being so constantly soaked that only water plants flourished there. Trees had been drowned long ago and stood bare and rotting. Grass would be difficult to find. This time of the year it would be a chilly wasteland, a wide swath of country knee deep in water. The route had a single thing to recommend it, and that was that nobody would imagine they would choose it. They could emerge well into the center of Italy, behind the armies sent to bar their passage.

“My master once took this route to avoid the debt collectors who were hunting him,” Tusselo said. “It proved a good choice. But even in the height of summer it was a wetland. It will be wetter in the spring.”

“You still call him your master?” Silenus asked.

Tusselo turned his gaze on him, took him in, and then looked back in Hannibal's general direction. “It is just a word, the easiest for me to use. The truth is something different.”

Mago placed his fingers on the papyrus and turned it toward himself. “If these marshlands are as you describe they'll be as deadly as the mountain crossing.”

“It is the least favorable route imaginable,” Tusselo said, “but if we managed it the army might pass both consuls undiscovered. We'd appear to vanish from the world in one place—”

“—and later appear in another,” Hannibal concluded.

Tusselo nodded. For the first time he looked directly into the commander's eyes. “Like witchcraft,” he said.

There was a silence. After a moment, Hannibal dismissed the Numidian. To Maharbal he said, “Do you trust this man?”

“I don't know how he came to us,” Maharbal said, “but he has never given me reason to doubt him. I believe he knows this land. And I believe he is no friend to the Romans.”

“I see as much in his eyes,” Hannibal said. “Sometimes I wonder at the workings of the gods. I would not have found this route without this man, and yet I feel a drum beating inside me. This is part of our destiny. I must believe the gods placed him among us to make us see that which we would not have seen.”

“Or to lead us astray,” Mago said. “Not all gods look kindly on us. Brother, I do not favor defeating our cause by a march. We cannot survive another victory like the mountain crossing. I fear this will cost us too heavily.”

“At times our fate is presented to us through unlikely vessels,” Hannibal said. “I believe this Numidian is such a vessel. Why else would he return to the land that enslaved him? Even he cannot answer that question. This route is like an arrow loosed in the dark. The Romans will neither hear nor see the missile's flight. They will simply feel the shaft as it runs deep into their chest.”