David Durham - Pride of Carthage

“Have you got all that?” she asked the scribe.

Without looking up, he nodded that he did. He mumbled, “Fame for us all,” as he finished writing.

Imilce picked up a date and tested the flesh of it against her teeth. She had seen Carthaginian women do this often, and—both consciously and not—she had adopted some of their mannerisms. On her young sister-in-law's recommendation, she had taken to wearing Carthaginian clothing. The garments were beautiful in their own right, but she never failed to be impressed by the effect they produced when combined with the voluptuous grace of African women. Didobal epitomized this and bore it with remarkable effect: her dark skin further enriched by the bright reds and oranges of her garments, by patterns and pictures stained into the cloth. Certainly, Carthaginian men looked kindly on her, but what did they matter? It was a women's world in which she found herself, and here she felt shockingly immature. Thinking of her mother-in-law, Imilce felt like an adolescent wrapped in adult garments, like a stick figure but not a true woman at all. Oh, she so very badly wished she could dig her fingernails into her husband's muscled back, direct his sex inside her, and know once more that he was real and that she was truly valued and that her future was assured. It was unfortunate that she had not become pregnant again. . . . But such thoughts were not for this scribe's ears. She tossed the date back into its bowl and carried on with another line of thought.

“I will tell you something now that struck me deeply,” she resumed, “though I do not know what you will think of it. This afternoon I took the midday meal with your youngest sister, Sophonisba. I am sure you have not the slightest memory of her. She is just thirteen, but her beauty is blooming daily. Her eyes are so black and large, framed by eyelashes that seem to stroke the air itself with sensuality, as if each lash were a feather in an Egyptian dancer's fingers. How she can convey all this by simply blinking is beyond me, but the effect is quite real. It is frightening, really, how devastating she can be with that adolescent glare of hers. Grown men, soldiers and fathers and grandfathers even . . . They all crumble before her. Either that or they simper and flirt with her. She is barely more than a girl, but already the wolves are baying in the night.

“It is Sophonisba's mind that truly surprised me, however. She is a young woman of strong opinions. She is well informed and readily capable of discoursing on all manner of subject. She knows the details of the campaign, and she wishes she might herself take part. She looked at me with all seriousness and said, ‘Had I been born a man I would avenge the wrongs done us by Rome.' She asked, ‘Do you not think that our women have bravery beyond that even of our men?'

“I answered her that if she was anything to go by, then that was undoubtedly true. But she would not be so easily flattered. She was looking for something more, but she was unsure of how to say it at first. I referred to her mother, and her mother's mother, and to all those who have bravely sent their men off to war and waited long years for their return. I did not mention myself, of course, but in listening to myself speak I did feel a certain pride at being as composed as I am in your long absence. Sophonisba did not dispute any of this, but she seemed saddened by it. She wished there were other ways to demonstrate her valor. She said, ‘Imilce, I am not like most girls. I do not pray for childish things. I pray that I will somehow serve Carthage in a way that would honor the Barcas.'

“Can you imagine this? From a girl who should be dreaming simply of some foreign prince to wed . . .”

Imilce, for the first since beginning her letter, sat down on the intricate reclining chair in her sitting room. It was a piece of furniture she still did not care for. Despite its elegant shape and its tiny zebra-skinned cushion, it was an instrument of discomfort. If she had been confident of her position she would have replaced it by now. She sat silent for a moment, pressing her back into the perfectly straight length of mahogany, listening to the scribe's pen upon the papyrus.

She had reminded herself of Sophonisba's suitor, Masinissa, and considered mentioning him. She had first laid eyes on him a few days before as he returned from a lion hunt, an elite event in which he was participating for the first time. At Sophonisba's side, Imilce had stood on the wall near the city gates and watched the chariots thunder up the road. The afternoon was pleasantly cool, the surface of the road darkened by an early, light rain. Masinissa, being a Massylii, spurned the wheeled vehicles. Instead, he rode in the swarming confusion of horsemen. Sophonisba had no difficulty picking him out from the crowd.

“There he is,” she had said. “The handsome one.”

This was not, actually, a distinguishing feature among the throng of youthful warriors. Imilce nearly said as much. But then, to her surprise, she did spot a young man of more than usual grace. His dress was no different from the others', and his tack was simple. Yet as he circled and wheeled and trilled with his companions his face shone with a regal joy that separated him from the rest. Here was a boy at play with his friends; but here, too, was a monarch who knew his place among them and wore it comfortably. Word soon spread that the young prince had slain his first lion. He had made the kill from horseback, dancing around the beast, sinking three spears before it went down. That a young man so slender could slay a lion was difficult for Imilce to accept. She wondered whether the tale had not been exaggerated to feed the prince's pride. Though a woman, she knew as well as any man that a servant's deeds are often claimed by his master. But when she met Masinissa, saw his face and bearing from up close, felt his unusually calm confidence, the deferential smile and humility with which he received praise: considering all this, she believed the story.

She would have liked to share this and more with her husband, but she already felt she was rattling on too much, speaking of matters that were not particularly important and that Hannibal might find trivial when compared with the struggles in which he was engaged. And anyway, she never managed to convey her true heart in letters. Writing them made her doubt whether she knew her true heart.

“Perhaps your family shall have female heroes in the future,” she dictated, “should your sisters be given a chance to shine like their brothers.

“All the love Baal permits between us, Your wife, Imilce.”

When the scribe finished writing, she dismissed him, pointedly slipping the document from under his gaze so that he might not reread it to her, as he usually did. Alone a moment later, she studied the letter. She haltingly began to read it over, but then decided not to attempt the task. Though she could make some sense of the letters, she was never confident in her reading. Too many words escaped her, so that she always found her feelings incompletely rendered. The scribes never wrote one's exact words anyway; they abbreviated; they made intricate thoughts into simple, blocky sentiments. If she let herself, she would call the scribe back and have him rewrite the thing several times. She had done this with previous letters, but this time she disciplined the urge. Instead she did something else.

Once sure the ink was dry, she parted the fabric of her gown. She lifted the papyrus and pressed it against her naked flesh. She worked each section of it with her fingertips, feeling the damp of her sweat absorbed by the dry paper. She pressed from the skin of her belly up into the hollow that fused her ribs together, out over the soft give of her breasts. She held the papyrus there for several long breaths, imagining Hannibal receiving the document, believing that he might sense her on it, might think the paper was her very flesh, might feel the longing behind the words and understand more things than she could say.