Zama

by Dan Armstrong

  Although the winters were not nearly as cold in Africa as they were in Italy, the war still came to a halt. The two opposing armies made no attempt to engage in combat, and the months grew long with inactivity. I thought often of my mother, fully aware that there was no way of knowing how Hannibal might treat her. Assuming he knew she had been acting as a spy, he was as likely to execute her as keep her in chains. Thinking about all the possibilities made me sick with worry, and I wondered if my leaving Rome had been a terrible mistake. All I could hope for now was that Scipio’s strategy would work. That his presence in Africa would bring Hannibal back to Carthage and that my mother would be with him. Then Scipio would have to do what no other Roman general had done, defeat Hannibal. Only then might I see my mother again.

  CHAPTER 72

  Scipio became obsessed with the mapping of North Africa. Knowing he would be fighting armies native to the region, he was convinced that thorough knowledge of the ground was as essential to his success as the training of his men. Compared to what the other Roman generals were doing, this was advanced military thinking. During the winter, when little beyond an occasional skirmish heated the blood, Scipio would send me out with Masinissa and a squadron of his cavalry to continue the work of detailing the map.

  On one of these excursions, Masinissa confided in me while we sat around the campfire after the evening meal.

  “If the reports Scipio has received are accurate, Syphax has remained with his army outside Utica. I have heard that he had Sophonisba delivered to Carthage by ship so that he can leave camp on occasion to visit her.”

  “That doesn’t sound so surprising.”

  “She’s staying at her father’s house in the city.”

  We were camped on a hill well south of Carthage. The lights of the city were visible at night. Masinissa stared off in that direction, then turned to me. “My father knew Hannibal’s father. Their friendship allowed me to spend several years in Carthage as a youth. I know the city inside and out. I know where Hasdrubal’s home is located.” He looked off again in the direction of Carthage. “I plan to go there.”

  “That could be awfully dangerous.”

  He grinned showing his teeth. “And I want you to go with me.”

  “How would we get into the city?”

  “I know ways.”

  I hesitated, then asked, “When are you thinking of going?”

  His eyes flashed in the firelight. “Tonight. I want to use your spyglass.”

  “Are you sure? Tonight?”

  “Are you willing?”

  I stared into the fire, watching the flames lick at unburned chunks of wood. It seemed like a crazy idea, but I had grown very fond of Masinissa. I spent more time with him than either Troglius or Rullo. I faced him, still uncertain.

  Masinissa left me no choice. “We should go now before it gets any later.” He stood. “I will tell my men that we will be back before daylight.”

  We left camp almost immediately and rode as fast as the light of a full moon allowed. It was at least ten miles. The ground was mostly level and we made good time.

  Carthage was situated at the end of a bulb-shaped isthmus, protected on the north by a lagoon, on the east by the ocean, and on the south by the Lake of Tunis. Surrounded by twenty miles of walls and precipitous cliffs, the only access to the city by land was from the west, where the isthmus narrowed to three miles across and met the African mainland. Three barriers—a ditch sixty feet wide, an earth and timber rampart, and a stone wall, forty feet tall and thirty feet thick—stretched across the Isthmus and controlled entry to the city. The three-story wall also contained barracks for twenty thousand soldiers and stables for four thousand horses and three hundred elephants. Carthage was considered impenetrable, and yet Masinissa’s plan involved surmounting all three of these barriers.

  We hid the horses in a grove of almond trees at the base of the isthmus. As we approached the first of the three barriers—the ditch—we could see the silhouettes of soldiers patrolling the battlements of the three-story wall up ahead. Our task seemed impossible.

  “Masinissa, how will we ever get pass these ramparts?”

  “Follow me. The ditch has no guards. We can climb through it. It’s easier for two people than an entire army.”

  He was right. We stumbled down into the ditch, then crawled up the far side. The next barrier was a steep hill of compacted dirt, reinforced with timbers.

  “These earthworks are patrolled,” whispered Masinissa when we got close. “But the guards are few. We can slip by them if we’re careful.”

  Again he was right. We watched the patrols long enough to predict their coming and going, then at the proper moment, we scurried up the rampart. Masinissa with surprising ease, me with considerable difficulty.

  Next was the forty-foot stone wall. The guards were more numerous and we could not possibly climb a vertical wall. “What’s the secret here?” I asked

  “We’ll go down to the edge of the lagoon, where the wall enters the water.” He pointed to the north. “Then we’ll wade through the water to a small fault in the wall that I learned about as a child. Again, an army can’t do this, but we can.”

  Masinissa led us through the thick reeds that grew along the shore of the lagoon. We trudged out into the water up to our waists and followed the wall for several hundred feet to a shadowy crevice in the stonework. Masinissa squeezed into the crevice with me behind. It was completely dark and we had to feel our way through what was essentially a crack all the way through the wall.

  Soaking wet, our legs coated with mud up to the shins, we squeezed out of the crevice into Malqua, Carthage’s industrial area, where the fishermen lived and the mackerel they caught were dried for shipping and the murex they gathered were made into purple dye. Soon we came to another stone wall, not so large as the first, but also impossible to scale.

  “Now what?”

  “This wall only surrounds Byrsa, the plateau in the center of the city. It’s the sacred part of Carthage and is deliberately separated from the rest of the city. We don’t need to get in there. If we follow the wall this way,” he pointed, “it will take us where we want to go.”

  Again Masinissa was right. He led me north along the base of the wall. The path was uneven, clearly rarely traveled, and at times very steep, but it allowed us to bypass Brysa and enter the city proper. It was late. The moon stood high in the sky. Only dogs and drunks were on the streets. We wound through a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys, between five and six story tenement housing, steadily making our way north to Megara, where the most wealthy Carthaginians had been building new homes.

  Masinissa pointed through a stand of date palms to the outline of a three-story home. It sat on the edge of a cliff, overhanging the lagoon. A six-foot wall enclosed the garden that surrounded it. “That’s Hasdrubal’s house. I’m sure it’s guarded better than the ramparts were.”

  I handed him the spyglass. He scanned the house without seeing sign of anyone. We slipped through the trees to where the garden wall met the cliff. On the way, we spotted two guards patrolling the outside perimeter of the wall, but there was no sign that anyone was awake inside the building.

  We crept to the very edge of the cliff and a one hundred-foot drop to the water. Masinissa tried the spyglass again. A stone balcony extended from the north side of the home and hung out over the lagoon. With only an oblique angle on this side of the house, Masinissa could just barely see that one of the windows off the balcony was lit from inside. He turned to me and whispered, “Listen.”

  I heard a woman’s voice softly chanting in the Punic language, which I recognized but didn’t know.

  “I’m guessing that’s Sophonisba,” Masinissa whispered. “She must be in the lighted room off the balcony.” Masinissa was so excited his hands shook. He gave me a quick glance. “Take hold of my hand with both of yours.”

  I gripped his hand.

  “Set your feet and hold on tight.” With me as a counterweight, he l
eaned out over the cliff as far as he could, hoping to get a better angle on the window. Stretched out nearly perpendicular to the cliff, he sighted through the spyglass using only one hand to focus—no easy task. After a moment, he lowered the spyglass and whispered, “She’s sitting at her dressing table with her back to the window.” He lifted the spyglass for one more look, then signaled for me to pull him in.

  “You stay here. I’m going up there.”

  “Onto the balcony? How?”

  His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Watch me.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, but he was already gone.

  Masinissa dropped down below the edge of the cliff, then climbed like a spider sideways along the footings of the house. I lost sight of him in the shadows, then saw him reappear on the ground below the balcony. I used the spyglass to watch him.

  With remarkable dexterity, he scaled the side of the house, digging his fingers into the mortar and pinching his toes into the creases between the rough stones, steadily moving upward. After what seemed hours, I saw his hand reach the top of the balcony wall. He pulled himself up just enough to get his head above the edge, then swung his right leg over the balustrade. Using his leg as a lever, he rolled himself over the railing onto the balcony. When he stood up, someone inside the house screamed, then screamed again. A guard shouted. Several men came crashing through the garden, calling to each other. Light appeared in two windows, then in two more.

  Masinissa hopped up onto the balustrade, glanced down at the water below, then took a long leap to the top of the garden wall, where he teetered, dangerously close to falling, before catching his balance and dropping down to the ground beside me. He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into a run. I took one last look over my shoulder as we raced away. A young woman stood at the edge of the balcony staring into the darkness. Then we were dodging through the date palms, running as fast as we could.

  Fortunately the guards had gone into the house instead of out beyond the garden wall. We were well ahead of them by the time we heard them come out of the house, calling instructions to each other.

  We retraced our path out of Megara and into the dark streets of Carthage, winding out way along the edge of Byrsa and down to the crease in the wall. We squeezed through the narrow crack and slipped into the lagoon. We waded through the mud and reeds and water to the west end of the wall, scaled the dirt rampart, and climbed into and out of the sixty-foot ditch. Not until we were in the almond grove untying our horses did we slow down enough to catch our breaths.

  Masinissa called to me excitedly as we rode away. “She saw me through the mirror. Only for the briefest instant did our eyes meet, but I now know for certain that someday she will be mine!”

  CHAPTER 73

  Sophonisba had recited a prayer to Tanit, then had gotten up from her knees to sit at her dressing table. A single, white candle in the center of the table provided the only light. Felicia, who Sophonisba hadn’t seen since her marriage, lay stretched out on the floor beside her. Suddenly the young cheetah growled, deep and low. Sophonisba glanced at her cat. Felicia was now sitting up, keenly alert, her small spotted ears upright and turning this way and that, clearly having heard something.

  Sophonisba stood up to see what it was and happened to glance in the mirror. Masinissa was staring at her in the reflection.

  In the adjacent slaves’ quarters, Nycea had also heard a noise on the balcony. Zanthia and Gaia, in beds on either side of her, were asleep. She slid from her bed and looked out the window just as Masinissa stood up to peer into Sophonisba’s room. Nycea immediately screamed, waking the entire household and alerting the guards. Then she ran out into the hall to scream again.

  Zanthia leapt from her bed and went directly to Sophonisba’s bedroom through the connecting door. The room was empty and the doors to the balcony were open. Zanthia found Sophonisba on the balcony staring off into the darkness with Felicia at her side. She appeared to be in a state of shock, her eyes were full like the moon and she was shaking.

  “Are you all right, Sophie? What did you see?”

  Sophonisba didn’t answer. She floated, as in a trance, back into the bedroom and stood before her mirror. Felicia remained out on the balcony, anxiously pacing back and forth.

  Zanthia came up from behind Sophonisba and placed her hands on her shoulders. “What is it, my lady?”

  Sophonisba turned to face her most trusted confidant.

  At this same moment, Nycea returned to her quarters looking for Zanthia. First she saw Gaia sitting up in bed, then that the door to Sophonisba’s room was open. She heard Zanthia’s voice, and thinking she would go in, walked over to doorway, then suddenly stopped to listen rather than enter.

  “I saw a man on the balcony,” gasped Sophonisba as though waking from a dream.

  “A thief?”

  “No.” Sophonisba put a finger to her lips. “You can’t say a word.”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  “It was Masinissa, but he was gone by the time I reached the balcony.”

  Zanthia understood immediately—as did Nycea.

  The clank of armed men sounded in the hallway. There was a heavy knock on the door and it opened. Hasdrubal entered the room, leaving four guards and his slave Vangue in the hallway behind him.

  “What’s going on? Who screamed?”

  Sophonisba quickly gathered herself. “Everything’s fine, Father. I believe it was Nycea who screamed. I went out on the balcony, but I didn’t see anything.”

  “And you, Zanthia. Did you see anything?”

  “No, sir. I came into Sophonisba’s room after Nycea screamed.”

  On hearing this, Nycea returned to her bed. Moments later, Hasdrubal entered her bedroom without knocking. Vangue stood outside the door. Gaia and Nycea leapt from their beds.

  “Who screamed?” demanded Hasdrubal.

  “I did,” said Nycea, just above a whisper. “I saw a man on the balcony off Sophonisba’s room.”

  “Who was it?”

  Nycea lied. “I don’t know.”

  Hasdrubal exploded with a string of curses to the gods, then brusquely pushed past Vangue and rushed out of the house to talk to the guards who were searching the grounds.

  Vangue came into the slaves’ quarters and glared at the two women. He moved up close to Nycea and grabbed her roughly by the arm. “You lied to Hasdrubal. I can tell.” He stuck his face into hers. “Who was it?”

  “I—I—I’m not sure.”

  Vangue took hold of her right breast, covered only by a light sleeping gown, and squeezed. “Who did you see?”

  Gaia stood back as tears began to run from Nycea’s eyes.

  Vangue twisted her breast until she wet herself. He called her a filthy pig, then let go of her. Nycea sank to the floor in pain, holding her breast and sobbing.

  “Do I need a flail?” snarled Vangue.

  “No. No. It was Masinissa, the Numidian prince. I overheard Sophonisba say that to Zanthia.”

  Vangue grinned ugly. “Don’t say a word to anyone.” He shot a hot glance at Gaia. “Either of you. We might be able to use this information to the advantage of all of us.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Meanwhile Scipio had not completely given up on Syphax as an ally. In the days after Masinissa’s clandestine trip into Carthage, Scipio sent Marcus Ralla, a recent addition to his staff, to the Numidian camp to ask the king if he would meet with him. Syphax accepted the offer and suggested a neutral site between the two camps. A tent was set up for the meeting. Both men came with security guards, but met alone, except for me to take notes. The only furnishings were a rug, two chairs, a table, and two oil lamps on bronze stands. Scipio wore a toga. Syphax was in his royal robes. A tray of fresh fruit, a loaf of bread, and an amphora of wine sat on the table between them.

  Syphax immediately apologized for his change of heart regarding the alliance they had agreed to in Siga. “After thinking hard about your request, General—that I was required to stay out of th
e war—I realized that was impossible. Knowing I would eventually be drawn into the conflict in some manner, my heart told me that I must fight on the side of Africa. Carthage is not Numidian, but its people have been a part of my tribe’s history for ten generations. Many of our families have intermarried, and when Hasdrubal offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to me, I understood that my loyalty must be to Africa. I hope you have been able to understand this.”

  Scipio shook his head and frowned. “I wish that instead of desiring the charms of a woman, you had chosen to honor your word to another man. That’s the true measure of a man’s character, when his word is stronger than the transient pleasures of the bed. It’s sad to me that I must say this to any man, much less one of royal blood. Now you and I, who once dined together as friends, must be enemies. And I don’t want that.”

  “Nor I,” replied the king, clearly stung by Scipio’s words.

  “What might it take for you to reconsider? You must know that Carthage will never win the war, and that in the end, their defeat will have a serious impact on the security of your kingdom.”

  Syphax appeared to be under great personal stress. I believe he truly admired Scipio, wanted him as a friend, and even understood that he was a superior general who would be difficult to defeat. And yet the temptation to join the Roman cause was countered by the allure of Sophonisba. He couldn’t imagine giving her up for anything. Instead of answering Scipio, he poured himself a cup of wine and took a sip.

  Scipio seemed to read his mind. “You know, Syphax.” He filled a cup for himself. “A man’s lust for a woman eventually dies off, but his honor is eternal—even engraved on his tomb. I have heard of the beauty of Hasdrubal’s daughter, and I can imagine how she might enchant a younger man, but you have more than forty years. I find it hard to believe that you consider her a more valuable asset than the friendship of Rome, especially when you’ll be bedding some other woman before this year is out.” He lifted his cup to the king. “Can we raise a drink to Rome and put your change of heart behind us? Or must I, in the days to come, seek you out on the battlefield to repay you for going against your word, a reversal that I had been warned about in the Roman Senate. They said any deal with a barbarian,” he let the word hang in the air, “was asking for trouble. But I put my reputation on the line, and said, oh, no, Syphax can be trusted.”