Hannibal 03 - Clouds of War

by Ben Kane

  The carnage was spreading fast through Enna. Every street, every alley rang with the sound of doors being kicked in and the inhabitants’ screams and pleas for mercy, which were all too often suddenly cut short. Mutilated bodies lay everywhere in the dirt: a slave with a spilled basket of bread and vegetables; an old cripple with a makeshift crutch; a small girl who still clutched a doll in one hand – ordinary people who had been going about their business when death arrived. Quintus saw a matron of his mother’s age being pursued from her house by four legionaries. They caught her and ripped off her dress. Then, laughing, they urged her to run naked. When she would not, they slapped her with the flat of their sword blades until she did. Quintus averted his gaze and ran on, praying that the matron had a swift end, though he knew that was not what the legionaries intended for her. A few steps on, new horror confronted him. A woman of about Aurelia’s age threw herself from the top of a three-storey building rather than be caught by a group of jeering hastati. After she’d broken her neck on the street below, they leaned out of the window and called down to Quintus: ‘You can screw her first!’ Nauseous, he didn’t answer; instead, he put his head down and began to sprint.

  As he reached the Harvest Moon, however, his heart sank. The door was ajar, and from within came the sound of smashing pottery and screaming. Quintus wished that Urceus were with him, but he was alone. Time for a deep breath, a moment of calm. He needed to take great care if he wasn’t to end up oozing his lifeblood on to the inn’s floor, as so many innocents were bleeding throughout the town. Pillaging soldiers did not much care whom they killed. Watch over me, great Mars, he prayed. With a tight grip on his gladius, he entered.

  Only a couple of lamps were burning within. The room appeared empty, but Quintus did not let down his guard. Within a few steps, he came upon one of Thersites’ daughters, on her back in front of the bar. Just beyond the slack fingers of one hand lay a rusty hammer. The floor around her was slick with blood. On tiptoe, Quintus approached. The girl was younger than Aurelia. He peered, gagged. Her throat had been cut. At least she had died before her assailants had had time to violate her, he thought.

  The same didn’t apply to Thersites’ other daughter, assuming that it was she who was screaming. The thin, distressing sound was coming from behind the bar. He stepped over the eldest girl’s body, feeling sick at what he was about to discover. She wasn’t in the first chamber – the storeroom – which was filled with laughing hastati. Some were moving along the racks, smashing the necks off amphorae and sticking their open mouths beneath the tide of wine that flowed as a result. There was far too much for them to swallow; they were soon drenched in it, which seemed to amuse them even more. No one even noticed Quintus. He moved silently on to the second room. From the hanging pots and pans, oven and workbench, it appeared to be the inn’s kitchen. At the far end, several more hastati stood over the bare arse of one of their fellows. Underneath him, Quintus could see a girl’s legs.

  Steeling himself to spill Roman blood, he stole forward, placing his feet down softly so that his hobs didn’t give him away.

  ‘You stupid bitch! This for your trouble!’ snarled the soldier on the floor. There was a soft, choking sound, such as someone makes when their throat fills with blood, and Quintus knew with a horrible certainty that he had come too late.

  ‘Hey!’ cried one of the spectators. ‘I hadn’t had my turn.’

  ‘You can fuck her now. She’s still warm!’ With a dirty chuckle, the soldier wiped his dagger on the girl’s dress and sheathed it. He got to his feet, oblivious to Quintus’ presence behind him.

  ‘It wouldn’t be for the first time,’ added another hastatus.

  Everyone except the thwarted man laughed.

  Quintus fought back the bile that had rushed up his gullet. Part of him wondered about falling on the hastati with his blade, but he discounted the notion. Not only would he die here – there were at least ten soldiers in the inn – but it would not bring back Thersites or his unfortunate daughters. Lowering his sword arm, he called out, ‘Ho, brothers! What have we here?’

  The group turned as one, and their hard faces relaxed a little when they saw one of their own. ‘You’re not one of Pera’s lads, are you?’ demanded the hastatus with the dagger.

  ‘No. I’m with Corax.’

  ‘If you’ve come for pussy, you’re too late, comrade.’ A snicker. ‘But there’s plenty of wine in the storeroom yonder. I’d wager that we can spare you a drop, even if you aren’t one of ours. What do you say, brothers?’

  The other hastati whooped their agreement. ‘Wine! Wine!’ they shouted. Quintus caught a glimpse of a pathetic, bloody bundle of limbs before he was led away, and his heart wrenched. He could not let his emotions show, however. He stayed for a short time to avoid suspicion, swilling down wine with his new comrades and hoping the memories of what he’d seen that day would be wiped away. More than once, he let some wine spill on to the floor. It looked like an accident, but each time Quintus was pouring a libation to the gods revered by Greek-speakers such as Thersites and his family. Accept their souls into the afterlife, he asked silently, for they were innocent of any crime.

  With toasts of eternal friendship that were feigned on his part at least, he left the hastati to their celebration.

  New scenes of horror greeted him on the streets, and he was stricken with remorse for what he had done in the agora. Not initially, when the hastati had been attacked, but after that, when the fighting had turned to slaughtering. The situation could have been – should have been – averted. A new purpose gripped Quintus. Corax had to know that it was Pera’s action that had pushed the crowd into violence. If it hadn’t been for him, he thought with a mixture of fury and sadness, Mattheus, Thersites and his family would not have died. Nor would many hundreds of the town’s inhabitants.

  He went hunting for his centurion. Corax would have some chance of convincing Pinarius that one of their own was responsible for the rivers of blood that had been shed in Enna that day. What would happen after that, Quintus didn’t know, but he wasn’t prepared to stand by and do nothing.

  His search ended before it had started, in the corpse-filled agora. Corax was on the steps of Demeter’s temple, deep in conversation with Pinarius and all of the other centurions. Approaching him in front of both Pera and Pinarius was out of the question, so Quintus first set himself the miserable task of trying to find Thersites. He had only a vague memory of where he’d seen the innkeeper. Other soldiers were pilfering the dead, so he didn’t look out of place.

  His job was stomach-wrenchingly awful. Some of the men Quintus rolled over were still alive. Drenched in blood, maimed or with loops of shiny gut hanging out, they moaned and wept and begged him for help, or for an end to their suffering. This was something that soldiers did for fallen comrades when necessary, but Quintus could not bring himself to do it here. The savagery of what he and his comrades had done weighed too heavily on his conscience. To send yet more innocents to the afterlife was beyond him. He averted his gaze and moved on.

  When he found Thersites, Quintus was relieved that he was already dead. The innkeeper had taken a thrust to the chest, which would have killed him instantly. It was a small blessing, Quintus decided sadly, in that he had not known what had happened to his daughters. He wanted to apologise to Thersites, but the words died in his mouth. It was futile. Thersites was gone.

  Preoccupied, he did not see the figure behind him rise from the piles of dead.

  ‘Murdering Roman filth!’

  Quintus felt someone grab him by the right shoulder. At the same time, he felt a punching sensation in his lower back. There was a squeal of metal as the rings of his mail were put to the test, and then a blinding pain shot through his entire body. Crying out, Quintus lurched away a step and grabbed the hilt of his sword, tried to turn and face his attacker. A punch to his chin sent him sprawling on to his back, however. Quintus lay helpless as a slightly built man with a flesh wound to his face loomed over him, kni
fe in hand. ‘I’ll take one of you to Hades with me at least!’ He stooped and came up with a gladius. ‘Slain by one of your own weapons. That seems fitting.’

  Quintus kicked out with his sandals, but the bodies underfoot gave him no purchase. He closed his eyes, resigned himself to death. This was it.

  But the killing blow did not fall.

  Quintus opened his eyes and was amazed to see his assailant toppling from sight with a pilum buried deep in his chest. He scrambled to his feet and was shocked to find Pera watching him from about twenty paces away.

  ‘I’d imagined that a veteran of your standing would watch his back better,’ mocked Pera.

  He was right, and Quintus flushed scarlet.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Quintus put a hand to his lower back and felt beneath his armour. Ignoring the darts of pain, he probed the area with his fingertips. His hand came away a little bloody, but the wound couldn’t be that bad. The hole in his mail was too small, so only the tip of the knife had gone through. ‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’ His brush with death had wiped out his deference to Pera’s rank, for a moment anyway. ‘I thought you would have been pleased to see me dead, sir.’

  ‘For all that you’re a piece of shit, you’re still a Roman. That’s more than can be said for the sewer rat who tried to kill you.’ With a look that said things might have been different if it had been he who’d wielded the blade, Pera walked away.

  Bewildered by what had happened, Quintus hobbled over to the colonnaded market. There he was pleased to find Urceus, swigging from a skin of wine. His friend helped him to take off his mail shirt. ‘Pah!’ Urceus exclaimed. ‘It’s only a scratch. A wash with some acetum and a light dressing will see you right. The blade must have been blunt, or the man wielding it a weakling.’

  ‘He was skinny, that’s for sure,’ said Quintus, relieved.

  ‘Fortuna smiled on you twice just now,’ Urceus pronounced. ‘If the knife had gone in there, you’d have bled to death inside or I’m no judge. Then for that cocksucker Pera to save your life too! Well—’

  ‘Here, give me some of that.’ Quintus reached out, suddenly very thirsty indeed.

  They drank in companionable silence, oblivious to the scene of carnage that lay so close by. The pair were still there some time later when Corax came striding along, with Vitruvius in tow. He slowed up; a tiny grin creased his lips. ‘I should have known you two would find some wine without having to stray far! Is it any good?’

  ‘Not too bad, sir,’ replied Urceus. Both of them struggled to their feet and tried to salute at the same time. ‘Would you like some, sir?’ asked Urceus. He glanced at Vitruvius. ‘And you, sir?’

  Corax held out a hand. ‘I’ll have a drop. I’m parched.’ He and Vitruvius shared what was left in the skin. ‘You’re right, Jug, it was tasty. Best find yourself some more, eh?’

  ‘There’ll still be plenty to be had,’ said Vitruvius with a wink.

  Quintus knew that a better time for him to say something wouldn’t present itself. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘About what happened here today.’

  Corax’s brow furrowed. ‘It’s clear what went on, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not so sure, sir. Pinarius wanted a decision on whether to send the embassy or not. Most of the men were voting in favour of that, sir. They were being compliant, not aggressive. A fool threw a fig at Centurion Pera, it’s true, but the situation was far from lost at that stage.’

  Corax’s lips tightened. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was Pera’s killing of the fig-thrower that made the mob turn on us, sir. If he hadn’t done that, I think the vote would have been carried.’ Quintus hesitated before adding, ‘The bloodshed could have been avoided, sir.’

  Silence fell. Urceus’ expression had gone studiously blank. Corax’s face was worryingly dark, and Vitruvius appeared equally unhappy. The moments dragged on, and Quintus began to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘If this had come from anyone other than one of my veterans, I would beat the man responsible until he was unconscious. Either that, or throw him off a cliff.’ Corax paused and then added, ‘Pera just told me how you were jumped by someone who’d been playing dead. You’d have been killed if it hadn’t been for him, he said.’ A glare. ‘Is that right?’

  Shit! He hadn’t thought that Pera might tell Corax. ‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yet you have informed on him.’ Corax’s matter-of-fact tone was menacing.

  Quintus struggled to meet his gimlet stare. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Because it’s you, Crespo, I will answer you. I’m not interested in a blow-by-blow account of what went on earlier. Nor is Pinarius, and nor, I suspect, is Consul Marcellus – especially from the likes of you. Today, Centurion Pera helped to kill a crowd of rebellious townspeople who would have sold us out to the guggas. That’s all.’

  Quintus felt foolish, and more than a little scared.

  ‘I never want to hear of this again, Crespo.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Piss off out of my sight. You too, Jug.’

  Quintus beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘Sometimes I worry for your sanity,’ hissed Urceus the moment that they were out of earshot of Corax. ‘I hate Pera. Corax probably does too, but to criticise the man in front of him? He was only ever going to defend his own.’

  ‘I know,’ said Quintus with a sigh.

  ‘Consider yourself lucky that he was in a good mood. It’s time to put your head down and forget about Pera, and what happened here today.’

  PART TWO

  Chapter XVII

  IT WAS SUNSET, and on the southern ramparts of Akragas, Hanno and Aurelia walked hand in hand. The whole city was bathed in the glorious, golden light of autumn as they wandered eastward along the wall from the fifth gate, Hanno’s officer’s uniform keeping the regularly placed sentries away. The smell of incense from the nearby massive sanctuary to Demeter and Persephone was thick in the air, and the chants of the devotees within mixed with the cries of the vendors outside, selling wine, trinkets and autumn fruits.

  Ten stadia to the south, fishing boats were putting to sea from the city’s busy port. Nearer to the walls, hundreds of tents belonging to Himilco’s soldiers sprawled to either side of the shrine of Asklepios. From the edge of the camp, an elephant bugled. A short distance from Hanno and Aurelia loomed a magnificent temple, a number of which had been built in a line along the ridge that formed Akragas’ southern limit. But it was the second, the one built in honour of Olympian Zeus, that drew Hanno’s admiring gaze. The city’s residents loved to boast that it was the biggest Doric shrine in existence, but it was a shame, he reflected, that his people’s annexation of Akragas had prevented it from being finished.

  ‘An obol for your thoughts,’ said Aurelia.

  He smiled. It had become one of their little phrases. ‘Carthage is my home, and I will always love it. But this place’ – he gestured to his left, from the grid of streets covering the two confluent hills that formed the city’s backbone, then down the slope, over the agora and the grand bouleuterion, to the temples – ‘it’s just magnificent. It has stolen my heart.’ He smiled down at her. ‘As you have.’

  Her fingers entwined further with his. ‘Don’t you think that it’s also because we’re here?’

  ‘You could be right,’ he admitted, grinning.

  It had only been a month since Himilco’s and Hippocrates’ decision to end the year’s scrappy, inconclusive campaign and march west to Akragas, once again a major Carthaginian stronghold on the island. It had become a halcyon time for them, so it felt far longer. That didn’t mean Hanno had forgotten the Roman ambush on Hippocrates’ force, or the days that had followed it. Gathering up more than a dozen survivors, he and Aurelia had headed west, towards the area where Himilco was supposed to be. They’d had to take constant care to avoid enemy patrols. Soon after that, they’d had their first encounter with Carthaginian scouts – what a joyful occasion for Han
no that had been. By that stage, his band of stragglers had swelled to more than fifty. Among them, to his pleasure, had been both Kleitos and Deon, and a few more of his men.

  His reunion with Hippocrates had been far less amicable. Hanno had struggled to contain his contempt at Hippocrates’ flight from the valley, while Hippocrates’ disdain for his very presence had seemed to have grown. Once Hippocrates had established that Himilco spoke passable Greek, he had left Hanno out of their meetings. Hanno had tried speaking directly to Himilco, but it seemed that Hippocrates had earned the Carthaginian general’s trust. Hanno’s annoyance at being excluded from the two men’s meetings had been eased by the knowledge that Aurelia was safe. With the war effectively suspended, Hippocrates had thrown himself into the city’s brothels, where, by all accounts, he indulged his taste for the most attractive whores available. He was far too busy to bother with Hanno, or the Roman woman he’d once forced into his bed.

  There were other reasons to be cheerful. By way of reward for escaping the ambush, Hippocrates had set him and Kleitos the task of regrouping the survivors into a few full-strength units outside Akragas. Pleasingly, Hanno had also been able to send word to Hannibal on a Phoenician merchant ship. The setback of the ambush on Hippocrates had not prevented him from joining forces with Himilco’s vast army, Hanno had written. In the spring, they would smash Marcellus’ legions apart.

  ‘You’ve got to concede that the city is stunning. Rome doesn’t even come close,’ Hanno said. ‘Nowhere in Italy does.’