‘What?’
‘I agree. Sir. I never asked for it. I do my best.’
‘And it’s a poor best from what your sergeant’s told me.’
Something in Mago’s arrogance struck Nelo in that moment, his complacency, his absolute certainty about his place in the world. Nelo had been around Fabius long enough to see the Roman’s point of view, to believe it: whatever was to come this campaigning season, the world was changing, utterly and irrevocably. He had a sudden vision of Mago in two or three or four years, standing in the frozen ruins of Carthage. How arrogant would he be then? How complacent? He tried to think how he could capture this insight on paper.
Mago seemed to sense there was something going on inside Nelo’s head that he couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch. ‘Pah! You are a waste of grain, you Northlander cur. And if the protection of your precious general ever wavers, I will make sure you are cast down where you belong.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Fabius said they would travel north along the coast roads. He wanted to see again where the Hatti had first landed, he said — and where they were landing still, according to his scouts — and then they would come upon the city the Hatti were building on African soil. And, he told Nelo, he wanted his artist to see it too, for even the landing was an exercise on a scale never before seen in the history of the world.
The march was easy. The weather was cold but calm, and the breeze fluctuated between a wash off the sea and a drier breath from the interior. The little traffic on the road cleared at the advance of Fabius’ party under its banner; there wasn’t much, a few mean carts pulled by skinny donkeys or bullocks. The road was lined by farms, but the ground was parched and lifeless. And as they passed the people would come out and run alongside, skinny wretches in rags, hands out, begging. Fabius allowed his troops to give them bits of silver, but none of the party’s own rations. This was the breadbasket of the city, Nelo reminded himself. These starving beggars were supposed to be supplying Carthage with its food, not the other way around.
Then the wind shifted again, coming from the south, whipping up grains of hard sand. The soldiers muttered complaints and covered their faces with their cloaks. Nelo had heard the soldiers talk of vast empty deserts to the south, nothing but bone-dry sand. If the country kept drying out, maybe the desert would wash up and cover Carthage itself.
The march was made in good order, the overnight camps efficiently set up and struck. And on the third day out of Carthage, they came upon the Hatti’s landing site.
Guided by scouts, Fabius took a small group forward to a headland, for a first view. Nelo went with them, his pouch at his side. From the headland the view to the north opened up, a vista of shore and sea. They were close to a river estuary, a sprawl of mudflats and braided waterways. A Carthaginian city called Utica lay a little way up the river; it had been abandoned and burned on the approach of the Hatti. Before the landing there had only been a scatter of fishing villages here, all now obliterated in the battle at the first landing site. Now the country had been transformed.
A tremendous arc of growstone dominated the estuary, an artificial harbour and groyne — an almost perfect circle. There were warehouses and other structures around this harbour, hasty constructions of turf and mud but huge even so. From the harbour, tracks trodden into the earth led inland. Looking that way, to the west, Nelo could see a new city being laid out around a low hill, for now not much more than a sketch of banks and tracks on a straight-line plan, but with the smoke of many fires feathering in the low breeze. Traffic moved on the tracks between city and harbour, carts, people on horseback and on foot. There was motion everywhere, and a distant clamour of voices — a sense of industry, of purpose about the scene.
The harbour itself was crowded with ships. And, looking north out over the sea, Nelo saw more ships, a scatter of them on the breast of the ocean as far as he could see — a snowstorm of Hatti ships, a countless number, descending on this shore.
‘Draw,’ Fabius muttered. ‘Draw, boy!’
Nelo fumbled for his paper.
Gisco said, ‘I’m surprised there wasn’t a Hatti scout up here. I’d have placed one.’
‘Oh, we’ve been seen.’ Fabius pointed. ‘Notice that party? Moving this way. That’s a Hatti war chariot. Not used in anger in a thousand years or more, and now the carriage of a prince.’
‘Look at all those ships,’ muttered Carthalo. He was a tall, angular man with a high forehead and a cool manner, evidently used to command, yet he seemed overwhelmed by the sight. ‘It’s as if the whole of the northern Continent is draining into Africa.’
‘Try not to be awed, sir,’ Fabius said sternly. ‘This is still your country, remember.’
‘True,’ Carthalo murmured. ‘And these Hatti are no more than a band of vagabonds and raiders, no matter how many there are.’
‘Quite right, sir.’
The Hatti party drew up below the headland. The single chariot was escorted by a hefty troop of soldiers dressed in the Hatti style, with their conical hats, and peculiar boots with the toes upturned.
Fabius muttered an order, and the Carthaginians began the gentle descent to meet the Hatti. Gisco made sure none of his troops raised a weapon. Still, Nelo could feel the tension rise as they approached the Hatti; a great deal of blood had already been spilled on this shore.
Nelo was surprised to find he recognised the man who led the Hatti party, dismounting now from the chariot. A young man with an air of command, with a queue of hair like a soldier’s, dressed not in armour but a rich embroidered ground-length robe, this was Arnuwanda, prince of New Hattusa, who had come to Northland two years ago, and had been stranded there when the first bad winter closed in.
Arnuwanda spoke in clear, stilted Hatti, and the man who had driven the chariot proclaimed a translation in Carthaginian. ‘You may bow in the presence of Arnuwanda, son of Arnuwanda who was nephew to My Sun the King Hattusili, the sixteenth of that name.’
Fabius bowed deeply but waved aside the translation, and replied in Hatti himself. Arnuwanda looked surprised, then grinned.
Aides muttered a hasty translation for the benefit of Carthalo and the rest. ‘The general says he knows Nesili and will address the prince in his own tongue.’
Fabius spoke again.
‘What did the Roman say?’ Carthalo snapped.
‘He asked, “How was your journey?” ’
The two parties merged, cautiously, and began to make their way down towards the Hatti port. Fabius and Arnuwanda continued to speak, translated for the benefit of the Carthaginians.
‘Roman, the journey was dramatic,’ Arnuwanda said. ‘First came the March of the Hatti, as history will know it, across Anatolia to the southern ports. That in itself was an epic adventure that will be remembered as long as mankind lives, in the blessing of Jesus Sharruma. You may know that our cities were always stocked with seal-houses of grain — granaries dedicated for the use of the King’s war-fighting. We planned the route to pass from one city to the rest, meaning to use the seal-houses. We found almost all of them looted, barren. And, rather than acquiring grain, we generally found ourselves acquiring more people, as each town emptied out and the people followed their Lord Jesus Sharruma. So we progressed across the country, stripping it of whatever food we could find — you can imagine how it was, the country was already starving. We left the country strewn with graves like poppy seeds. We did all this in the full gaze of Jesus Sharruma Our Lord, and built shrines, and kept a careful list of those who died, for they will be remembered when the Hatti return to take back the old lands.
‘It was a mighty throng that left New Hattusa; it was a much greater host by the time we reached the southern ports. There we began the process of transport across the sea. This was led by our allies of Hantilios, who as you know are expert seafarers.’
Fabius grunted. ‘I know my history, sir. That city was founded under the protection of the Hatti kings in the first place. It is no wonder its leaders serve you now.’<
br />
‘At a price, as you can imagine, good Fabius, I expect our grandsons still to be paying it off in instalments. But Hantilios served us well. Their shipwrights built special vessels for the first landing here on the African shore, which I myself led.’
‘Ah. The famous flat-bottomed boats that drive up the beaches.’
‘An ancient design, revived and reworked.’
‘My men resisted fiercely.’
‘Yes. As you know, even the first landing was a battle that would dwarf most in human history. Then it was a question of securing our position, of building the harbour to accommodate the hordes who followed us, and preparing for the greater war to come.’
‘Your harbour is impressive.’
‘We used Northlander engineers, and their expertise in growstone. We are involved in tremendous undertakings, General.’
‘Indeed. You spoke of the King. Uhhaziti is the crown prince, as the whole world knows. Since the death of My Sun the King Hattusili-’
‘There will be no coronation until this migration is done,’ Arnuwanda said. ‘Uhhaziti has insisted on it. He will be crowned in Carthage, on the Byrsa, and anointed by the Father of the Churches when your greatest temple has been rededicated to the worship of Jesus Sharruma. Not until then.’
Fabius nodded gravely. ‘And I, of course, will stop that from ever happening.’
‘We understand each other,’ Arnuwanda said. He glanced curiously at Nelo. ‘Do I recognise this boy?’
‘He serves me.’
Mago took the chance to push himself forward, and spoke in Carthaginian. ‘The boy answers to me; I am his commander. He is a Northlander. You may remember him from that chilly place. And me, perhaps, Prince?’
Arnuwanda stopped, and studied Mago, and replied in the same tongue. ‘I think I remember you. Your name, though. .’ He hesitated, an obvious bit of play-acting.
Mago, infuriated, snapped out his name. ‘My father is-’
‘Yes, yes. So we meet again. Fate draws us all together, it seems. Well-’ and he switched back to Nesili, ‘-let us walk on and talk some more, Fabius. It’s refreshing to hear a Latin accent, frankly. So much more melodious than the coarse Can’nai tongue of these fellows. .’
57
The Hatti’s new city had no name. This, it seemed, was deliberate, a signal of its impermanence; it was an undertaking the size of New Hattusa itself, but it was only a way station on the road that led to Carthage. The core of it, however, was a military camp, and Arnuwanda led Fabius’ party through the wider suburbs to that austere heart. They had to leave the bulk of the Carthaginian force outside, including Mago, who fumed as Nelo walked on at Fabius’ side, with the Carthaginian dignitaries and under the great banner of the joined gods.
The camp itself was surrounded by fortifications, ditches and berms. Perhaps, Nelo thought, the Hatti rulers feared their own restless people as much as they feared a Carthaginian attack — after all, there was an awful lot of them. Within the fortification, tents and sod huts housed the soldiers. In some ways it was typical of any military camp, with many of the troops at ease this morning, or in training. Wagons trundled, laden with loaves of tough-looking bread; unlike the Carthaginians, Hatti troops did not routinely bake their own bread. In one open area horseback archers were training, and the party stopped to watch the spectacular sight. The men, fully armoured, would run their steeds at a target and fling off their arrows without stopping.
Arnuwanda grinned. ‘I’ve had a go at that myself, in my time. The rewards are graded. You get a cup of wine if you hit the god’s eye in the centre, a cup of horse’s piss if you miss altogether.’
‘And which vintage did you sample, my lord?’ asked Fabius.
Arnuwanda laughed.
They walked on to an area where more archers were working on their equipment. Evidently these men made their own arrows and bows. They stared at the Carthaginians.
‘This is a fine art that I find fascinating,’ the prince said. ‘Making the bowstave itself, for instance. You must use the right kind of wood, of course, and not just that, wood from the right part of the tree for each component. Heartwood for the belly of the bow and sapwood for the spine, so it flexes, you see. A delicate business. And here they are making arrows. .’
The men worked with chisels, adzes and knives, fine tools of iron, bronze, even flint. They fixed arrowheads of various kinds to shafts with silk thread and glue, and tied on feathers as flights.
‘The arrowheads have different shapes for different purposes,’ Arnuwanda said. ‘I know that much. One kind is designed to pierce armour. Another sort — like that fellow’s, with the deep flanges — will knock down a deer.’
‘Or a war horse.’
‘Quite so.’
In another open area carpenters and teams of soldiers and slaves laboured over large wooden structures that Nelo could not recognise.
‘Siege engines,’ Fabius murmured to Nelo. ‘Or bits of them. I wonder where they got the wood? Maybe they took some of their ships apart. Rather an ominous sight — and one I’m sure we’re meant to witness. Make sure you draw this well, boy; the information may be valuable, in advance of the day we see these beasts trundling up to Carthage’s walls.’
Nelo sketched busily.
As they walked on he was always aware of the wider city beyond the core of this military camp. In blocks defined by gullies for drainage or sewage, buildings were being put up, sod huts, occasional structures of stone perhaps robbed from abandoned Utica. The place was unfinished but had already taken on a kind of human life, with people coming and going, slave-women with baskets of washing going down to the river, old folk sitting on porches, children running and laughing. There were even marketplaces with a few dusty heaps of shoes, tunics, potatoes, cabbages for sale. He had seen the straight-line layout of the place from the rise. Evidently the new city had been planned and laid out before the first inhabitant had moved in, and set out like a sketch on the countryside. Now that outline was being coloured in by this muddy mass of people. But in this first rushed impression, Nelo thought there were few babies or old folk, few very young or very old, who must have been winnowed out by the March. He wondered how to capture all this on paper.
Then he saw two laughing boys, no older than five or six, mock-fighting with wooden swords, copying the soldiers. It had taken the Hatti a year to complete their March from New Hattusa to this place, and a year was a long time in the lives of these boys. Perhaps they barely remembered the great city they had left behind. And they were what Nelo chose to sketch, with the strange temporary city in the background, capturing their moment of innocent play for ever.
A group of soldiers sat beside a fire, with a pail of water before them. They set pebbles and olive pits on hot rocks by the fire, every so often prodding them to see how warm they were. They glanced up at the Carthaginian party with blank hostility.
Fabius said, ‘Tell me what these men are doing, sir.’
Arnuwanda said, ‘Just a little ritual our soldiers go through to boost their spirits. These men are scouts; they have seen Carthage, and your ferocious soldiers and your towering defences. These men must see the enemy truthfully, and report on his strength, truthfully. But truth crushes the spirit, do you see? And so we give them this. The enemy’s strength is like the heat of that olive stone. It spits and roars as the stones will when they are put in the water. But it will subside quickly, as will your resistance when the war comes.’
‘Our soldiers have rituals. Different, but the same idea.’ Fabius glanced around, squinting. ‘Sometimes I think that if you could put every soldier in the world in a tremendous camp like this one, and if you kept them all fed, and provided a little wine, a few whores, and let them burn up their energy in a few wrestling contests and such, there need never be war again.’
‘You have a sentimental streak, Roman. I don’t agree. War is in our hearts. We Hatti know that; my dynasty has survived millennia by waging constant war against our enemies. War is wha
t we are for, Fabius. It is why the gods created us. That’s my view, anyhow, though you’ll find some of Jesus’ more weak-mouthed apologists with differing ideas. And this war, in particular, is inevitable.’
‘How many people have you brought over?’
‘Now we are settled we are trying to count them. My guess — perhaps as many as a million.’
Fabius had to check he understood the Nesili word. ‘A million.’
‘We did drain all the Land of the Hatti, Fabius. And there are more on the way; you saw the ships.’
‘And, whoever wins or loses this war — how many must die, on either side?’
‘That is in the hands of the gods.’
‘Literally so, perhaps,’ Fabius said. ‘The Trojans used to see war as a kind of trial. Before the fight you would argue your case before the gods, your own and your enemy’s. And then the war itself was a resolution of that trial.’
‘You know your history.’
‘In such an age as this, I find it helps.’
The soldiers scooped up the hot pebbles with their bare hands and chucked them into the water, where they created a hissing of bubbles, an evanescent rage, before quickly subsiding. Fabius watched this little ritual, and grinned, showing his teeth. Nelo sketched the soldiers and the water and the pebbles, and Fabius’ grinning face.
58
The smoke from the burning suburbs of Quinsai billowed across the water as the small boat bearing Avatak and Pyxeas pulled away from the jetty, rowed by a scrawny young Mongol. The harbour was crowded with rowboats and tenders, all trying to leave the city. Small sounds carried over the water, the calling of the crews, the lapping waves, the splash of oars and the snap of sails — and graver sounds from the land, the crump of a collapsing building, throatier roars that might be the firing of eruptors.
Further out, outside the harbour, the great ships floated on the still ocean water. Some were magnificent, serene, their decks crowded with masts like spindly forests — serene at least compared to the frantic scenes in the city. Avatak wondered which of them was waiting for him and Pyxeas.
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