So far, Hamilcar had resisted their entreaties. He was a Hellenizing monarch and did not wish his nation to appear barbarous in the eyes of the civilized world. He also wanted to suppress the power of the priests over the minds of the people. The shofet should rule; the priests should tend to the rituals of the gods and stay out of the affairs of state.
All of these things passed through Zarabel's mind as she watched the martial display. Her brother was a competent shofet, in her estimation, but his attempts to be a great war leader like their ancestor Hannibal the Great were ludicrous. He had not been trained in the officer schools, but raised in the palace. Like so many men born to rule, he thought he was a great natural military genius and that, confronted with an enemy in the field, he would know with unerring instinct exactly what to do.
During their sojourn in Carthage, she had come to know these Romans far more intimately than her brother, who was ever surrounded by a buffer of his courtiers. She knew that they laughed at such amateurism. Not only did they insist upon absolute professionalism among military men, but also they taught that even great generals could be the victims of mere bad luck, and they planned for such eventualities. It was how they had survived defeat after devastating defeat by Hannibal, with their nation intact, though just barely. They did not intend to be defeated, but one defeat, or even several, did not demoralize them. They just analyzed what had gone wrong and took steps not to let the same thing happen again.
"When will they depart for Sicily?" she said, annoyed.
"My brother could exhaust his whole army with his endless
inspections."
"The winds have not been favorable, Princess," said Echaz, eunuch priest of Tanit.
"Our ships have oars. They shouldn't need to worry about winds."
"Against winds that blow untimely from the north, even the oared galleys of Carthage cannot prevail," he said. "It is further proof of the displeasure of the gods. We have neglected our duties toward the baalim for too long."
She nodded, absently running a gilded fingernail along the line of blue tears tattooed from the corner of her eye down one cheek, the ritual tears shed for Adonis. She was high priestess of Tanit and the goddess's champion in the eternal rivalry between Tanit and Baal-Hammon. She led the priestly party in its own rivalry with the secular Hellenizing court, upholding the ancient customs and religion of Carthage against the incursions of foreign philosophy.
"To the harbor!" she said to the litter slaves. Then, to Echaz: "I want to look at this inert fleet of ours."
The slaves raised the great litter to their brawny shoulders and set out at a brisk trot, their gait skillfully broken to provide a smooth ride. The litter was large enough for the princess, a dozen of her serving women and a few priests. Runners armed with staves preceded the litter, clearing away any who stood in its path. Their efforts were scarcely necessary: The moment the unique vehicle came into view, all citizens and slaves immediately went down on their faces. Only the sentries at their guard posts remained standing.
The walls of Carthage were broad enough to race chariots along the top, and tunneled through with barracks, storehouses for supplies, magazines for arms and stables for horses, oxen and elephants. It overlooked the Great Harbor from an immense height, and the circular Naval Harbor, with its artificial admiralty island, lay within the wall's protection.
Now the water and the ship sheds of the Naval Harbor were jammed with the triremes assembled for the war, and the commercial harbor was almost full with the spillover. There were warships and transports of all kinds. Some ships had been lost at Alexandria, victims of the outlandish defensive works envisioned by the School of Archimedes, and carried out under the direction of the Roman, Marcus Scipio. But these losses had been trifling. Carthage could build more ships in a day than had been lost in the Egyptian war.
But the contrary winds kept them penned here. Zarabel wrinkled her shapely nose at the stench of their refuse, dumped into the water to linger there until winds from the south should blow once again, allowing the ships to leave and the waters to refresh themselves in the accustomed fashion.
"What would happen," she wondered, "if a fire should break out on one of those ships? They are packed together like wooden tenements of the poor. A fire could sweep them all and spread to the Naval Harbor. The sea power of Carthage could be more than halved in a single hour."
"One supposes," Echaz piped dryly, "that our shofet has made all necessary sacrifices to secure us from such a disaster."
"Even so," she murmured. "Yet, as you have observed, the gods are no longer pleased with our sacrifices."
The priest lowered his gaze. "That is very true, Princess."
"Let us implore Tanit," she said, "that no such evil befell us."
"I shall pray and sacrifice daily, Princess."
"But," she amended, "the decision lies with the goddess. Should she desire to humble Baal-Hammon by striking a blow at his overweening devotee, the shofet, we can only acquiesce to her will."
"That is also true, Princess," said the priest.
The next evening, after a seasonal banquet in honor of Patechus, the god of terror and guardian of naval vessels, Zarabel spoke to her brother more sharply than was her usual custom.
"Brother," she said, speaking down a table lined with courtiers, now replete with food and wine, "you know that the people call for a Topbet to win back the will of our gods." Instantly the convivial hubbub quieted.
"I have heard no such thing from the people," Hamicar said. "Only from certain priests, who would do well to hold their tongues if they wish to keep them." He wondered what his sister was up to. She had been meek for some time, itself a suspicious circumstance.
"The baalim are angry with us," she asserted.
"How so? I was forced to retire from Alexandria, but we suffered no military disaster in Egypt. These Romans have come to plague us with their outrageous aggression and their lying alliances, but that is because our ancestor Hannibal the Great neglected to destroy them when he had the opportunity. I will finish the task and will not be moved to clemency, as he was." The courtiers made sounds of agreement and tapped the table with their flywhisks in applause.
"Yet your great host stays here eating up the substance of Carthage because you cannot get a favorable wind. This alone is proof of the gods' displeasure."
"Winds favorable or unfavorable are a matter of luck at any time. They obey laws of nature that we do not understand and will blow northward when it is time for them to blow that way."
"That is Greek philosophy, not the wisdom of Carthage," she answered with the hint of a sneer in her voice.
His face darkened. "Then let us be instructed by another Greek example, one from a time before the Greeks took up philosophy. The Greek king Agamemnon assembled a great fleet, very much like mine, to sail against Troy, which had insulted him much as these Romans have insulted me. But the winds were unfavorable. To secure a good wind for Troy, the gods demanded the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia. The sacrifice was duly performed and Agamemnon got his wind, but the sacrifice caused him much trouble later."
In the ensuing silence he took a sip from his jeweled cup. "Nevertheless, I might be persuaded to risk his sad fate for the good of Carthage. But, as you know, sister, I have no daughter. In fact, I have only one close kinswoman." He glared at her until she lowered her eyes.
Later, when the guests were gone and Zarabel had retired to her quarters, far from his, Hamilcar stood on his great terrace and brooded upon the evening's disturbing turn. He was tall, handsome, with the pale complexion and black hair shared by all highborn Carthaginians. His hair and beard were dressed in the Greek fashion, and his robes were Greek in design, although embroidered with gold in Carthaginian figures and befitting his lofty rank.
He wondered what his sister's outspokenness portended. She had obviously wanted to be heard by others. Why else wait until a banquet? It had not escaped his notice that she had paid more than proper attention to the R
oman delegation when they visited Carthage. He was all but sure that she had been more than intimate with the one named Norbanus. Norbanus and Scipio had been the ranking men of the mission. His sister had identified Norbanus as the weaker and more corruptible of the two and had set out to exploit him. Hamilcar could only approve of her strategy, if not of her motives. Might his sister be contemplating treachery, even treason? If so, he would not be totally displeased.
For some time after returning to Carthage he had kept an eye on his sister's waistline. If she was with child by a foreigner, he could put her aside without incurring censure. But she was too clever for that and had a vast knowledge of medicines and every sort of abortifacient. Much as she provoked him, her position as royal princess, direct descendant of Hannibal and high priestess of Tanit, made her invulnerable, lacking proof of the most egregious crime.
His gaze was drawn north, past the twin lighthouses that flanked the harbor entrance. What were the Romans doing up there, to the north? The Romans he had taken to Egypt had shown themselves to be terribly effective in battle, but they were cut off from Italy, last reported somewhere in Judea. Surely, he thought, they would all die or desert long before they could reach Italy to reinforce the usurping Romans there.
But the rich and strategic island of Sicily, long a Carthaginian possession, now swarmed with Romans, more of them than he had dreamed existed. Incredibly, the sheer number of legions seemed to surpass those faced by Hannibal. Where had they all come from? Could the ragtag, beaten nation that chose exile north of the Alps have bred so many sons in a mere four or five generations? It did not seem possible, unless they had the reproductive capacity of hares.
In truth, he was not entirely displeased with his new challenge. Once, he had thought that conquering Egypt would win him undying fame. Now he knew that it would have made him merely one conqueror among many. But he would beat the Romans, annihilating them utterly, as his ancestor Hannibal had failed to do. Then he would march on and finish Egypt and, with his empire restored and the wealth of Egypt added to that of Carthage, the world was his. He would go on to swallow up the Seleucid kingdom and drive the Parthians back to their steppes, crush Macedonia and Greece, and then the sea would be his own personal lake. He would be master of the world, greater than Hannibal, greater than Alexander.
He was distracted from these pleasant musings by a glimmer far out in the darkness of the harbor. It was brighter than the oil lamps used to illuminate ships at night. The reflection of one of the beacons on polished metal? It seemed to flare brighter with each gust of wind from the north.
"Shofet?" said a feminine voice. He turned to see one of his banquet guests, Queen Teuta of Illyria.
"Please use my name," he said, smiling. "Fellow monarchs need not observe the formalities while sharing a roof. Could you not sleep? Is there anything you require? Please regard me as your personal servant." He could be as gracious and urbane as any Athenian with his peers, even this rather primitive queen of a barbarous land.
She smiled, a strange sight because it made her facial tattoos writhe. She wore a proper gown of Greek design, but it left head and neck, arms, shoulders and the upper surface of her breasts exposed. Every square inch of visible flesh was covered with exquisitely rendered designs of twisting vegetation and bizarre, elongated animals in vivid colors.
"I lack for nothing, Hamilcar. In fact, I never knew the meaning of abundance until this visit. No, the night is fair and I am not tired and I thought that this might be an opportunity for us to speak candidly." Her accent was heavy, but her Greek was excellent. There were a number of prosperous Greek colonies on the coast of her nation, and where there were Greek cities, there were Greek teachers of language and rhetoric. It annoyed Hamilcar that the eternal rival of Carthage had such a monopoly on culture, but it was certainly convenient that all educated people had a common language.
"Then this is my good fortune. Will you sit?" He gestured toward the fine table and chairs in the center of the terrace, pure Carthaginian in their drapings of precious fabrics and exotic animal skins.
"Thank you, but I come of a people more at home in tents than in palaces. We are always on horseback or afoot, surveying our herds. I think and converse better while walking."
"Excellent. I, too, find myself pacing when I have anything serious to ponder." Idly, he wondered what this chieftainess might have on her mind. He knew little about her people save that they were largely nomads, that some had founded settlements but only in recent generations, and that they seemed to be a mixture of Thracian, Scythian and perhaps Gallic in blood heritage. The woman herself was tall, strongly built and had abundant hair as white-blond as he had ever seen. Her face was handsome, with broad cheekbones, and her brilliant blue eyes had a distinctive tilt that hinted of Eastern ancestry. As for her complexion, he had no idea.
She walked to the parapet and ran a palm along its polished marble. "I was struck by your exchange with the Princess Zarabel late in the banquet."
"My sister lacks tact and regards the goddess she serves as the rival of Baal-Hammon. You needn't take her words seriously."
She waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, I know all about troublesome siblings, never fear. I had to put aside a few brothers and sisters to win my throne."
"You have a refreshing directness of speech," he observed.
" 'Directness' meaning I am blunt. I agree. My tutors taught me the Greek tongue. I never learned the subtleties of innuendo and indirection. Such things are alien to the customs of my people."
"All the better."
"No, what intrigued me was one of your own replies. You said that you have no close kinswomen. Have you no sons, either?"
"Nor wife," he said, striving for a Spartan terseness to match her own.
She nodded. "As I thought. Yet the survival of the Barca family must be assured, must it not? The seed of Hannibal must not be allowed to die out."
"As you can see, I am not elderly yet. There is plenty of time."
She stepped closer and held his eyes with hers. "Let me be even more blunt. If you marry a Carthaginian noblewoman, she must be of one of the other great families. With a consort and in time an heir of their own blood, that family will feel itself greater than the Barcas. Some of the great houses probably do already, is this not so?"
He nodded. "Every one of them. You studied us before making this visit, did you not?"
"I would have been a fool not to. Do I seem like a fool to you?"
"Not at all," he said, enjoying this immensely. "In fact, I wondered why a reigning queen wished to accompany what amounts to a band of mercenaries. I suspect that you have a proposal for me."
"Precisely. I have no husband and am in much the same position as you. Chieftains of other clans and their sons swarm around me, pressing their suits. If I marry one of them, he will regard himself as my master as soon as he has bred a son on me. If that happens, I will have to kill him and then there will be trouble. I am young and can breed many sons. You need a royal wife. In all the lands surrounding the sea there are only two royal women suitable for you. One is Selene of Egypt. I am the other. A match with Selene is unlikely."
"There would be obstacles to such a match," he said, stalling for time to think. "While the Barcas have never adopted the obscene Egyptian practice of brother-sister marriage, wives have always come from Carthaginian families, dating from our emigration from Phoenicia."
"And no queen of Illyria has ever wed outside the ancient clans of our people. What care the likes of you and I for such rules? They are the customs of a world as dead as that of Agamemnon and Hector. That mold was broken for good when Alexander made the world his footstool and united West with East when he wed his best men with princesses of the old Persian Empire."
It had been the right thing to say. It put him on a level with the greatest. It told him he was above the strictures of ancient custom and could dictate his own rules to the world. It was what he had suspected all his life, and it was good to hear it affirme
d by a peer. Then she stared past him and pointed. "What is that?"
He turned and saw that the flickering glimmer he had noticed just before her arrival was now a discernible fire. Then a tongue of red flame shot skyward, twisting in the wind until it was a writhing, spiral pillar. All around the harbor, alarm gongs began to thunder.
Teuta stepped to the parapet and swept the jammed expanse with her gaze. "How bad is this?"
"Our firefighters are very expert. Ship fires are a common occurrence." But he was deeply alarmed.
"It is at the northern end of the harbor and the wind is strong from that direction. Have your men ever been faced with this? Has the water ever been so packed with kindling-wood?"
"Never in living memory," he told her. "I'd better go and take personal charge."
"I'll come with you," she said.
"I appreciate it, but you cannot help."
"I do not intend to. I just want to view the spectacle at close hand." She said it with a hint of pleasurable anticipation. This one will bear watching, he thought as he shouted to his servants, demanding that swift horses be brought.
With a roar, a ship erupted like a volcano. Great amphorae flew through the air, spewing liquid fire over neighboring vessels. An oil ship, he thought. Already this was out of control.
Minutes later they were mounted and pelting down the wide, paved street that ran from the palace to the harbor. Before them rode guardsmen who cleared the street ahead, swinging huge whips to drive pedestrians from their path. The hour was late and at first there were few citizens abroad, but as they neared the harbor the crowd grew dense. The clamor of the gongs awakened sleepers and they rushed outside to see what was happening. Word of a fire in the harbor sent them down toward the water to view the flames.
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