Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham Read Free Book Online Page B

on his undertunic and tugged it into place. “It's a certainty that we'll be at war with someone. Hannibal will spend the winter securing the goodwill of our new allies. He will succeed, in part, but never completely. Men who have just been soundly beaten and humiliated are slow to grow into true friends. If it were my decision we would not attack Saguntum next year. You know I like a fight, but there's enough fight left in the rest of Iberia to keep me occupied. Our brother, I believe, has long wanted to chastise the Saguntines. That Roman envoy only succeeded in making the prospect irresistible.”
    “Perhaps that is why it's a sound move to attack Saguntum,” Mago said. “To show our new allies that we can share common enemies. It will take their humiliation and heap it onto another people.”
    Hasdrubal glanced up for a moment and took his brother in frankly. He sat down beside him and laced up his sandals. “Perhaps,” he said. “In any event, Hannibal rides before the vanguard of reason. He leaves it to the rest of us to catch up. By the way, watch yourself or you'll find you have been betrothed to some chieftain's daughter. That is a sure way to secure their goodwill—to make them family.”
    “You make that sound unpleasant. Hannibal has done so himself.”
    “True, but not every man's daughter is an Imilce. Truth be known, brother, I like this country. I am more at home here than in Carthage. The Celtiberians make good allies and amusing enemies. And I've even grown to appreciate their women, pale things that they are. Mago, you would not believe this creature I've been screwing lately. She's beautiful, yes? Silver eyes and a gentle voice and a mouth that always seems in a pucker, you know? She thinks up things that would make an Egyptian blush. She does a trick with a string of beads . . .” Hasdrubal's eyes rolled upward into a flutter. He leaned back against the stone wall, momentarily lost in contemplation. “I won't even describe it. I don't know what you'd think of me.”
    “Is this love or just passion?” Mago asked.
    “It is the love of passion, my brother. The love of passion.”
    The two brothers were among the first to climb the winding stone staircase to the top of the citadel, where the meeting of the generals was to take place. The tower was open to the air, a round platform ringed by a waist-high stone wall. It offered a view of both the fortress and the turquoise sea stretching out to the horizon. A wind whipped and buffeted the brothers, cold and mischievous. It made talking a challenge, but what Hannibal had to discuss he did not mind shouting out. And they were far from prying ears anyway.
    Most of the officers were still settling in after the Arbocala campaign. If they were surprised to be called to a meeting so soon, they did not show it. They mounted the platform, shadowed by their squires, with a variety of characters reflected on their faces, as different in temperament as in the shades of their skin.
    Maharbal, the captain of the Numidian cavalry, stepped onto the platform with a stern demeanor throughout his entire body. He wore his hair long. The thick, wiry strands gathered at the back, secured with a strip of leather. His dark skin had a reddish hue, as if baked by the sun and ripened to a rough, thick coat. His nose was slim and sharp; his chin protruded as if his face were a hatchet meant to slice the wind. Indeed this was just what he was famous for, the speed and precision of his riding.
    “He is new to leadership,” Hasdrubal said, “sent by King Gaia of the Massylii. He knows his men and their horses and commands a devotion that almost rivals their admiration of Hannibal himself. He has almost too much power, but he has thus far proved true to us. We would be legless without Numidian horsemen.”
    Adherbal, the chief engineer, also arrived early, dressed in a flowing Carthaginian tunic. He set his palms upon the stone wall and gazed out over the city he had helped