days straight, then vanished. Stores of grain were ruined by damp; a pack of wolves that had a taste for human flesh attacked stragglers. But there was nothing to match the epic struggles he remembered from Hannibal's venture. They just progressed. Up and up. And then, at some point subtle enough that Silenus failed to notice it, they began their descent, at a moderate incline, via a different pass altogether. Before he dared to believed it they were out of the mountains and onto blessedly even terrain.
On arriving in the region of the Padus River, Hasdrubal sought to correspond with Hannibal. He did not know exactly where his brother was, or in what condition, but above all he wanted to unite their forces. He dictated a longer letter than Silenus would have expected. It seemed, actually, that he had more to discuss than just the logistics of war. He had been so long without his brother that he wished to explain everything that had passed in the years that separated them. So he did. Silenus transcribed it faithfully for him.
This completed, Hasdrubal gave orders for the dispatch of a group of skilled riders. They were to ride south at all haste, to weave their way secretly through the long stretch of Italy, through Apulia, and on into the region of Tarentum, where they hoped to find Hannibal. As soon as the riders thundered out of camp—their horses throwing up divots of soil—Hasdrubal ordered the march commenced.
They approached Placentia as if to lay siege to the place, but as they had no siege equipment the display was really for show. Instead they sat outside the city, taunting the Romans, who refused to climb down from the battlements and fight them. The greater show he made of spoiling for a fight, the more the local Gauls felt the call of war in their blood. Representatives trickled in at first, testing the possibilities for new alliances with the Carthaginians, new promises. Hasdrubal made grand projections about the coming year. He had left Iberia, he said, to join his brother and finish this war. In the ports to the south, he would be joined by tens of thousands of reinforcements from Carthage. He would unite with Hannibal to crush Rome itself. He would drench the streets in blood, a hundred killed for each wrong he could recall: each soldier unjustly killed, each woman raped, each treaty disregarded, every pompous Latin word. He would see the city in flames, loot the place, and drag Roman women through the streets by fistfuls of their hair.
By the time he left, fifteen days after he had arrived, a horde of thirty thousand Cisalpine Gauls trailed behind him. Apparently, they liked what they heard. Outside Mutina, they picked up guides who claimed to know all the best routes south and how to connect one to another for maximum devious effect. With them in the fore, they marched south. At first, the guides hardly seemed worth their pay: The army simply trotted down the Via Flaminia, a road like none any of them had ever beheld. So wide and flat, the stones set with such precision. Initially, they made almost double their normal time, so enthused were the men by their progress, by the fact that the enemy's own handiwork was helping them on. They passed Ariminum undisturbed. The townspeople gathered on the fortifications and watched their progress. The soldiers of the garrison held their positions, pikes jutting up into the sky. But they stayed shut behind the town's gates, so Hasdrubal carried on toward his goal. They followed the coastal road past Fanum Fortunae. The guides had them cross the Metaurus River and proceed along the relatively open ground toward Sena Gallica.
It was here, finally, that they discovered the Romans were not going to let them stroll on indefinitely. An army under Livius Salinator waited for them, encamped in a wide valley mostly cultivated with grain. For four days the two armies sat assessing each other. Cavalry units skirmished on a couple of occasions. The Romans shifted the position of their camp, although it was unclear what advantage this offered them. By his assessment, Hasdrubal's forces slightly outnumbered the enemy's. With so much of his force composed of unruly Gauls, however, he hesitated to engage on such open terrain. He tried to find traps hidden in the land, but the position was not one suited to wily tactics. It favored open battle. Noba volunteered to lead the Libyans on a night march to circumnavigate the Romans and surprise them from the rear at an agreed-upon moment. But as they debated this an individual arrived who changed everything with the news he bore.
This spy had barely escaped the Roman camp with his life. Indeed, a sentry had noted his solitary departure. Before he had made contact with Carthaginian forces he had found himself running from a band of Roman cavalry. He was bashed about his helmeted head with a sword, cut on the shoulder. He swatted away a flying javelin with one hand, gashing his palm in the process. He escaped by plunging down a ravine too steep for his mounted pursuers. The fall was nearly vertical. He bounced from rock to rock, ricocheted off the trunks of trees, and ended his flight suspended in a clump of shrubs so thick that he only broke free of them with some difficulty. For all this, the Roman cavalry was still chasing him when he sprinted into sight of the Carthaginian outposts. The Romans drew up at the last moment, considered the view of the amused Carthaginians and of the Numidians riding out from the main camp. And then they bolted, suddenly recalling that there was a more substantial threat to their safety than anything that lone man might represent.
When all this was reported to Hasdrubal he had the bound man brought to him. He studied the pox-scarred olive skin, the squat build, the wide forehead, and the simple garments that marked him as a legionary. He turned and waved Silenus nearer, as a translator. One of the guards standing at the man's side said that was not necessary: The man spoke their tongue. Hasdrubal's forehead creased at this, four jagged lines that did not relax until he asked, simply, “What have you to say?”
The man bowed his head and kissed his fingertips in the way of the Theveste people. He spoke perfect Carthaginian, laced with rich tones that matched his greeting. He offered himself as a servant of Baal and praised all those who were likewise. He said that though he was of Roman blood and could speak Latin he had been loyal to Carthage since his father had been captured in the first great war. He was born of an African mother in the same region as Didobal, wife of Hamilcar. He had trained from birth in the ways of his father's people so that he might eventually be of some service to his adopted nation. In the second year of this war he had found his way into the Roman ranks, having received instructions that issued from Bostar himself. But since that man's tragic death, he had been orphaned inside the enemy host with no connection to Hannibal and no one to report to. He bided his time and stayed true to the gods they shared and waited for the right moment to break free. He had found that now, and the news he brought was grave beyond any he had held before.
“And what is that?”
The man bowed his head again, kissed his fingertips. Then he pushed his hand out to either side in a gesture that meant he pushed away deceit and now spoke pure truth. “You are sitting in a trap,” he said. “The messengers you sent did not reach Hannibal. Nero captured them near Tarentum and found the correspondence meant for your brother. He knows everything. I am a soldier in his army, one of the six thousand he selected. He left the south seven days ago, claiming to march on Lucania, but he turned north once out of your brother's sight. He marched us like a madman and two days ago joined our forces with those of Livius Salinator.”
“Six thousand men?” Hasdrubal asked.
The man nodded. “And a thousand cavalry.”
“I saw no such thing,” Noba said.
“We arrived at night. Not all of us have mustered on the field. Many stay among the camp followers. We sleep cramped in the other men's tents or on the open ground. We await only Lucius Licinius. He's shadowed you down from Placentia and now blocks the Via Flaminia. When he arrives with his ten thousand, all will be in place.”
“They'll outnumber us by fifteen thousand,” Hasdrubal said quietly, his voice tinged with disbelief.
“What Nero is this?” Silenus asked. “If you speak of Claudius Nero, I don't believe you. He has a long record and none of it as bold as what you describe.”
The man regarded the scribe, then turned back to Hasdrubal to answer. “The Greek speaks the truth. But so do I. I cannot explain it, but please believe me, my lord.”
“And Hannibal knows nothing of this?” Noba asked.
The man shook his head. “Not from the mouths of the men you sent. They talk no more.”
Hasdrubal received this last statement with the slightest shake of his head. He looked up at Noba, at which sign the Ethiopian stepped close to interrogate the man further. To each question the man had a reasonable answer. And each answer boomed like a mighty drum struck in the distance, moving closer with each blow. If he spoke truly, they found themselves in an even graver situation than Baecula. For now they were in the enemy's land, Hannibal still far away, unaware of them. . . . But only if the spy spoke truly.
“We don't know him,” Noba said, after the man had been taken away. “He says he reported to Bostar, but I've never heard of him before. Perhaps this is a ploy.”
“To what purpose?” Hasdrubal asked.
“To confuse us. To make us flee. To lead us into some error.”
