chimney above the cooking fire. He set down his booty and yanked the person free: a girl of eleven or so, soot- covered and tearful, hair so long it must never have been trimmed. Her eyes shone in white relief against her sooty face. They were full of terror. She reached for Imco's eyes and would have ripped them out. But he slapped her hands down and pinned her arms to her side. He shushed her violently and yelled that he had something to tell her. When she finally fell silent he did also, though his grip did not loosen.
“Are you the last?” he asked. “Did you have family?” He stopped himself and answered his own question. “Of course you did. We all have family, conquered and conquerors both.” The girl stared into his face, searching for meaning but knowing nothing of his language.
From outside came a new yelling. Soldiers kicked an old man from his house into the street, accusing him of having daughters and demanding that he betray them before he died, threatening to rape him with the shaft of their spears if he did not speak. Imco could not make out his response, but it did not satisfy his tormentors. He and the girl both listened, neither moving until the man's ordeal ended and the soldiers moved on.
“I want you to sit down,” Imco said. He reached out with his foot and righted a stool. Adjusting his grip on the girl, he set her down upon it and slid his hands away. He stood back and studied her.
She was pretty. He could tell this despite her grimy face. Her chin was a little weak, one eye lower than the other, but she was pretty nonetheless. Her body was still boyish, but this was not a flaw. She was not too young to be taken, nor to be sold, nor to be rented out. He walked around her and stood behind her for some time. He had to think about this. He was aware as never before how much suffering this girl's life now offered her. Her shoulders were so thin, but their frailty would please many. Her skin was a translucent covering over her frame. She must have been hungry these past months, but that too would make some men want her. Her hair fell over her shoulder and he could see the pulse of the artery in her neck. He reached out and touched it with his fingertips. The girl moved slightly, but he whispered her to stillness. Her pulse was strong, warm. It seemed irregular in its beating and at first he did not question why. Someone would profit from her suffering. Before the end of the month she would have been used by hundreds of men. She would be diseased and battered. She would rot from the inside out, both body and soul. But right now she was sound. In sorrow, yes. In mourning, surely. But her nightmare had not yet begun in full. He—by whatever divine hand—had been given her life to shape. Some men would have thought this a great gift, so why did it pain him so?
Just after the question formed in his mind he realized why her pulse seemed strange. He snapped his fingers away from her neck and struck the same spot with a slicing sweep of his sword. She dropped from the stool, and he darted outside a moment later, striding away, putting the tiny house behind him. He would forever remember the moment when he realized that the girl's irregular heartbeat was actually a mixture of his pulse with hers, both of them captured there on his fingertips for the few moments they were connected. He might have become a soldier in the last few years, but he was still a brother, still a child who loved his sisters, still soft in some portion of his heart. He prayed that the girl might understand his action as he had meant it: as a twisted, merciful gift.
When word of the sack of Saguntum reached the assembled Roman Senate several senators rose to their feet with calls for an immediate declaration of war. Valerius Flaccus stood with these, finding in the moment so much enthusiasm that he blurted out an entire plan of attack, so complete it had obviously been thought out ahead of time. Another senator pointed out that they should have dealt with Carthage much earlier. Hannibal had gone this far only because certain individuals put their personal interests in Gaul ahead of those of the people. Some cheered and echoed his complaint, but others tried to refocus the debate on the issue at hand: Rome had an enemy. There should be no mudslinging among senators.
From some of the most respected men came some of the most cautious words. One proposed another envoy: Let one of their number journey directly to Carthage and ask once and for all whether Hannibal's actions were indeed Carthage's actions as well. If the Carthaginians failed to answer satisfactorily, then the matter of war would be decided. Let no one say that Rome went to war without due consideration. Roman justice should first be reasoned; then, when necessary, as swift as a falcon. Despite heated debate, this plan was adopted before the close of the day, and Fabius Maximus the elder was chosen as the message bearer.
The envoy sailed in surprisingly good weather, nothing ominous in the sky or upon the sea itself. It did not seem that nature was aware of the import of the debate to come. Fabius suffered from arthritis on damp days, and his eyesight was not what it used to be. One shoulder sat a bit higher than the other—the result of damage to his left leg years before—but he hid this well when not within the confines of his own home. The black hair of his youth had gone prematurely gray. After a few years of fighting it, he now wore this badge of maturity proudly. It was his age that gave depth to his authority. It was one of many reasons that he was chosen to head the embassy, charged with the responsibility of asking one question and responding to it as appropriate.
They were met by the Carthaginians and offered the city's hospitalities with all courtesy. These Fabius turned down, asking only for an audience with the Council. Fabius wasted little time. He moved carefully to the center of the chamber, which was a dimmer space than the Roman equivalent, lit not by the sun but by large torches jutting out of the walls. It was damp and fragrant from bubbling vats of herbs and sticks of incense. With his fading vision, Fabius could barely make out the men he was to address, and the smells assaulted his nose. But he stood straight-backed and feigned the most direct of gazes. He asked whether Hannibal had acted upon his own folly in attacking Saguntum, or whether he was a true representative of the will of Carthage.
Cries went up from several quarters, not in answer to the question but with questions and assertions of their own. Fabius waited.
One Imago Messano quieted the others and rose to speak. He responded politely: The question was not so much whether Hannibal had acted upon state orders or upon his own whims. Rather, it was one of law and precedent. Saguntum had not been in alliance with Rome when the treaty between Rome and Carthage was made. And later, the agreement made with Hasdrubal the Handsome could not truly be considered binding because it was concluded at a distance from the Council and therefore had no official sanction. This being so, Carthage had no responsibility to bow to Rome's wishes.
“This matter with Saguntum,” Imago said, smiling, “is an internal affair and should be respected as such. That is our position.”
Fabius chose to proceed simply. He clasped a fold of his toga in his fist and looked about at the stern faces surrounding him and made sure that all saw his gesture. He gripped so firmly that his knuckles went white with pressure. “In this hand I hold war or peace,” he said. “I offer either as a present to the Carthaginian people, but it is up to you to decide which you would rather receive.”
Imago, gazing about him for his fellows' approval, answered with a shrug. “We accept whichever your Roman heart prefers to give.”
And so Fabius opened his hand and released the folds of his toga in a manner that made it clear which the Roman heart preferred. As he spun to leave, the Carthaginians spoke in one voice, declaring their acceptance of the gift and their devotion to fight it to the end. Thus was the second war between Carthage and Rome agreed upon by cordial means.
During the winter following the siege of Saguntum, Hannibal released his Iberian troops to enjoy their families for the season, with the order to return in the spring to embark upon a journey to immortal fame. But for the commander himself and those who served him most intimately, there was little rest. To his family, it sometimes seemed that Hannibal had not returned from campaign at all. He was gone on exercises for days or sometimes weeks. When he was at home his time was filled morning to night with meetings and counsels, with planning sessions, with dictating letters to foreign leaders and collecting information from spies. The project he now had before him was a massive puzzle of matters military, geographical, cultural, monetary, issues as diverse as supply trains and political ramifications, topics as varied as naval routes and the physical constitution of elephants.
He drilled his Libyan veterans beyond any of the soldiers' expectations. They were up before the winter dawns, sent on far-ranging marches in full gear, with food and animals and siege weapons. They prowled the high mountains, going so high as to press through knee-deep snow, scaling rock faces, and rigging rope systems to aid the pack animals, coating their bare limbs with grease and marveling at the way their breath made ghosts before their mouths. He had new supplies of elephants shipped across from Carthage, mostly the native variety from the wooded hills of North Africa. They were not so large as the specimens found farther south, nor even did they stand as tall as the Asian variety, but each was a four-legged juggernaut. With a skilled mahout behind their ears they could mow down the enemy. Just the sight of them might clear a path through the barbarians who stood between them and Rome. Hannibal also called up new corps of Balearic slingers, for he had come to admire the pinpoint accuracy of their strikes, the way they turned the tiniest of stones into missiles that flew at blurred speed. He made
