Hanno had no wish to name the activity he had been called from. “I thought I might find you the same,” he said. “The men are at pleasure. . . . Will you never stop to savor your victories, brother?”
Hannibal answered without looking up. “At the end of a day, do you praise yourself for having lived through it? Do you not know that after the night comes the dawn of a new day? When you exhale a breath in one moment, do you believe you have accomplished greatness? Or do you remember that the very next moment you must draw another breath and begin again? A thousand different forces would love to see me fail. I cannot abandon my vigilance for a moment. That is what it means to command. Perhaps you will understand this fully someday. Come closer and sit down, if it pleases you.”
Hanno took a few steps forward, just two bites of the distance between them, no more.
“Hanno, I know that you've not been happy with my decision about your role, but I've thought it through and my mind is unchanged. You will stay on here and watch over the Suessetani. They'll need a strong hand to keep them subdued. I am sure you understand the importance of this. See Bostar in the morning. He is preparing written details for you: names and familial affiliations of these people, geography and accounts of resources. You should learn more of the local tongue as well. We'll get you a tutor. I would only ask that you keep your pleasures in check. Remember, the knife that killed our brother-in-law found him in his bed.”
The interview was over. Hanno, like any common officer, had been dismissed. He flushed hot, felt a leaden pressure behind his eyes. Though he told himself to turn and throw open the tent flap and stride away he did not do so. He could not make his feet move.
“Am I so worthless to you?” he asked.
Hannibal, without looking up or changing his posture or tone, said, “You are my brother and I need a trusted commander here.”
“Have you never considered that I, too, want to kick open the gates of Rome?”
This brought up the other's gaze. “I've never had to consider it. The answer can be assumed by the blood within your veins. But why do you question me? This post is no punishment. It is my will. You'll adhere to it. If I am ever to ask great things of you I must know that you will serve me unquestioningly. You have not always achieved that in the past. Consider this a new opportunity.”
Again, Hannibal bent his head and signaled the discourse was concluded. But again Hanno spoke ahead of himself. “In one breath you say that this assignment is not a slight,” he said. “In the next you name my faults. But what's true? Speak plainly to me! You owe me that much.”
“I did not know that I was in your debt,” Hannibal said. “I thought perhaps you were in mine.”
Hanno—watching his brother's brow, the artery that beat high on it, the eyes running over the words—knew that it was within him to kill his brother. It was a quiet thought, really. There was something comforting in it. An escape he had not imagined before. No matter what might come afterward, it was within the realm of possibility that he could murder; that Hannibal could die. On this ultimate of things they were equally balanced. With that thought in his mind, Hanno spun and trudged from his brother's tent. He avoided him in the following days and parted from him as if they were enemies and not siblings at all. He pushed thoughts of Silenus from his mind. He had never before felt shame at his desires, but there was something different about the scribe and the depth of the turmoil he fueled inside him.
Now, two months later, a lieutenant brought him the news he feared. A legion under Gnaeus Scipio had landed at Emporiae, a Greek settlement that had refused a Carthaginian alliance. The Romans had been welcomed joyously. They numbered easily twice the ten thousand soldiers Hanno controlled and made it no secret that their aim was to hunt down Hanno, and quickly.
“We must send word to Hasdrubal,” Hanno said during a meeting of his officers. “We don't have the numbers to meet them.”
A lieutenant, though junior to Hanno in both rank and age, shook his head. “There can be no reinforcements. Hasdrubal is south of New Carthage. A message has already been dispatched to him, but we must act independently.”
“Decisively,” another added.
Hanno pressed the flat of his palms over his eyes and dug his fingers into his flesh. An unusual gesture for a general, but he ignored the nervous shuffling of the officers. His bowels twisted and pulled knots and his chest felt constricted, as if with each released breath a strap pulled tighter across his chest so that he was denied a full inhalation of air. Should he act decisively? Of course he should. It could do him no good to wait. The Romans might land more troops. They might forge alliances with the Iberians and learn the features of the land and find ways to gain advantage. They would only become stronger with passing days. And Hasdrubal might still not reach him. But Hanno had no plan. What could he do to make their numbers more equal? Why did he have to struggle with this question? He should have had more men. It was Hannibal's misjudgment that had created this situation. He left him here to manage the Iberians, but not truly prepared to fight a Roman legion. Still, still, he had to act! Perhaps he could catch the Romans off guard with a full frontal attack, before they had even settled in. They would never expect such boldness. Surely, this was the way to proceed. And if his gamble rebounded on him? Well, at least Hannibal could not chastise him for hesitation as he had at Saguntum.
Hanno finally peeled his fingers from his forehead. He looked around at the junior officers and gave them his decision. It was a choice for which he was to suffer terribly.
The first boulder announced itself with a tremor, a rumble that came from no specific direction but was transmitted through the bones of the earth itself. Mago felt it in the soles of his feet. When he saw it—a chunk of stone as large as an elephant, gray just like those beasts, first sliding down a sheer section of cliff at near free fall, then striking the slope and churning, end over slow end, snapping and pushing trees out of its path—he thought the commotion of the army had loosened it. The boulder landed on the ravine floor a short distance away, crushing under it a mule and the two men driving it. Then the whole scene flooded with a dusty confusion and a rain of smaller stones. And that was just the beginning.
The army had made steady progress in the days leading up to this one, but they spent the bulk of the fourth day winding into a narrow defile. They had to travel a few abreast, for the rock walls closed in on either side, sometimes rising up vertically around them. Mago rode near the vanguard, with the bulk of the cavalry and the two Allobroge guides, while Hannibal brought up the rear with corps of infantry. They progressed awkwardly, negotiating the stream that wound in front of them at each step, climbing over rocks, managing the horses, convincing the elephants that nothing was amiss. The line must have stretched for miles; the front of the column could not see the rear, and communication between them was difficult. It was a perfect trap.
A chorus of shouts went up from high above, followed by spears thrown down in a coordinated hail. The bulk of a freshly hewn tree careened to earth in a spray of pine needles. More boulders fell, and smaller stones, and more trees. The damage they did was amplified by fright. Pack ponies made easy targets and when wounded began to scream in pain. A few bolted and this maddened others. They looked wide-eyed around them and kicked out at the men trying to steady them. They bared their teeth, for they were not sure who was causing this alarm and believed it to be anyone who sought to control them. Mounts steady and calm in battle were caught off guard by this, and more than one threw its rider. And the elephants . . . They had been spread along the lead of the column and this was fortunate. Mago watched a single creature, maddened by three darts in the back, as it roared down the narrow passageway, trying to flee, knocking over carts, trampling men, and butting horses out of its path.
“General,” Maharbal called, “what is your command?”
Mago spun and called out, asking the question he already knew the answer to. “The Gallic guides—where were they? Somebody grapple them,” he said, but his order was unanswered in the chaos, and the Gauls were nowhere to be seen. He scanned the heights for some way to dislodge the attackers, but there was no clear route. And, it now seemed, there were too many of them up there to deal with quickly even if they could gain the heights. It was clear the head of the column was outside of the main danger, but any sense of relief this provided was short-lived.
Gauls poured out of a ravine a short distance ahead of Mago's position. In an instant they cut the army in half and inflicted terrible damage on the confused Iberian unit they met. They worked under a protective cover of spears thrown down from a knob on the cliffside that offered a view up and down the ravine. It was clear that this was the center of the ambushers' operations. Mago noted as much. He was to the rear of the Iberian soldiers, but rushed forward to direct their charge. A few moments' observation changed his mind. Stones of all sizes fell among them, denting helmets and knocking them at strange angles on the wearers' heads, battering shields more forcefully than the blows of any sword. He saw one man impaled through the foot by a spear, pinning the limb to the ground. The
