This time it was Imago's turn to silence Sapanibal with a gesture. “Your brother has few friends among the One Hundred,” he said. “He too closely represents the glory of youth, and this is troubling to old men. Councillors are not like foot soldiers. They do not risk their lives for those they adore, nor must they put true faith in the men they elect leaders. They would rather have a hero-less victory, so that no glory shines on another. Believe me, no councillor wants to see Hannibal worshipped in such a great triumph. This they just cannot accept.”
“And you, Imago? What can you accept?”
“I would happily adorn your brother's shoulders with flower petals. I would be the first to bow before him. I've always been a friend to your family. I was loyal to your father and supported him even when his success made him enemies.”
Sapanibal lifted her fruit drink for the first time, sipped it, and then put it down, a slight tremor in her hands. “I know, Imago. My father told me of your friendship. I do not doubt you, but what you report troubles me. If our councillors are already prepared to abandon my brother—when he has had nothing but hard-fought success—what will they do should he really falter?”
“Pray that he does not falter,” Imago said. He averted his eyes to signal a change of the subject. He asked after Didobal's health. Sapanibal was reluctant to let the conversation drift, but she had learned much and they were both aware of it. She answered that her mother was well, as ever. Asked about her younger sister, she said the same. At first she was surprised that he would ask after a girl, but then he betrayed his real interest.
“I understand she is fond of King Gaia's son, Masinissa,” Imago said. “But your mother has not confirmed their engagement, has she?”
Sapanibal had, in fact, spoken to her mother on this subject just the day previous, but the whole discussion had made her uneasy. It reminded her too much of the machinations that had led to her own ill-fated marriage. True enough, a union with the Massylii would bring them that much further under Carthage's sway, ensuring that the king would always supply them with his gifted horsemen, but she did not wish to think of her sister being delivered to a man who could use or abuse her as he saw fit. Who can know what lies behind a man's smile? She responded that Didobal thought the two in question were still quite young. There was time yet, and Didobal hoped that her eldest son would be able to bless the union in person, when he returned.
Imago smiled through all of this but responded with some gravity edging his voice. “I pray she does not wait too long. Hannibal may not return soon enough for this matter. Masinissa is a fine young man. He's destined for great things. Many in the Council believe so. But there are many others who vie to wed their daughters to a son of the Massylii. Either to Masinissa, or to some other who might usurp his power. For this reason, your mother should concede promptly. We need stability along the seacoast, now more than ever. If Rome were ever to attack us here, we'd need our allies more than we like to admit. Certainly Sophonisba should stay away from the Libyan, Syphax.”
“What has he to do with it?”
“Did you not hear about the banquet during his last visit? Your sister danced. Hers was a brief appearance, yes, but it left the king salivating. He spent the rest of the night trying to learn all he could about her. He's a lecher, but we can't pretend he's not important. I fear he'll be the cause of trouble soon. He is eyeing King Gaia's domain as we speak. It's hard to see how it will all unravel, but I'm sure there is no better union for Carthage than one between Masinissa and a Barca. The prophets say the boy has a role to play in Carthage's future. They are never wrong. Consider what I say and sound out your mother.”
Imago lifted his stool and scooted it closer. He changed his tone yet again: business was concluded. “You are looking well, Sapanibal. I believe the sun agrees with you. Truly it is a blessing to have you so near . . .”
Never in his whole miserable life had Imco Vaca seen anything like the marshes of the Arno. He thought the mountains had been a hell of ice and rock, a horrible place worse than any other in creation. He had dreamed of those heights throughout the long winter, nightmares in which he had yet to complete the crossing. He would awake knowing that thousands of souls were trapped in the ice and might be there forever. He thanked the gods daily that he had lived through the ordeal, and he had no plans to ever relive it in his waking hours.
That is why it seemed particularly cruel—almost a personal affront—that Hannibal chose to drive them through such sopping desolation. Imco had emerged into the spring as a sickly, paltry version of his former beauty. His body was not accustomed to months of snowy cold. He had watched in horror as a surgeon hacked off his frost-damaged finger with a serrated knife. The surgery, miraculously, did not lead to infection, but Imco believed the wound allowed malignant spirits easy entry to his body. How else did the fever creep into him? And what about the cough? Try as he might, he could not expel whatever was growing inside his chest. Nor could he stop the flow of green mucus that clogged his nasal passages. Some men managed to scavenge decent food, but Imco barely had the energy to search for sustenance. Though he ate meat cut from pack animals, he had not had a piece of fruit or a serving of anything remotely like a vegetable since the stores grabbed from Taurin.
By the spring he could see in his arms and abdomen that he had shrunk. His thighs and calves and forearms ached all day long, but not just from labor. His muscles pulsed with pain even at quiet moments. His teeth jiggled in his gums and, he was sure, his hair was falling out at an unnatural rate. His vision seemed to be disturbed as well. He could see objects clearly enough, but he had difficulty translating what his eyes saw into meaningful messages. Thus, though he noticed the horse's rump, he did not fully comprehend how ill-placed he was behind it until the creature kicked him with a muddy hoof. Other times he misstepped and fell to his knees in the muck, not because he had not seen the object that tripped him up, but because it had not fully registered that he needed to consider its influence on his life.
By the end of the first day in the swamp, he had fully reconsidered his notions of suffering. Hell was not frozen and hard. It was wet, damp, soft. It was ankle-deep water. It was mud sucking at your feet. It was not even being able to sit down and take a moment's rest. He should have known that something horrific was in the making when he learned of the placement of troops in the line of march. The best infantry, the Libyans, strode in the front of the line, so that the ground held firm for the first few thousand of them. Behind them came the other African troops, including Imco. Then the Iberian allies pressed through the increasingly sticky churned-up mud. In the rear of all the infantry came the Gauls. By now thousands of feet and hooves had so churned up the swamp that the men were wading and slipping through deep muck, clawing at it with their hands, struggling vainly to keep their loads from becoming soiled.
Watching them, Imco paused long enough to thank the gods for birthing him an African, for the sorry lot of the pale ones was nothing to wish for. Such was the Gauls' misery that they would probably have deserted, each and every one of them, except that Mago and Bomilcar followed them up with the Numidian cavalry. They rode through the swamp like ill-tempered, heavily armed herdsmen, pushing the army forward no matter what. Hannibal provided no one a choice in the matter.
It was a forlorn land; the only plants were thick, leathery grasses and reedlike tufts. Insects rose from the water and danced in swarms as big around as elephants. These seemed to appear spontaneously, deviously, so that if he glanced away for a moment Imco was likely to find himself spun in a confusion of the creatures, inhaling them and catching them in the corners of his eyes and his nose hairs. The white skeletons of long-dead trees dotted the landscape, some reaching for the sky, others lying as if they had finally given up and collapsed from fatigue. Imco had been told they were following a road. Looking through the haze of insects and mist, he saw no sign of such a thing. He had thought it before and now he could not help thinking it again: Hannibal was mad, a raving demon in a warrior's body, a despot who reveled in the misery of those around him. He did not go so far as to share this assessment with anyone, but silently he spoke a tirade against the man.
They could not stop to camp for the night, and so they kept up a squelching, dripping progress straight through and into the dawn. By the time the sun rose again all semblance of organized marching had evaporated. Fever coursed through innumerable men. The ill and dying, the ranting and pitiful were so close around him that sometimes maneuvering through them was like navigating a rough landscape. Imco—again thinking of spirits, as he had begun to do daily—thought he could see the contagion floating through the air from man to man, a diaphanous creature that touched the unwary with contaminated fingers. He ducked and shifted to avoid it, sometimes looking like a man swatting at bats that he could not see.
The only relatively dry spots were the corpses of pack animals. Men tried to catch moments of rest by perching on the flanks of mules and wrapping their arms around the necks of dead horses. Imco saw one man lying on two goats. It was a sorry enough sight in that there was no comfort in his posture, draped as he was across them, toes and fingers and buttocks each dipping into the muck. But it seemed even stranger when one of the goats lifted its head and stared at Imco piteously. It was not dead at all, just sunk up to its neck and disconsolate, its
