deep. It was such an overwhelming relief to be freed that Publius believed the whole of the army would gush out after him. He found rising ground in the distance and set out for it. He tried to sheathe his sword but found he could not do so. It was bent twice along its length, in different directions, no straighter than any stick he might have snatched up from the ground. He ran with it in hand.
Small bands and lone Numidians plagued them much of the way, tormenting them for the pleasure of it. When he reached the slope, Publius turned around and viewed the chaos he had fled. He had not drained the center, as he had hoped to do. Indeed, the breach his men had created was all but sealed now. The entirety of it was finally clear to him, painfully, tragically obvious. Hannibal had planned it all. Each and every thing the Roman forces strove to do had played into his hands. As they had planned, they punched through the Gauls and Iberians in the middle; but Hannibal had wished for just that move. He had cleared the cavalry from either side of them so that as the wedge pushed forward his most veteran troops swung in upon either side. Then, once the Carthaginian cavalry had vanquished their counterparts, they returned and fell upon the Roman rear. And that was it. After that it was just butchery. A series of masterstrokes. An army of ninety thousand had been completely surrounded by a lesser force in the space of a few hours. They were immobile, the vast mass of them stuck in the middle, able to do nothing but await the moment when their lives were cut out of them.
Varro rode toward him at a canter, his closest attendants mounted and close behind him, many of them glancing again and again over their shoulders, as if they feared the whole of the enemy's army would turn to follow them. The consul gave no indication that he planned to speak to the tribune, but Publius darted in front of him, snatched his horse's reins, and stopped him.
“What news of Paullus?” he asked. “Where is the other consul?”
Varro fixed on him a momentary gaze of utter loathing. “Where do you think? He's back on that field. Dead. As is Rome's future. Out of my way!”
Publius jumped back as the consul swatted at him. He let the man ride away, shocked as much by his words and attitude as by anything he had seen that day. He looked back at the battlefield and, amazingly, all was as it had been before. Men still died in their hundreds and thousands. It took all of his discipline to move him on into action. Nothing could be done for the men trapped in the death circle, though he would have given his life to save them. He shouted to those who had escaped with him and those who trailed behind. He directed them toward Canusium.
They reached the town late that evening, finding it alight with torches and open to them. The guards native to the place stood nervously, looking out beyond the straggling line of soldiers in the clear-eyed dread they all felt— fear of Hannibal's pursuit. Battered soldiers occupied every available inch. Laelius went off to locate other officers. Publius never even paused to catch his breath from the long march. He moved straight in among the men, speaking to them with what cheer he could muster, commending them for surviving the day, asking after their leaders.
He did all this in a fog, however. He barely heard the soldiers' responses. He functioned as if another being altogether propelled him, something intelligent enough to move his body and form words with his mouth. But the true Publius Scipio occupied a more confused space. He saw again images of the day's bloodshed superimposed on the world before him. He heard in the din the voice of his father and remembered the many lessons his father had tried to teach him in preparation for his manly duties. To think of those quiet moments now cut him with a pain more acute than any of the numb aches of his body. What a child he had been! Up until this very morning he had known nothing! Even now he knew nothing! The great awakening that hammered at his head was the simple knowledge of his ignorance; the awesome possibility that the world might never be as he imagined and that he could never again occupy it with a child's vain authority.
Barely had the tribune dropped for a moment of rest when he was called again, with news that woke him from his stupor.
Laelius ran to him panting. “They're talking of abandoning the country.”
“Who?”
“The younger Fabius Maximus, Lucius Bibulus, Appius Pulcher . . . All the tribunes I could find. They're talking of turning to the sea and seeking refuge—”
Before he could finish, Publius jumped to his feet. “Take me to them.”
The officers had gathered in a hall used for public debates. Publius strode into it without a plan. In his first glance at the gathered officers he saw the defeat in their faces, the shame of conspiring men. He still carried his battered sword unsheathed. With the weapon upraised, he shouldered through the company toward the center. The former dictator's son was speaking, but Publius silenced him by shouting his name. The words that followed came out of him before thought, propelled by a strange mixture of fury and calm. Despite all the defeat and death he had seen that day, he felt a throbbing serenity inside him. In seeing these men's faces he was reminded that nothing mattered now save the certainty of honor. There was so little else that one could rely on in the world.
“Fabius Maximus!” he said. “I worked under your father. I know his greatness despite all those who malign him. Do you think he would ever consider the plan you here devise? Have you all forgotten yourselves? If so, then Rome truly died today. We are no more than the corpse; your words, the first stink of decay.”
The younger Fabius began to explain himself, but Publius brought his sword hand down and punched him square on the mouth. The man dropped like a deadweight, unconscious.
“I swear to you all,” Publius said, “that I will allow no man to abandon our country, nor will I betray it myself! I swear a dying oath to Rome. If ever I fail it, may Jupiter bring down upon me a shameful death. May he destroy my family honor and cast all I possess into the hungry mouths of my enemies. I swear this; who among you swear with me? And who among you die on my sword?”
Having spoken, he stood surrounded by a room full of mutinous officers, his single blade raised against them. Laelius flanked him, his hand in a white-knuckled grip around the hilt of his sword. But the others did not attack. Instead they each and all lowered their eyes. As he listened to first one man and then another take the oath, Publius told himself that this was not the end, not of the war, not of his nation. The sun would rise tomorrow. The war would carry on. Publius Scipio had not died at Cannae as he might. Instead he recognized his life's greatest challenge. He would meet Hannibal again. He was sure of it.
Aradna would have forgotten about the young Carthaginian soldier if she had not stumbled upon him in the festering, open-air graveyard of Cannae. She and her band and other bands of camp followers rose before the dawn and greeted the sun at the edge of the battlefield. Usually, they would have swarmed through the dead at the first tentative light, but the sight before them was an unusual horror. The carnage of the day before was past belief. Looking upon the great, jutting, tangled, shadowed devastation, none of them dared enter. Moans filled the air with a low, unnatural tone of anguish. Even the least superstitious among the camp followers feared to tread carelessly among so many soulless creatures. The various afterworlds to which these men hurtled headlong could only hold so many new souls. Surely many of them lingered on this plain, angry at their lot and dangerous to the living.
Aradna, standing to the east of the field, felt the heat of the sun touch the back of her head and slant down her shoulders. She watched as the first touches of gold illuminated portions of the dead and crept down into crevices and gashes, across faces and private parts alike. The human form lost all reason in the jumble. Arms and legs twisted at angles impossible for the living, reaching up from the piles of bodies three, four, and sometimes even more bodies deep. Wounds lay open to flies. Slivers of bone jutted into the air. Flesh had taken on infinite coloration: shades of blue and purple, white as bright ivory, yellow and brown and sometimes strangely crimson. On several occasions Aradna's eyes tricked her into believing that among the human forms were the half-roasted carcasses of swine. But this was, of course, not the case. It was just that some men, in death, failed to look human. The view was no better in the light than before, save that now the carnage was betrayed for what it was —nothing ghostly, just the barbarous work of men on a scale never seen before. This, at least, was something the camp followers understood. They began their labor.
Why she stopped above the young soldier she could not later say, except to explain that she often had to pause that day and steady herself and take shallow breaths. He was buried to mid-torso in the arms and limbs of others. They propped him up so that he was almost vertical, with his head tilted back. Grime caked his face, sweat and blood and dirt commingled into a mask all men shared alike. His mouth gaped open to the air like so many others. A fly buzzed about the cavity, landing on his teeth, crawling over his lips and around the rim of his nostrils. Recognition crept into her slowly. She stared at his face so long that the strange, naked soldier she had met twice and still thought about occasionally emerged from beneath the mask. His features slowly aligned themselves into shapes and contours she recognized. She bent close to him, thinking him dead and feeling no threat from a dead man, touched by curiosity and the slightest notion of sadness.
