said, “I'm sure you understand this.”
She turned back and again showed the younger woman her face in profile. “Because of this I couldn't help but receive you warily,” she continued. “I had you watched. It's shameful—but, Imilce, you have hardly done a thing while in Carthage that I did not know of minutes later. Why did I do this? Because a person proves who they are not with their mouth but through the accumulation of actions over time. Were you in my household purely for our riches? Did you care for the fate of your husband, and did you honor his people's traditions in your secret moments? Did you partake in the diversions this city offers even to women of our class? Did you simper and smile beneath the gazes of powerful men? Forgive me, but I had many anxieties.”
Throughout this discourse Imilce attempted to carry on with her work. She set pins to keep the lower plaits in place. Then she picked up an ivory comb to work on the mass of higher hair, somewhat wild now, chaotic compared to the close weave at the back of the neck. But she slowed down as Didobal spoke and, eventually, stood with the comb in hand, held out to the side, inlaid pearls pressed tight between her white fingers. What a set of questions, Imilce thought. For all the world at that moment she could not imagine the answers the woman might have received. She had been watched! All this time . . . In a strange way it made sense. It explained much of her discomfiture. All this time . . .
“Hamilcar was as hard not to love as Hannibal now is,” Didobal said. “They are of the same mold, those two. We who live near to their fire are as blessed as we are cursed. It seems also that you and I are not so different as we seem. During the Mercenary War, I couldn't bear to be separated from my husband. I did what you—with greater wisdom—did not do. I followed him into the desert when he chased the mercenaries away. I caught up with him two days after the battle at Leptis Minor. He was victorious, but never had I seen him so, caked in blood and filth, eyes reddened and skin peeling from him as if he'd been burned. I expected him to be angry, and I was afraid, but he said not a word of reproach. Instead he took me as he never had before, like a lion, growling at me. His passion was beyond words and he did not speak to me through the act at all. He did me no kindness, left me red with the stains of war.
“It was horrible, Imilce, but I thought, that night, that if this was my husband's ardor on campaign, then it was well I should be there, for who but me should receive him like that? The next day he took me by the hand and led me over the ridge and down into the valley where they had fought. He showed me the battlefield. He walked me through the high-piled mounds of bodies. Imilce, it was a sight you should never wish to see. Three days in the heat, and the bloated bodies belched gases and shivered as if life still resided in them and came to them in spasms. Some burst as if boiled too long. They sent up the foulest of scents. Scavenging birds blackened the sky, long- necked creatures that flew in from all directions, bald demons.
“And that was just the beginning. I spent the week at my husband's side. He made me watch everything. They spent days tilting up crosses to crucify the captured leaders. Other prisoners they set free without their hands. Some had their feet severed at the ankles and were left to fight off the hyenas. Others they blinded and sliced out their tongues, cut off their manhood, fed live to captured lions. The war had been brutal beyond imagining, and Hamilcar—my husband—answered earlier barbarities in kind. All these years later, these sights are as alive in me as they are real somewhere. Somewhere in this war such scenes are being repeated. The men we love are their architects, or their victims. That is why I chose never to trouble my husband again. I left him to his work, not as a sacrifice, but because I hated the way it made me look at him. I hated—and never understood—how such a man could perform such horrors. Because of this I spent the larger part of my married life away from him. I loved him; and therefore I could barely stand to be with him.
“I'm not sure if this makes sense to you, but do not seek the ways of war, Imilce. Do not wish to understand it. Take your husband in his quiet moments, when he's in your arms and when he looks upon your child with love. You must do this, for if you know too much of a warrior's work you'll grow to hate him. And I would never have you doubt my son.”
“Nor would I,” Imilce whispered.
“Then hold on to your ignorance. Men's follies are better left as mysteries to us.”
“Do you think it is all for nothing?”
“All for nothing?” Didobal pursed her lips. “No, I wouldn't say that. The world thrives on the strife of those living in it. As food nourishes the body, so does turmoil feed the gods. One creature must prevail over another. I would not wish our country to be used like a slave woman, so I pray daily for our victory. What else can we do? On the day this war ends, a new one will begin. It's dreadful, but so it always has been. There is no reason to believe it will change.”
“So we can never live at peace?”
Didobal answered flatly, “Not until the gods are dead. And as we both know, they are immortal. The gods will ever make us dance for them. That is what it means to be born of flesh. In truth, Imilce, I feel the gods are restless with this war. I do not know what will happen, but it's coming quickly, like a storm from the north. Like a tempest blown down from the heavens. Let us keep all of my sons in our prayers.”
Didobal lifted her arm and held her hand out to her daughter-in-law. Imilce took it and felt the woman squeeze her fingers, her regal hand heavy with rings. Something in the pressure made her feel like a child holding a giant's hand. “Forgive my earlier deception,” Didobal said. “I like you very much, daughter.”
Publius sailed from Ostia at the head of a fleet, carrying ten thousand infantrymen and another thousand cavalry, the full measure that Rome allowed him for the year. Barely had his men's feet touched solid ground at Emporiae when he had them exercising to regain the strength the journey had sapped from them. He gathered the battered remnants of the existing army and with them left behind the distractions of the Greek city. They marched to Tarraco, where Publius set up his headquarters and began interviewing anyone and everyone with knowledge he considered useful. He had never been busier. He had never directed so many men, faced such challenges, held such complete responsibility. He knew Rome was too far away to rely on for any guidance, so Iberia was his to win or lose. Only the constant motion kept him from pausing long enough to weigh the staggering gravity of this.
Within seven days, he had sent out invitations to all the tribes aligned with Rome already, and even to a few still with Carthage. The delegations came to him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with more complaints than promises, with wary eyes that took in this youthful new leader skeptically. Was this truly the best Rome could do, to send a boy with barely a hair on his chest? What could he hope to achieve that his father and uncle had not, especially now that the situation was even worse? Cornelius and Gnaeus had been skilled commanders with years of experience, two armies, and a force of allies it had taken years to win. But they had been destroyed. Now, with Mago Barca having arrived over the winter, the Carthaginians had three armies in Iberia. They roiled across the land, storm clouds hurling down bolts of retribution for earlier betrayals. Hanno had hammered the chieftain of the Vaccaei to a cross and sent five hundred of his people's daughters to New Carthage as prisoners. Hasdrubal burned a scorched path along the river Tagus all the way to the Great Sea, enslaving whole tribes, burning villages, twisting their leaders on the burning spit of fright as only Carthaginians knew how to do. Mago laid new levies on the southern tribes and daily built his army into a great horde clamoring to become the second wave to march for Rome. Considering all this, more than one envoy asked, what assurance could Publius give that Rome's cause was not dead and rotten like the corpses of his predecessors?
Strangely, Publius found something calming about staring into these belligerent eyes. As the translators conveyed their messages he took in their foreign features, their varying dress and demeanor. The more disrespect the Iberians showed him, the stronger the set of his jaw, the more steady his gaze, the more fluid the motions of his hands. He promised nothing in exact detail, he said, for no one individual ever decided such complex matters. But he did pledge to fight the Carthaginians as they had never been fought before. He reminded them that never yet had Rome uttered one conciliatory word to the Africans; such was their certainty that the long war would eventually swing their way. They had made mistakes. They had been hasty when they should have been patient, honest when they should have been devious, restrained when they should have exploded with fury. In many ways, they had fought the war unwisely up to this point. Yes, he admitted, even his father had made errors of judgment, but none of these need be repeated.
These speeches met with mixed receptions, but each time he spoke them Publius believed his words a little more. He was discovering traits in himself that he had not known before, but he had little time to pause and consider these things. Laelius, like a twin beside him, did not speak a thought not directly related to the war, so he did not do so either. He trusted no other officer as completely as he did his companion. With him alone, he laid out all the charts and information he had about Iberia. On their hands and knees, they crawled across the marble floor, talking through each piece of information, from the obvious to the most complex. They both believed that they must
