decisively.’
Some of the council members nodded in agreement while more looked stonily ahead, Hanno amongst them. The suffet marked the division and, conscious of the need for agreement, turned directly to Hanno.
‘This reversal of Barca’s invasion plan,’ he said. ‘You no longer have faith in his ability to command?’
‘No, Suffet,’ Hanno replied, ‘I believe Barca has been blinded by his own ambitions.’
Hamilcar bristled at the remark but held his tongue, catching his father’s expression of warning in the corner of his eye.
‘Hamilcar Barca is our most able commander,’ the suffet began, ‘but perhaps Hanno is right, perhaps he is too determined, too aggressive. I propose that you, Hanno, sail with the fleet to ensure that assertiveness is tempered with experience.’
Hanno nodded in agreement, knowing he could do little else. To refuse would invite accusations of cowardice. The suffet noticed Hanno’s allies also comply and he quickly called a vote, one that was carried easily.
Hamilcar saluted to the council before turning on his heel to leave the chamber. He caught Hanno’s eye as he did, seeing there the latent hostility he felt surging through his own veins. Hamilcar closed the chamber door and stood silently for a moment, fully realising that battle-lines had now been drawn not only in the sea but also in the council of Carthage itself, battle-lines that Hamilcar had to cross if he was to destroy his enemies. A cold determination crept onto Hamilcar’s face as he savoured the thought. Gone now was the subterfuge, the snares and planning that had consumed him over the previous months, replaced with the clarity given only to a warrior when he stands, sword in hand, upon the battlefield, his vision filled with the sight of his mortal enemy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The rough hewn hawser dipped and raised with the even stroke of the Aquila’s oars, the sea-water dripping from the fibres of the rope with every pull, creating a cascade that fell in time with the drum beat of the trireme. Atticus leaned over the aft-rail and took a grip on the rope, testing its strength, feeling the tension within. He looked back along its length, following the lines as it fell to the sea and then rose again to the bowsprit of the transport ship fifty yards behind. A crewman stood on station there and he waved across as he noticed he was being watched, a wave Atticus returned before turning away once more.
Lucius approached him from the helm. ‘Cape Ecnomus,’ he said pointing over the starboard rail. ‘We’re about eight hours out from Agrigentum.’
Atticus nodded in return and then turned his attention back to the line of his galley. The Aquila was near the centre of the long line of triremes that stretched from the shore, each one towing a transport ship, an ignominious task ordered of the third squadron the day before when the wind suddenly dissipated, becalming the sail-driven transports. Now only the command ship of the third squadron, the Orcus, was without a tether, Varro’s quinquereme sailing a full ship-length ahead of the line as if in an effort to distance itself from the trireme dray- horses.
‘Eight hours out,’ Atticus said as Septimus approached from the main deck, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, a wooden training sword loose in his hand, a weapon he had been rarely without over the previous week as he trained his new men to full battle-readiness.
‘Still no sign of Marcus?’ Septimus asked, indicating the transport ships behind.
‘No, I haven’t seen him,’ Atticus replied. ‘The Fourth must be on one of the ships on the flanks.’
Septimus nodded, ‘He’s there somewhere,’ he said, his eyes scanning the decks of the ships nearest to the Aquila. Each deck was crowded with red-cloaked legionaries, many of them leaning out over the rails, their sea- sickness staining the hull, their faces pale and drawn from the week long passage down the east coast of Sicily.
‘Signal from the first squadron,’ Corin shouted and Atticus looked to the mainmast, waiting for the lookout to decipher the full message, a sudden feeling of unease sweeping over him as he watched Corin spin around, his expression one of pure dread.
‘Enemy fleet ahead!’ the lookout roared and Varro felt a sudden knot develop in the pit of his stomach.
‘Confirm that message!’ he roared up the masthead as he walked quickly to the helm.
‘Signal from the first squadron is confirmed!’ the lookout shouted. ‘An enemy fleet has been sighted.’
Varro looked to the sea ahead but could see nothing beyond the first and second squadrons a half-mile ahead. They were sailing in arrow formation, each squadron forming one side of the spear-point with the two command ships at the apex, the Victoria under Regulus at the head of the first squadron and a quinquereme under Longus at the head of the second.
Varro had been given command of the Orcus on the day the fleet had sailed from Brolium, the singular honour of commanding the third squadron bestowed upon him in recognition of his part in thwarting the Carthaginians’ plans to attack Rome. It had been a proud moment for Varro, standing on the main deck of the Victoria as Regulus announced the promotion before the assembled tribunes and senators, the consul speaking highly of Varro’s courageous action at Thermae which had saved so many hastati of the Ninth in addition to his capture of the pirate galley that had led to the exposure of the enemy’s subterfuge.
Now however, sailing a half-mile behind the consuls, Varro felt suddenly cheated. The Orcus was a powerful galley, a ship that belonged in the van of the fleet, destroying enemy triremes as the Roman quinqueremes had done so easily at Tyndaris. Instead Varro was leading a fleet of hulking transport ships and obsolete triremes, a reprehensible command that would ensure that the glory of the battle ahead would fall to other, lesser men.
Varro walked slowly to the foredeck; his gaze locked on the Roman formation ahead, the distance opening with every passing minute as the vanguard accelerated to battle speed. He looked beyond them to the horizon, seeing for the first time the dark shapes of the approaching enemy, their naked mainmasts like a wave of scorched grass against the sky. Varro’s dark mood deepened at the sight, his eyes sweeping across the enemy line, estimating their numbers to be less than a hundred, a pitiful force against the three hundred galleys of the Classis Romanus. Success for the Roman fleet was assured, a near slaughter given the odds and Varro cursed the fates that robbed him of his part in a victory that would be gained on such easy terms.
The tribune was turning away from the sight but a flicker of darkness at the edges of the Carthaginian line made him turn once more, his mouth falling open slightly as he watched the enemy line extend on either side, the dark wave of galleys breaking towards the shoreline and the horizon to the south until it filled the entire seascape ahead, Varro’s dark mood dissipating without conscious thought to be replaced with a cold dread that filled his entire soul.
‘Battle speed!’ Hamilcar shouted, his heart racing as the line of enemy galleys unfolded before his eyes, a wedge of galleys that swept north and south; a formation his patrol galleys had sighted the day before. He ran back to the aft-deck, weaving through the scurrying crew as the Alissar was made ready for imminent battle. Himilco walked briskly towards him as he reached the aft.
‘Signal the fleet,’ Hamilcar said. ‘Advance the flanks!’
The captain saluted and ran to the aft-rail, issuing the order to the signal-men who quickly dispatched the message that would ripple down the three hundred and fifty-strong line of galleys in a matter of minutes.
Hamilcar looked to the shoreline not five hundred yards off his port quarter. Ahead was Cape Ecnomus, Roman-held Sicilian land and a point on a map Hamilcar remembered examining months before. At the time he had envisaged his land forces striking east across that very Cape, cutting off the city of Agrigentum from rescue, the Carthaginian flank protected by the army of Syracuse, the Romans in chaos and on the brink of surrender with the news that their vaulted city of Rome was on its knees.
That vision had been ripped from Hamilcar’s mind on the day the Romans had attacked Tyndaris. Hamilcar still wondered how the enemy had uncovered his plan. Belus’s disappearance must be connected somehow but he was unable to link the two positively. The goddess Tanit had a hand in Hamilcar’s fate, of that he now had no doubt, her hand of fortune lifting from his shoulder at Tyndaris only to fall once more upon him with the deliverance of the Maltese captain’s report, the Carthaginian spies in Brolium initially confirming the fleets arrival and then revealing the true objective of the enemy fleet, the Roman town awash with the rumour as the legionaries boarded the transport barges, their destination; the shores of Carthage.
The Romans had indeed reversed his strategy, turning the blade until it now pointed directly at Carthage,
