Hannibal: Fields of Blood (10 page)

The officer picked up a red clay jug from the table, and placed it to Hanno’s lips. ‘Drink.’

It’s piss, thought Hanno, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

The officer tipped the jug up. A little fluid poured out. To Hanno’s surprise, it didn’t smell bad. His thirst got the better of him. He tasted it and was amazed. The liquid was stale, warm, but it was water. Opening his mouth, he let the officer pour more down his throat. Unable to swallow it fast enough, some went into his windpipe. He jerked his head away, coughing. The movement made fresh pain radiate from his shoulders.

The officer laughed. ‘Had enough?’

He was only being offered it so that he’d be able to endure more torture, but Hanno was so thirsty that he didn’t care. ‘More.’ He managed to swallow three mouthfuls before the officer took away the jug.

‘Right. Back to business.’ Using a piece of cloth to protect his hand from the heat, the officer trailed his fingers over the irons that jutted from the brazier. ‘Which one shall we start with?’ He pulled out the length of metal with the ‘F’ on the end of it, and the triarii sniggered. Hanno thought he would lose control of his sphincter.
Not that, please.

‘It’s too soon for that one.’ He selected another, a simple poker. Its end glowed white hot as it emerged from the fire. The officer studied it with a bemused look.

Eshmoun, Hanno prayed. Lend me some of your strength, for I am weak. He tensed as the officer stalked over. Bogu had revealed a substantial amount about Hannibal’s army. What else would the Roman want to know?

Without a word, the officer reached up and placed the poker against his left armpit.

Shock that there hadn’t even been a question filled Hanno, but the burning agony from the hot metal was far worse. A bellow ripped free of his lips, and he was unable to stop himself from jerking away to try and escape his tormentor. This in turn nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets. He sagged back down, straight on to the poker. ‘AAAAAHHHHH!’ Hanno screamed, pushing backwards with his toes.

With a sneer, the officer moved his hand a fraction, bringing the poker back into contact with Hanno’s flesh. This time, he could not move away from it. There was a sizzling sound, and his nostrils filled with the smell of cooking flesh. He shrieked again. To his shame, his bladder voided itself. Warm urine soaked through his garments and ran down his legs.

‘Look! The gugga has pissed himself!’ crowed the officer. He stepped back to study his handiwork.

Hanno mustered his strength, and what was left of his pride. ‘Come closer. I was trying to piss on you,’ he croaked.

‘You filth. Still got a bit of spirit, eh?’

Hanno glowered at him.

‘So you’re this maggot’s commander?’

‘I am.’

‘You’re young to lead a phalanx. Hannibal must have few choices if he selects a child to command some of his best men.’

‘There were many casualties crossing the Alps.’ Hanno said nothing about his father having Hannibal’s ear.

A
phhhh
of contempt. ‘There must have been junior officers who had survived, or veterans who had proved themselves.’

Hanno didn’t reply.

The officer’s face grew crafty. ‘In the Roman army, it’s often about whom you know. I doubt it’s any different among the guggas. Who’s your father? Or your brother?’ Hanno didn’t answer, so he brought the poker towards his face.

Hanno’s fear swelled. What’s in a name? he thought. ‘My father is called Malchus.’

‘What rank does he hold?’

‘He’s just a phalanx commander, like me.’

‘You’re lying, I can tell!’

‘I’m not.’

‘We’ll see about that later,’ retorted the officer, eyeing Bogu. ‘Was your man telling the truth about the size of Hannibal’s army? Thirty-odd thousand soldiers?’

Answering truthfully wouldn’t tell the Roman anything more than a good scout would find out. ‘That’d be about right, but it’s growing in size. More Gauls and Ligurians are joining every day.’

‘Tribal scum! Most of them would turn on their own mothers if they thought there was any gain to it.’ The officer paced up and down, brooding. ‘Hannibal wants our grain, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if we give it to him?’

Hanno doubted the officer had the authority to open the gates. He was asking because he was scared. That gave him a little satisfaction. Hanno had no idea how many of the inhabitants of Victumulae were citizens. Most, he supposed. Non-citizens had no need to live behind the protection of high walls. Did they know what lay in store for them when the town fell? Hannibal had begun using a clever new tactic, exploiting the fact that Cisalpine Gaul was not fully under the Republic’s control. All non-Romans who surrendered to his forces were being spared. They were told that Carthage had no quarrel with them, and sent on their way. Captured Romans, on the other hand, were executed or enslaved. The policy was designed to foment unrest among Rome’s allies. The strategy was in its early stages, but Hannibal had high hopes for its success.

The officer would know, or at least suspect, what might happen when Hannibal’s army stormed in, Hanno decided. That knowledge alone would ensure him an agonising death. He might as well put the fear of Hades into the whoreson. ‘Most of the citizens here will be enslaved; some will be executed. Their properties will be confiscated or destroyed.’

His tormentor’s lips pinched white; behind him, the triarii growled with anger. ‘And the non-citizens?’ asked the officer.

‘They will not be harmed. Carthage wishes them no ill.’ Hannibal’s concept was a bloody clever one, Hanno thought.

‘D’you hear this whoreson?’ cried the officer. ‘He’s got some nerve, eh?’

‘Let me have a turn with him, sir,’ pleaded the wall-eyed soldier.

‘And me!’ added his companion.

The officer studied Hanno’s face. Although his fear was rising to new heights, Hanno managed to glare back. A long moment passed, but neither would look down first.

‘I know a better way of making the dog suffer,’ said the officer. ‘What made him most angry was when I called him a slave.’

Sheer terror convulsed Hanno as the Roman pulled the iron with the ‘F’ on the end of it from the fire.
Not that, Eshmoun, please! Baal Hammon, save me! Melqart, do something!

His pleas were in vain.

‘This is what stings your gugga pride, isn’t it?’ The officer brandished the iron as he approached. ‘The fact that you’ll be marked as a slave for the rest of your miserable life!’

More than anything, Hanno longed to have a sword in his hand, so he could run his tormentor through. But his reality could not have been more different. Gritting his teeth, he steeled himself for the worst pain of all.

The officer glanced at the triarii. ‘Of course he’ll be halfway to Hades in a few hours, but who’s counting?’

The soldiers’ roars of laughter rang in Hanno’s ears as the ‘F’ moved up towards his face.

His fear got the better of him. ‘Don’t do it. I spared your life.’

‘What are you talking about? Have you gone mad?’ cried the officer, but he stayed his arm.

‘About a week ago, you and your men were ambushed in your camp. The fighting was vicious and many of your men were slain. You were retreating when I got the better of you. I let you go, when I could have killed you.’ As shock filled the officer’s face, Hanno prayed that he didn’t know the real reason that he yet lived. All he, Hanno, had been trying to do was save Mutt’s life.

His prayer seemed to have been answered, as the officer smiled. ‘By Jupiter, you
were
there! How else could you know those details?’

‘I ask for a quick end, that’s all,’ said Hanno quickly.

Silence fell.

Let him just kill me. Please
.

‘You should have slain me. It’s what I would have done to you,’ said the officer with a cruel smile. ‘It changes nothing. For invading our land, you guggas deserve everything that comes your way. Hold him,’ he ordered. ‘He’ll buck like a mule.’

Hanno bit down on his disappointment and terror, and gambled all on something utterly crazy. ‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘I can take the pain.’

The officer’s eyebrows rose. ‘The gugga reconciles himself to his fate.’

His tormentor took great care to aim the iron right at the centre of Hanno’s forehead. The heat radiating from it was unbearable, but Hanno waited until the last moment before he jerked his head up and to the left. The officer swore, but was unable to stop himself planting the ‘F’ on the right side of Hanno’s neck, just below the angle of his jaw.

Hiss
. Stars of white-hot agony burst across Hanno’s vision. Waves of it tore from his neck and down into his chest. They shot up into his very brain. He screeched at the top of his voice. He cursed. His bladder emptied itself again. As his legs gave way beneath him, his shoulders took all of his body weight. Yet the pain of that was as nothing compared to the excruciating hurt where the iron had met his flesh. The smell of burned meat filled his nostrils, caught in the back of his throat. He retched; up came a few mouthfuls of bile. And then he was falling, falling, down a bottomless well. At the mouth of the well, he could dimly make out the officer’s face, which was twisted with fury. The Roman was shouting something, but Hanno could not make out the words. He wanted to reply, to say, ‘I’m no slave,’ but his throat wouldn’t work. A door slammed; other voices were raised. They too were unintelligible.

Confusion filled Hanno as he slipped away into the blackness.

Bostar burned with anger as he gazed at Victumulae, which lay a quarter of a mile distant. It was entirely surrounded by the antlike figures of thousands of men. The air was filled with the tramp of feet on the hard ground and shouted orders as the units designated for the attack marched into position. There were regular twangs from the light
ballistae
as they shot at the ramparts. The stones landed with dull thumps, which were often followed by screams. Bands of Balearic slingers in light tunics whirled and spun before the walls, adding their slingshots to the showers of missiles. Large formations of Gauls advanced, chanting war songs and blowing their carnyxes in a deafening crescendo of sound. Ringed by his senior officers and a group of
scutarii
, his best Iberian infantry, Hannibal watched the operation from the back of his horse, some two hundred paces away. The remaining elephants stood nearby, their mere presence designed to intimidate the defenders.

After the rousing speech that Hannibal had just given, Bostar longed to be with the Gauls who were advancing with ladders to the foot of the walls, or with those who were already battering at the main gate with a ram fashioned from the trunk of a massive oak. Hannibal had praised every man in his army. Told them that he was proud of how they had overcome all obstacles in their path. He was impressed by their discipline, their bravery and fortitude. He’d said that their loyalty to him could be repaid in only one way – with a deep loyalty of his own. ‘I will do anything for you, my men,’ Hannibal had cried. ‘I will endure the same hardships. Sleep on the same rough ground. Fight the same enemies. Shed my blood. And if I have to, I will lay down my life for you!’ Those last words had stirred Bostar’s passions deeply, and from the mighty roar that had followed, he judged it to have had the same effect on every soldier within earshot. All he’d wanted to do after that was to attack. Yet he and his spearmen had been ordered to stay put. As at the Trebia, Hannibal was conserving his veterans. They had seen some action during a vicious mêlée on the road the previous day, but that was it. Bostar’s fist clenched on the hilt of his sword.
There had better be some Romans for me to kill when we get into the town.
His desire to shed blood wasn’t just because of Hannibal’s rallying call. Hanno’s presumed death by drowning had been hard enough to bear. The grief of it had scourged Bostar for many months. Why couldn’t the gods have taken Sapho, his other brother, with whom he had a fractious relationship? To have been reunited with Hanno out of the blue had seemed the most incredible of divine gifts, but to lose him again so soon was too cruel. It wasn’t as if he could even blame Hanno’s second-in-command. Mutt had asked to be punished, but, as Hannibal had said, it was clear that, misguided or not, Hanno had brought his own fate down on his head. Why did he act so rashly? wondered Bostar yet again.

‘A shekel for your thoughts,’ said a deep, gravelly voice.

Bostar’s head turned. A short but distinguished-looking officer in a
pilos
helmet with a scarlet horsehair crest stood before him. An iron cuirass decorated with gold and silver inlay protected his midriff; layered
pteryges
concealed his groin. Under his armour, he wore a red short-sleeved tunic and a padded jerkin, and he was armed with a stabbing sword that hung in its sheath from a baldric over his right shoulder. To either side, Bostar’s men were grinning and saluting. ‘Father,’ he said, dipping his head in respect.

‘You were a world away as I walked up,’ declared Malchus. ‘Thinking about Hanno, I’d wager.’

‘Of course.’

‘My thoughts are full of him too.’ Malchus scratched at a tight grey curl that had escaped from under his felt liner. ‘The best we can hope for is that he died bravely.’

That’s not much consolation, thought Bostar sadly, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he nodded. ‘It would be good to discover what happened to him.’

A grimace. ‘With the mood the Gauls are in after Hannibal’s speech, I wouldn’t bank on finding many Romans alive after the town falls.’

‘That was partly why I wanted to take part in the initial assault,’ whispered Bostar.

Malchus sighed. ‘You know why Hannibal sent in the Gauls first. Disobeying his orders again would not be advisable, however good your reason. The needs of the army come before our own.’

Although the sentiment was true, it was hard to accept. Bostar did his best. He was sure now that Hanno had been attempting to discover information of potential use to Hannibal. If he’d succeeded, it would have been a first step in restoring himself to favour. Instead, it was a move that had ended with his death. Now Bostar was about to lose the only chance of finding out what had happened to his younger brother. He swallowed his anger. Hannibal was their leader. He knew best. ‘Yes, Father.’