Carthage Read online

  A breeze teased through the open window. In the kitchen, Arxes clanked and swore. I hid my face in my hands, but I had to know more, more.

  ‘Poison?’ I asked, looking up, straining forward. I remember tripping on the Latin word venenum. We used to speak in Latin then, the language in which I was reared. Thanks to Bostar, I came to know several languages. I know more now, but do not know which is my own. Punic, I suppose. The language of my wife and people, the language of my dreams.

  ‘No, not poison. He used, he used––’ Bostar reached into the pocket of his tunic – ‘this.’ Onto the table of polished oak, he put a dagger, sheathed. Its handle was of some wood blacker than I had ever seen before. It lay between us, a threat, an accusation.

  ‘Where––’ I cleared my throat. ‘Where did you get this, Bostar?’

  ‘I bought it. In Bithynia, where as you know your father took refuge, or so he thought, everything can be bought. Including a man’s life.’

  ‘You mean my father was betrayed by King Prusias?’

  ‘Betrayed? I don’t know. The whole world now kneels to the Romans. They sent a message to Prusias, full of the usual felicities. But its meaning was clear: a cohort was coming to arrest your father. Prusias could let them, or stop them and wait for a legion, then more.’

  ‘So he handed my father over?’

  ‘No. He told him the Romans were coming; offered him the chance to escape. “I am now a bird grown too old to fly,” your father replied. Or so it is said. The Romans found him waiting, but they were too late.’

  My tears came fast and hot and stinging, from a part of me I had not known was there. Bostar got up, crossed the room and, standing behind me, put his hands on my shoulders, and ran them through my hair.

  ‘Yes, cry, Hanno. Our tears will be your father’s only funeral.’

  I turned round. He was crying too. I stumbled up, into his arms. My sobs stilled. My anger grew. ‘What, Bostar, what,’ I mumbled into his woollen tunic, ‘did they do with the body?’

  Bostar stiffened, let go of me and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘Come out onto the terrace, Hanno. I want to see the light.’ Overlooking the pellucid pallor of the Aegean, his back to me, he went on.

  ‘We will talk of your father’s death only this once, Hanno. Then we will turn to your life, and his through yours. But you are his son, and only living legacy. You have a right to know.’

  Bostar’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the terrace rail, and his voice was tight and strained. ‘The Romans had your father’s body thrown into the city’s cesspit. I was–– I was two days late. When I left your father’s service those years ago as he returned to Carthage, I did not want to save him. When I went to Bithynia, my mind had changed. Too late, too late.’

  ‘But they didn’t, didn’t––’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Mutilate the body in any way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because I talked at length to the slaves who carried the corpse. They respected your father, or at least feared him. In Bithynia, as right across the world, he had become a name. Anyway, one of them, his name was Sottos, then cleaned your father’s room. It was from Sottos I bought the dagger on the table there. Now it’s yours.’

  ‘So that is all I have of my father?’

  ‘No, Hanno. No,’ Bostar replied patiently, gently, turning round to look at me. ‘You have his blood. You bear his name – and fame.’

  Despatch in the hand of Speusippus, secretary to Cato the

  Censor, preserved in the archives of Rome

  Marcus Porcius Cato the Censor to Lucius Antonius Regulus, Admiral of the Eastern Fleet. More and more breaches of our maritime laws are coming to my attention. Not all cargoes and itineraries are being registered. In particular, I have information about a double-oared galley called the Apollodorus, its master one Trimalchio, a Ligurian. In violation of the regulations it left Syracuse without declaring its destination, and is now thought to be in the east. Tell your ships, and those of our allies. The Apollodorus is to be seized on sight, its cargo confiscated, and its master and any passengers brought under guard to me here in Rome. If they resist arrest, they are to be killed. This is a matter vital to the welfare of the Republic. I see from this week’s gazette that your nephew Falco is seeking an aedileship. I am sure you will not disappoint me.

  Letter found among the papers of Titus Licinius Labienus,

  magistrate in Capua, and preserved in the consistory of the

  Capuan courts

  My dear friend. If the seal is broken, read no more but burn this at once. Even under torture you cannot disclose what you do not know.

  You will I am sure like all the world have heard the news by now. I reached Sinope only to find Hannibal dead, by his own hand. We had a hard voyage of it, against contrary winds but that does not matter now. I found no evidence that King Prusias or any others were involved. There is a limit, it seems, to the length of even Cato’s arms. I think that Hannibal had just come to his end. We grieve for him with heavy hearts. Yet he will not wholly die. I wish him speed across the river of Forgetfulness, Ashroket in his Punic tongue, and pray he may be free. As he would have wished, I go on, and hope that mourning turns to morning.

  I have been back here in Macedonia for three days. Hanno has taken the news very badly. He can think only of revenge. A loss, an anger burns in him that I can only watch and leave to run its course – although I am treating him with nepenthe and a little narceine. Tell Artixes. I think he would approve. But I have a plan in hand, of which I will tell Hanno when it is time. Although Trimalchio says otherwise, I do not trust the messenger to whom I am about to give this – a surly Illyrian sailor, with a poxed face and one eye. So I will not disclose to you now where I have decided we should go. I will write to you again when we get there – assuming we find ourselves among friends.

  Meanwhile, I ask you now to proceed at once with the task I set you. It is vital that you find–– [Here the parchment was faded and cracked.] … Hispala … name … north. Ask … tus Curtius … help. Silve… bankers… Massilia, by the west gate. Only way … avoid … war.

  Give Artixes my greetings. Tell Apurnia her son Hanno is, under the circumstances, well.

  From Hanno’s memoir

  The characters were strange. Bostar had started teaching me spoken Punic as soon as we left Capua. And an old Carthaginian merchant from the nearby town of Amphipolis came each day for conversation while Bostar was away. Then I began to learn the writing. Punic was my father’s language, of course, although he spoke many more. Greek was his polyglot army’s language of command, but I know from Bostar how he could even talk to the Gauls in their own guttural tongue. Anyway, I studied Punic to help take away the pain. Bostar spent most of each day in his room writing letters. Two or three messengers came and went most days, and the captain Trimalchio was often with us too, shut up with Bostar in his room. I remember thinking I might write to my mother in my new-found Punic. But then I realised. She would not understand.

  Letter found among Cato’s papers and preserved in the

  archives of Rome. The hand was crude, the grammar

  poor and the Latin strange. But it is reproduced here as

  faithfully as my papyrology allows

  My wife. I hope this will finds you well, if as is it finds you at all which I am not sure of. The wind has been from the north now these past days, and seeing as you know that do not agree with my bones. The word is how the Eastern Fleet has stepped up its patrols. No one knows why. They are searching every ship, they say, and intercepting mail. It’s like when that devil Hannibal was loose, but I’m sure as they will have done for him by now. For me, I am earning a living as best as what I know how. Never could be doing with all those registrars they introduced those years back under whatever they as called those new laws. I always were a man for attitude, and you know mine. There’s the Apollodorus to recaulk this winter, and she
needs new sails. I said when last I written that I was of a mind, grant Neptune, to be safe home with you for the festival of Cybele. We made our journey with our passengers like what I wrote to you we would, but then I did set off on another one with one of them alone and now he wants me to take him on another one, though he won’t say where but the money’s good and real. I should know. Near broke a tooth on it. If we go south as I suspects, I’ll bring you home a parakeet, and anyhows I’ll see you in a while. I hopes the cows are in good milk, and all the kids are well. Your husband, Trimalchio.

  From Hanno’s memoir

  Bostar told me a week later after supper, as he mopped the last of the olive oil from his pewter plate with the heel of the barley loaf Arxes had made and drained his cup of wine. ‘We leave tomorrow, Hanno, by first light.’

  ‘Leave? For where?’

  I remember how he smiled for the first time since he had come back, even if it was brief and wry. ‘We leave, Hanno, for Carthage.’

  ‘Carthage!’ I blurted out. ‘Why are we going there?’

  ‘Hanno, Hanno, whose son are you? I know your Punic isn’t up to it yet, but it’s time we got you home.’

  ‘My home is in Capua, with my mother and Labienus and––’

  ‘And? I know. Artixes.’

  ‘Artixes! Why do you mention him? Bostar, what have you got planned?’

  ‘Nothing improper,’ he almost smiled. ‘On the contrary, I would say.’

  He got up from the table and paced back and forth. ‘I know, Hanno, how you feel about Capua. But your life was set from the moment your father, with your mother, conceived you there. You are a Barca, of the longest line in Carthage. Now everything your father hoped for is being crushed by Rome.’

  ‘You needn’t preach to me, Bostar!’ I had, I remember, leapt to my feet and sent the heavy table screeching across the floor. ‘I know my birthright. How do you know I haven’t also planned?’

  He stopped, and began stroking his beard. ‘That’s fair, that’s fair, Hanno. And tell me, what are your plans?’

  ‘To use this.’ My arm trembling, from my pocket I held out my father’s dagger on my palm. I had slept with it since the day Bostar said it was mine. The tiny scorpion, the Barca signet, inlaid in ivory on its handle, burned in my mind.

  ‘I see. And who will you use this dagger on?’

  ‘On Cato, of course. It’s he who has – who did––’ I felt the tears come. Suddenly Bostar was beside me, and round my shoulders I felt his arm.

  ‘Hanno, Hanno, you are everything I hoped for, and more. But kill one Cato, and there will be another. Kill him, and there will be more. Believe me. I saw your father. I was at the killing fields of Cannae. I saw what that knowledge did to him. But now the power of Rome has cast off limits. There is no room in her shade. We must––’

  ‘Must what, Bostar?’ Suddenly I felt exhausted. Squeezing my shoulder, Bostar turned away.

  ‘Do more. Much more,’ Bostar said with what I sensed was some strange pain. ‘The ways of peace are harder than those of war. But enough for now,’ he went on. ‘We have to get up before light, and I have a––’ I remember how he seemed to choose his words with especial care – ‘a great deal to arrange with Arxes before we go. We’ll talk on board the Apollodorus. Now, bed for you, young man.’

  ‘Bostar?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just before I go, two questions.’

  He held out his arms. ‘Ask anything.’

  ‘One, why does Cato hate the Carthaginians so much? Why did he pursue my father to the end?’

  Bostar looked grave. ‘That’s two questions, and both merit long answers. But not from me, because I don’t know. There’s a madness that seizes certain men, an anger that will not let them go. Your father had it, but at Cannae I saw it spent. In Cato, I think it will wax more before it wanes. He hated your father; he hated Scipio. Both are dead. To whom will his anger turn? They say he is given to brandishing a fig leaf from Carthage in the Roman Senate these days, and asking if they know that it was picked only three days ago. I––’ He broke off. ‘Never mind.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And your second question?’

  ‘Do they have bastards in Carthage?’

  This time, Bostar laughed. ‘Bastards? Yes, they have bastards in Carthage, Hanno, and in every other place you can think of, with or without a “c”. But, Hanno,’ he said as he stopped laughing. ‘Forget that word, in any language. You are Hannibal’s son.’

  Letter found among Cato’s papers, and preserved in the

  archives of Rome

  My dear son Hanno. I do not know where or how you are, but my love for you is no less strong. Labienus, who is writing this down for me, says that even if he knew he couldn’t say. I find my world is ruled again by men. I thought I was free of that. Anyway, there are things I didn’t say to you before you went away. When I was pregnant with you, as you know, I was taken away from Labienus and given the lodging house I still run – and from which Bostar took you with my blessing and my fear. I did not know it then, but my early years with you were my happiest ones. You remember them, and the man I later married, though he died when you were small. Cherish both memories. I thank Juno, and all the darker gods that I have known.

  The war with Hannibal went on. I knew who your father was, but like Labienus, like Artixes, I did not say. They were waiting, I think, to see – looking up at Labienus now I see him flinch, but continue to write down what I have to say to you: that is a mark of this man – they were waiting to see who won. I was waiting for you. Men march to war as women menstruate with the moon. Which is more enduring?

  Please write to me. I need news of you as plants need light. Here the days are heavy with the tramp, tramp, tramp of soldiers’ feet. They have raised two new legions from Capua alone. And now for each lodger I have I must fill in a form, and leave them each week at the prefecture. It is, they say, the ‘new order’ of Cato. I have never even seen him. It seems a long way to Rome. But, once or twice each week, in the evening, I come here to the house of Labienus. Hulvio the porter is well, by the way. He always asks after you. Anyway, after Labienus, Artixes and I have talked and eaten, I sit and I dream. I must go back home now, and prepare the porridge for tomorrow’s breakfast. I have two lodgers tonight. One is a knife sharpener, and the other a peddler of pans. Labienus is leaving tomorrow on a journey. I asked him where, but I see him smile as I say this because he would not tell me. He thinks he will be gone for several weeks. We will miss him, but pray to Mercury that he comes safe home. I love you. May the messenger that brings you this bring me word of you. Your mother, Apurnia.

  From Hanno’s memoir

  We set off into a still and sullen dawn, the air heavy with the threat of storm, the rowers silent so early, surly and taciturn at the lack of wind. Sitting cross-legged in the stern, Bostar and I ate a last loaf of Arxes’ bread, some goat’s cheese and figs, washed down from a waterskin.

  As the big drum beat, we watched the shores of Macedon sink slowly out of sight. Then, as the swell began to rise and I to regret my breakfast, with a grunt Trimalchio heaved himself down beside us. He was a bear of a man, his great, squat head bald and mottled, but for a few wild strands of long and unkempt, straggling hair. His beard reached to his chest, twisted, filthy, oily, and I remember wondering what lived in there. His face was lined and strained from years of sea and salt, but he had kind and twinkling, blue-grey eyes – oh, and I always remember the particularly rank smell of his sweat. It clung to him like a fog. I never saw him wash, or any of his crew. But as Bostar always says, it’s the heart that matters. Trimalchio’s was true.

  ‘Cabin fine?’ he asked us.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Trimalchio,’ Bostar replied. ‘I’ve had more experience of it than Hanno here, but it will do us fine.’

  ‘Bit stuffy on a morning like this, though,’ Trimalchio continued.

  ‘That’s why we came up here,’ I said.

  ‘And how are the men this morning, Trimalchio?�
�� Bostar asked, brushing crumbs from his beard.

  ‘Oh, grumbling a bit. It’s quite a squeeze down below, you know, what with that extra thirty rowers you had me hire. They’re sleeping head to toe, two to a hammock.’

  ‘Sorry? I had you hire? I just asked you to be sure you could outrun any other ship. You said: “Easy, if I can rest my rowers.”’

  ‘Outrun other ships, Bostar?’ I asked. ‘Why should we have to?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Hanno. I should have told you. Trimalchio has confirmed what I was afraid of. The Eastern Fleet has increased its patrols. And we’re just not ready to talk to Romans – yet.’

  ‘But you’re a Roman, Trimalchio, aren’t you?’

  He spat on the deck. ‘Tuh,’ he tutted contemptuously. ‘Ligurian, and always will be. Can’t be doing with all this Roman nonsense, and the Republic, and forms, and registers. All Rome means to me is armies – why, I lost two brothers, conscripted they were, in the war against that beggar Hannibal.’ Bostar squeezed my arm for silence. ‘Yes, armies, and taxes, taxes. These poncey Romans even think they can rule the sea! All I ask is the freedom to do what I’ve always done, like my father before me. Make my living, and mind me own.’ Trimalchio belched, and then farted for good measure. ‘Anyway, best be on my rounds. We’ll be three days to Athens, six if we don’t get wind.’

  ‘We won’t be stopping, Trimalchio,’ Bostar said quietly. ‘That’s why I had you load the extra stores.’

  ‘So, straight to Carthage, eh?’

  ‘Well, not too straight, Trimalchio, or you might find Crete gets in our way.’

  Trimalchio guffawed. ‘As you wish, sir. You’re the governor, you’re the boss. Oh, and as for speed: if things get tight we could always throw’ – he gave Bostar a huge wink – ‘those heavy chests of yours overboard!’ Chuckling to himself, with his customary grunt Trimalchio was up, on his feet and on his way.