Trouble in the Wind Page 5

  The dust cloud that surrounded his and the Paullus’ cavalry wings was normal. The cavalry was in fact only about six thousand strong, a little light for an army of this sort.

  And the dust was about normal for cavalry on the move.

  But behind them came a veritable dust cloud, a lower but palpable haze thrown by the sheer massive numbers of foot soldiers on the move and their supply transport. The supply transport, alone, must be far more than normal to feed such an army.

  They’d left Rome’s stores depleted, and even so, they left their mark on the countryside as they moved slowly—large forces can’t move any other way—southeast towards the flatlands of the Adriatic coast.

  Though Paullus and Varro had agreed to trade off command every other day in the traditional manner—a tradition lately violated by Fabius, not for the best as his results had proven, it did not matter. Both agreed. It was imperative that they avoid the kind of ambush that had been laid for Flaminius and his army at Lake Trasimene.

  Flaminus had allowed himself to be enraged by Hannibal’s destruction of the countryside. That was no surprise. Any man of honor would, since Hannibal’s widespread destruction of the area that Flaminus had sworn to protect meant that he despised both Rome and—personally—Flaminus. It was like being harassed by dogs, or set about by unruly street urchins. To endure it meant that a man lost all his pride.

  But he should still have been more wary. As it was, Flaminus had not thought that Hannibal, being a desert barbarian and as such a man without honor, would not hesitate to create an ambush.

  As the Carthaginian had, near Lake Trasimene.

  Hannibal had set up his troops, throughout the night, carefully disposing them for battle in such a way that he would have full view of Flaminus—or anyone really—when he and his troops entered the Northern defile. He put the Iberian and Africans that constituted his heavy infantry on a slight elevation, from which they had ample room to charge down on the head of the Roman column from the left flank. He’d had his Gallic infantry and cavalry well concealed in the hills in the depth of the wooded valley from which the Romans must enter, so they could rush down and close the entrance, blocking all retreat. Then he put his light troops on the heights, at intervals, overlooking the valley, with orders to stay hidden.

  The night before battle, he ordered a few of his scouts to light fires on the hills of Tuoro, some distance away, to make Flaminus think that the Carthaginians were still far away.

  Knowing that Flaminus would be hot on intemperate pursuit, Hannibal camped where anyone entering the valley would see him.

  As Flaminus hurried to close with Hannibal, the Carthaginian cavalry and infantry swept down from their concealed positions in the surrounding hills, and blocked the road. The Romans had no time to draw into battle array and instead fought a hand to hand combat with open order.

  And thus at Trasimene, Hannibal ambushed Flaminus and killed fifteen thousand Romans, half the force, who had either died in battle or drowned in the lake trying to escape that way.

  Flaminus himself had died, slain by Ducarius, the Gaul.

  Flaminus’ defeat had caused such a panic in Rome that Quintus Fabius Maximus, Verrucosus, the cautious Fabius, had been elected dictator by the Roman Assembly. And he’d initiated a year of cautious war, utterly failing to destroy Hannibal while suffering a great many defeats at the Punic invader’s hands.

  Oh, none as bad as the defeat at Lake Trasimene, but none of them painless either. It was how the legions had been whittled down to a remnant.

  Which was why it was imperative that they now face Hannibal as men, and put an end to his provocations. And they would.

  But they were aware that while it shouldn’t be possible for an entire army like Hannibal’s to perform ambushes like a little force, it was obvious they would. They had at Trasimene.

  Therefore Varro and Paullus agreed.

  “I have reports,” Paullus said, during one of their rests in the march. “That the cursed invader’s army is camped at Cannae, on the River Aufidius, waiting for us.”

  And Varro, who had been raised in the best traditions of Rome, but had seen his father dicker with farmers and shepherds, and had perhaps a little more insight into the mind of men for whom honor was secondary to victory, had said, “Let us not trust those reports. Remember the fires he burned on the Tuoro hills. For all we know these troops massed by the Aufidius are some local shepherds kidnapped and dressed like his fighters. If we rush to meet them, we will doubtlessly find our rear attacked and destroyed, our camp followers and supplies annihilated, without our fighting men being able to defend them. And then we’ll face having to proceed or retreat on an empty belly and with no support. I don’t believe we can do that. Not while Hannibal’s cursed raiders nibble at our flanks.”

  And so they distrusted the reports and wended slowly through, keeping their eye open for ambushes.

  Their slow progress had its inconveniences, just as their size had its problems.

  The slow progress allowed for transgressions against locals. Though it was Varro’s well thought out opinion that any peasant who didn’t guard his daughter—or for that matter his handsome son—when that mass of fighting men tore through, it was also his ultimate responsibility to—at least—receive the report of how the various commanders had dealt with transgressions against the local populace from theft to rape to murder.

  The problem being that Italy wasn’t Roman. While each of the cities and tribes had an alliance with Rome and took a subordinate role to the city, and had treatises of mutual protection and support, they weren’t Rome. They had their own traditions, their own beliefs, and often their not so deeply buried hostility to the city that had defeated them or their ancestors. Any fresh violation of local rights and norms might cause a city to rebel, something perilous at this juncture.

  Worse, any provocation might cause a significant number of inhabitants of a city that was still ostensibly loyal to Rome and afraid of Rome’s retaliation to either carry intelligence to Hannibal or to collaborate with him in one of his cursed ambushes or deceptions. Fortunately, they had taken on in this force an unusually high number of legion commanders, and the men were usually blooded, if not of sufficient social influence to deal with contretemps. Why, a full third of the Senate of Rome had joined the army, and the rest of them had family in the army. That, by itself, provided plenty of influential people to diffuse the situation.

  Though the thought itself annoyed Varro, being that he was not one of the influential people, it seemed to him it was a matter of no consequence. His sons would be. And their sons after them. It was a matter of advancing the family, and himself—as ancestor—would reap the reward due to his sacrifices to obtain that advancement.

  For him to undermine the system would mean only that there was nothing for his sons to attain.

  As for their size, while it forced them to go slow, Varro knew well enough that in past engagements with the cunning Hannibal, by the time the Roman forces had broken through his center, it was too late, and their cavalry had been destroyed.

  * * *

  “Master,” a voice from the door. “There is a man to see you.”

  Looking up, Varro saw Calvus. Calvus was one of his bodyguards, a huge man with a shaved head. He was also the son of a family who had served Varro’s family since either of the two families could remember. “Master” here referred both to rank and to the relationship that had existed between the two as long as they could remember.

  When Varro had been teased by older boys for his family’s late-arrival to wealth, Calvus had interposed his bulk and often brought the jeering to sudden silence.

  “Yes?” Varro said, and sat up, rearranging his tunic. He didn’t remember stripping off his armor or even his helmet, but here he was, barefoot and in a house tunic. And remembering, as through a fog what Calvus had said, he queried, “A man?”

  Calvus appeared to struggle for words. “A…foreigner.”

  Since to Calvus
a foreigner could be anyone, from a local of this village to a Greek, Varro was not sure what that meant. He had a sudden misgiving that it was Hannibal himself, come to bid for surrender. But that was ridiculous. It wasn’t to Varro that Hannibal would come for surrender or to dictate terms. And in fact it was highly unlikely that Hannibal even knew that Varro was still alive.

  Varro was unsure how many days it had been since the battle. It seemed to him he’d slept a very long time. Perhaps longer than a day. Or perhaps it was their journey that had taken very long.

  He remembered his wing of the cavalry stampeding in a panic, carrying him with them. The shame of it burned in him. They had sworn an oath, the first time that such was done by Romans before battle. Everyone had sworn that they would not, “Abandon their ranks for flight or fear, but only to take up or seek a weapon, with which to smite an enemy or save a fellow citizen.”

  He had broken the Oath. He was forsworn. “Bring the stranger in,” he said. “But you and Servius come in with him, and keep watch, lest he strike.”

  Calvus left to return seconds later with the man. Varro sat up straighter. The man was—this was not even surprising—a Carthaginian. This was easy to tell at a glance, though he wore a tunic that would pass unnoticed on any peasant in this region, only his cloak giving away that he was a man of some substance. It was the sum of the parts that made it obvious. He was lighter-built and more dark-skinned than most Romans, but the most important thing about him was that he did not move like a Roman. There was something of the merchant in a foreign port to him. Sure, assured enough not to be trifled with, but glancing sidelong and in an easy way of shrugging the shoulder and sidling, as though to project an impression of amiability and accommodation.

  The Phonecians were, after all, a merchant race, and lacked the sturdy assurance of the Roman farmer.

  “Milord Varro,” he said and smiled, and nodded. And Varro, who was not a lord, nor a nobleman of any kind, hardened his heart against him. Or tried to. The thing with flattery was, of course, that it worked. It was hard not to let oneself fly into sympathy with someone who flattered one so outrageously.

  “I am Abibaal,” the stranger said. “And I come to you with a message from our great commander, Barca.”

  Varro experienced a visceral response to Hannibal’s name, and he started to get up from his couch and order the stranger away, before he thought better of it. He sat down again, but spoke, his voice rough and gruff but, he hoped, decisive. “I want no messages from your master. Nor do I wish to surrender. I am a Roman citizen, I. I have my pride.”

  “No one is asking your surrender, Consul,” Abibaal said, and again, there was the sliding smile, and the bow, as though he had never thought of such a monstrosity. “Terms will be sent to Rome, but we’re told that Rome will surely refuse.”

  The Phoenician paused for barely a second before continuing.

  “It is rather that we thought, given your loss, you might not be comfortably received in Rome again.”

  “And what business of that is yours?” Varro snapped.

  “I will be honest with you.” Here a trace of accent showed in Abibaal’s excellent Latin, giving him something of a sibilant tone. “Any commander bringing such a defeat back to Phoenicia and having lost upon a single battle most of the nobility of his city would surely be crucified as an example of what happens to those who lose.”

  Varro narrowed his eyes at the man. Before he could shape his mouth to protest, his guest continued.

  “Now, that might not happen in Rome, but surely there will be penalties for such a loss, and we’re informed that you’re not of such high birth that you have a large family to protect you from such penalties.”

  Damn you, Varro thought.

  “More than others, we know that they are unjust. We know your entourage near-kidnapped you away from the battle front, and that if it were not for them, you’d have fought and died there, like the noble Paullus.”

  This man’s insolence angers me, Varro thought, beginning to move his arm and signal the Phoenician be executed. His visitor continued as if he did not notice, shifting his eyes to meet Calvus’ as he continued.

  “But since you’re here, and Rome might think that you turned and ran, surely Rome, who mourns their lost sons now, will soon turn to punish those responsible.”

  The ‘to include your entourage’ did not need to be spoken for Varro to recognize the veiled threat. His hand fell limply to his side, the signal to slay the Phoenician ungiven.

  “You must see that you are at risk, and mighty Hannibal Barca has sent me to offer you safe conduct to our ranks, where you’ll be protected and a noble counselor.”

  In no way will I turn traitor, Varro thought angrily.

  In his rage, Varro didn’t remember what he said, precisely. He gathered later that he actually hadn’t told his servants to throw the man out and whip him to death, though the image had been in his mind so strong, he would have sworn an oath that he had.

  Apparently the Carthaginian smiled and left, ahead of the servants who would have thrown him out, somehow seeming to go of his own volition. This had the effect of making Varro’s attendants into an escort, rather than those who expelled him. Varro was well aware of what that would seem like to external observers.

  * * *

  Insulted, wounded, it took Varro quite a while in solitude to contemplate the strange encounter.

  When he did, he found that instead of anger, he felt a strange ambivalence, as though the ground had turned slippery under his foot or as though he’d put his foot down on a stair expecting to find a step and found instead nothingness and howling wind.

  Which in a way described the whole battle of Cannae.

  * * *

  They’d been so sure that their numbers would have them. And in retrospect, Hannibal hadn’t done any of the things he’d done before. No hiding on the hills. No lighting of false fires. Nothing fanciful or difficult. Nothing that would make it justifiable for them to be so utterly defeated.

  It was only after the report of what had actually happened came to him that Varro built together, in his head, the image of the strategy the Phoenician had employed.

  It had been deceptive, since that seemed to be the trend of the man’s mind. It was well know that men didn’t change their mode of thinking, however much their circumstances might change. And it had been cunning, since Hannibal was in fact a shrewd general, as well as anything else. Faced with a force twice the size of his own, he had perforce used tactics to overcome the disadvantage.

  The tactics used were a thing of beauty and elegant. In the past his center had always held, while his wings mauled at the Roman wings, until it was impossible for those to go to the rescue of the center.

  But now, now that Rome had beefed up its army, so they could penetrate through the well-defended center of the Hannibal’s army, so they could in fact use their massive numbers as a ram and bowl over all opposition, Hannibal had made that center very weak, staffed with the poor soldiers of Iberia, the Gallic Celts, who would break and run at the slightest push.

  His cavalry took up positions on the far left and right wings. When fully assembled, the Carthaginian line must have looked—Varro could see it in his mind—like a crescent that bulged in the middle.

  Hannibal had put his stronger troops, the Libyans, at the edges of his formation. As the Roman infantry advanced into the pocket created by the retreating Gauls and Spaniards, they were enclosed by the stronger, and still fresh troops at the perimeters, who then blocked all escape. With no way to avoid entrapment, and the sheer number of the Roman infantry making it impossible to move, the battlefield had become a killing field, and the killing was the Carthaginians to do. For the Romans—or for most Romans—it remained only surrender or dying.

  His spies had brought back the accounts of those for whom surrender was anathema.

  “They died screaming, Master,” one informant had said. “Their tendons cut, they died begging that the Carthaginia
ns cut their veins and thus end their suffering.”

  “Master, some say that a great many dug holes and plunged their heads into them, so as to suffocate,” was the tale brought any another.

  In Varro’s mind, the proud army marched, all smiles, leaving Rome amid prayers and song. The fine flower of Roman nobility, many more influential than he was. Many more much better born, belonging to old clans and older families.

  And then he saw it in his mind’s eye as it turned to a killing field, the flies buzzing in the heat of August and landing on the unseeing eyes of the blood-and-vomit covered corpses.

  “You can smell the field from miles away, Master.”

  * * *

  Varro sent Calvus to Rome, and Calvus brought word back. When news of the battle—and word of the immense losses—had filtered back, people had taken to the streets screaming the name of kinsmen they presumed lost. Public lamentation had been violent. An envoy had been sent to the oracle at Delphi to find out what it meant. Meanwhile, human sacrifices had been made for the protection of Rome. Human sacrifices on the mountain of Jove. Something not done since remote antiquity, something they were used to considering a mark of barbarism.

  Varro was thinking of this, of the hysteria that must be sweeping to Rome to create so uncharacteristic a response, when Calvus came in to the darkened chamber where his master had taken to sitting with a jar of wine in contemplation. Contemplating his lost honor and the fact that, as an oath breaker he would bring not fortune and fame to his family, but a great stain. A stain which his children would have to expunge before they could attain any honors of their own. Or perhaps his grandchildren.

  My name will not be mentioned by any that come from me for a generation, Varro thought. Indeed, I am almost certain it will become an epithet in all of Rome.

  “What is it, Calvus?” Varro asked, his words slightly slurred.

  “Master, there is a man to see you.”