“I understand the picture you paint,” Sapanibal said. “What did you do about it?”
“I saved our nation,” Hanno said. “I made an arrangement with Syphax that won him to us. I promised that we would not contest his actions against the Massylii. And I gave him Sophonisba for his wife.”
Sapanibal had been looking intently at her brother and went on doing so for a few moments. But then the meaning of his words drew all of her attention as a dry sponge sucks up water. Her vision blurred. Hanno went out of focus. She had to blink to bring him back again. Her response was first a simple refutation. He had not done that. “Sophonisba is betrothed to Masinissa,” she explained. “She's been promised.”
Hanno pursed his lips. “I'm sorry. I like Masinissa well, but their marriage is not to be. It is unfortunate . . .”
Sapanibal's look of complete disbelief hushed him. “Who gave you the authority?”
Hanno pressed his chin to his chest and held it like that for a moment. Then he looked out again into the night. “The Council sanctified it,” he said. “Didobal agreed. They've already annulled the engagement. It doesn't exist. It never did. To speak of it will be a crime punishable by death.”
“You are not telling the truth.”
“Why would I lie?”
“But she loves him. Do you understand? She wants to marry him. Is this how you save your neck? By trading your sister into slavery? Have Barca men fallen so low? When she hears of this she will die inside—”
“She already knows,” Hanno said. He waited for his sister's response to this, but she only stared at him. He sighed and tried to regain a calmer tone. “Sapanibal, if the gods one day ordain that I may split Syphax on my sword and watch the life escape him, I will do so. At present, I cannot.”
“So instead you'll call him brother? What's happened to you? I thought war made men, not turned them back into children.”
For the first time Hanno's voice rose, heated, quick of tongue. “Sister, look at me. I return defeated, without an army. I have nothing but my life, and that's worth very little. The Council was half a breath away from nailing me to a cross. Hadus would have disemboweled me himself and eaten my entrails while they were still warm. Do you understand? I am alive because I could promise those fat men that an army of sixty thousand Libyans wouldn't be banging on the gates of our city. Instead they'll fight for us. I've hardly saved my neck, sister—not considering the plan I've devised and the risks of it. None of our necks are yet safe. Sophonisba understood this better than you appear to. You surprise me. You are wise in so many ways, but you have a woman's blind spots in your vision.”
Sapanibal stood and moved near to her brother. She placed her hands to either side of his chair and, looking close into his face, she said, “I see more clearly than you imagine, but if I could turn my eyes into stones and rip them out to throw at you I would. You don't know what you've done to her. Syphax? Syphax?”
She had spoken calmly, but something changed with her proximity to him. Hanno began to remind her that Syphax was no demon. He was a king, who would treat Sophonisba well—
Before either of them knew it was going to happen, Sapanibal slapped her brother. “Was Hasdrubal the Handsome a demon?” she asked. “Was he? Was he? Was he?” She slapped him again, with the right and then with the left hand, and then with a mad barrage from both. He sat taking it, his features smudged and reddened; then she dropped on him and hugged him in a strange embrace, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades.
Later still, Sapanibal walked barefoot down the hall toward her sister's quarters. She stood between the eunuchs who guarded the entry, which was open to them but hidden around a corner. The two men each straightened when she approached. They did not speak, did not ask after her business or even set their eyes upon her for more than the instant it took to recognize her. She just stood, not sure what she would say to Sophonisba, or that she would even enter. She told herself that it was her duty to soothe her sister while also reminding her of the union's importance to their nation. Of course, this was what her reasoning mind believed. Her outburst against Hanno was a confused thing, the product of prolonged worry, of her own weakness. Fortune spins like a top and one never knows on what symbol it may land.
The soft, round notes of a pipe chime came to her, pushed by an evening breeze. For a moment she had the strange thought that some spirit had brushed past the chimes as it rushed to confront her, to grab her by the neck and squeeze all that nonsense out of her throat. She did not believe any of it. Maybe she never had. Maybe that was why this pained her so, because her whole life in duty had been an empty torture, a slow, prolonged strangulation. She heard movement inside, the murmur of a voice, and then a short, clipped sound that could have been either laughter or crying. This prompted her to move, although she did not know what she would say.
Rounding the corner into the soft lamplight she noticed Imilce first, leaning on Sophonisba's makeup table. Once, Sapanibal would have felt a pang of jealousy. She was no great friend to her sister, but Imilce had become one. She had taken the place in Sophonisba's life that Sapanibal might have occupied, if she had not been so cold to Sophonisba, if she had not envied her beauty and disdained the joys she took from life. She got no farther than the entrance, and then stood, elbows tucked into her sides.
Her younger sister sat on a stool before the small desk in which she kept her makeup and jewelry. Sapanibal caught her breath, frightened by how beautiful she was. She wore her hair pulled back and her face in profile was a twin to the goddess Tanit's. The curve at the ball of her nose, the full richness of her lips: all glistened as if they were molded anew each morning. She seemed ever to step out of a sculptor's workshop, unblemished, not even a grain of imperfection in the marble of her skin. Her gown fell off one knee, exposing the weight of her calf, a single foot, five toes, the smallest of which wore a tiny gold ring. Perfection. Tragic perfection.
She was about to withdraw when Sophonisba jerked her head around. Viewed straight on, her face struck Sapanibal with the force of a ceremonial mask. The dark makeup with which she etched the edges of her eyelids had run. Black lines streaked down her cheeks in the trails that dipped into the corners of her mouth. She stared at Sapanibal for a moment, then twisted her lips and asked, “Why do you look at me that way? I am not the first woman to wed for the sake of Carthage. Is that what you're going to tell me? Remind me of your own marriage and all the good it did our family? Say it, if you like. You must've waited many years to.”
Sapanibal closed her eyes. When she opened them a moment later tears burst from them. The harsh expression fell from her face completely, replaced by a trembling chin, flushed red cheeks, a ridged and quivering forehead. Several times she tried to say something, but the words bumbled around behind her teeth and nothing came out but sobs of hot air. That was not what she was going to say. Not at all.
Sophonisba stood and moved forward, lifted her arms, and pulled her sobbing sister into her embrace. “What's becoming of us?” she asked.
It was a day that Masinissa would always remember, a moment of decision that shaped everything in the life that was to follow. He began that fateful day trying to find a way to convince Mago not to quit Iberia. They need not be beaten yet, he argued to himself. He could send to his country for more horsemen. Carthage might provide another installment of infantry. Up to that moment, he had found it inordinately easy to kill Romans. He still believed he could accomplish all the tasks set before him and return to Numidia on his own terms. Though he had not mentioned it to the Barcas, he had even rejected envoys from Scipio the previous summer. The Roman had offered him friendship in return for his abandoning the Carthaginian cause. Scipio promised him Carthaginian lands as his own, with gifts from the wealth of their treasury, with numberless slaves, and with permission to rule Africa as he saw fit. It was a lot for a single agent of Rome to offer; this Scipio was bolder than his father. But still, it was of little importance. He rejected the offer with contempt and went on killing them. Who were the Romans to offer him anything other than their blood to wash his spear?