Gabinius tried to puzzle it out. Perhaps there was no explaining such things. The boy had come out of nowhere and wangled himself an unearned army command. He had performed a truly remarkable march that was little more than a plundering expedition, meddling in the affairs of Eastern kings. He had fought a cleverly managed battle and turned in a victory. And now the people thought he was a son of Mars. Men who had campaigned hard all their lives, fought in many battles, won greater victories and saved the Romans from dangers far greater, simply had not won such adulation from the citizens.
Young Norbanus, he knew, had some gift. It was a thing some men had and it could not be explained. It was something that made men want to serve him loyally, made others want to worship him, made them regard him as something more than human, whatever his real deserts. Alexander had had such a gift. The Macedonian golden boy had taken the superb army forged by his father and attacked the rotten, tottering old Persian Empire, and it fell into his hands like overripe fruit. He'd fought a few battles with the incredibly inept Darius and gained half the world, then had gone on a pointless march all the way to India, taking land he hadn't a prayer of governing. He'd acted like a drunken fool and murdered close friends, and in the end his own once fanatically loyal soldiers rebelled. Now, more than two hundred years later, men still worshipped him as a god.
For generations we fought Gauls and Germans to carve for ourselves an empire in the North, Gabinius thought. For all those generations we brooded on the insult Carthage had done us and plotted our return. All we thought about was defeating barbarians and destroying Carthage. How ironic that now, on the verge of victory against all our foreign enemies and regaining our old empire on the Middle Sea, we should discover that the real threat, the real enemy, is Roman.
Marcus Scipio studied the map he had ordered made. It depicted the whole world around the Middle Sea and what was known of the lands farther east: India and the land of the Silk People and the islands rumored to lie beyond. It showed Arabia and the land mass of Africa down to coastal Punt. It even had the legendary Tin Isles to the north. He had wanted a large map, perhaps ten feet wide and covering a wall. Selene had had it made in the typically overdone Alexandrian fashion, covering a floor fifty feet by one hundred feet, everything inlaid in mosaic. It was so large that he needed a platform made so that he could take it in all at once. Just now, though, he didn't need the whole map. He was concentrating on Spain. Spain was where the next great chapter of this epic would unfold. As soon as word of the naval battle had arrived, the artisans had torn up a section of mosaic depicting that part of the sea and created a picture of hundreds of little ships fighting, sinking and burning. The site of the land battle was also marked, with a Roman sword wrapped in laurel.
"Where is Hamilcar?" Marcus fretted. He felt frustrated and impotent while all the important events were going on so far away.
"The latest word has him dallying at Cartago Nova," Selena said, not for the first time.
"Why is he waiting so long?" Marcus muttered.
"Isn't it obvious?" Flaccus said. "He wanted Mastanabal to soften up the Roman army first, so he declined to reinforce the man. What has he lost? A handful of Carthaginian officers and a great many barbarians. It is nothing to him and he is weakened in no way."
"Flaccus is right," Selene concurred. "I don't know how you Romans go about it, but in most of the world kings regard successful generals as dangerous rivals. Mastanabal won a battle against Rome, so his days were numbered. I was fairly certain that it would turn out this way."
"But that is infamous!" Marcus said. "What sort of loyalty can men have to such a sovereign? I detest Titus Norbanus, but never would I leave him and an army of Roman soldiers without support in the face of a strong enemy! No Roman commander could ever do such a thing!"
"Perhaps the rest of us cannot contest with the Romans on points of virtue," Selene said, sighing as the barb sailed right over Marcus's head, as usual. She had never met such a combination of intelligence and obtuseness as Marcus Scipio. She also caught Flaccus's grin and returned it with a smile of her own.
"They have to meet soon," Scipio said. "Where?" He studied the map. It showed the major rivers and mountain ranges, but gave no sense of any other terrain. In the great Library he had studied the books concerning Spain, but those were concerned mainly with the coastal cities and had few tales of the peoples of the interior. The historians and geographers had never considered Spain to be a very interesting place.
"I don't know where," Flaccus said, "but I know who will choose the time and place: Norbanus. He won't wait, Marcus. He will be on top of Hamilcar before he knows it. Hamilcar is hesitant and cautious. Titus Norbanus is not. He loves action and he believes himself to be invincible."
"I agree," Scipio said, nodding. "He's bold and he'll move before anyone else has a chance to win glory. They may have fought already." That was what galled him the most: that great things were happening and he had no way of knowing about them until many days afterward. Even the swift new courier ships could travel only so fast, and they were as vulnerable to storms and calms as other vessels.
"I wish you would stop fretting here," Selene said to him.
"What?" He seemed to drag his thoughts from far away as he turned and looked at her. "What am I to do?"
"This isn't like you, Marcus," she said. "You always have a plan of action. Very well, if you lack one, I'll suggest one: Go attack Carthage."
Both men looked at her as if they had been struck by Jupiter's thunderbolts. "What?" Scipio said. "Unless you haven't noticed, I don't have an army."
"You don't have a Roman army," she said, "but I have rather a large one. It sits around eating up my substance without doing me any good, so you may as well take it and put it to some use. March it to Carthage with my blessing. Take all those toys you've been playing with at the Museum as well. At least they will make the war a fine spectacle, even if you lose. You've been saying for months that your legions are about to cross from Sicily to attack Carthage. If you go immediately, you might get there before they do, with Hamilcar and his army away from the city. That will do you no end of good at the next elections."
They gaped at her. "Majesty," Flaccus said at last, "are we to understand that you desire a full military alliance with Rome?"
"Of course it's an alliance!" she yelled. "Do you think I am going to let you take my army away as your personal property?" Then she added, more quietly: "Naturally, there is something I want from Rome in return."
"The Senate is to recognize you as full sovereign of Egypt," Marcus said. "You are queen, and your brother is deposed."
"I knew you were not as stupid as you sometimes pretend."
Flaccus whirled on his heel and strode off. "I'll get the papers ready right now. They'll be on their way to the Senate under your seal with the morning's first wind."
"There goes a man who understands things and does not waste time," she said, smiling.
"Selene," Scipio said, "I am overwhelmed."
She had never expected to hear this from the incomparably arrogant Roman. "I will be honest with you. As long as you are here, I am not queen. I am just another member of the court, playing power games. I want to be queen in truth and I want to be an ally in your own legal sense of the word. I can call upon you for aid and you can call on me, but I want Rome out of Egypt. I will do nothing against your interests but I want no Roman occupation. Agree to this, and my army is yours."
"I'll need your navy, too," he said.