Fabius swallowed hard, focusing on the horizon as he had been told to do by the captain when he had seen his discomfort, surveying the shoreline to the south. Behind them lay Bou Kornine, the mountain whose twin peaks shaped like a bull’s horns had been a navigational waymarker from the time when the Phoenicians had first come this way centuries before. On the shoreline below the slopes lay the Roman encampment, their point of embarkation the previous evening. The beach landing site of a few years before was now a semi-permanent depot, with hundreds of fresh troops passing through it every week on their way to bolster Numidian forces to the south. What had begun as a covert mission of advisers and trainers, of men experienced from Macedonia and Spain, had become an expeditionary force that was having its first major clashes with the vanguard of the enemy field army, with cohorts of mercenaries who had been sent forward to exploit weaknesses along the Numidian lines. Neither side was yet ready for full-blown war; the Carthaginians were merely occupying reclaimed territory that was rightfully theirs, and the Romans were coming to the aid of their Numidian allies with whom they were bound by treaty. But Fabius remembered what Polybius had said in the academy, that ill-defined borders were the most likely flashpoint for war, and the former Carthaginian territory ceded to Masinissa after the defeat of Hannibal was a case in point. Something was bound to crack soon, when Hasdrubal was ready for full-scale battle, and when Rome was willing to commit herself to an endgame that had been predestined all those years before when Scipio Africanus had been obliged by the Senate to spare Hannibal after his defeat at Zama and allow Carthage to escape final destruction.
He thought of Hasdrubal, a man whom few on the Roman side had yet seen, who had grown to power behind the walls of Carthage after the city had shut herself off from unwanted visitors. He was said to be monstrous, a huge bull of a man who wore a lionskin and affected a roar like a beast, yet who showed tenderness to his beautiful young wife and their children, showering them with gifts taken from the spoils of past Carthaginian wars against the rich Greek cities of Sicily. There were some within the Senate, enemies of Cato, who decried Hasdrubal as an empty-headed braggart, but Scipio knew better than to belittle a man he might one day face in battle. Hasdrubal had shown himself to be impetuous, arrogant, a gambler who was willing to take risks that might suggest a bent towards self-destruction, but more often than not in his clashes with Gulussa’s cavalry and their Roman advisers he had shown himself to be an able and ruthless tactician. Their friend Terence the playwright who had spent his childhood in Carthage had said that Hasdrubal revelled in being from the same bloodline as the great Hannibal himself, a legacy that Scipio knew he could not afford to ignore; Scipio knew how much strength and sense of purpose he himself gained through his own legacy from Hannibal’s arch-rival Scipio Africanus, and how any coming conflict with Hasdrubal could not be taken lightly.
Fabius had felt uneasy enough over the past months, in the shadowland of a war that officially did not exist, but he and Scipio were about to step into an even murkier world, into the byways of espionage and subterfuge that were the domain of Polybius and his agents. They had removed their armour to travel as an Italian wine merchant and his servant, and Fabius felt uncomfortable and exposed without his weapons. Scipio had spent hours that night discussing Carthage with the kybernetes, the ship’s captain, an Achaian Greek on Polybius’ books who had offered his ship for the mission, and they had run over the topography of the city again and again. Fabius remembered the model of Carthage that had been built for Scipio Africanus in the tablinum of his house on the Palatine, and stories from the slaves of how the old man used to retire to the room and brood over it. The young Scipio Aemilianus had gone there too, inviting his friend Terence the playwright to pore over it with him; by the time Scipio had gone to the academy he had known it like the back of his hand. Terence had knocked down the old harbour structure and a ring of housing around the Byrsa, the acropolis of Carthage, saying that as a boy growing up in the city he had seen that secret new building was going on in both places. That was what Fabius and Scipio were there to find out now, and to discover what they could about Carthaginian intentions. Scipio was convinced that there was more to Carthage rearming herself than Hasdrubal’s defiance, that his belligerence was about more than just turning his city into a doomed fortress that would sell its existence dearly when the time came.
Fabius swallowed hard again, feeling seriously nauseous now, hoping that he did not look as bad as he felt. He had never liked sea crossings and this was the smallest ship he had been in on the open sea, swaying and rocking like a cork. At the moment, as far as he was concerned, the Carthaginians could have the sea, for all he cared; the Romans may have bettered them in naval battles in the past but were not seafarers by nature, and the only proper place for a Roman to fight was on land. He closed his eyes, instantly regretted it and then said a little prayer of thanks as the kybernetes ordered the sail furled and the sweeps drawn out and manned. They were now less than a stade out, and to keep the sail up would have been to risk being blown onshore. There was going to be some tricky navigation ahead to get them safely past the long quayside and into the harbour entrance.
He stared at the shimmering façade of the city, shielding his eyes against the brilliance of the sun. The entire north-facing seafront was backed by a defensive wall some fifteen feet high, in front of which lay a wide quay backed by a continuous line of offices and warehouses built against the wall. The quay was too exposed to serve as a dock for all but the largest ships, one of which was visible near the western end; instead most vessels would enter a protected complex to the east where goods would be offloaded and then transported to warehouses along the seafront by bullock cart and on the backs of slaves. A further harbour, for ships with high-value cargoes or on commercial expeditions controlled by the state, lay in a landlocked position behind, entered by a channel to the south and leading to a second landlocked harbour that contained the naval shipsheds. The channel to the landlocked harbours was heavily guarded and they knew there was no point in seeking a berth there without attracting unwanted attention. Instead the captain directed the helmsman to steer towards the east end of the quay, ordering the rowers to ship oars as they came close and steering the remainder of the way on the momentum from their efforts. Fabius and Scipio moved to the stern behind the helmsman, keeping well back as he heaved the tiller to angle the steering oars in the direction that the captain was pointing from his position in the bow, bringing the ship expertly into the outer harbour.