‘I have spent my whole life preparing for this day. I have studied all of the works of Polybius. I won the sword-fighting competition held for boys in the Circus Maximus, for two years running.’
Scipio glanced at the boy’s belt, where Fabius could see the thin line of shimmer along both sides of the blade where it was visible for an inch or so above the scabbard. ‘You have a double-edged sword.’
The young tribune nodded enthusiastically, pulling the sword out and holding it forward, his grip strong and unwavering. ‘A lot of veterans came back from Spain with Celtiberian swords, and many of us have had the smiths create Roman versions. This one was a present from my uncle.
‘Your uncle?’
‘You will know him,’ the young man said proudly. ‘He served with distinction in Spain. Sextus Julius Caesar.’
Polybius glanced up from the plan, peering over his crystal spectacles. ‘Did I hear someone mention my name a while back?’ He caught sight of the boy. ‘Ah. This is Julia’s son. I don’t think you’ve met him before. Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar.’
Fabius suddenly realized what had been familiar about the boy: he had Julia’s hair and eyes. But there was something more, something that made him stare hard at the boy. Scipio clearly saw it too, and after looking at the boy in silence for a few moments he spoke to him again, his voice strangely taut. ‘When were you born?’
‘Four days before the Ides of March, in the year of the consulships of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Gaius Sulpicius Gallus.’
‘The year after the triumph of my father Aemilius Paullus.’
‘Nine months, to be exact. My mother said that I was conceived on that very night, that it was auspicious. Every year on that day when I was a child we went to the tomb of the Aemilii Paulli on the Appian Way and made offerings.’
Fabius remembered that evening on the day of the triumph almost twenty-two years before, when Scipio had taken up Polybius’ offer of his rooms and taken Julia there for an hour, just the two of them, and then later in the theatre when Metellus had come to take her away. But he also knew from Julia’s slave girl Dianne that she had resisted Metellus’ advances that night, and had gone straight to the Vestals to be with her mother until the marriage a month later. She would have known who the father was, and Metellus too must eventually have guessed. Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar was Scipio’s son.
Scipio suddenly looked sternly at the boy. ‘It is unheard of to make offerings at the tomb of another gens. You must be wary of offending the social order. Does your father know?’
‘We went without his knowledge. But my mother wanted me to tell you that we did it, when I had the chance to speak to you. My father was absent for most of my childhood, on campaign or holding administrative posts in the provinces. My mother never accompanied him. Even in Rome he lives in a separate house. I have lived with the failure of their marriage all my life.’
Polybius turned to Scipio. ‘I know that you had no interest in gossip among the gentes during your recent time in Rome, but it’s become an open secret that Metellus is more at home among the prostibulae than he is with his own wife. He has changed little in his habits since you were at the academy. It is said that they have not shared a bed for years.’
‘Not since my sister Metella was born,’ the young man said, looking at Scipio. ‘He tried to beat my mother, and I have no love for him. I was brought up in the household of my uncle Sextus Julius Caesar, and am betrothed to his daughter Octavia. My mother says that her legacy and mine will be in the bloodline of the Julii Caesares not the Metelli.’
Fabius remembered the words of the Sibyclass="underline" The eagle and the sun shall unite, and in their union shall lie the future of Rome. He looked at the embossed symbols on the breastplates of the two men in front of him now: Scipio with the radiating sun symbol over a solid line of his adoptive grandfather Africanus, representing his ascendancy over Hannibal in the desert, and Gnaeus with the eagle symbol of the Julii Caesares, the same image that was in the pendant that Julia had given Scipio and that he still wore. He suddenly realized what the prophecy had meant: not Scipio and Metellus, a union of generals, but Scipio and Julia, a union of blood lines, of gentes. For a moment, Fabius felt dislocated, as if all around him had become a blur and he was seeing only these two men, as if they alone were the strength of history. Somewhere in the future, perhaps many generations hence, this union of gentes might create a new world order, not because of some divine prophecy of the Sibyl but because of the power of men to shape their own destinies, a strength of vision that had led Scipio Aemilianus to stand before the walls of Carthage now alongside the future that he had created with Julia, their son.
Gnaeus stood to attention again. ‘I will be the first through the breach, just as you were at Intercatia.’
Scipio reached out and put his right hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Ave atque vale, Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar. Keep your sword blade sharp.’
‘Ave atque vale, Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. May victory this day be yours.’
‘Victory is for the legionaries, tribune. For the men of Rome. You must never forget that.’
Gnaeus saluted, turned and strode away, holding the hilt of his sword. Scipio turned to Polybius. ‘One evening twenty-two years ago you gave me the keys to your house, so that Julia and I could be alone for a precious hour. Perhaps in that single act you shaped the destiny of Rome, more than all of your books and your advice to me in the field.’
Polybius put a hand on Scipio’s shoulder. ‘My job is to observe history, not to create it. But even a historian can make a few adjustments here and there, making possible what had previously seemed impossible. Your union with Julia may have ended that night, but it lives on in your son. This day, when you stand victorious over Carthage, you may see your destiny fulfilled and return to the folds of Rome, having brought the highest honour to the gens Cornelii Scipiones and the gens Aemilii Paulii, your place in history assured. Or you may choose to break away, to see the world unfold before you as Alexander did, only this time with the might of the world’s greatest army behind you. Yet, even if you turn from that vision, you now know that your bloodline will carry it forward.’
Scipio said nothing, but stared forward. His face was set and hard, but Fabius knew the emotion within. Rome held only one attraction for Scipio, the possibility that one day he might be with Julia again, that their future together did not lie just in the glades of Elysium. If Scipio turned from Rome, he might never see Julia again; if he passed on the torch to his bloodline, he might. His love for her might shape the future of Rome. But everything would depend on the outcome of this day, on the blood that coursed through Scipio’s veins as he saw what his army had achieved, on a vision of the future that Scipio might see before him: a vision fuelled not just by the bloodlust of war, but by the exultation of conquest.
There was a harsh sound from the ships, of torsion being released, and they turned to look. A fireball rose lazily to the sky from one of the catapults, arching over the city walls and slapping into a building near the Byrsa, spraying burning tendrils of naphtha over the city streets below. Ennius was finding his range, and testing the volatility of his substance. Scipio turned to Fabius. ‘Take a message to the strategos of the fleet. Tell him to issue the men with their ration of wine, and to make their final libations to their ancestors. Before this hour is done they will be at war.’
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Fabius watched Scipio stare at the whitewashed walls of the city in front of them, tapping his fingers against his sword pommel. He remembered the last time they had stood before a besieged city, at Intercatia in Spain, when Scipio himself had led the assault and was the first to stand on the walls, sword in hand. Then, he had killed the chieftain but spared the city. Intercatia pacified was no threat to Rome, and its destruction was not part of his destiny. This time it was different. This time he knew that Scipio would show no mercy: Carthage must be destroyed.