Fabius peered at the rams again. Polybius was right. They were swinging already, marking time, the teams waiting for the order that would see the ropes pulled taut and the rams crash into the walls. It was as if the engine of war were beginning to flex itself, inexorably. He felt his pulse quicken. It was nearly time.
Polybius pointed to an open area just inside the Carthaginian defensive wall about five hundred paces to the south of the harbour. ‘There’s smoke coming from the Tophet,’ he said.
‘What of it?’ Scipio replied, still looking at the rams.
‘Do you know what Tophet means?’
‘I don’t speak Carthaginian.’
‘It means “roasting place”.’
‘Well?’
‘The sanctuary is used to cremate and bury dead children, but in the past was used as a place of sacrifice. It hasn’t been used for that purpose for generations now, not since before the war with Hannibal. But rumour has it that in times of great duress, a sacrifice would be offered to the god Ba’al Hammon, who supposedly resides on the twin peaks of the mountain to the east. When the morning sun rises above the mountain it casts a beam of light across the Tophet, and that’s when the sacrifice is meant to take place.’
‘I don’t think sacrifice can save them now. And that first shaft of light is when I will order the assault.’
Polybius took out a bronze tube about a foot long with discshaped crystals at either end, and peered through it in the direction of the smoke. ‘There are two priests in white robes mounting the stone platform in the centre of the sanctuary, each carrying a coiled chain and wearing what look like large gloves made of leather — elephant hide I shouldn’t wonder. And that strange structure that looks like a large kiln behind is the source of the smoke. There are slaves at the bottom working bellows, stoking a fire. If you ever wondered where Hasdrubal put the olive trees he had his men cut down from the surrounding fields, there’s your answer. Piles of it behind the kiln, clearly firewood. And there are men with sledge-hammers smashing the kiln, only it’s not a kiln at all. It’s something else entirely, concealed beneath.’
He passed the eyeglass to Fabius, who squinted down it, saw only a distorted blur and passed it back. They all stared at what was being revealed. It was fire-blackened and mottled on the surface from fire, but clearly made of bronze. As the men knocked away the final sections of clay the shape came into view. It was a gigantic squatting figure, the size of several elephants, human in form but of monstrous proportions. Its huge arms were raised palms upwards, and its bearded head was set back with the mouth open wide, large enough for a man to enter. They could see the smoke issuing from the mouth, and an occasional lick of flame from a fire below.
‘Extraordinary,’ Polybius muttered. ‘It’s mentioned by the historians, but nobody really believed it. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s meant to represent the Carthaginian god Ba’al Hammon.’ He peered through the eyeglass again. ‘Hasdrubal has just arrived, and is mounting the steps to the platform where the two priests are waiting. He’s got gloves on too.’
Fabius shaded his eyes to get a better view. He remembered the first time he had seen the Carthaginian general, when he and Scipio had made their reconnaissance into the city three years before; Hasdrubal had been wearing the distinctive lionskin over his armour then too. He saw Scipio glancing at the ships and the harbour, waiting for Ennius’ signal, then looking back at the Tophet. ‘Where’s the sacrificial animal? I thought they’d have eaten everything by now, rats and cockroaches included.’
Polybius put down his eyeglass again, and spoke with the detachment of a scholar. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, we are about to witness a Carthaginian child sacrifice.’
Scipio was aghast. ‘Jupiter above. What?’
‘Child sacrifice has a long history among the Semitic peoples of the east Mediterranean, the ancestors of the Carthaginians. The writings of the Israelites tell of how their ancient prophet Abraham offered up a boy called Isaac to their god.’
A drum began to beat, slowly, insistently, from somewhere inside the sanctuary. ‘The drumbeat was originally meant to drown out the screams of the victim,’ Polybius said. ‘But I doubt whether they’ll wish to do that this time. I think what we’re about to see is mainly for our benefit, so the more screams, the better.’
A boy in a white tunic, perhaps ten years old, came walking out into the sanctuary, then mounted the stone stairs towards the three men standing at the top. As he neared the platform, Hasdrubal beckoned him, and the boy leapt up and embraced him, clinging to the arms of the lionskin. Hasdrubal put him down gently, and held his hand. The boy could not know what was about to happen. Fabius’ stomach lurched as he realized the truth. The boy was Hasdrubal’s son.
The drumbeat slowed. The two priests suddenly pulled the boy off his feet, one taking the arms and the other the legs, quickly wrapping his wrists and ankles together with chains. Down below at the base of the bronze god the slaves hung on to the arms of the bellows, ready to compress them. Hasdrubal took the boy from the priests and held him in front of the gaping maw of the beast; the heat coming from within was already visible, shimmering in the air above. Fabius could see the boy’s head on one side of Hasdrubal, looking around frantically, sensing the horror that was about to befall him. For a moment Fabius felt for the man. Somewhere beneath that lionskin, beneath the rage, the cruelty, the self-destruction, was the utter despair of a father who knew that his son loved him, had felt his embrace, and yet he had been driven to carry out the unthinkable, the worst that war could make a man do.
Hasdrubal took a step forward, and tossed the boy into the beast’s mouth. There was a tumbling and clanking sound, magnified and echoing, as the priests let out the chains and the boy rolled down. A high pitched scream rent the air, and then a terrible shriek rose from somewhere behind the walls of the Tophet, the cry of his mother, followed by a wail of lamentation that seemed to ripple through the city. The bronze god erupted in a roar of fire, as if the god himself were awakening; a sheet of flame belched out and curled up high above. Down below, the slaves worked the giant bellows, the whips of the priests slashing into their backs. The smell of burned meat began to waft across the harbour. Then the drumbeat changed, faster now, and the slaves ceased their work. The two priests on the platform began to haul on the chains, link by link, keeping to either side of the beast’s mouth to avoid the scorching heat. They pulled out their ghastly burden, and Hasdrubal took it.
He turned, and Fabius could see the charred and shrivelled body of the boy, the legs and arms contracted and the mouth stretched open, caught in a scream. Hasdrubal raised the corpse towards the twin peaks of the mountain, towards Bou Kornine. But then he turned towards the harbour, raising the body of his son as high as he could.
Fabius stared in horror. Hasdrubal was not offering his sacrifice to the god. He was offering it to them.
Polybius put a hand on his Scipio’s arm. ‘He’s taunting us. He knows that no Roman who loves his son could stand this. He’s trying to make you order the attack before we are ready. Keep your nerve.’
‘Scipio Aemilianus,’ Hasdrubal bellowed, his voice carrying across the harbour, over the ranks of legionaries who had been watching him, transfixed. ‘Carthago delenda est.’
It was the cry of those in the Roman Senate who had sent Scipio here, words now used by a man who could have no purpose left in living. Carthago delenda est. Carthage must be destroyed.
A streak of sunlight burst through the twin peaks of the mountain and lit up the Tophet, then seared through the city as if it had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A moment later there was a dull thud from one of Ennius’ catapult ships and a ball of fire rose into the air, lingering for a moment over the city like a giant burning star and then crashing down on to the temple platform, spraying gobs of fire into the streets below.