"See that it is so. Go now." When the man had left, Hanno called for wine. He needed it. This had been a most momentous day, perhaps one of those rare days that influenced all that followed, and he gave thanks to the goddess and the other Baalim that these men had appeared at Tarentum, and not at one of the other port towns. This circumstance allowed him to give the princess some forewarning. In the murderous intriguing of the Carthaginian court, such preparation could mean the difference between ascendancy and failure, between life and death.
His own position was now most precarious. Should the recipient of the first letter learn of the existence of the second, more detailed and perceptive letter, the order for Hanno's death would arrive on the next ship from Carthage. Like many other Punic nobles, Hanno kept a selection of poisons handy against just such an eventuality. Of course, the king's officers were highly skilled at dissembling, displaying the utmost friendliness and goodwill to mask their intentions.
Life, Hanno reflected, was a chancy thing at all levels. If one aimed for the most exalted goals, the cross always waited at the heights.
Chapter 6
The sea was an alien world. The Romans had ample experience of great rivers and lakes, but this was something beyond their imaginings. The seeming limitlessness of the water, its rolling swells, its strange, salty, fecund smell, all unsettled them and made it difficult to maintain their Roman gravitas. To keep up their spirits, Metrobius recited from the Odyssey, with its thrilling seagoing passages, trying to reassure them that sailing upon the sea was a natural part of the nobleman's heritage. All this unfolded to the great amusement of the sailors, who took the usual seaman's delight at the distress of landlubbers forced to take to the great waters.
Before setting out, Marcus had made a generous sacrifice to Neptune, petitioning him for a safe and favorable voyage. This god was almost forgotten by the Romans, who had been landlocked for several generations, but their augur knew enough of the ceremony to carry it off. Tarentum had no native temple of Neptune, but its temple of Poseidon was a splendid one, and the Romans had long since acknowledged the equivalency of the Greek Olympians and the native Italian deities. They had been awed by the fabulous image of the blue-haired god standing in his scallop-shell chariot drawn by hippogriffs, his trident held aloft to proclaim his mastery over all the regions touched by his waters.
The ship was a Carthaginian war galley much like the one they had seen in the harbor at Tarentum. It was not one of the great three-banked triremes, but a single-banked vessel designed for coastal patrolling and pirate hunting. Beneath the image of the grotesque god, its small ram, shaped like a boar's head, was more a gesture of defiance than a serious weapon. Its real armament was a battery of ballistas and catapults ranged along the bulwarks above the rowing benches, and the weapons of the marines.
Despite their dread of the waves and their queasy stomachs, the Romans were fascinated by these weapons and spent many hours examining them. The skipper, a Greek professional named Has, was not reluctant to demonstrate the machines to his strange passengers.
"This here," he said in the now-familiar Laconian Greek, "is your man-killer." He slapped a hand on one of the swivel-mounted weapons. It looked like a crossbow, but the bow, instead of being a single piece of wood, was made of a pair of straight limbs mounted in a frame equipped with thick, twisted ropes. The limbs were thrust through the ropes, which provided the power of the weapon.
At Ilas's barked order, three marines sprang to the machine. Two of them worked cranks to tighten the ropes while another opened a chest and removed a short, thick javelin. Its point was shod with a heavy iron point, its tapered tail equipped with three vanes made of thin, hard leather trimmed in the shape of an arrow's feathers.
The ropes were tightened in moments amid an odd, rhythmic clicking of ratchets. The two marines then seized a pair of cranks at the back of the machine and drew back the ropelike bowstring, seizing it at full draw with a clawed device. The third marine laid the javelin in a trough before the string and stood by.
"Go ahead," Has said to Marcus. "Just pull back on that lever."
Marcus seized the ornate bronze bar that protruded vertically from the clawed string holder. It seemed to vibrate under his touch and he could hear a faint creaking from the twisted ropes. Even at rest, he could feel the harnessed power of the machine. It was something new and fascinating to him.
He pulled back on the lever and the Romans jerked involuntarily at the loud report of the released arms slamming into the padded posts that restrained them. The javelin shot from the machine with unimaginable force, almost invisible as it sped away in a low arc, spinning as it flew, dwindling to a black dot in moments, finally disappearing from view. If it raised a splash when it hit the water, it was too distant for them to see.
The Romans were awed, but Norbanus said, "That's a lot of noise and trouble to kill a single man."
Has grinned. "I've seen a single ballista bolt go through three men. That happens when they're crowded together, the way they usually are on a ship's deck. Or," he added, "when they're in a tight battle formation on land. Besides, it works on a man's mind, knowing that his shield and armor are no protection at all. It's like standing stark naked beneath an arrow storm. It can break an enemy's spirit before the armies or ships ever close to sword range."
"A machine like this," Marcus said, "has the power of many men."
"Still," Norbanus said, "it's better to have many men."
"Carthage has men by the myriad," Has told them, "and many, many machines like this. Come, I'll show you how a catapult works."
This was another machine powered by twisted ropes, with a vertically working arm terminating in a basket of wrought iron bars. As the marines worked a windlass to crank back the arm, Marcus mused upon the sensation he had felt in shooting the ballista, a sensation he could not have explained to the others. Holding the release lever, pulling it back, letting the javelin fly with such tremendous violence, had filled him with a sense of power such as he had never felt before. He could imagine how much greater the sensation must be operating the machine against a live enemy.
When the arm was fully drawn back, it lay almost horizontal and a marine dropped a missile into the basket.
"The catapult launches at a higher trajectory," Has explained. "That means you can hurl heavy stones onto your enemy's deck, or over his walls. And you aren't limited to stones for ammunition. You can also use incendiaries like these." The missile in the basket appeared to be a spherical wad of tarry tow. A marine touched a small torch to it and red flames began to crawl over its surface, the dense smoke releasing a pungent smell.
"She's ready now," Has said. "Who wants to do the honors this time?"
The other Romans seemed reluctant, regarding the machine with some distaste. Marcus stepped forward again. The release mechanism was operated this time by a cord. He took it from the marine's hand and pulled back. This time they were prepared for the noise, but they were astonished by the display. As it flew through the air, the modestly flaming ball of pitch and tow blossomed into a spectacular fireball. It arched high, then plummeted to the water below, disappearing in an instant, leaving behind only a trail of smoke. A few moments later the sound of the splash and hiss came to them across a hundred paces of water.
"The pitch doesn't just burn," Has informed them. "It sticks. If one hits your deck or mast or bulwark, your only hope is to scrape it away with an iron shovel and toss it overboard."
"What's the advantage?" Norbanus asked. "Don't your enemies have these weapons?"
"Some of them do," Has said. "But we use them better. That's why these marines step so lively. They drill on the war machines every day of their lives."