"Then don't expect such impiety from us." He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head back. "Be honest. What is Italy to you? Have you ever visited the place? What is Italy to Carthage? A place that produces fairly cheap wool, wine and oil? Some quarries producing rather nice green and white marble? What is that to you? The slave-worked plantations don't produce one fourth what Italian peasants used to get out of the same land, so the grain business is uneconomical. All of Italy's wealth together isn't a fraction of what Hamilcar hopes to seize from Egypt. What is Italy to you?"
"Italy is nothing," she admitted. "But I resent your duplicity. If you wish to plot against my brother, that is one thing. It is another to betray me." She felt that her words were weak. She had chosen him from among the Romans for his weaknesses, but she had not understood his strengths. Most of all, she had not counted upon her own frailty nor foreseen the way her body would respond to his presence, with her mind and spirit following helplessly.
"There is no betrayal, little princess," he said, stroking her shoulder, his hand sliding down. "Your nation and mine follow courses laid down for them centuries ago. We can do nothing about that. What we can do is bend these things to our own greatest benefit. What do you want more than anything else?"
"To be Queen of Carthage," she said. "To replace my brother on the throne and raise the cult of Tanit to its rightful primacy."
"An excellent ambition. Mine is to be Dictator of Rome. Not merely Dictator for six months like those of the past, but Dictator for life. I want to humble the Old Families and set Rome on a course that will guide her for the next thousand years. Between us, we can realize both our dreams."
He slid his hands over her body, making her quiver and gasp. She was skilled in all the erotic arts, but before this man she had practiced on slaves and eunuchs. The nobles who surrounded her at court were for the most part barely men at all. The few men she had ever encountered who seemed masculine to her were too terrified of her to be interesting.
The Roman was different. He was as masculine as any stallion, he was highborn by the standards of his nation and to him she was a woman, not a semi-divine princess. The first time she had shared her body with him she had expected to control him as she always had other males. She was shocked by her own response to his brutal entry and her own ecstatic surrender. What he lacked in finesse he more than made up for in furious energy and oxlike endurance.
Her need for him had grown but she had forced restraint upon herself. She had to be discreet. Her brother would seize any excuse to imprison or kill her. It had now been the better part of a month since she and the Roman had shared a bed and she cursed herself for a weakling. The provocation had been severe, but she knew that she had seized upon it as an excuse to be with him again.
Somehow, she was not certain just how, he had lifted her, carried her back and half-reclined on his chair. There was a quick, deft movement of both their hands, and silver chains, cloth and leather straps were moved aside and she sank onto his maleness, impaling herself as the breath surged from her lungs. For a long time she had no thoughts at all, only sensations. When their coupling came to its shuddering finish, she gathered her thoughts and disengaged herself from him. He seemed disposed to affectionate afterplay but she was having none of it. She needed to retain what ascendancy she had remaining to her.
"Very well," she said. "For the moment, I will keep silent about what I know. Your seizure of Italy will be a great humiliation for my brother and of that I approve. But if you ever play me false, I will make you pray for the cross as a mercy."
"Why should I play you false?" he asked, seeming puzzled at her vehemence, as if they were two children playing a game without consequence. "You are my path to power and I am yours. Together we can rule the world."
"Only if you are completely candid with me. Otherwise, we are enemies and you know how Carthage treats enemies. Both of us tread the most perilous of roads. My brother will kill me if he suspects duplicity. Your Senate will do the same for you if they suspect your ambition. Yes, I have studied your history and I know how the Romans hate the very concept of a king."
"Indeed they do. I shall have to be very careful not to assume that title. We do, however, accept the concept of Dictator. Our custom of divided leadership has its drawbacks so in time of emergency the Senate may appoint a man of supreme, unaccountable power to guide the state until the emergency is over. I intend to win that office and perpetuate it."
"Why should your countrymen be willing to tolerate a man who is king in all but name?" She tugged her clothing back into place and walked to the silver mirror set into one wall. Her cosmetics did not seem to have been disarranged by the hurried coupling.
"It is just a matter of getting them used to the idea. My family is powerful in the Senate, they will agitate for a prolongation of my office and the people will back them." He did not add that the best way to get the Romans used to the idea of a perpetual Dictator was to keep them in a perpetual state of war. The expedition had given him a vision of conquest that stretched far beyond anything now contemplated by the Senate and people of Noricum: first Carthage, then Egypt, and with that power base secured, on to Syria and Parthia, perhaps all the way to India like Alexander. Once the Romans saw the riches to be had and the quality of his leadership, they would beg him to assume supreme power. It now amused him to think that once, like most of the New Family senators, he had thought that the destiny of Noricum lay in the dank forests of the north.
Zarabel was distracted by sounds from without. "Who is coming?"
"Probably your brother." He picked up his cuirass and swung it open on its shoulder-hinges. "He is coming to review the troops this afternoon." He put the cuirass on over his head, closed it and fastened its side-buckles, then tied the white sash of command around his bronze-girt waist, tying it in the ritual knot. From his desk he took his white-plumed helmet and put it on, tying the laces of its cheek plates beneath his chin. "Let's go say hello to him." He picked up his sheathed sword and slung it from his shoulder by its ornate leather baldric.
Zarabel took a deep breath to calm herself and assumed the hieratic demeanor she always employed among the courtiers. Satisfied that she was as chilling as always, she followed the arrogant Roman out onto the terrace.
Hamilcar was borne from the Palace on his military litter. In deference to his current warlike stance, this conveyance was adorned with gilded shields, racks of spears and arrows, its sides painted with battle scenes, its canopy in the form of a ship's sail. At the prow-shaped front the god Patechus squatted over a warship's ram. For the sake of symbolism and good fortune, the bearers wore Egyptian dress.
The Shofet himself wore military uniform: His helmet and cuirass were of hammered gold; the greaves on his shins of hardened leather stitched all over with plaques of carved amber. His military tunic was made of scarlet silk, a marvelous new fabric only recently imported from the Far East at incredible cost. The tunic alone was worth far more than the rest of his sumptuous rig combined. Behind him such of his senior commanders as were not already with the main army rode less splendid litters, along with a number of ministers.
This was to be his final inspection before taking his army to Egypt. He was not a king, and it was the duty of a Shofet to lead the army personally, even in advanced age. At last he was to view his new Roman legions. They had appeared with commendable, indeed almost incredible, dispatch. He hoped that the Romans had not, despite their vaunting words, sent him hastily raised levies of farm boys. If that should prove to be the case, his displeasure would be terrible. He determined that rather than be seen for a fool, he would crucify all the Roman leaders, then use the troops to haul his siege engines up to the walls of Alexandria, work that was certain to get most of them killed.