The chariot rolled up a broad avenue towards the summit of this central mound, passing through the Hannibal Quarter, a district that Nelo had heard of but had never visited before. There were shops, temples and grand government buildings here, all in shining stone, some faced with marble, and in much better order than the lower city. Yet as in the rest of Carthage those shops that weren’t selling essentials, such as shoes, clothes, food and oil, seemed mostly to have been turned over to habitation. These days even the Byrsa was crowded with nestspills. As Fabius passed, some of these folk came out to follow him too, joining their grubbier counterparts from the lower city. Whatever Fabius was up to, this was a chance for them to make some noise, to vent their frustration, and maybe to smash a few windows and crack a few skulls in the process.
Soon a great tide of people was washing up the slopes of the Byrsa, carrying Fabius to the house of the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four at the summit. Nelo sketched and sketched.
Fabius glanced at what had been drawn, smiling, folding the pages back. But he frowned when he got to one sketch, of himself holding up the severed head before the crowd of the lower town. ‘What’s this?’
‘Sir?’
He had to shout above the noise of the crowd. ‘The head of this Scand — he’s looking at me. And the heads in the barrow too, all turned — all looking at me!’
‘It’s what I saw, sir. I mean-’
‘What your heart saw?’
‘The dead Scand and Rus are asking why you betrayed them.’
‘Betrayed?’ His voice was deep, ominous.
Nelo knew he was talking himself into trouble. But he said, ‘One of them spoke to me, sir. Before we managed to kill him. He told me-’
‘That I had invited them in.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And so, you conclude, this is all got up by me. A stunt to impress the rabble.’
‘Yes — no, sir-’
‘It’s all right. I took you under my wing because I believe you see the truth, where other men fail. I can’t complain if you see the truth about me, can I? But it is only a partial truth, Nelo. Only a necessary lie. Greater truths lie beyond.’
‘Sir?’
‘These fellows, with their ridiculous red hair and their inability to hide, are of course a fiction, a plant. But the city is riddled with spies, informants, would-be traitors. That’s the greater truth. And it’s only my strict control of the city, my soldiers’ thorough rooting-out of it all, that keeps us safe. It’s hard and it’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.
‘The Tribunal of One Hundred and Four think this isn’t enough. Some of them are impatient for war. They want me to ride out with the phalanxes and meet the Hatti on open ground. That would lose us the war for sure, and I suspect some of them know it in their hearts, but the siege has so ground them down that they’d rather lose it than carry on. I have seen sieges, I’ve laid them, I’ve survived them. Most sieges last years — that’s what they don’t understand.
‘Others, meanwhile, want to clip my wings. They are envious of my power, my position, and so on. Such envy is a constant in the affairs of human beings. Some, indeed, think my appointment with the cross is overdue.’ He glanced at his hands, flexing them, as if his palms itched. ‘Again, they want this even though they know it will lose them the war, or at least they suspect it. They want me downed even so. But I, you see, cannot allow that, Nelo, for my duty is to save Carthage, despite the difficulties I am having with some of the Carthaginians.
‘So it is true that I have rigged this business of the red-headed saboteurs. I’m sure you won’t be the last to spot it. But I am doing it to force the Tribunal, and the elders, the suffetes and the rest, even the s’rnm, the ordinary folk of the city, force them to accept that they need me if they are to survive this war. And that they need to give me a free hand.’
Nelo thought he understood. ‘You’re going to take over the government.’
Fabius grinned. ‘It’s happened before, as I know very well, for all literate Romans are perforce taught a great deal about Carthaginian history. A man called Bomilcar, for example, back in the days even before Carthage went to war with Rome. Not that his coup succeeded, but he had the right idea.
‘It is quite a feat I am attempting,’ he said now. ‘A foreign general who won’t call his troops out to fight the besieging enemy. Hardly a basis for great popularity with the people, you’d think. Yet here I am, strolling up the Byrsa with a mob at my back.’
‘And if you win today, sir? What then?’
‘Two things. I’m going to want to talk to your people, Nelo.’
‘My people?’
‘The Northlanders. I’m aware there’s quite a community of you here, having fled from your own frozen country. And I’m also aware you’ve brought treasure with you.’
‘Treasure?’
Fabius rapped his temple. ‘Up here. Secrets. That’s what I intend to acquire next.’
Nelo thought of his enigmatic conversation with Ontin the doctor, his talk of secretive House of Crow projects, work Nelo had never been able to progress but perhaps others had. .
‘That’s the first thing,’ Fabius went on. ‘And the second — I will rewrite history, for all time. A Roman defeating Carthage at last! In a manner of speaking at least. How the Carthaginian historians of the future will spit and fume as they are forced to copy out my name, over and over! And all of this, my boy, you are going to capture with your clever scribbles. Scribbles that will some day be etched into stone friezes that will cover the walls of the new buildings that will flourish in this miserable old city.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Now they approached a grand, square building, sitting on a stone pavement on the terraced summit of the hill.
‘Is the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four in session, Gisco?’
The sergeant jogged up to interrogate the guard at the door, then turned. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then get those big doors open.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gisco snapped commands to a soldier nearby. Soon a group of men were running at the doors, swords in hand.
When the doors were open Fabius urged his driver to drive the chariot right into the great palace, into the central chamber itself, to shouts of outrage from the white-robed men who sat in their rows within. The cart with the severed heads followed too, its wheels leaving trails of blood and mud on the marble floor. Fabius leapt down, ignoring the shouts and pointed fingers of the outraged Tribunal members, and he started hauling the heads from the cart and throwing them at the members. ‘This is why you need me! And this, and this! This is what I protect the city from!’ The delegates flinched back, as blood and grey skull-matter splashed over their white robes.
Nelo saw it all, everything that came about that day, and fixed it all on paper, scribbling, scribbling.
65
The ship sailed on, heading west, making for the Sea of the Arabs. The crew toiled to repair the storm damage. Pyxeas grumpily put his notes in order and rewrote those that had been spoiled by water from the leaks. The weather, for now, was calm.
Then the pirates struck.
Avatak and the scholar were immersed in a deep technical discussion on the absorption of fixed air by a given unit area of farmland, and its production by the burning of the same unit area of forest. ‘Once men hunted the worldwide forests,’ Pyxeas said. ‘Now they farm — not in Northland and its hinterland, but elsewhere, they farm. It must make a difference. It must! I nearly have it, Avatak — I nearly have it-’
Bayan burst into the cabin, and slammed the door shut behind him.
Pyxeas glared. ‘What’s this? I left clear instructions not to be disturbed.’
‘Pirates,’ said the boy. His eyes were wide, he was bathed in sweat, and Avatak saw that his shirt was stained red with blood. ‘Yes-yes-yes. Hide me!’ He dived at the floor, into the heaps of scrolls and books, and burrowed in like a rat into garbage.