Ivmangala
The wind blew the raw sand and the suffocating dust across the newly repaired road to the open city-gate, where the throngs of soldiers and scores of military wagons lined up in perfect order, gave the setting a distinctly ominous atmosphere.
Yet not a sound was to be heard, besides the distant wailing of the prisoners of war hidden from sight on the ulterior side of the city, in spite of the conditions endured by the Roman soldiers and their foreign colleagues, their birthplaces equally differing from this desert wasteland. Months of preparation had brought them to this point; the most glorious moment in a legionnaire's life: the personal acknowledgement of the commander. For this glory almost the Nubian mercenary, the Vandal renegade and the Sicilian careerist had burned their skin to flakes, buried their comrades where they fell and subjected both their hearts and minds to the excruciating rigors of desert warfare and the daily horror of the siege for three years on end. The screams from the last six days of street-fighting still rung in their ears and the smell of the fires was noticeably lingering in the sand.
A procession of cavalry marked the end of the waiting period and a faint stirring was discernable in the formation among the more inexperienced legionnaires.
The chariot of the commander was soon visible in the mass of carriages and knights giving him ample protection against any traitor or sudden mishap.
As the entourage moved slower and slower towards the gates the officers stretched their arms and the massed soldiers beat their shields, the combined shouts of "We, who are about to do salute you!" followed it all the way.
Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus was a man with a tremendous load to bear and he had for days now been followed by misfortune.
The course of the final battle in Carthage had been harrowing, to say the least, for a commander as inexperienced as himself and the "last stand" nature of it had, no doubt, given rise to myths and lies which would soon be propagated among the less faithful soldiers.
So many of his trusted soldiers and advisors had taken during the last stage of the siege and were kept under strict control at the infirmary at the roman harbour, where ships were already preparing to leave with the long overdue news of the "victory" obtained by him, forcing him to make this review of the troops and the inspection of the captured city without the adequate support which would keep any future accusations of mismanagement at bay in the senate.
And he had himself been confined to sickbed ever since the capture of the inner fortress; the citadel of Byrsa and the capture of Hasdrubal and all other Carthaginian heads of state and their families.
Already stories of him as either a man possessed by a Carthaginian god or ready to sacrifice himself for the Capitol of the enemy of Rome were beginning to appear. One line of stories had him balking his eyes out over the city's fate, another had him reciting Homeric prophesies on the same theme with frightening allusions to a destruction of Rome.
And all the while these infernal drums had been haunting him.
A tall Nubian intelligence-officer awaited him at the gate of the palace, accompanied by a Carthaginian youth, presumably a prisoner of some importance or otherwise, most likely otherwise given the marks of beating his face displayed. Most likely a traitor and a recent one, given the freshness of his wounds.
The officer and his subordinates sank to their knees in the eastern fashion as the commanders entourage came to a halt and the Etrurian guards took their usual positions, unnerved by the three-score strong body of mostly Nubian soldiers already occupying the town square.
"I offer my sincere apologies for the condition of the guard, my most gracious Commander!
The troops have generally been unruly and some showed signs of wanting to damage the town and in particular this area. I felt that I had no other choice but to keep them out of the town entirely and let my own guards keep the buildings safe."
"What is your name, officer?" was the reply.
"Lucius Septimius Severus, my lord! Of the gens Septimia and stationed with the Nubian Cavalry."
"I thank you for your ingenuity, knight Severus. This square is most certainly the heart of Carthage. "His superior exclaimed, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm, his voice keeping the dry monotone so well-known to his colleagues.
"Any disturbance suffered to these buildings would have been greatly sorrowed by Napoli... I mean Rome." He added.
"No stone was turned, sir! My men have the greatest respect for the word of the order. All of them have done service as royal bodyguards and many as military executioners." The officer exclaimed.
"Honoured, I am sure. I was merely relaying the ungrounded fears of some feebleminded senators." His commander replied in a tone more lively than the one known to his present subordinates.
"No man has been let out of sight and no occurrences have been reported. Any one not ready to testify to that account would not be sound enough to have endured the tribulations these men have undergone in these last years and would certainly never have been worthy of entering The Sacred Band, my most gracious commander!"
His commander, seemingly relieved by the report, now began inspecting the palace grounds.
Here he had faced Hasdrubal the Great in negotiations while his advisers, even the man's wife, were demanding total war and his subject's screams were audible in every inch of the palace grounds. Lights of outlandish colour had flared from the roofs and courtyards and cries as he had never heard them before and never would again had echoed and reverberated among the walls. The perfect place for an assassination or massacre but none such had taken place; the fire had been put out and the roman traitors apprehended by the Nubian renegades before anything could have happened. Only the flutes piped and the drums beat while the army of Carthage was destroying itself beyond the armaments.
Now the place was silent and deserted but still the drums beat. Only more fierce than ever.
There seemed to him to be an unnerving conclusion to this thought.
"Who were the residents of this great palace, my good man?"
"li pho caneth yth bynuthi uad edin byn ui?" the interpreter inquired.
"bymarob sylllohom alonim ubymysyrthohom" came the instant reply.
"This was the home of the kings of Carthage and all the temples of the empire."
"I see." was the reply.
"byth limmoth ynnocho thuulech-antidamas chon"
"And what about this place of beauty? What treasures could she be hiding from sight?"
"Yth alonim ualonuth sicorathi symacom, syth?" He said.
Eyes flaring, the voluntary hostage blurted out, with a passion differing such from his earlier manner that even the commander noticed: "chy mlachthi in ythmum ysthyalm Lordt Hammondt, ych-ibarcu mysehi."
"This was the temple of Ba-al Hammon, said to contain all the wonders of Carthage"
"And the Greek artifacts stolen from Sicily and Minorca? Would they share lodgings with such fine treasures?" he mused before proceeding directly towards the temple.
His soldiers pushed open the wide double doors of the temple with the assistance of the Nubian guards and the procession entered the magnificent structure guarded for centuries by the finest Carthaginian soldiers and the most venerated of the Carthaginians citizens: the priests of Baal, burners of children and torturers of Romans if the dispatches had any truth to them.
For a moment the sight drove the memory of his night in the citadel away.
Statues by the hundreds and scrolls, weapons,
"What about that building there?" He inquired, suddenly fixing his gaze on a square house,
"B-yrh zbh sms, b-mt' b-bt, wbn tw?" he asked but was answered with a frightened glare.
"B-yrh zbh sms, b-mt' b-bt, wbn tw!"the officer questioned the man again.
"K-'strt 'rs b-dy I-mlky snt sIs, b-yrh krr, b-ym qbr 'Im." The man muttered
"It is the house of Hanno the Explorer himself. It is said to contain his diary of the voyage outside the Herculean Gates."
"If that is the case I must see it now. There can be no sense in letting a collection as unique as this go unchecked any longer than absolutely necessary."
The centurion seemed suddenly agitated by this suggestion "My lord, the building is not safe! You should…"
"What?" Aemilianus exclaimed, "You did not clear this building last night? Or any of the days before?"
"No sir, most the time was used to deal with the rioters and securing the city in general. Only the biggest buildings were searched and nothing was ransacked. The size of this house seemed to suggest a warehouse or tenement."
"So for an hour and a half you kept me in an open space directly before a possible enemy stronghold?"
His attitude quickly shifting from agitation to chock, the centurion fell flat on his face, shaking with fear, his slave and soldiers following their master's example.
"Lautn Velthina-s, est-la Afuna-s." He remarked, in a tone as if reciting a prayer.
Suddenly the centurion and his guards all over the imperial enclosure felt the force of strong hands and sharp blades connecting with their limbs and necks.
"Teurat tan-na!" he commanded to the etrurian handling the centurion "larezu-l am-e vaxr."
"Spel eth car-u tezan?" the man mumbled.
"Fusler-I tesn-s tei-s!" his commander replied "Rasne-s ipa am-a hen."
"You see now, my man, that you are not the only one handling a foreign tongue and skilled servants.
And if you, my dear seasoned eggplant, had any idea of the knife-points awaiting me at home, you would be jumping at the blade at your neck just to escape the wrath of the relations of the many thousands of men who lives depend entirely upon me.
Compared to that, the Mediterranean is hardly a drop in the desert, if you catch my drift."
"My lord, supreme commander..." the centurion began before being swiftly cut off.
"Be silent! And never mentions this to anyone. Only remember that there are things that I can take from you which no man can give you."
At a movement of his right hand all Etrurians relinquished their captives and resumed their positions.
"W-snt Im's'Im b-bty snt km h kkb m 'I?" he inquired with an optimistic tone but had hardly uttered the garbled lines before the man sank to his knees in something resembling panic or extreme sorrow, while wailing in the same barbaric sounds as his captor and then breaking off into a monotone mumbling.
The centurion left the man wallowing to address his officer, seemingly confused and what more, frightened.
"This room is not known to my source, but he says that... many people died here. It must be some sort of torture chamber."
"Let me judge for myself! I will explore this chamber of death, if that is what it is."
"My lord, I cannot allow .."
"Take your slave with you and be gone from here! You will receive a just reward for all your troubles here."
"But I.."
"Dead or gubernator. Your choice"
With these words he pulled open the doors, revealing a virtually empty ante-chamber, whose insignificance would naturally have propelled him through the second set of inimitably carven double-doors, had it not been for the pair of guards blocking said doorway. Gorillai was the word which sprung to his mind as well images of the amazons of fabled Schythia, a certain scent of amicability emanating from the strange creatures somehow disrupted the violent process so well known to Scipios soldiers from the last week of continuous street fighting.
All stood glued to the floor, savouring the moment.
The creature on the left lowered its spear and opened its mouth; "aramboi?" it seemed to say.
And Publius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus suddenly felt the words Land of the wild beasts intrude upon his conscience.
The word "Gorillai?" seemed to wrestle itself from his mouth.
The two guards simultaneously made a grimace in the way of a smile before moving onwards leaving the door and the room unguarded.
The stillness was magically brought to an end. The escort moved as fast as they could out of the way of the enormous guardians, while a strange mania seemed to grip their commander.
"Let them leave! And let anyone who interferes with their voyage pay dearly for it!" he shouted to his right-hand man, clutching his hands.
"Jes, ma lort!" the frightened soldier responded, grasping the meaning of the strange latin words by some unknown source of mediation before hurrying after them to do his bidding.
All the while his supreme leader was contemplating the issue of the independent wittness and his "slave". An assassination would be too complicated at this point.
A consulship or similar would do for him. Anything to make this a success.
Rather a fantastic drunkard than corruption of this chance.
Something in that room was urging him on and he was longing it with a passion of a strength surpassed by nothing he had ever felt.
An expertly crafted chest, built of the finest mahogany and with hinges forged of seemingly pure gold was displayed in the middle of the, otherwise empty, room.
"Despite everything, I believe this will be a good day." he was just able to say.