The Seven Hills (44 page)

"Well, then. Would you like to surrender to me now?"

"Don't be absurd!"

"I had to ask. Protocol, you know. Then shall we fight tomorrow?"

"Why should I fight at a time and in a place of your choosing?"

Norbanus made a show of looking all around. "Does this field not suit you? I couldn't find a better. It's level; there are
no nearby hills to hide surprise reinforcements; there's a
clear field of view for miles in all directions. If you know of
a better place, I am willing to listen. As for the time, it
makes little sense for us to sit here with our two camps glar
ing at each other, our men eating up all the food in the area and the horses devouring all the grass. More convenient all around to fight it out now."

"It hardly matters, since I will crush your contemptible little army in an hour."

"Tomorrow morning, then, at first light?"

Teuta snorted. "And fight with the sun in our eyes, like Mastanabal?" She ignored Hamilcar's irritated glance.

"Noon, then," Norbanus said. "With the sun at zenith, nobody will have the advantage."

"Tomorrow, then," Hamilcar said impatiently. "Tomorrow at noon I will destroy you, and the gods of Carthage will prevail over the gods of Rome."

"We'll be looking forward to it," Norbanus said. He made a sketchy but graceful double bow toward the shofet and the queen, then wheeled his mount and trotted away.

"The arrogance of that man!" Teuta said. "Did you see
that helmet? It's the one Alexander wore in his portraits. He
thinks well of himself.

"I did not fail to notice that little detail," Hamilcar said. "It is degrading to speak with such an upstart. At least
Alexander was a king, and the son of a king, although of an
obscure country."

Teuta forbore to snap back at that, knowing that Illyria was an obscure country. That man Norbanus intrigued her. She could not quite name what it was, but the Roman had something that Hamilcar lacked: some essential quality
that raised him above the level of ordinary men.
What a pity
this Norbanus comes of an upstart, soon-to-be-extinct nation in
stead of a great empire,
she thought.
And too bad his army is so
small by comparison. Otherwise, I might have done better to choose
him as my companion, rather than Hamilcar.

The Roman party rode back toward the camp and discussed matters as they went.

"We'd better keep an eye on that wild woman," Cato advised. "She strikes me as twice the man Hamilcar is."

"So I noticed," Norbanus agreed. "Remember the story of Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus at the battle of
Salamis? The warrior-queens can give you a nasty surprise."

"Are you going to tell us what you intend now?" Niger demanded.

"Tonight. And I want no surprises tomorrow, so everyone is to be out on that field, in battle order, in silence as before.
It will mean a long, hot wait until noon, but I've given them two days of rest, so they'll be up to it."

On the next morning, at first light, Norbanus was again
atop his command tower. Before him was ranged his army,
the legions in neat, elongated rectangles, extended to keep
Hamilcar's much-larger army from overwhelming its flanks.
It gave them very little depth, but Norbanus was confident in the Roman legionary's ability to hold formation, no matter how heavy the pressure.

On his extreme left, the southern end, were the Gauls and Spaniards that had joined him, hearing that this Roman
was extremely clever and lucky, a clear favorite of the gods
who could make his friends rich. To the extreme north was the formation upon which so much of the coming battle de
pended: the Greek and Macedonian mercenaries he had inherited from the defeated Mastanabal. They were specialists
in close-order fighting. Unlike the Romans, they hurled no javelins and placed little reliance on the sword. Instead, they fought with overlapped shields and long spears, overcoming their enemy through the weight of their formation and their own iron discipline. Those men had a crucial role to play.

It did not bother him in the least that both armies included so many Gauls, Spaniards, Greeks and Macedonians. The civilized men were professionals, and the savages just didn't care. All of them fought among themselves constantly.

His men sat on the ground, their shields propped up by their spears, while the noncombatant slaves distributed
breakfast. Norbanus knew that it was folly to send men into
battle on empty stomachs. He watched through his optical glass as Hamilcar's army marched from its encampment in leisurely fashion, two hours before the sun reached zenith.

They took up their positions exactly as they had encamped:
Hamilcar's Greek and Macedonian units on the south, facing Norbanus's Gauls and Spaniards, Hamilcar's own Gauls fac
ing the legions, his Spaniards fronting the northernmost legion and the massive block of the Greek-Macedonian phalanx.

"Splendid!" Norbanus said, marveling as always at how much the gods loved him. "If he'd allowed me to make his dispositions myself, I couldn't have done a better job."

"Maybe," Niger grumbled. "But it still seems a strange way to fight a battle."

Norbanus turned and addressed the officers crowding the platform behind him: all his cohort commanders and the se
nior centurions. "Gentlemen, you will never see me fight a
battle that looks other than strange. It's the key to winning."

"But general," said a grizzled old centurion, "this business of keeping the legions purely on the defensive—the
boys won't like it, sir. It goes against their training and their
instincts."

"They'll like it when the battle is over," Norbanus as
sured them. "Believe me, soldiers love it when you don't get them killed. If anybody has any doubts when all this is over,
I will deliver a speech that will let them know what this is all about." He turned and saw that Hamilcar's army was finally in full array—a terrifying sight in its great numbers. "Now go to your places. You all know what to do. Just watch and listen for my signals."

In order of rank, the officers filed from the platform. Norbanus watched them rejoin their units, saw the men
stand and take up their shields and pila. He savored the mo
ment. This was where he would lay the foundations for his future. Up until now, he had built a reputation, first as a daring commander, then as a victorious general. Here, on this field, he would establish his true greatness. And he would do it by eschewing glory for once.

By the time the sun was high, Hamilcar had his
own observation and command platform erected. It was not as high as the rather Spartan Roman construction, but it
was far more splendid. Its fine wood was richly carved and
inlaid with ivory and shell. It was draped with beautiful cloth and adorned with bronze tripods in which burned incense to fend off the disagreeable smells of battle. His own throne, and the slightly lower throne of Queen Teuta, were covered with the skins of rare animals. At the shofet's right hand stood an altar consecrated to the gods of Carthage.

Hamilcar had performed all the prayers and sacrifices; he
had seen to the final dispositions of his troops, and now he was ready to observe the battle and enjoy the pleasures of victory.

Opposite him, on the far side of the stream, the Roman army was thinly stretched, grown attenuated as Norbanus extended his line to avoid outflanking. It only thinned at the center, where his own troops would punch through by their sheer weight.

"Why," Hamilcar mused, "did this man Norbanus
choose such an exposed field? I have studied the old Roman
tactics, you know. In the old days, a Roman commander,
faced with an enemy so much larger, would anchor his flanks
with a swamp or a rocky hill or other terrain that would make it difficult for the enemy to flank him. That way he could achieve maximum depth all along his line of battle. I think Norbanus is overrated."

"I don't doubt he fancies he has a surprise for us," Teuta said, "though I can't imagine what it might be."

"No matter." Hamilcar stood, a resplendent sight in his
golden armor and crown-shaped helmet. An attendant
handed him a golden spear and Hamilcar held it high, then slowly lowered it until it pointed toward the center of the Roman line.

The horns brayed and the drums thundered and an enormous shout rose from the huge army. With a great surge, it began to advance toward the enemy. In front of the rest, the missile troops went forth at a run, singing tribal war songs.
The Romans stayed where they were. The missile troops ran
into the stream and began to flounder across.

Teuta felt the first feathery touch of apprehension along
her spine. "That stream is deeper than it looks."

Hamilcar shrugged. "As long as it is fordable, that means nothing."

The missile troops halted before the Roman lines and be
gan raining arrows, javelins and lead sling-bullets among them. The Romans replied by raising their customary
shield roof. The more lightly equipped Gauls and Spaniards suffered more, but most of them obeyed Norbanus's instruc
tions and stayed in place. A few high-spirited warriors ran out and attacked on their own, to little effect.

"This is tedious," Hamilcar complained, watching the missiles fall upon the shields. As far as he could see, not a single Roman had been harmed.

"Let them keep up their fire," Teuta advised. "Their arms
have to get tired. Soon gaps will appear and the arrows will get through."

"No, I've seen them practice this formation before, outside Carthage and in the siege at Alexandria. It would take
too long. I will send my army in and finish this." He nodded
to an officer, who called out to the trumpeters, and the call went out from them for the missile troops and skirmishers to fall back. These men scrambled to find gaps for themselves to fade back within the advancing ranks.

Now the shield roof came down and the Roman legions began to advance, very slowly and deliberately, keeping their lines strictly dressed, in what was almost a parade-ground maneuver. The cavalry force rode to the right flank next to the Greek-Macedonian block and, strangely, halted there, keeping up with the advance at a walking pace. Hamiicar's lead regiments entered the stream and trudged across, many stumbling, some falling, thrashing briefly as the men behind trod them under.

On the eastern side of the stream they paused to dress their lines. At this point the Roman army had halted, foot
and horse, barely fifty paces away. The Romans stood in ut
ter calm, making no war cries, sounding no trumpets; neither did they wave weapons aloft. Only at their southern
flank was there any uproar, for the Gauls and Spaniards had
a noisy way of displaying their warrior spirit, and they did not depart from it now. Their countrymen in Hamilcar's army made similar demonstration.

Their order restored, Hamilcar's men advanced at the double-quick, and so many of them were of warrior races that soon they were half-running. When twenty paces separated the two armies, the arms of the first three Roman ranks rocked back as one, then shot forward. The terrible,
heavy, viciously barbed pila arched briefly skyward, then
plunged downward with awful force, sending men tumbling, skewered, pierced, bleeding, to the ground. Men had their shields nailed to their bodies, their bodies pinned to the ground. So tightly were the men packed that scarcely a Roman spear failed to kill or wound an enemy soldier. The weight of the heavy javelin at such close range carried it through armor, helmet or shield. Even when a shield was stout enough to resist the weapon, it could not be dis
lodged, forcing its bearer to abandon it and fight henceforth
unprotected.

For crucial moments the attack faltered as men fell and others tripped over the fallen. Shaken but confident and valiant, Hamilcar's men reordered themselves and prepared another charge. But the men behind them, still crossing the
stream and unaware of what was happening ahead, pressed
forward. Hamilcar's army grew very dense. Men were still waiting to step into the stream, the bottom of which was being churned to a deep, clinging mud.

Maddened, the bloodied warriors charged again. But
during the lull, slaves and rear-rankers had passed more pila forward. Again, the arms of the first three ranks went back,
shot forward and again men tumbled like wheat before the scythe. Slowed, many hurled lighter javelins of their own,
but these were easily fended off by the large, heavy Roman
shields.

After a shorter pause, the massive army resumed its advance and a third volley of pila fell among them. Now the front lines were barely twenty feet apart, but so many corpses and writhing, wounded men littering the ground slowed the advance to a crawl. Still, their anger and the terrible pressure from behind drove Hamilcar's men on.

Teuta was filled with a terrible apprehension. What sort
of fighting was this? The army before them, small as it was,
was like some sort of terrible machine. In moments she had seen thousands of men go down before the simple but dev
astating Roman javelin. And then it happened again and yet
again and the mad rush was stalled, and the Romans had hardly lost a man yet. Now she saw the glitter all along the Roman lines as thousands of their short swords, worn so strangely on the right hip instead of the left, were drawn in a singular, upward-and-forward motion. Instantly, distracted though she was, she knew the reason for the strange
carry and draw.
The man is not hindered by his shield and his
draw does not disturb the men to either side. These people think of
everything.