Hannibal: Clouds of War Read Online Free PDF Page B

chief?’ Bomilcar jerked his head in the direction of Hannibal’s tent.
    ‘How did you guess?’
    ‘You had that look that men have after talking to him. Pensive,’ came the shrewd reply.
    ‘He’s sending me to Sicily,’ Hanno confided.
    Bomilcar’s eyebrows rose. ‘You’re moving up in the world.’
    ‘It seems so.’ Hanno felt a little disappointed that Bomilcar did not ask more. ‘Have you also been summoned?’
    A nod, then a whisper. ‘I’m to travel to Rome.’
    How the world changed, thought Hanno. All he’d known since joining Hannibal’s army was fighting and battles. Now everything seemed to be about espionage and subterfuge. ‘As a spy, I take it?’
    Bomilcar winked again. ‘I’m fair-skinned. Thanks to my years in captivity, I speak Latin like a native. Who better to venture into the wolf’s lair? There have been rumours of the enemy trying to force us down into the heel, or perhaps the toe of the peninsula. Hannibal wants me to find out if they’re true.’ Bomilcar cast a look at the sun. ‘Here, I’m late. Let’s share that cup of wine tonight. I’ll tell you more, and you can fill me in on your mission.’
    ‘I look forward to it,’ said Hanno, grinning.
    By the time that he, Mutt and Bomilcar had consumed the contents of two small amphorae of wine, the moon had risen high in the night sky and Hanno was feeling decidedly the worse for wear. A warm, fuzzy feeling encased him, and he felt goodwill towards all men. Well, not towards the Romans, he thought blearily, but even they weren’t as bad as some made them out to be. He had spent more than a year living with Quintus and his family, had he not? They hadn’t been any different to him and his own family. Not evil. Not perfect, but decent, hard-working people. It wasn’t possible that they were different from the rest of their race. No, Hanno decided, many Romans were all right. Pera, the officer who had tortured him at Victumulae was an exception, clearly. The rest, however, just happened to be the enemy. A damn stubborn enemy too. ‘Why couldn’t the fools have admitted that they were beaten after Cannae?’ he muttered.
    ‘We should have marched on Rome then,’ said Bomilcar. ‘They would have surrendered.’
    ‘Would they?’ asked Mutt, letting out a contemptuous fart. He waited until the chuckles had died down before continuing. ‘I don’t think so. The only thing that will make them surrender is when every city, every ally they have, deserts them. When they’re on their own, with their backs to the wall, they will sue for peace.’
    ‘For that to happen, we need to defeat the enemy in both Iberia and Sicily,’ said Hanno grimly, already feeling the pressure of his mission. ‘That would free up two armies of ours to travel to Italy. Once they arrived, Rome’s allies would desert them like rats escaping a sinking ship.’
    ‘Aye, that’s about right,’ replied Mutt, taking a big mouthful from his cup.
    When it hadn’t happened after Cannae, Hanno had begun to suspect that the path to total victory would be long and tortuous. Articulated now, the prospect of winning a war on three fronts sounded close to impossible. Stop thinking like that, he ordered himself. ‘We have to succeed, damn it!’
    ‘We will pray to the gods and do our best. A man can do no more, eh?’ Bomilcar held out his cup to Mutt for a refill.
    That did not sit well with Hanno. Failure – or, at best, satisfaction with one’s efforts – was not something that he ever wanted to feel comfortable with. It smacked of mediocrity. An image of Aurelia came into his mind then, as she had been that night outside her home near Capua. His groin throbbed and for a moment, he forgot about Sicily, and duty. Shame at not having tried to contact her after their last meeting scourged him. Yet there had seemed no point. She was to be married, and they were from opposite sides in the war. The most practical thing would have been to try and forget her,