Pride of Carthage Read Online Free PDF

But she waited, and he found first one thing and then another to mention. The three brothers had returned in good health, each unscathed. Arbocala was theirs, not that this was a great gain, for the city was a sadder collection of hovels than Mastia had been before Hasdrubal the Handsome built New Carthage upon it. The Arbocalians had been not only defiant but also arrogant and disrespectful and treacherous. They murdered a party sent inside the city to present surrender terms. They flung the decapitated bodies out with catapults and had their heads mounted on posts above the city's walls. This insult Hannibal felt keenly, for he had almost sent Hasdrubal in with the delegation. They were so stubborn a people that the only good he could see in the whole venture was the possibility of making them into soldiers for Carthage. If they had the sense to see this, they would find themselves richer than they had ever imagined. But he doubted it would be an easy thing to convince them of. He imagined that even now they were bubbling with hatred and anxious for some way to break the treaties and be free again.
    “It will never be an easy task to hold this domain together,” he said. “You Iberians are a troublesome lot, like wild dogs mastered by neither force nor friendship.”
    The baby grimaced, cocked his head, and strained against his father's arms. Imilce reached for him.
    “He's got the blood of those wild dogs in his veins, you know,” she said. “Do not anger him. We should let him sleep in peace now. You'll have your fill of him tomorrow.”
    She walked to the edge of the room and handed the child to a servant who stood waiting. She whispered to her and the girl withdrew, moving backward and bowing and cradling the baby all at once. Imilce spoke then to the room, two sharp words in her native tongue. She was answered by rustling in the shadows along the wall, the slight sound of movement, servants slipping from the room through several different exits, never seen except in glimpses.
    A moment later they were all gone, and Imilce turned back to her husband. Her face already looked different, as if her cheeks had flushed and her eyes grown more sensual. As she walked toward him she pulled the pins from her tightly bound hair. The dark strands fell loose and draped around her shoulders. It seemed the mother in her had left the room with the child, and here was a different sort of creature.
    “Now we are alone,” she said. “So show me.”
    The commander smiled and stood for this custom of theirs. He released the belt of his gown and slid the material off his shoulders and let it drop to the ground. He stood naked before her, hands held out beside his hips, palms upward so that she could see the parts of his body. The long muscles of his legs stood out each in its layered place; his calves seemed smooth river stones slipped beneath his flesh, the cords of his inner thigh like ribbons stretched taut. His sex nestled in its place somewhat shyly, and above it the ridged compartments of his torso swept up into the bulk of his chest and the wide stretch of his shoulders.
    “As you can see,” he said, “there's no new mark upon me, neither nick nor bruise.”
    The woman's eyes dipped down toward his groin. “Nothing lopped off?”
    Hannibal smiled. “No, I am still complete. They did not touch me.”
    “But you touched them?” she asked.
    “Surely. There are many now who regret their actions, some that do so from the afterworld.”
    “But yourself, you have nothing to regret?”
    He followed her with his eyes as she circled him. “Baal was beside me in this venture. I was simply the humble servant of his will.”
    From behind him, she said, “Is that so? Hannibal bends to another's will?”
    “If that other is my god, yes.”
    Imilce placed a finger at the base of his neck and traced the line of his spine, pulling away just above his buttocks. “I see,” she said. “And what's this?”
    “What?” Hannibal