Cold.

  Her hand felt cold.

  Hanno let the delicate fingers ringed in gold fall to the darkened purple cloth. It had been days since he’d heard his wife’s voice. Days since Elissa had looked upon him for the last time. How could he have known it was the last time?

  Her brown eyes glazed over.

  The king stood.

  The door burst open. In stepped a man with a bow he was not supposed to wield in the palace.

  “Hanno, I…” he said.

  The words froze. Hanno looked upon the bed where his wife had lingered over a disease none of the king’s healers could identify, much less treat. An incense burner sparked, casting its hazy perfume upon the darkened room covered in gold and ivory and sweet-smelling cedar from the motherlands of Phoenicia.

  Hanno pulled up the sheet, placed it atop his wife’s head, and turned to face the intruder.

  “What is it, Bostar?” the king asked.

  “We must leave,” the bowman replied.

  He closed the open door, and slid tight its bronze seal.

  “And go where?” Hanno asked.

  “Anywhere, but we must go,” Bostar repeated.

  The king knelt beside the bed. Already, the sound of distant shouting echoed through the open window, the night air salting the incense with mist from the great harbor.

  “The empire is in mourning,” Hanno stated. “Garlands shall be placed upon every door. The harbor shall be closed and the sacrifices doubled. Our queen is dead.”

  “The people know little of your queen,” Bostar replied.

  “They know she is their queen.”

  “And so does the Council. Hanno…” Bostar knelt beside his friend. “Take her if you want, but we mustn’t stay.”

  A crash at the door rattled the hinges. After a second blow, the bronze seal clattered across the floor, revealing four dark-clothed soldiers.

  “Stand!” commanded the first to enter, his sword leading the way.

  The other three formed up at the door, bronze blades set against whicker shields.

  “Treasonous Persians!” Bostar snarled, and notched an arrow.

  “Make one move and we take you too. You, by the bed, stand,” insisted the first Persian, his Punic thick with the accent of his imperial tongue.

  “They don’t know me, Bostar,” said Hanno.

  And it was true. They knew not the man wearing white mourning clothes yellowed from sweat. So the king stood, and faced them, so they might know him.

  Hanno stepped into the flooding moonlight, and the Persians saw his curled black hair, his sculpted black beard, and the muscles covering his tall body and bronze skin, the color of the prows of Carthage’s warships. Hanno angled his pointed chin at the Persians, and they knew him.

  The first didn’t move fast enough.

  Hanno grabbed hold of the first intruder’s shield to deflect the coming blows and drove a Persian wrist aside. Twisting and ducking, Hanno upended the second and used the moment of space to tumble away and pick up the fallen man’s sword at the same instant that he kicked in his throat.

  An arrow sprouted in another Persian’s neck, and before he could sputter his last, Hanno cut down the remainder.

  “There will be more,” Hanno told his friend.

  Bostar nodded.

  Hanno dropped the Persian blade and rushed to his wife’s side.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Shouts overwhelmed the churn of ocean outside his window.

  “The crowd’s getting larger,” Bostar warned. “We must go.”

  “May you find peace in Baal Hammon’s keeping,” Hanno said, and kissed the sheet-covered form.

  He said nothing more, and hurried beside the bowman.

  Carvings of a hundred glories called down at them from the lantern-glowing halls. Kneeling lords and placated evils reveling in piles of silver, tall sails and wide oars, even the faces of Tyrian kings of old, all glared down at the running king.

  A mosaic of gold and purple greeted them in the throne room, the colossal face of Carthage’s first queen and founder spreading her hands in greeting to the oxen hide-lined throne at the room’s middle.

  Guards had been called. They halted at the sight of their blood-splattered king.

  A servant rushed toward him with a linen cloth. Hanno took it and cleaned his face and arms while another brought his purple cloak.

  “Fires have broken out all over the city,” announced the captain of the guards.

  “There are calls for blood,” Bostar added.

  “I’ve given them a first taste,” Hanno said, and tossed aside the soiled linen. “Where are they?”

  “Approaching the palace.”

  “Then let us show them what they are approaching.”

  Hanno donned his cloak while Bostar fetched a scabbard hanging below the mosaic.

  The king revealed the blade before strapping on the belt. Straight and wide and made of glistening steel, Hanno swirled the xiphos once, spotting the crack in the cross guard, damage caused by its former wielder, and returned it to its sheath.

  “Stay behind me,” he told his guards, and marched out the palace gates.

  In the courtyard, Hanno heard the screams, smelled the smoke. The nearby temple of Baal Hammon loomed on a hill outside the citadel walls, its domed and pillared expanse blotting out the stars. Twin braziers flanked its copper doors, adding to the moonlight and the torches illuminating the multitudes racing through the streets.

  “We shouldn’t open the gates, my king,” warned the captain of the guards.

  “Open them,” Hanno demanded.

  “The citadel is safe. No army can claim it,” Bostar countered. “You can address the crowd from inside.”

  “Open the gates! I am king and my city shall know it!”

  Bostar and the captain nodded, and passed the command to the guards along the walls.

  A clatter of iron chains heralded the lifting of the heavy barrier. Hanno ducked through the rising gate and caught the wide, pleading eyes of a man and woman racing up the lane.

  They shouted something Hanno couldn’t hear. A crowd of torch-lit men pursued them, gaining ground.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Stop!” Hanno called out, but the mob absorbed the sound.

  Someone threw a rock and the man fell. The woman stopped to help him when the crowd met them both. They disappeared beneath the mob’s daggers and stones.

  “I said stop!” Hanno roared.

  His guards formed ranks around him, trying to lock shields and spears before their king, but Hanno shoved through their line.

  The mob paused before the well-armed men.

  “What have you done? Show them to me. Show them to your king!” Hanno demanded.

  “That’s him!” someone called out. “That’s the Libyan lover!”

  The crowd roared and seemed to step forward, but halted at the arrow Bostar planted at their feet.

  “You will show respect to your queen!” Hanno roared.

  “She’s a Libyan just like they were,” a torch-silhouetted fury called out.

  “And what of it?”

  “Get them out!” came the shouts.

  “Get them out!” they repeated.

  On and on, the cry spread all over the city.

  “Get them out!”

  “Get them out!”

  Through the torches stepped a man in a purple garment fringed with cloth-of-gold. He glistened before the simple tunic-wearing masses, and all grew quiet at his appearance.

  “It is a simple matter, Hanno,” said the thin-bearded, pale-skinned Councilman.

  “Suffete. Explain this,” Hanno demanded.

  “The Council of Elders has decreed that the population is too large. We cannot accommodate the influx of non-Phoenician stock.”

  “There is enough bread from the colonies.”

  “There would have been. If your father had taken Syracuse.”

  “Watch your tongue, Suffete.”

  “I watch the city, King Hanno. I watch as the grain silos empty and the sea itself withholds its yield. And I watch as a Libyan brings a disease to our city.”

  “Bread for Carthage!” someone shouted.

  “Bread for Carthage!” the cry repeated.

  “Purge the diseased Libyans!” another roared.

  “Watch your tongues!” Hanno roared back.

  Suffete raised his hands and the crowd quieted.

  “What is it you would have me do, Suffete?” Hanno asked.

  “You? It is the Council that has made this decision. It has decreed that the city’s population must be diminished. I would have you do nothing,” Suffete said.

  He nodded to the guards at the walls, who set down their spears. He glanced ahead to the barracks inside the citadel walls. Doors shut. Shutters closed, and the soldiers of Carthage lay down their arms. Only Hanno’s personal guard maintained formation.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Hanno demanded.

  “I told you. The Council has elected to diminish the city’s population,” Suffete explained.

  “And they are the ones to be diminished? The two your monstrous followers devoured?”

  Suffete glanced down at the crimson stain of the mob-killed man and woman trickling through the dusty street.

  “They were mixed blood,” Suffete said.

  “They were your people!” Hanno challenged.

  “Your people.”

  Hanno drew his sword.

  “Captain, arrest this man immediately. The rest of you, disperse in the name of the king!” Hanno shouted.

  The guards clattered their spears against their shields. The crowd recoiled, but planted their feet when Suffete refused to move. Suffete glanced back at the space between him and the mob, and where the mangled remains of the fleeing man and woman lay.

  “You wield the sword of a fallen king. You carry the title of a failure,” Suffete declared. “You wedded a disease-carrying Libyan, and you don’t even have an heir to show for it.”

  Bostar put a hand on Hanno’s shoulder to keep him steady.

  “The Council commands in Carthage, not the palace,” Suffette continued, “and the Council commands that Carthage shall be purged of all its Libyan filth.”

  “I am Phoenician. I am king!” Hanno roared.

  “You mixed with the Libyans. Carthage must be purged.”

  The mob shouted, and stones rained through the air. The guards raised their shields and closed ranks to protect their king.

  Suffete turned his back on Hanno, and disappeared inside the crowd.

  “Submit to my commands, Suffete. Suffete! Captain, form ranks with me. Engage any who try and stop us,” Hanno ordered.

  Bostar halted Hanno’s step and the captain took his arm as well.

  “We should withdraw to the citadel,” the captain warned.

  “Bread for Carthage! Bread for Carthage!” the call resumed.

  Hanno shook himself free of his guards.

  “I am Carthage!” Hanno shouted, and raised his sword.

  He stepped clear of the upraised shields. Those who saw the king turned and ran, but a paving stone hurled from somewhere amidst the crowd struck Hanno in his unhelmeted head.

  The king faltered, and nearly dropped his sword.

  The crowd surged.

  Bostar raced through the shields and raining stones and collected his king.

  “Captain, hurry!” Bostar commanded.

  The guards braced their shields and encircled the king and archer. Their charge in tow, the formation dashed away, and slammed shut the citadel doors behind them.

  “Traitors. Assassins and heathens,” Hanno muttered.

  “To the port. The passage up ahead,” Bostar ordered. “If the soldiers no longer accept Hanno’s command, then even the citadel is not safe.”

  “Stop. Stop, the king does not flee!”

  But the press of shields and arms kept Hanno inside his quick-marching protection.

  Smoke blotted out the moonlight. Screams rang out from all quarters of the city. Tongues of flame and falling banners, and through it all the shouts of, “Bread for Carthage!”

  The guards led Bostar and the king through a hidden passageway in the citadel walls and made for the sea.

  The bodies of those the crowds had already purged littered the wide avenue leading from the palace to the harbor. At every sharp angled turn, they passed more blood. Each gatehouse stood open, the posts unmanned.

  “If we can reach Utica we can rally support,” Bostar advised.

  “Utica?” Hanno replied.

  “We still hold authority there.”

  “And Carthage?”

  “I’d worry more over your own skin, Hanno.”

  The crowds gorged themselves on the homes and hovels at the edges of the city, ignoring the spear-encircled king in favor of softer targets.

  Dark faces made darker by the smoke-filled night joined the guards in flight, though this drew a tail of torch-wielders and waves of ballistic paving stones.

  Hanno wiped the blood trickling into his eye.

  “We’ll reach the marines at the harbor and regroup,” he relented. “If we’re going to run then let’s make a supported run of it.”

  The king raced alongside his guards, and they soon entered the wide, empty stall-laden forum.

  The marketplace swelled with assailants and their victims alike, a mixture of blood and fury.

  Hanno marked each fallen man, each woman, and each child he passed.

  The gates to the docks lay open, the catapults on their high towers free of the king’s purple banner.

  The ovular ring of pillars walling off the central harbor echoed Hanno’s footsteps. Well-worn stones, used to the heavy trod of endless carts and fish and commerce from across the Mediterranean, lay empty.

  Hanno stopped when he passed through the central archway and onto the widest of the wooden piers.

  His navy indeed lay waiting, but the marines were nowhere to be seen. Only black water and a tiny sloop tied to the adjacent platform surrounded the vacant dock intended for his royal trireme.

  Hanno spotted the tall mast of his ship beyond the pillared walls that led to the outer harbor. He realized it must have set sail, and he soon saw why as a wall of hoplite shields and spears marched across the pier, halting at the edge of the planks.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Hanno demanded.

  The phalanx parted, revealing a tall, scowling woman with a pointed nose and a scarred face. Her short, gray hair hinted at sheered curls. She crossed her muscled, bracer-lined arms across her leather cuirass.

  “I am hired to keep you from this dock,” she announced.

  “Artemisia,” Hanno said, knowing the woman. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I have been hired to keep you off this dock. Didn’t I just say that?”

  “Is Suffete behind this?”

  The Greek woman shrugged.

  “And you brought the Persians to my city as well? The assassins failed, pirate,” Hanno shared.

  “Persian lives are cheap these days,” Artemisia relented.

  “As are you.”

  The Greek’s scowl deepened.

  “Does your honor run so shallow? You once fought against our common enemy,” Hanno pressed.

  “And failed. Xerxes failed to take Greece, and your father failed to subdue Sicily. We both fought on losing sides,” Artemisia said.

  “I haven’t fought yet.”

  “I have.”

  “What is to become of the city?” Bostar asked.

  “Not what I was hired for,” Artemisia said.

  “Do you so quickly trade yourself for gold?”

  “Yes.”

  Hanno grimaced, looking for an alternative passage to the sea. He narrowed his eyes at the thin stretch of water between him and the sloop. “You were hired to keep me off this dock. This one here?” Hanno asked.

  “This one here,” Artemisia agreed.

  “Captain, hold position.”

  Hanno ran to the edge of the pier. He leapt over the water and onto the tiny sloop. The momentum of his landing propelled it away from the dock. Before he could swing his sword against the tying rope, Bostar freed it from its post and jumped aboard with far more grace than the king.

  Bostar notched an arrow, but Aretmisia raised her hand to halt the readied javelins of her fellows, so Bostar lowered his bow.

  “You have done your job well, Artemisia. I’ll double your pay when I return if you bring me Suffete’s head!” Hanno shouted as he readied the sloop’s mast.

  Hanno wrapped the sail’s binds around his waist, plunged an oar into the water, and climbed onto the sloop’s stern. The jolt of the oar and the swing of the sail tilted the boat into the smoke-filled wind and propelled the king and his companion across the inner harbor.

  Cheers greeted Hanno from his royal vessel outside the harbor walls, the crew making ready to receive the king.

  “We sail to Utica then,” Bostar said, stepping to the stern so he could assist Hanno with bringing the sloop alongside the royal trireme.

  “It seems the only sensible option,” Hanno admitted.

  Screams overwhelmed the cheers of the crew.

  Hanno passed alongside the tariff docks, the Admiralty Island that formed the pupil of the inner harbor’s eye, and lost sight of Artimesia and her mercenaries. But no walls could block out the screams, cries for mercy going unanswered all throughout the city.

  “How many Libyans live in Carthage?” Hanno asked Bostar.

  “Several thousand. Several thousand more Libyphoenicians,” Bostar answered. “There’s nothing we can do. If Utica won’t take us, we’ll go to the colonies. Hispania if we have to. The colonies of the west are always open to us.”

  Hanno saw the man and woman fleeing outside his palace. He saw the crowds, hundreds of faces, trampled, beaten, and torn. He saw the dark skin of the woman he loved, her fingers paled with the chill of death.

  “Colonies of the west,” Hanno said.

  The king spun the sail around.

  “What are you doing?” Bostar asked.

  Hanno stood and shouted at the suddenly silent crew waiting for him on his trireme at the harbor mouth.

  “Ready as many ships as you can! Gather the marines wherever they may be and bring them to the market!” the king commanded.

  “Hanno…” Bostar pressed.

  “I am Carthage’s king. And they shall know me,” Hanno vowed. “Follow me if you will, Bostar.”