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captain through with the blood-stained sword at his side, to wipe the asinine smile off his face. ‘Congratulations,’ the fool had said and Hamilcar’s hand moved instinctively to the hilt of his sword. He heard Himilco’s footfalls behind him and the heavy sound of the door closing. They were alone.
    With a speed that defied the eye Hamilcar spun around, drawing his sword in a single swipe as he did, the blade clearing the scabbard with inches to spare, its once smooth edge nicked and scored from the previous day’s combat. Himilco’s reaction was measured only in his face, his every defence too slow to respond to the unexpected attack as Hamilcar covered the gap between them before Himilco’s eyes could blink in surprise. The blade stopped an inch from the captain’s throat; its vibrating point the only outward sign of the immense self-control Hamilcar had exercised in staying its thrust.
    ‘Where is the rest of the fleet?!’ he shouted, his anger forcing the point of the blade against the skin of Himilco’s throat, drawing blood from the sallow skin.
    ‘My lord?’ Himilco asked, his confusion entangled with fear.
    ‘The fleet,’ Hamilcar roared. ‘The one hundred galleys I assembled in Panormus with orders to sail to Thermae. I saw only forty here yesterday. Where are the rest?’
    ‘Off the coast of Malaka in Iberia,’ Himilco stammered, his expression one of bewilderment, his hands now raised reflexively in a futile gesture.
    ‘By whose orders?’ Hamilcar barked, readying himself to run Himilco through in anticipation of his answer.
    Again confusion broke through the captain’s expression of fear. ‘By your orders,’ he replied, a plea in his voice, ‘Councillor Hanno issued them on your behalf three days after you left Panormus.’
    Now it was Hamilcar’s face that showed shock and the tension in his sword arm lessened without conscious thought, the point of the blade moving down to rest against the captain’s chest.
    ‘Hanno?’ he said, almost to himself.
    ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Himilco replied, relief rushing through him as the answer the commander had sought was finally found.
    ‘He told you it was my order?’
    ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Himilco repeated.
    Hamilcar stepped back and sheathed his sword, his mind now ignoring the captain, its focus instead on the discovery of the man who had ruined his trap and rendered it incomplete.
    ‘Assemble a squad and set sail for Panormus immediately,’ Hamilcar said.
    Himilco sensed his commander’s intentions and spoke with a renewed sense of safety, conscious that Hamilcar’s sword was no longer at his throat.
    ‘The councillor sailed for Carthage the day we left Panormus,’ he ventured.
    ‘Then we follow,’ Hamilcar replied after a second’s thought. ‘All speed to Carthage.’
    Himilco saluted and left the cabin, his steps almost breaking into a run in an effort to put distance between himself and his commander’s sword.
    Hamilcar watched him go, replaying the captain’s words in his mind as he did. In by-passing Panormus he would miss a prearranged meeting with one of his senior officers, Belus, a man to whom Hamilcar had already entrusted a vital component of a greater scheme and for a moment he worried that Hanno might have also obstructed those orders. He immediately dismissed his concern, confident in Belus’s loyalty and he turned his full attention to Hanno once more. The councillor’s actions were inexplicable and his subterfuge, his use of Hamilcar’s authority, was an act of treachery that any man who was ranked less than Hanno would pay for with his life. The depth of Hamilcar’s thoughts were undisturbed even as the dull thud of the drum beat began, its sound reverberating through the timbers of the Alissar as the galley got underway, her crew bringing her about on a course that would take her to the city of Carthage.
    Gaius Duilius sat silently in the centre of the semi-circular forum of the Curia Hostilia , the senate house