Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 3

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Hannibal’s Elephant Girl


by

Ariion Kathleen Brindley



Chapter Three

A soft wood stopper, pressed in place and sealed tight with a length of cotton cloth, plugged the spout of Yzebel’s wine jug. I cradled the heavy flagon, placing both hands under the bottom.

All along the trails to Bostar’s tent, a variety of activity drew my attention: a smith shaped a length of black metal into a blade, a tanner tooled a battlefield design into a leather breastplate, and a potter worked a lump of clay into a large amphora.

A slave girl, about my age, or a little younger, stood in front of a black tent using a spinning device to make yarn from cotton. An owner’s mark was branded on the side of her face. She smiled and said something, but I didn’t understand her words.

“I have to go find Bostar the baker, but I’ll stop to talk next time.”

I came to a turn in the trail where one path ran off at an angle and another turned sharply in the opposite direction. The baker’s tent lay somewhere along the trail on the left, but I saw the most amazing sight along the other path, leading down through the trees.

“Elephants!” Captivated by the sights and sounds of so many elephants, I shifted the jug in my arms and strolled toward them.

Hundreds of elephants, large and small, lined each side of the winding trail. Most were gray, but some were dark, almost black. A few had small ears, but many of them had enormous ears which they waved back and forth like fans. The large elephants were chained to metal posts driven into the ground while the baby elephants ran free.

Several of the animals ate hay from nearby stacks. I saw one handler shove a melon into his elephant’s open mouth. The beast crushed it while tilting its head to catch the juices, then swallowed the whole thing; rind, seeds and all. Others broke green leafy branches, thicker than my arm, into bite-size pieces using their trunks and tusks. Several boys scurried by with skins of river water, which they poured into the pits between each pair of elephants, within easy reach for them to drink. I giggled when I saw one elephant suck water into its trunk and then shower himself to cool off.

Strong, pungent odors from the large congregation of animals filled the air, but it didn’t seem unpleasant at all to me.

The elephants looked beautiful and I saw how their trunks were always in motion; eating, drinking or grasping nearby objects.

That’s how Obolus pulled me from the—. One of the animals caught my attention. A long way down the row on the right, stood an elephant far taller than the others. He ate from a small haystack while occasionally taking a melon offered by a handler. I recognized something about the way he moved when he grasped an armload of hay, and shook it before stuffing it into his mouth. The shape of his head and ears looked familiar.

Can it be? I quickened my step and the nearer I came to the animal, the more I felt it could be Obolus. But there were so many elephants. And wasn’t Obolus dead, knocked out by the falling trunk from the old tree by the river, and then hitting his head on a boulder when he collapsed? Those tusks coming from his mouth—they were very long and gracefully curved upward, setting him apart from the others—it was him.

“Obolus!” I dropped the jug of wine and ran. “Obolus. Obolus!” I shouted. The handlers, water boys and helpers stopped to stare at me as I ran down the trail.

The elephant jerked his head toward me, his huge ears perking up. The melon he had just squashed fell from his open mouth. One of the handlers stepped out, spreading his arms wide to stop me, but I ducked my head and ran around him.

When I yelled “Obolus,” once more, the elephant’s eyes widened and he reared up, raised his head high in the air, and trumpeted through his trunk.

“Obolus, you’re alive.”

He tried to get away from me, but his left front foot was chained to a metal post driven into the ground. He backed away, to the length of the chain, still shaking his massive head and bellowing.

“I am so happy to see you.”

He stomped the earth and his deep voice rumbled, frightening all the other elephants, causing them to pull at their chains and bellow. The handlers shouted and ran about, trying to calm them. Up and down the row, terror spread from one frightened animal to the next. Soon the whole place was in turmoil. The unchained baby elephants ran around with their little trunks raised in the air, squealing and scampering about as if Baal, the god of storms, chased after them.

I stood, transfixed. The huge beast stomped and bellowed, sending waves of fear through me. But his behavior seemed like an artificial show of force. When I held my hand out and stepped toward him, he shook his massive head and tried to back away. The metal post loosened when he pulled on the chain, and it appeared it might give way, but then he eased off and stretched his trunk out toward my hand. I heard the intake of his breath, thinking maybe he tested my scent, trying to understand.

His huge feet could crush me like a mouse under a falling tree or he might knock me down with his trunk. I drew a deep breath, went to him, and patted his leg.

“I thought you were dead. And I never thanked you for pulling me from the river. You saved my life.”

“Get away from my elephant!” someone shouted.

I ignored the man and gazed up at one of Obolus’ big brown eyes. He was so tall, two men standing one upon the other’s shoulders could hardly have touched the top of his head. He continued to make threatening noises, but now it was more of a deep rumble. He turned his head to look down at me. If he wanted to, he could simply lift his foot and kick me across the trail, but he didn’t move the leg where I stood. With his chained foot, however, he continued to stomp the ground and pull against the metal restraint.

Rough hands grabbed my shoulders, pulling me away.

“Leave me alone,” I yelled.

“You’re terrifying all the animals,” the man snarled at me. “A useless girl has no business running down here, frightening them. Look what you’ve done, the whole place is in uproar.”

He dragged me backward. I kicked and struggled, yelling for him to let go.

“I’ll break your skinny little neck if you don’t stop screaming.” He grabbed me with both hands, tightening his fingers around my throat, choking me.

I clawed at his wrists, trying to pull his hands away, but he was too strong. My heart pounded and my chest heaved as I struggled to breathe.

The man twisted me around, turning his back to Obolus. “Why does an ignorant child come here, screaming and…”

His words were cut off and his fingers loosened from my throat. When I turned, I saw Obolus’ trunk wrapped around the man’s waist, lifting him off the ground.

“No Obolus!” I croaked. “Put him down.” I rubbed my throat and felt the man’s handprints where he had clutched my neck.

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Obolus turned the yelling man upside down and held him high in the air. The man’s tunic fell down over his head and a stick dropped from his belt as he kicked and reached out, trying to grab the elephant’s trunk.

I glanced at the stick after it hit the ground. It was the length of my forearm, trimmed in gold and intricately engraved with vines and leaves. The gold on one end was shaped into a small blunt hook, and the opposite end was flat. The stick looked like some sort of baton. I noticed a few of the other men had similar sticks, but theirs were trimmed in silver or copper rather than gold.

Several men ran up with their long-handled hooks, but instead of making Obolus let go of the man, they began to laugh.

This infuriated the man even more. “Hit him!” he yelled. “Kill him. Get me down from here.”

The men only laughed and pointed at the dangling man. Even the water boys came to watch the fun.

“Obolus!” I yelled and slapped his leg. “Please don’t hurt him.”

The elephant tilted his head to look at me.

I reached up high and patted the lower part of his ear. He blinked, glanced at the man for a moment, and then down at me.

I knew it would take only a little pressure from Obolus’ huge trunk to squeeze the life out of the man.

“Put him down.” My voice cracked, not sounding forceful at all.

Obolus lowered the man toward the ground, releasing his grip. The fellow dropped to the dirt, landing hard on one hip and then falling flat on his back. Two workers knelt, trying to help him up.

“That’s better,” I said to Obolus and took the end of his trunk in my hands. I gazed up at him. “Thank you for saving my life again, but this man was only angry because I upset you and all the other elephants.”

The man on the ground gasped for breath and the uproar along the trail quieted down. The baby elephants stopped running, lowered their trunks, and turned to watch Obolus and me. Obolus put the end of his trunk to my cheek, sniffing my face and hair.

“Now,” I said, “I will give you a melon to eat and I promise not to come running and yelling again if you promise not to go mad at every little thing.”

I picked up a large yellow melon from beside the haystack and held it out to him. He curled his trunk up and opened his mouth. I shoved it in and laughed when he crunched down on it. He lowered his head for me, and I patted the side of his face. “Good boy.”

“I’ll kill her!”

When I heard the raspy voice from behind me, I turned and backed up against Obolus’ leg.

The man scrambled to his feet.

“No,” said another man who restrained the first man with a hand on his shoulder. “You see how she calmed him?” He turned to me. “You are the one Obolus pulled from the river, are you not?”

I nodded.

“I thought so.” He took the other man by the arm. “Ukaron, you know these poor animals react to things we cannot know of. You saw how he obeyed her commands as if they had trained together all their lives. I’ve only seen this once before when they brought that boy here from the Indies, the one felled by a Roman javelin at Messina. What was his name?”

“Ponichard.” Ukaron dusted himself off. “What of it?”

I stared at Ukaron. The skin of his face was too tight, pulling his lips back in a constant sneer. And his cheekbones and chin almost poked through the surface. His eyes were droopy and wet like a sick man, but maybe that was because Obolus almost killed him.

“It was the same, Ukaron,” the other man said. “That boy, Ponichard, when he first met the elephant Xetos. You remember what a rogue that animal could be. But from the first moment Ponichard laid hands on him, Xetos was at the boy’s command. So much so, that we had to put the beast down when the boy died in battle. And now Obolus has formed a strong bond with this child. And her with him. I dare not attempt to explain what purpose the gods have for such things, just as I don’t question their infinite wisdom. I suggest you do not tamper with this relationship between beast and child.”

“You are quite wrong, Kandaulo.” Ukaron kept his eyes on me while speaking to the man. “She’s a demon child. She tried to turn these animals into a stampede to destroy the camp. If any gods are involved, it is the gods of the underworld.” He wiped a hairy forearm across his mouth, grabbed his baton from a man beside him, and stormed away.

“Go now, girl,” Kandaulo said. “And when next you venture along Elephant Row, I suggest you do it quietly.”

“Yes, Kandaulo. I will.” I patted the end of the trunk that came to rest on my shoulder. The elephant’s gray skin appeared rough and old with all the wrinkles, but it felt soft and he had a gentle touch. “Good-bye, my big friend. Sleep well tonight.”

Obolus reached for more hay and I grabbed a handful for him, but then I remembered. “Oh, no,” I whispered. “Yzebel’s wine jug!” I dropped the hay and ran back up Elephant Row.






Next Chapter "Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 4" 

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