column of twisted strings running from the top bore to the bottom. Each mass of strings gripped one arm, which extended from the frame so that the catapult looked rather like an immense bow, lying on its side and with a gap in the center to allow passage for the missile. A bowstring ran from the tip of one arm to the tip of the other, and a beam with a slide was fixed beneath the frame's center to hold the missile.
The two soldiers leaned over the table and examined the sketch. The waiter came back to refill the cups, regarded the blotted table with displeasure, but, at a glance from Dionysios, refrained from wiping it.
'So which is the critical feature?' asked Dionysios.
Archimedes tapped the boreholes. 'All the force of the catapult comes from the strings,' he said. 'The twist in them is what makes the arms of the catapult spring forward after being drawn back. The thicker the column of strings, the more force they exert and the heavier the missile you can throw. The greater the diameter of the bore that holds the strings, the more powerful the catapult.'
'And how powerful a catapult could you, personally, build?'
Archimedes hesitated, blinking. Dionysios' question seemed to have missed the point of his own explanation. 'There's no theoretical limit!' he protested. 'The most powerful catapult I've ever examined was a one-talenter in Egypt, but-'
'A one-talenter?' interrupted Dionysios eagerly. 'You could build a one-talenter?' Stone-hurling catapults were classified by the weight of the missile they could throw. A talent- about sixty pounds- was officially a man's load, and the one-talenter was generally the most powerful catapult in a city arsenal. A few larger machines had been made from time to time, by exceptional engineers for great kings, but ordinarily even one-talenters were rare. Many cities had nothing heavier than a thirty-pounder.
'Of course!' agreed Archimedes. 'Or one bigger than that- but you'd need special equipment to load and draw it.'
Straton had been looking more and more uncomfortable; now he cleared his throat and said anxiously, 'Sir- yesterday he said he'd never actually built any war machine.'
Dionysios looked at Archimedes with surprise and indignation.
'You don't need to have actually built one to know how it's done!' Archimedes declared, defending himself against the unspoken charge of deception. 'You just need to understand the mechanical principles. I do. It will take me a little bit longer than it would take a more experienced engineer, but I can produce a catapult that works.'
Dionysios regarded him a moment longer, unconvinced.
'Look,' said Archimedes, 'you don't need to pay me anything until I've produced a working catapult.'
Dionysios' eyebrows shot up. 'A one-talent working catapult?' he asked.
'If that's what you want. If you have the wood and the strings for it. You know it will be big, don't you?'
'Obviously,' agreed Dionysios. 'The king has one at Messana, and it's nineteen feet across.' He studied Archimedes a moment longer, very thoughtfully now: he was not sure whether he had found a treasure or a self- deluding fool. But there was no need to decide, if no money needed to change hands until a catapult was completed. He turned back to his food. 'When the army went off to besiege Messana,' he said, 'King Hieron left one of his engineers- Eudaimon son of Kallikleshere in the city with orders to make sure that all the watchtowers in the city wall were equipped with their full complement of catapults. Mostly that's just meant renewing the strings, but there are quite a few new machines to be built as well. Some of the old ones are completely worn out, and some of the watchtowers were never supplied to begin with. Now, Eudaimon has had no trouble building the arrow-shooting catapults, but he's not so good with the stone-hurlers. Unfortunately, stone-hurlers- particularly big stone-hurlers- are what the king wants most. So if you can do some, you've got a job.'
'I can build stone-hurlers,' said Archimedes happily. 'When do you want me to start?'
'Come to the King's house in the citadel tomorrow morning,' replied Dionysios. 'I'll introduce you to Leptines the Regent, and he'll approve your conditions of employment. I warn you, though: I am going to take you up on your offer, and recommend that you not be paid until the first catapult you build has been seen to work.'
Archimedes smiled. 'Thank you!' he exclaimed. He glanced down at his sketch on the tabletop, and felt a sudden thrill of excitement. A one-talent stone-hurler would need careful planning if it was not to be unwieldy. This was something new, something interesting. He wiped up the drawing with his napkin, dipped his finger in his wine cup again, and began to calculate.
The other two watched him a moment. Then Dionysios looked at Straton and raised his eyebrows.
Straton's answering look was glum.
'What's the matter?' asked the captain.
'I think I may have lost a bet,' replied the soldier.
Dionysios looked at him, looked at the now deeply absorbed Archimedes, guessed the general nature of the bet- and laughed. 'Never mind!' he said consolingly. 'Your loss will be the city's gain- and they have flute girls in this place who could make you forget far worse griefs than that.' He clapped his hands, and the waiter, who had been standing impatiently outside the door, entered to carry out the dishes and usher the flute girls in.
In the house near the lion fountain, Philyra was waiting up for her brother. Phidias in his sickroom fell early into a restless slumber; Arata settled on a mattress on the floor beside her husband, where she would wake easily if he needed her during the night. The slaves went to the hot upper room they shared at the back of the house. But Philyra went into the courtyard with the wide-necked lute her brother had given her, sat down on the bench beside the door, and began tentatively to pluck the strings.
Lutes were comparatively new instruments to the Greeks, unknown before the conquests of Alexander the Great. Philyra had seen them before, but never held one: one of her own was the best present she'd ever been given. This one was marvelously beautiful, with a round body of polished rosewood and a neck inlaid with shell. It had a deep, sweet tone, too.
Philyra plucked each of the eight strings in turn, then, with a breathless thrill, stopped them near the top of the neck and plucked them again. She was an accomplished player on the kithara, and knew how to raise the pitch of a string by stopping it on the crossboard with her finger- but for kitharists, such fingering was a virtuoso exercise and its use was limited. The lute promised a whole new dimension to music.
The whole family had always been musical. For as long as Philyra could remember, Arata and Phidias had played together almost every evening, he on the kithara, she on the lyre. Archimedes, as he grew older, had usually joined them on the auloi- the soft-voiced woodwind flutes that were played in pairs- and when Philyra in turn learned an instrument, she too had joined in the concerts. Sometimes the family had played for hours, late into the night, one offering a melody which the others would take up, alter, and pass back. It had often seemed to Philyra that music was an ideal world, that all the best things in the real world were there, but clearer, stronger, more poignant. There was her mother's steadiness, maintaining the balance and rhythm of their common life; there were her father's dreamy gentleness and his sudden tumultuous excitements. And there was her brother, not vague, as he so often was when you spoke to him, but fearfully, ruthlessly precise, and so deep and complicated that she had often struggled to follow him- though in the end he had always resolved his musical knots into an affectionate simplicity. When he left for Alexandria she had tried to play the auloi for a bit, because the strings had sounded so bereft without the flutes' voice to wind among them. But in the end she had gone back to her lyre and kithara. There was something disreputable about a girl playing the flute- and anyway, nobody could play like Medion.
She had missed him. She'd been angry that he hadn't come home when he was supposed to, and bitterly angry when their father fell ill- but now that he was back, the anger was already melting away. She hoped that he would soon return from his drink with the soldier, so that they could play some music together.
She experimented with the lute for perhaps an hour, then, tired by the intense concentration, put it away in her room and came back with her old kithara instead. Easily she plucked out a slow, soft tune with her left hand, while her right struck an occasional ripple of accompaniment with the plectrum.
'Remember once,' sang Philyra, her low voice blending with the strings,
'Remember when,
I told you this holy word?
'The hour is fair, but fleet is the hour,
The hour outraces the swiftest bird.'
Look! It's scattered to earth, your flower.'
She was very good, thought Marcus, standing at his window and listening to her. But that was no surprise. She'd played well before he left, and she'd had three years to get better.
