'Yes, I pray you're right,' Phidias went on, then smiled at his son. 'I am glad you're back,' he said tenderly. 'I was afraid to think what would happen to the house, left headless while the city was at war. You go devise some weapon to destroy our enemies, child. And make sure you get a good price for it!'
'Yes, Papa.' Archimedes kissed his father's cheek, kissed his mother, who was attending the sick man, then went out into the courtyard.
Philyra was there, trying to clean his cloak. She had brushed it, beaten it, and poured boiling water on it, and had succeeded only in spreading the oily lampblack more widely. She rolled her eyes at her brother distractedly. 'You're going to have to wear something else,' she told him.
'It's too hot for a cloak anyway,' he replied.
Marcus appeared at the foot of the stairs, carrying an old cloak of plain Egyptian linen. 'That has wine stains on it!' snapped Philyra impatiently.
'But you can fold the edge over so they don't show,' Marcus replied, suiting action to words.
Archimedes groaned, but spread out his arms and allowed his sister and his slave to drape the linen cloak around him, insisting only that the drape go under rather than over his right arm- 'It's more dignified worn over both shoulders!' protested Philyra; 'It's also hotter!' replied Archimedes. The other two stood back, assessing whether he looked fit to be presented to the king's father-in-law. Archimedes, however, looked at Marcus thoughtfully.
He had been debating whether to take Marcus along to help with the catapult-making. Marcus could undoubtedly be useful at it. He'd helped with the water-snails and with dozens of less successful machines: he knew how to follow technical instructions. He was strong, quick, and handy with a saw or a hammer. On the other hand- on the other hand, Marcus clearly still had some loyalties to the people the catapults were to be employed against. And the catapult-making would take him in and out of the military workshops and the arsenal- the most vulnerable and strategically important buildings in Syracuse. If someone lit a fire in them…
'Marcus,' said Archimedes, 'I want you to stay here and see if my mother wants anything done around the house.'
The slave's face went blank. He had foreseen this problem, but he hadn't expected his master to have foreseen it as well. 'You don't want me to come with you, sir?'
Archimedes shook his head. 'You're not Samnite,' he explained quietly.
Marcus stood for a moment frowning at him. He was not sure whether he felt relieved, because he was not required to construct devices that might injure his own people, or hurt, because his master thought him capable of treachery. He could feel Philyra's eyes on him, full of shocked accusation: did she really believe he'd be happy to see her city fall to Rome, her brother killed, and herself raped and enslaved? At last he said, 'Sir, I swear that I would never do anything to injure this city or this house. May the gods destroy me in the worst way if I'm lying!'
'I believe you, since you swear it,' said Archimedes. 'But I think it would be better, all the same, if you stayed home.'
Marcus hunched his shoulders. 'Very well, sir.'
Archimedes slapped him on the shoulder. The linen cloak, which was too short to hold its drape properly with the edge folded over, fell off. Archimedes redraped it again awkwardly and set off.
'He thinks you would betray the city!' exclaimed Philyra hotly, as soon as the door had closed behind him. 'You have to tell me: what sort of an Italian are you?'
'What difference does it make?' growled Marcus. 'I'm not a citizen anywhere. Anyway, what kind of claim does this city have on me to begin with? No one has ever pretended I came here of my own free will.' He was a little surprised at his own honesty. 'I've sworn I won't do anything to injure the city. Archimedes took my word for it. Isn't that good enough?'
'You know what sort of people the Romans have come to Sicily to help?' demanded Philyra.
Marcus again hunched his shoulders unhappily. The Romans had come to Sicily to help the city of Messana against Syracuse. Messana, however, was a robber state, the home of bandits. More than twenty years before, a group of Italian mercenaries, Campanians, had been posted to the city as a garrison by a previous tyrant of Syracuse; tempted by Messana's wealth, they had taken advantage of the chaos when the tyrant died to seize the city for themselves. They had murdered all the men and taken the women and children as their slaves. Calling themselves Mamertini- 'the sons of Mars'- the Campanians had gone on to raid or exact protection money from the neighboring towns, all of which were under Syracusan protection. Syracuse had made war on the bandits sporadically, as Carthage and her own affairs allowed, but with little success- until Hieron rose to power. He had defeated the Mamertini in the field and laid siege to Messana itself. To save themselves, the Campanians had appealed to both the great powers of the West- to Carthage and to Rome.
Carthage had responded first. Always happy to frustrate Syracuse, she had sent a garrison to Messana. But the Carthaginian intervention had provoked a response from the new mistress of Italy. Rhegium, just across the straits from Messana, had fallen to Rome only six years before: Rome was unwilling to allow her African rival to control Messana. She sent her own expedition to the Mamertine city. The Mamertini preferred a Roman garrison to a Carthaginian one- they were Italians, too, after all- and expelled the Carthaginians. Syracuse, which had wanted nothing except to rid herself of a long-standing nuisance, suddenly found herself allied to Carthage and at war with Rome.
'I don't think the Romans should have come to Sicily,' muttered Marcus. 'It's a bad cause, a bad war. The Mamertini don't deserve any help.' He looked back at Philyra's suspicious eyes and declared with sudden fervor, 'Mistress, please believe me. I will never betray this house while I live.'
Her suspicion changed to puzzled surprise, and he saw that he'd said the right thing, and smiled.
All through the walk to the Citadel, the linen cloak kept slipping. Like all cloaks, it had weights in its bottom corners to help it drape, but with the end folded over this was simply not enough. At the gates to the citadel Archimedes gave up, shook it out, and draped it around himself again, this time with the stains showing. He brushed ineffectually at the new dust patches collected on the walk, then strode through the gates, past the temple of Apollo, and on into the heart of the Ortygia.
King Hieron's house was not a palace. It was a large and elegant mansion, set in a leafy quarter of the citadel, near the Council House. It didn't even have any guards outside it, and Archimedes hesitated in the columned porch, wondering whether to knock on the door or wait for Dionysios outside. He glanced up and down the wide street. It was empty in the quiet morning light, so he knocked.
A middle-aged man in a red tunic opened the door at once and looked at him disapprovingly. 'Your business?' he demanded.
'I, um,' faltered Archimedes, 'I was to see the regent this morning. Dionysios son of Chairephon told me to speak to him about a job. I'm a, um, engineer.'
'Catapults,' said the middle-aged man dismissively. 'Your name is Archimedes? Very well, you're expected. Captain Dionysios is with the regent now, but they're busy. You'll have to wait.'
Archimedes was ushered into the house and conducted to a vaulted anteroom which opened onto a garden. There were benches about the marble walls, and he sat down on one. The middle-aged man vanished back the way they'd come, leaving Archimedes to wonder if he was a doorkeeper; if so, he was a very abrupt and exalted one. But perhaps that's what slaves were like in kings' houses. Archimedes sighed and looked down at the marble floor. He scuffed it with a sandal, then took from his purse the piece of papyrus on which he'd fair-copied his calculations from the previous night, plus a few interesting thoughts he'd had that morning and wouldn't mind working on further. He wished he'd remembered to bring a pen and ink. He was looking about for something to use instead when he heard the sound of a flute.
Tenor aulos, he decided at once, set to the Lydian mode, playing a variation on a theme from an aria by Euripides. He listened to it intently for a couple of minutes: the player was good. The tune came to an end; there was a pause; and then the music began again, this time with a peculiarly breathy sound, skirting about the verge of dissonance. He grinned to himself: he recognized that sound. An aulos had a metal slide inside it which allowed a player to cover some of the fingerholes, and thus to play several different modes upon one instrument. This player had opened the slide which separated the fingerings of the Lydian and Hypolydian modes and was trying to play the notes between them. Archimedes had once tried the same thing himself. It had required some very tricky part- fingering, and it still hadn't worked.
He got to his feet and slouched out of the antechamber into the garden, following the music. He knew another way of playing those intermediate notes; he owed it to a fellow aulist to share it.
