he ask for? He began to whistle an old song as he walked, letting the words run through his mind:
Aphrodite in your gown of brightly varied hues,
Zeus's wile-weaving child, immortal lady:
My soul with grief and cares subdued,
Don't break me!
But come to me now, if ever, much-desired, you heeded what I sang to you in prayer and left your father's house as I required to save me,
Golden your chariot yoked, and you all fair,
Swift sparrows drew about the black earth,
Wingbeats thickly whirling through the air from heaven…
… to ask what next my mad heart longs for, who now shall I bring to love you?…
He reached the house and stopped whistling as he walked the last steps through the porch and up to the door. He straightened his cloakthe new yellow one, finally clean of lampblack- took a deep breath, and knocked.
The doorkeeper opened it at once and surveyed him with the usual expression of disapproval. 'Your business?' he snapped.
'I've come to tell the regent that the catapult is finished!' said Archimedes triumphantly.
'Huh!' snorted Agathon. 'The regent's out. I'll give him your message when he comes home.'
Archimedes stood on the doorstep, crimson with embarrassment. He saw that he'd expected to be received like a victorious general- and he saw how stupid that had been. The one-talenter was, after all, only one catapult among several hundred owned by the city, and all the catapults in Syracuse were only a portion of the regent's responsibilities. Stupid! Still, out of some confused loyalty to his machine and the workshop that had produced it, he stammered, 'C-could you tell me where the regent is, or when he's likely to be home?'
Agathon raised his eyebrows. 'No,' he said flatly- then, relenting a little, he explained, 'Last night he had a message from the king. We have won a victory over the Romans at Messana, and King Hieron is lifting the siege and returning to Syracuse. He should arrive home tomorrow. The regent is likely to be extremely busy until he does. I'll give him your message as soon as I can.'
'Oh!' said Archimedes, blinking stupidly and trying to take it in. Syracuse had defeated the Romans at Messana- Syracuse was actually winning the war? Praise to all the gods! But if Syracuse had won, why lift the siege of Messana and come home? Surely, if you won, you pressed the siege and took the city?
He shook himself and looked back at Agathon; something about the doorkeeper's face prevented him from asking for an explanation. Instead he returned confusedly to the subject which had brought him there. 'I, uh, hope you can tell the regent soon,' he said earnestly. 'You see, the one-talenter- it's in the middle of the workshop, and it takes up a lot of space. We need to put it somewhere else, and we need to know where. Also, I don't get paid and can't start any more until it's been seen to work.'
'I will tell the regent as soon as I can,' the doorkeeper said shortly, then leaned back against the doorpost, crossed his arms, and gave Archimedes a cynical look. 'And?' he said expectantly.
Archimedes licked his lips, wondering how the doorkeeper had known he wanted something else, and how to tell him what without appearing to be disrespectful. He fingered the package in the fold of his cloak. 'I, uh,' he began nervously. 'The, uh, last time I was here I hurt my eye. The, uh, king's sister was kind enough to give me her aulos cheek strap soaked in water to put on it. I wanted to return the strap to her, and to thank her for her kindness.' He fumbled the package out- a neat little bundle wrapped in a sheet of papyrus- and showed it to Agathon.
Agathon looked at him expressionlessly, debating whether to take the package and promise to deliver it and the thanks: the prospect of watching this young hopeful's face fall was tempting. But he decided against it. He had been deeply impressed by what Epimeles had told him about Archimedes' abilities, though the admiration he felt was all for Delia, not for the man she'd spotted. Hieron, too, could always pick out men who'd be useful, and Agathon found the skill wonderful. Delia, he decided, deserved to hear how her discovery was getting on. 'Very well,' he said tolerantly. 'This way.'
He showed the visitor through the front part of the house, past the waiting room, and into the garden with the fountain, where he commanded him to wait. The garden actually adjoined the women's quarters of the house, and men from outside the household were not permitted beyond it. Agathon disappeared into the house.
Archimedes stood beside the fountain waiting. It was a hot day. The yellow cloak was itchy and uncomfortably heavy, even in the shade of the garden. He scratched surreptitiously, then went to the fountain and splashed some water over his face. Footsteps sounded softly in the colonnade beyond, and he looked up, face dripping, and saw Delia sweeping toward him, accompanied by two women and a child. One of the women was dressed with the plain respectability of a slave, but the other- a handsome woman of about thirty- wore a long tunic of purple and gold, and her auburn hair was tied back by the purple ribbon of a royal diadem.
He had worked out what to say when Delia appeared, but the sight of the woman in purple put the speech out of his head, and he stared stupidly. He had not been so na[i..]ve as to expect to be permitted to talk to the king's sister alone again, but equally he had not expected her to be chaperoned by a queen. Of course, he realized numbly, there could be nothing unusual about such a person being in Delia's company. After all, Delia was the queen's sister-in-law; they probably spent a lot of time together. But the sight of his flute player escorted by a diadem suddenly made him feel how stupid it was for him to think about her in the way he had been thinking about her.
Then Delia smiled, and he went on thinking about her that way.
'Archimedes son of Phidias, good health!' said Delia pleasantly. 'Agathon said you wanted to thank me for something?'
He remembered his speech; she'd just delivered the gist of the first line herself. He tried to think how to rewrite it on the spot, then, flustered, abandoned it. 'Uh, yes, I- that is, you spoiled your cheek strap when you gave it to me- I mean, when you got it wet. I, uh…' His throat seemed to have become stopped up, and he gave up completely and simply offered her the little papyrus-wrapped package.
The queen gave him an amused look. The child, a boy, gave him an unnerving five-year-old's stare. But Delia took the package with a lift of her eyebrows and unwrapped it, then held up the two cheek straps. The old one was slightly- but not, in fact, badly- discolored by the water; the new one was the best he could buy that was still comfortable to wear, strong and soft and painted on the outside surface with a key pattern in blue.
'How very kind of you,' Delia said, with real pleasure. The old cheek strap had been her only plain one. She had plenty with embossing or embroidery, but embroidery always itched, and embossing dug into your cheeks when you blew hard, and distracted you. This was a strap chosen by an aulist: she could wear this. She gave Archimedes a warm look. He was distinctly less stained and shabby this morning, she thought to herself. In fact, he looked quite well; yellow suited him. He had nice eyes, light brown, and a nice face, long-boned and expressive.
'I couldn't permit you to lose anything on my account, lady,' he said, recovering himself a little. 'Thank you for the loan of it.'
'Your eye's better?' She could see already that it was, though the bruise was still fading around the socket, and an angry red mark remained on the white of the eye itself.
'Quite better, thank you,' he replied, then swallowed and lapsed into an awkward silence.
Delia sensed her sister-in-law preparing to make small talk. When Agathon had announced Archimedes, she'd told the queen that this was a catapult engineer who happened to play the aulos, and that they'd exchanged a few words about flute-playing when he last came. Now Philistis was getting ready to say a few words about flutes- it would certainly be flutes; she didn't like war machines.
The small boy forestalled her. 'Delia said you make catapults,' he told Archimedes in an accusing tone.
Archimedes blinked at him. The child had auburn curls and the queen's hazel eyes. Hieron was known to have a son, Gelon. This chubby boy was undoubtedly that son, and would be the next tyrant of Syracuse, if democracy or the Romans didn't intervene.
'Yes,' he replied politely. 'I've just finished one.'
'I like catapults,' said Gelon eagerly, and Archimedes realized that the accusing tone had been due to simple interest. 'Is it a big one? Does it throw stones or shoot arrows? How far can it throw?'
'It's a one-talent stone-hurler,' replied Archimedes. 'That's bigger than any other catapult in the city now, though there's another as big with the army. I don't know exactly how far it will throw, because we haven't done
