the trials yet. I came here to ask the regyour grandfather when and where he wanted me to test it.'
'How heavy is one talent?' Gelon demanded.
'Heavier than you, Gelonion mine,' said the queen. 'And that's enough about catapults!'
'That's big!' said little Gelon delightedly, ignoring his mother. 'If there was somewhere soft to land, maybe you could shoot me out of that catapult. I'd go flying up through the air like a bird!'
The slave woman- evidently his nurse- clicked her tongue in horror. 'Perish the thought, baby!' she exclaimed. 'My precious lamb, it would kill you!'
'I don't see how flying would kill me!' replied Gelon indignantly.
'Not the flying,' Archimedes told him. 'The catapult throw. You think about it. My one-talenter should hurl a sixty-pound weight four or five hundred feet, and the missile is supposed to land hard enough to knock over stone battlements and smash houses. Think what the stone must feel when the string hits it!'
Gelon's eyes widened as he thought. Then he grinned admiringly. 'That's a good catapult!' he said.
Archimedes grinned back. He would have preferred those words to come from Delia, but they were perfectly acceptable from the child. 'I think so. The foreman of the workshop thinks so, too- at least, he said it was the best he'd seen.'
Delia was pleased. Agathon had passed on a little of what Epimeles had told him, but she was glad to hear it confirmed. She was relieved, though, that she had not had to ask about the catapult herself. Her interest in Archimedes might be abstract and innocent, a ruler's interest in a potentially valuable servant of the state- but the people around her would never believe that. They all assumed that girls her age thought about nothing but love.
'It will smash the Romans!' gloated Gelon. He smashed a small fist into a palm, smack!
Archimedes grinned again. 'That's what I hope!'
' 'Course, my papa's already smashed the Romans,' the boy added importantly. 'Have you heard? But I expect they'll have to be smashed again before the war's over.'
'Gelon, that's enough!' said the queen firmly. 'Phew, what a hot day it is. Much too hot to talk about the war. Archimedes son of Phidias, my sister-in-law tells me that you play the aulos. Perhapsif you're waiting for my father- you'd amuse us with a little music to help pass the time?'
Archimedes blinked again. If Syracuse's tyrant had won a victory, why didn't the tyrant's wife want to talk about it? But he bowed and said, 'I'm happy to play for you, if you'd like, Lady Philistis.' Respectable women's names were not usually mentioned, but Hieron had made dedications to the gods jointly with his wife, and when a name was inscribed in the temples it was hardly improper to repeat it. 'But I didn't bring my flutes with me.'
'I'd like,' said Delia quickly. She'd rather make music than small talk. She snapped her fingers and said to the nurse, 'Melaina, go and fetch two sets of auloi.' She smiled at Archimedes. 'We could have a duet.'
Archimedes grinned slowly back at her. Gelon made a disgusted sound: he'd far prefer to hear more about catapults. Since the adults weren't going to oblige, he abandoned them. He had an interesting hole he was digging under the shrubbery in a corner of the garden; he hurried off to it while his nurse was busy, before she could tell him not to get himself dirty.
When the nurse returned with the two sets of auloi, Archimedes slipped the reeds into the mouthpieces of the pair he'd been given and tried the slides. He had been handed a baritone and bass, presumably because instruments with a lower range had been considered more suitable for a man; Delia had an alto and tenor. He actually preferred the mid-to high-range auloi, but the fingering was the same. He looked at Delia, and saw, with satisfaction, that she was tying on the cheek strap he had given her. He smiled; she smiled back, then tossed him her old cheek strap. 'Here,' she said. 'You can borrow this a little longer.'
He murmured his thanks as he put it on. He remembered playing the aulos for the woman in Alexandria. She had heard him play at a party one of his friends had thrown, and the next day she had sent him a perfumed invitation to her house. She had a right to invite whomever she liked, since she was a courtesan- one of the legendary courtesans of Alexandria, the women who rivaled the gods for beauty. He'd expected her to send him away again as soon as she realized that he wasn't wealthy. But she hadn't. Not for a while, anyway. And when she had finally sent him away, she had been so gentle- 'My dearest, you are ruining yourself for me. I cannot permit that, you know.' He had tried to dissuade her: 'I can build some more water-snails!' But she had replied, 'My dearest, no. There is only one Pegasus. I will not be the one to bind him to earth when he might have the sky.'
Lais had liked his playing. He would see if Delia did.
She set her flutes to her lips, caught his eye, then began the same Euripides variation she had been playing when they first met. He listened for a couple of beats, then joined in. At first he simply played the same melody in a deeper tone, but as they progressed he began embroidering it with grace notes and syncopation. Delia's eyes lit with pleasure. She switched the tune to her alto instrument and used the tenor for accompaniment. Archimedes instantly imitated her, playing the tune on his bass aulos and the accompaniment on the baritone. Delia added the syncopation on the alto; Archimedes countered it on the bass. They played the piece through to the end, taking a keen pleasure in the way the high and low phrases of the tune reverberated against the middle.
When the tune was finished, Delia played a few ornamental trills, then launched suddenly and without warning into a dramatic piece of chorus music with a complex pounding rhythm. Archimedes joined her within a phrase, then began toying with the rhythm, resolving all the long beats and running the short ones together. She gave him a startled look, and he took the flutes away from his lips long enough to grin, then played on. He dropped all the long beats and replaced them with complicated phrases of accompaniment. Delia's eyes widened. Archimedes rejoined her on the tune; after a few bars, she let him carry the melody and began resolving notes as he had done, hesitantly at first, then with a sudden flush of delight, riding the beats in a flurry of quavers. Archimedes suddenly dropped the melody again and for perhaps a minute they both played an accompaniment to a tune that had become only an idea in two minds, an unheard force holding together two wild improvisations. Then Archimedes returned to the tune; in half a beat, Delia had joined him, and together they slowed the tempo and finished in a single drawn-out note.
They lowered their flutes at the same time, smiled at the same time, and cried, 'You're good!' in the same breathless gasp. Then they both laughed.
Delia turned to her sister-in-law. 'Have you ever heard anything like that?' she demanded excitedly.
Philistis was frowning, and she shook her head.
'Oh, we play improvisations a lot in my family,' said Archimedes, wiping the flutes' mouthpieces on his cloak. 'But not on the auloi. That is, I do, but the rest of my family play strings. Playing with another aulist- by Apollo, it's like- like squaring the circle!'
Philistis abruptly stood up, smoothing her tunic. 'That was very… interesting,' she said, with an air of having found it just about survivable. 'Very… unusual. But you mustn't let us delay you any longer, my good fellow. I'm sure you have plenty of work waiting for you at the catapult workshops. I'm sorry that my father isn't back yet. I'll tell him you were here.'
Archimedes almost responded that he had finished his business at the workshop for the time being. Then he realized that he was being dismissed. He opened his mouth- and closed it again. He should not be surprised that the queen did not want him loitering in the house like an old family friend. Reluctantly, he untied the cheek strap and stood up. He bowed to Delia, handed her the strip of leather and her borrowed auloi, and muttered his thanks for the loan. Then, pulling his cloak straight with a regretful sigh, he wished the ladies joy and departed, drooping.
As soon as he was out of sight, Delia turned toward the queen angrily. 'Why did you tell him to go?' she demanded, 'That wasn't interesting, it was wonderful!'
'I sent him off because I could see you thought that,' said Philistis. 'Sister, he's a… a catapult maker!'
'Oh, Zeus!' exclaimed Delia in disgust. 'Does that mean he shouldn't play the flute? No, I forget, you were the one who suggested that he play; it was only my joining in you didn't like. I'm allowed to play music, Philistis!'
Philistis grimaced. She'd always felt that there was something improper about a girl playing the flute, and wished that Delia were not allowed. That was not, however, what this argument was about. 'Not with amorous young men,' she said firmly.
'Amorous men!' cried Delia furiously. 'You never think about anything else. I'm not allowed to go anywhere, do anything, or speak to anyone, because that filthy creature Love might spot me at it! It was wonderful playing like that, I've never played like that before, it was pure music and not the least bit improper- but it's stopped, because I was enjoying it!'
