could see clearly, camped just out of catapult range. 'What would happen if they got in?' he had asked, and Phidias had shaken his head and refused to answer.
That had been the Carthaginians, of course. And they had not got in.
They reached the catapult workshop and went in to see the great beast crouched as before. To Archimedes it looked suddenly more beautiful than ever. The Romans, if they came, would not get in either.
'Herakles!' said Straton, staring. 'That's a monster!'
Epimeles had begun hurrying over the moment he saw them; his step faltered at the exclamation, and he gave Straton an irritated look. 'It's a beauty!' he corrected him; then, to Archimedes, 'Sir?'
'It's to go to the Hexapylon,' said Archimedes. 'Straton son of Metrodoros here is going to help us arrange transport for it. They'll send an observer to see that it works as soon as we've got it in place, and then we can start on another.'
'Good,' said Epimeles, with satisfaction. 'The Hexapylon. Good.'
They all walked over to the catapult and gazed up at it. 'The Hexapylon,' the foreman said again, softly this time. 'We can call it the Welcomer.'
Moving a catapult the size of the Welcomer was a laborious business. The beast had to be taken apart- stock, stand, peritrete, arms- and loaded onto an enormous wagon fetched by Straton from the military supplies depot. By the time this had been done, it was too late to set off for the Hexapylon, which was more than four miles distant from the workshop. The loaded wagon was instead put back in the military supplies depot to wait for the morning.
Archimedes went home. By then news of the victory at Messana, and the army's impending return, was all over the city. Marcus had heard it that afternoon.
He had gone over to the nearest tile yard, on the seaward side of the Achradina, to order some new roof tiles for the house, and he had taken the boy Chrestos with him. They had found the tile workers in a huddle in the middle of the drying yard, animatedly discussing the victory. 'Attacked the siege works,' Marcus heard as they approached, and 'chased them back to the walls!' He stopped, saying nothing, afraid that his Italian accent would attract comment. It was left to Chrestos to hurry forward and demand the whole story, and receive in response a glowing account of King Hieron's wisdom and Syracusan valor. Marcus listened to it intently, but made no comment. It was clear to him that some element of the tale had been left out, and a moment's thought gave him a chilling awareness of what that could be. He confined his speech, however, to the subject of roof tiles.
When they got back to the house near the Lion Fountain, Chrestos excitedly repeated the account of the victory to the rest of the family. It was received with intense relief- a terrible threat was lifted. Philyra, however, also became anxious. If the king was coming home, his other engineers would be with him, and her brother's services would become unnecessary. What was more, if the war was already ending, the catapult wouldn't be wanted and Archimedes wouldn't be paid. When Archimedes himself returned slightly later, she rushed to question him about the machine's fate.
'They want it,' he told her grimly. 'And they want me to start on another one as soon as they're sure it works.' At that his sister became silent, realizing in her turn that something about the story of the victory didn't ring true.
The household ate supper, then played a little music in the sickroom. Phidias listened attentively, but seemed to tire quickly, and the concert was stopped. Philyra left him talking astronomy with Archimedes and went into the courtyard to practice her lute. After a time Marcus came in from an errand down the street. When she saw him she stopped playing and gave him an accusing look. He hurriedly wiped his hands and looked back at her questioningly.
'What sort of Italian are you?' she demanded.
At that his face dropped into its mask of impassivity. 'Mistress, we've already said all this.'
'But you were enslaved fighting in one of the Roman wars on the Roman side, weren't you?'
He was silent for a moment, then looked away, remembering the onslaught, the screams of the injured and dying, the stink of his own terror. 'Yes,' he admitted at last.
'You've seen the Romans fight. What do they do when they take a city?'
'Same as anybody else.'
'I've heard,' said Philyra tightly, 'that sometimes they kill every living thing within the walls. Even the animals.'
'Sometimes they do,' said Marcus reluctantly. 'If they've made a vow. But mostly they don't. Mostly they just plunder and then put in a garrison. Same as anybody else.'
'Barbarians!' said Philyra. She looked at Marcus with hot eyes. 'What you mean is, sometimes they're as savage, cruel, and bloodthirsty as anybody else, and sometimes they're worse. Did you ever help them take a city?'
Marcus shook his head in protest. 'Mistress, when I joined the army I was no older than you are now! You're supposed to be eighteen, but I lied. And the first time I saw war, I… ended up here. I don't know anything more about sieges than you do.'
Some of the heat went out of her eyes, and the fear beneath it began to show. 'You'd be free, wouldn't you, if the Romans took Syracuse?'
He shook his head again, in denial this time. 'I don't think they'd even ask what I was. A slave's a slave. I'd get a new master or be killed. But it's pointless for you to worry about it, mistress, because they won't take Syracuse. And anyway, the news is that the city has a victory.'
It was her turn to shake her head. 'Why is the king coming home, if it was a victory? Why do they want more catapults, if it was a victory?'
'Where were the Carthaginians during that victory?' he replied in a fierce voice. 'They were supposed to be our allies. But I haven't heard any reports of them doing any fighting.'
Then he regretted his words. He should have remembered: Philyra was too intelligent not to understand their implications. Now her eyes widened in fear. What if the Romans at Messana had come to terms with the Carthaginians? Rome and Carthage had been allies during the war against Pyrrhus of Epirus: it was entirely conceivable that they had now agreed to divide Sicily between them. If King Hieron suspected that his new allies were going to turn on him, it would certainly explain why he was taking his army home in a hurry. Syracuse could not face Rome without help from Carthage. If she faced Rome and Carthage together, she was doomed.
'Oh, gods, no!' whispered Philyra.
Marcus crossed the courtyard to her in a few swift steps, then stopped, helplessly wishing he dared touch her thin shoulders. 'Nobody will take Syracuse,' he told her. 'The Carthaginians have tried often enough, and never managed it, and I can tell you, mistress, that the Romans won't crack a city like this. They're not as good at siege craft as you Greeks. Nobody's ever taken Syracuse by storm, and nobody will take her now.' Then he smiled, with an effort, and added, 'Not with your brother's catapults to defend her.'
Philyra took a deep breath, told herself that she wasn't a little girl to be frightened by rumors, and managed to smile back. She looked down at the lute in her hands, then set it against her shoulder and began playing something complicated, something that needed all her attention and left her no time to think of anything else.
In the sickroom, Phidias gazed at the lamp flame with his yellowed eyes, then looked over to his son, smiling. 'Tell me again about the hypothesis of Aristarchos,' he said.
Archimedes shrugged: this theory had been exciting great controversy in Alexandria, and his father was fascinated by it. 'He says that the earth revolves about the sun in the circumference of a circle.'
'And all the planets as well?'
'That's right.'
'What about the stars?' asked Phidias. 'If the earth revolved about the sun, the fixed stars would appear to shift as we saw them from different angles at different points in the earth's orbit.'
'No! That's the most interesting part,' said Archimedes, warming to the subject. 'Aristarchos says that the universe is much, much larger than anyone believes. He says that the whole circle described by the earth's orbit is only a point compared to the size of the sphere of the fixed stars.'
'That's nonsense,' said Phidias. 'A point has no magnitude at all.'
'Well, not a point, then! But incomparably small. So small that all the earth's revolving doesn't make the least difference to our view of the fixed stars.'
