'She's not promised to anyone,' he forced himself to admit- then, despite everything, found himself adding, 'But in Alexandria Archimedes talked about marrying her to one of his friends. He wasn't head of the household then, and couldn't arrange it, but he may want to now. I don't know.'
'A friend in Alexandria?' demanded Straton, startled.
Marcus nodded solemnly, disgusted but unable to stop himself. He was not exactly lying, but he wasn't telling the truth, either. 'A Samian called Conon, a student at the Museum. He and Archimedes each thought the other the cleverest mathematician alive. Conon's of very good family, and rich, but he would have been happy to forgo a dowry in order to call Archimedes brother.'
That was all true- but Conon's wealthy and distinguished father had been far less romantic. He had long before arranged for his son to marry a Samian girl of his own class as soon as she came of age. The talk of brotherhood had never been more than daydreams.
'Archimedes can't be planning to go back to Alexandria!' exclaimed Straton.
'He can go where he likes!' replied Marcus sharply.
'B-but- the war!' stammered Straton.
'It won't last forever.'
Straton chewed his lip, and Marcus knew that he was thinking of catapults- of the biggest catapults in the world being built in Alexandria instead of in Syracuse. He realized suddenly that the king had thought of that from the first, and saw the purpose of those obscure manipulations.
'A loyal citizen…' began Straton, then stopped: he had just seen Archimedes.
They had followed the road down from the heights now and reached the edge of the Achradina. It was dusk, but there was still enough light to read by. Archimedes was sitting at the edge of a small public square, folded up like a grasshopper in the middle of a patch of dry ground, chewing the end of a stick and staring at the dust before him. His black mourning tunic was hitched up, exposing thin thighs, and he looked like a delinquent schoolboy.
An elderly woman who'd been drawing water at the fountain in the square noticed them staring and paused beside them. 'He's been there for hours,' she confided in an anxious whisper. 'Drawing in the dust. We think he must be possessed by a god. I pray it's not a bad omen!'
'It's geometry,' Marcus informed her. 'It's true about the god.' He walked over, stopped when he reached the diagrams scrawled across the ground, and called, 'Archimedes!'
'Unnh?' replied his master absently.
'It's time to come home,' said Marcus firmly. 'Your mother and sister sent me to find you.'
Archimedes raised one hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. 'Jush let me work thish out,' he said indistinctly around the stick.
Straton had followed the slave cautiously; now he gazed down at the thicket of endlessly repeated cylinders and spheres, letters and lines that were scraped into the dry ground. 'What are you trying to do?' he asked wonderingly.
Archimedes took the stick out of his mouth, glanced up, then returned his eyes to the diagram before him as though this extraneous presence had not registered. 'I'm trying to find the ratio between the volumes of a cylinder and an enclosed sphere,' he said dreamily. 'It isn't straightforward. If I could only…'
'Sir,' said Marcus, 'it's getting dark.'
'Oh, leave me alone!' exclaimed Archimedes irritably. 'I'm doing this!'
'You can do it at home.'
Archimedes jumped suddenly and unexpectedly to his feet. 'I told you to leave me alone!' he shouted, glaring into Marcus' surprised face. 'If it were some god-hated machine I was working on, you would have obeyed me, wouldn't you? But this is only geometry, so you interrupt. Slaves can interrupt geometry, but kings keep quiet when it's catapults!' He lashed out furiously with the stick, and broke it with a crack against his slave's arm. 'Catapults! They're lumps of god-hated wood and some strings. They're graceless and they kill people. This is wonderful and beautiful! You never understand thatany of you!' He turned the furious glare onto Straton as well. 'Geometry is more perfect than anything ever seen with the eyes. That ratio was true before we were all born, will still be true when we're all dead, and would still be true if the earth had never been createdeven if no one ever discovers what it is. It matters- we're the ones who don't!'
He stopped, breathing hard. The other two looked back at him in bewilderment; Marcus was rubbing his arm. Archimedes met their gaze for a moment, then looked down at the calculations at his feet, perfect and unsolved. His rage began to trickle away, and he shuddered. What he'd said was true- but they would never, could never, understand it. For a moment he felt fully the pain of his isolation, as he had not felt it for years- not since he was a little boy, and had first understood that all the things he found most wonderful were to the rest of the world mere confusion. He longed for his father, and then, wistfully, remembered Alexandria, house of Aphrodite where existed all things that anyone could desire, magnet of the mind.
'Even if that's true,' said Marcus at last, 'you can't calculate in the dark.'
Archimedes gave a small groan of despair, dropped the end of his broken stick, and walked silently away.
Straton swallowed as he watched the tall black figure slouch off, shoulders hunched and head hanging. 'Is he often like that?' he asked Marcus.
The slave shook his head. 'No,' he said dazedly. 'I've never seen him like that before. I suppose it's the war, and his father dying.'
The soldier nodded, relieved. 'Enough to upset anyone. You'd better go look after him. We need his catapults, whether he thinks they're worthless or not.'
They walked in silence as far as the door of the house in the Achradina. There Archimedes stopped, staring blankly at the worn wood. He didn't want to go in. Everything that had happened since he returned from Alexandria seemed to be falling into a kind of a shape inside him- his father's death, the king's favor, Delia- everything. He realized that he needed to see the king, now, while the force of what he felt still armored him against fear and respect.
'Sir?' said Marcus, and he shook his head.
'Tell them I'm going to speak to King Hieron,' he commanded, and turned on his heel. Marcus called again, 'Sir!' but he paid no attention and strode angrily on.
It was night, and when he reached the citadel the streets were quiet, with no sound but the crickets calling and, far off, the sound of the sea. He made his way rapidly to the king's house, knocked determinedly, and told the surprised doorkeeper, 'I would like to speak to King Hieron.'
Lamplight deepened the severe shadows of Agathon's face as he gave the visitor a look to crush stone. 'It's late,' he said.
'I know,' replied Archimedes, 'but see if he'll speak to me anyway.'
The doorkeeper snorted angrily, but nodded. He shut the door; only the sound of his sandals clacking away across the marble floor provided any assurance that he was indeed going to check whether his master would speak to the visitor. Archimedes leaned wearily against a column in the porch and waited. Presently the door opened, and the doorkeeper looked out, more disapproving even than before. 'He will see you,' he admitted reluctantly, and beckoned Archimedes in.
Archimedes followed him into the mansion, past the marble antechamber and directly into the dining room. Two lampstands provided a strong soft light, and the remains of a late supper were spread over the table. Hieron was reclining on his couch, while his wife and sister sat either side of him in chairs, as was the custom for a private family meal. Archimedes stopped just inside the door, nodded to the king and his family in greeting, then crossed his arms and rubbed an elbow uncomfortably. He became aware that he was dressed only in the plain black tunic, and that it was covered with dust and oil and not fit at all for a king's house; that he was tired and overwrought and was probably going to say something stupid. Delia's eyes were wide with surprise. He tried not to think of her as he'd last seen her, flushed from kisses and flute-playing, laughing as she untied her cheek strap. She had warned him, then tried to retract her warning: who knew how far she could be trusted? Next to her the queen looked almost as disapproving as the doorkeeper.
'Good health!' said the king, smiling. 'Won't you sit down and have a cup of wine?'
Archimedes sidled to the nearest couch and sat down on it; one of the slaves at once filled a cup with watered wine and set it before him.
