work, he would have devised a new pivoting system- but the old one was adequate, and it sufficed.
The most disconcerting thing about working on another, and yet larger, catapult was the way everyone else in the workshop kept grinning about it. Even Eudaimon. The old engineer came up while he was working out the dimensions, shuffled his feet and cleared his throat a few times to attract attention, then asked- very humbly! — for the plans for Good Health, 'since the king wants me to copy it.' Archimedes found him the notes he'd made and explained a few of them, and Eudaimon nodded and made notes of his own- and then grinned, and said, 'I never thought I'd ever build a two-talenter, heh? Make the next one another beauty for me, Archimechanic!' He trotted off, clutching his notes, leaving Archimedes staring after him in consternation.
It seemed that merely recognizing what the king had done wasn't enough to stop it. Archimedes wasn't sure what to do about it; wasn't even sure what he wanted to do about it. His response to his growing reputation depended on whether he was going to Alexandria or staying in Syracuse, and on that question he had not yet made up his mind. There were things to be said on both sides- but the things were different in kind, and he couldn't balance them. He found Hieron interesting, much more so than King Ptolemy- but the Museum was in Alexandria. His family was here, his closest friends there. And the image of Delia kept intruding itself and confusing him. She had not sent him another of her notes arranging a meeting, and he wasn't sure whether to be crushed or relieved. He had even less idea what to do about her than he did about Alexandria. His instinct was to postpone everything. After all, there didn't seem to be any urgent need for him to make up his mind at once. Anything that happened or did not happen with Delia was in Delia's hands, and as for Alexandria, he was obviously not going to abandon Syracuse, his home city, while the enemy was at her gate. The question of Alexandria could safely be left until he had time and energy to spare for it.
The trouble was, other people didn't seem to agree. Two days after he started work on the new catapult, Philyra received an invitation to visit the king's house and play a little music with the king's sister. She went to the mansion in the Ortygia suspicious at this royal condescension- but when Archimedes returned home that evening, it was to find his sister in a rage, with his mother at her side looking quietly resolute.
'The king's sister really wanted to talk about you!' Philyra told him indignantly. 'And the queen was there: she said the king promised to make you rich! Medion, what's going on and why haven't you said anything about it to us?'
Archimedes gaped and stammered excuses: he'd been busy, the house was still in mourning, it hadn't seemed the best time. He became aware even as he floundered that the real reason he'd kept the king's machinations to himself was that he knew that his mother and sister would not want to go to Alexandria. He might well decide not to go himself, so why quarrel with them about it? As for Delia- well, they wouldn't approve of that, would they?
'My dearest,' said Arata, with a quiet firmness that was much harder to face than Philyra's anger, 'you should not leave us to find out such things from others. Ever since you came home from Alexandria, the tyrant has been chasing you like a lover. He's sent people to ask about you; he's invited you to his house; he's offered you large amounts of money; he's dropped compliments about you where other people will be sure to hear them…'
'He might just as well have chalked 'Archimedes is beautiful' up on the walls!' put in Philyra hotly- then subsided at a warning glance from her mother.
'Do you expect us not to notice?' went on Arata. 'And when you don't tell us anything, do you expect us not to worry?'
'I'm sorry!' exclaimed Archimedes helplessly. 'You've never needed to worry, Mama. I would have told you, if there had been anything to worry about.'
'What does the king want from you?' demanded Arata.
'Only that I make machines!' protested her son. 'It's just that some of the things I've been doing- I thought they were obvious, and that other people must have done them before. But it turns out that they're new, and the king thinks- well, you see, nobody's ever built a three-talent catapult before, or a system of compound pulleys, or a screw elevator. So I suppose Hieron's right.'
'It started before you'd built anything,' said Arata suspiciously.
'Well,' said Archimedes, 'Hieron's a very clever man. He knows enough to realize how important mathematics is for machine-making, and he thought I'd be an exceptional engineer as soon as he heard about me. I suppose he asked for that demonstration mainly to see if he was right. He's a good king- he knows how important engineering works are to the security and prosperity of cities. So he wants me to work for him, and in return he's promised wealth and honor. See? Nothing to worry about.'
Arata gazed at her son steadily. 'That's not all,' she concluded.
She had always known when he was trying to deceive her. Broken pots blamed on the wind, the kitchen mortar or the loom weights he'd borrowed for a machine and then claimed never to have touched- none of it had ever fooled her. He sighed and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. 'He wants to keep me in Syracuse. The other night, Mama, I asked him exactly the question you just asked me, and he admitted that he has been deliberately inflating my reputation in order to make it difficult for me to leave. He thinks that before long Ptolemy will offer me wealth, honor, and a position at the Museum.'
There was a long silence. Arata's face flushed slowly. 'You're that good?' she asked at last, breathless from sheer pride. So good that kings vied for his services?
'Yes,' agreed Archimedes. 'At least, Hieron thinks so. It's not something I can judge. Compound pulleys still look obvious to me. I'm sure Ktesibios at least would have thought of them.'
Philyra's face, too, was crimson, but in her case not with pride. 'You wouldn't go back to Alexandria!' she exclaimed.
'I don't know,' said Archimedes honestly. 'I'm not going anywhere until the war's over, so why worry about it now?'
The attempt at evasion was doomed; Philyra began worrying about it at once. She did not want to go to Alexandria; what was more, she believed that if he was really as good as the king thought, he shouldn't go either. She said it would be treachery to Syracuse, and for Archimedes to tell her that this was exactly what Hieron had intended her to say made not the slightest difference. She loved her city and was furious that he could contemplate deserting it.
Arata was more restrained, willing to postpone an argument that might never be relevant- and yet, she too made it plain that she did not want to leave Syracuse. Archimedes' tentative suggestion, however, that if it ever came to such a point, Philyra could marry a Syracusan and Arata live with her, while he himself went to Egypt, did not appease anyone. Arata, like her daughter, thought it would be wrong for her son to leave the city, though she was too much of a peacemaker to say so before the issue had come to the crisis.
The quarrel was eventually suppressed by Arata's diplomatic suggestion that they eat some supper, but it flared up again after the meal. In token of peace they tried to play some music together, but as Philyra tuned her lute she remarked to her brother, 'The king's sister loves the way you play the flute,' then stared to see him beam delightedly.
'Oh, Medion!' Philyra burst out, as something else became clear to her. 'You're not going to tell me she's interested in engineering, too?'
'No,' said Archimedes evasively. 'In auloi. She's very good, isn't she?'
'When did you ever hear her play?'
'At the king's house. She was in the garden, and…'
Philyra jumped to her feet, holding the lute as though she meant to hit him with it. 'You never said anything about that, either! You go and do things that change everything for all of us, and you don't seem to think we have any right even to know about it!'
'I haven't done anything!' Archimedes protested feebly. 'I've only spoken to Delia a few times!'
'Delia! O Zeus! Why did she keep asking about you?'
Arata looked at Archimedes in startled concern. 'Medion!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean that the king's sister…'
Archimedes fled upstairs and buried himself in calculations on the abacus.
He was relieved when Dionysios invited him out to supper the following evening: it was an escape from the questions at home. But it turned out that Dionysios, too, wanted to talk about Alexandria- and about Philyra.
'I'm sorry to bring this up at a time like this,' the captain said apologetically, when they were reclining at the table in the Arethusa. 'I know your house is still in mourning, and there's the war as well. But I heard that you were
