'I was given charge of the prisoners yesterday,' said Dionysios coldly. 'Straton was watching the western end of the wall last night. They cut his throat.'
'Oh, gods!' groaned Marcus. He covered his face: he could no longer meet the eyes that watched him. The whole of the long sleepless night, the anxious days before it, came crashing down on him, and he feared that he would burst into tears. Straton! Not a nameless guard, but a man he'd known, a good-natured gambler, a fellow who liked a joke, a man with the same real and urgent life as himself.
'You liked him,' came the king's quiet voice.
Marcus nodded behind his hands. 'I… yes, I liked him. He was a man who deserved a long life. Oh, gods! I should never have given them anything except the money! Gaius said he wouldn't have tried to escape if he'd realized I didn't mean to come.'
'Why didn't you go with them?' asked the king. 'Why are you here to begin with? One does not expect to find a Roman citizen as a slave. I'd assumed that you were merely a Roman ally who'd recognized someone who might help him, but it seems the situation is altogether more complicated than that.'
Marcus lowered his hands. 'It's not complicated,' he declared bitterly. 'I enrolled in the legions for the Pyrrhic War. At Asculum I panicked when the Epirots charged. I dropped my shield and ran. Afterward I claimed not to be a Roman so that I wouldn't be sent back.'
'Ah,' said Hieron, in a tone of revulsion.
'I don't understand!' exclaimed Archimedes. 'Why…'
'The Romans kill men for deserting their posts,' said the king. 'They strip the unfortunate deserter naked and stand him in front of his comrades, who are then urged to beat him to death with sticks and stones. They consider this a great incitement to valor- which it undoubtedly is, if you think valor worth purchasing at such a price.' Hieron moved closer to Marcus and peered quizzically into his face. He was close enough that Marcus could feel the heat of his breath, but with the guards boxing him in he could not move away. Trapped under that scrutiny, for the first time that morning he really felt himself to be a prisoner.
'They are not always as ferocious in inflicting such extreme penalties as they pretend, however,' the king went on. 'Men who merely flee out of panic are usually let off with a beating. And Asculum was a long time ago. I would have thought that after so many years in exile, you would have been able to return.'
'They would have asked me for information about the defenses of Syracuse,' said Marcus. His voice was flat; he felt beaten. Who was going to believe this? He had given a knife to the enemies of Syracuse, and they had used it to kill a citizen: how could he claim he was loyal, after that? But he went on anyway. 'When I refused to give it to them, they would have killed me.'
'And you would have refused?'
'Yes!' Marcus said, collecting the last limp remnants of his strength and glaring into those impenetrable eyes. 'Disbelieve it if you like, but I would have refused. Syracuse has committed no offense against the Roman people, and Rome has no business attacking her. For my own part, this city allowed me life. If it was a life of slavery, that wasn't her fault, and she's given me things that I hadn't even known existed. I am in her debt, and I will never repay that debt with injury. May the gods destroy me if I do- and may the gods favor Syracuse, and crown her with victory!'
'That is not a prayer I ever expected to hear spoken by a Roman,' observed Hieron dryly. 'But you have done injury to the city already, in abetting the murder of one of her defenders.' He went back to his couch at the table and sat down. 'Let us return to what happened last night. Did you go to the quarry to help your brother and his friend over the wall?'
'He was at my house,' put in Archimedes abruptly. 'He would have been missed in the evening if he'd been away. And he let me in when I came home. That was a couple of hours after midnight.'
'He said they were already there then,' said Agathon. 'Hiding.'
Marcus nodded and numbly recited the facts. 'They arrived just before Archimedes. I'd told them to come to the house when they could, beginning on the third night after I spoke to them. I made them swear not to hurt anyone in it.' With a shudder he remembered again how Fabius had crouched under the dining-room window, knife in hand, blood on his cheek, eyes gleaming. But there was no reason to mention that to the king.
'Lord,' said Archimedes urgently. 'This man is mine.'
'Questionable,' replied Hieron. 'He is, it seems, a Roman citizen, and should not be a slave at all. Marcus- Valerius, I suppose it is. Son of Gaius, of the Valerian voting tribe.'
'My father purchased him legally,' said Archimedes stubbornly. 'He has been in my family for a long time, and he has always shown himself faithful, until now. He wouldn't have been disloyal now, either, if he hadn't been bound by an older loyalty to his brother. He refused to purchase his own safety at the cost of treachery to the city, and he remained here to suffer the consequences of his offense.'
'Did he?' asked the king. 'Or did he just hope that he wouldn't get caught?'
'I hoped that I would not get caught,' said Marcus readily, 'but I was prepared to suffer the consequences if I was. I am ready to suffer them now, O King.' He wished they would get it over with.
'And just what do you think those consequences are?' inquired Hieron.
Marcus stared at him in silence. The round, bright-eyed face was still unreadable. 'You will have me put to death,' he said. He was proud of how calm he sounded.
'Ah, death!' exclaimed the king. He leaned back on the couch, put his legs up, and crossed them. 'Phalaris of Akragas, am I? You know, Archimedes, I've always wondered about that bronze bull. Is it even technically possible? I don't mean casting a hollow statue, I mean the rest of it- that the screams of the victims were distorted into a lowing such as a bull might make.'
Archimedes blinked. 'It's technically possible to distort a sound, yes, of course. But…'
'So it might have existed? A shame. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to build me one! Marcus Valerius, what am I supposed to have you put to death for? A fine man died because of what you did- but you didn't kill him yourself, clearly didn't want him killed, and were not present at the murder. The most you can be said to have done is to have provided a murder weapon, and that is not generally reckoned a capital offense. Neither is it a capital offense to help a kinsman out of prison, and you are not, so far as I can tell, guilty of anything else. You have certainly abused the trust of your excellent master and put his household in danger, but he seems more inclined to plead for you than to accuse you. Since I am not Phalaris of Akragas, I am not going to put you to death for crimes to which a jury would assign a lesser penalty.'
'Now, if your offenses are not capital, they remain serious, but what penalty you should receive for them depends on your status, which is, as I said just now, questionable. You say that you are a Roman citizen; Archimedes says that you are his slave. As a slave who has deceived his master, betrayed the city, and abetted the murder of a citizen, you should be flogged and sent to work in the quarries. As a Roman, however, you are an enemy national, and your treatment depends entirely upon the military authorities of Syracuse- in other words, on me.' He glanced about the room, as though inquiring whether anyone disputed this. When his eyes met Archimedes', they stopped for a moment.
'I withdraw my claim to this man,' said Archimedes in a low, unsteady voice. 'Or, if necessary, I will free him. He is in your hands, O King.'
Hieron inclined his head in acknowledgment. 'I think it's sufficient that you withdraw your claim. Do you want compensation for him? How much did he cost?'
'I don't want compensation.'
Another nod. The king turned back to Marcus. 'Marcus Valerius, son of Gaius, of the Valerian voting tribe of the city of Rome, you have assisted two of your countrymen to escape from the prison in which they were being held. It seems to me most fitting that you should take their place in that prison, and that you should be exchanged, ransomed, or released with those of your fellow citizens who were taken in arms. Should you think that I am by this means after all sentencing you to death, and making your own people your executioners, let me add that, as far as I am concerned, you are welcome to tell Appius Claudius about the defenses of Syracuse. Nothing you could say would injure this great city, and it might help her. I had in fact intended to show those very defenses to your fellow prisoners, as a remedy to the contempt in which the consul appears to hold us.
'As for Straton son of Metrodoros, he died at the hands of the enemies of Syracuse. I decree that he is to receive a state funeral, and that his family is to be provided for as though he had died in battle- for he fell guarding the city no less than those who die in defense of the walls.'
Hieron stopped and again surveyed the room. Archimedes inclined his head at once. Dionysios hesitated,
