so I don't mind. Chains. Well.' He frowned down at his own flat, big-boned wrists as though contemplating shackles. 'Sirens eat people. Odysseus only heard them and lived because of those chains. Maybe I need them. Maybe I ought to be tied to a city, and to people who aren't mathematical. And there'd be chains anywhere. If King Ptolemy does offer me a job, it will be because of water-snails and catapults, not pure mathematics. So really all I can choose is whose chains, and how heavy.'
'So you are still thinking of going to Alexandria!' she asked.
He looked up at her and groaned. 'Oh, don't! Everyone's been quarreling with me about that.'
'I don't want you to go!' she said unwarily, and then crimsoned.
He caught her hand, and her neat, strong flute player's fingers clenched upon his own. 'Delia,' he began urgently, then stopped, not knowing what he wanted to say. They gazed at each other for a long moment, not in any rapture of love but simply trying desperately to judge the other's will, the other's mind.
'I want to ask you this, then,' he said at last. 'Is there any chance you could be responsible for my staying?'
Her blush darkened. 'Hieron might…' she whispered. 'He might… no!' She had promised herself that she would not try to force Hieron's agreement; that she would not return all his kindness with this- this insult. She looked away and tried again. 'I can't…' She became aware that she was still clutching Archimedes' hand, and stopped, tears of shame springing to her eyes. That was how much strength of mind she had: trying to give up the man, she couldn't even let go of his hand. She shook her head and cried despairingly, 'I can't!'
'It's not up to you,' came his voice beside her. 'It's up to your brother. I'll talk to him.'
She risked looking back at him, and saw that his face was alight with joy. He had understood enough: her mind.
'He did promise me anything except the Museum,' he told her reasonably. 'And I never expected the gods to favor me as far as this. Why not ask for more? The worst that can happen is that he says no. I'll ask him. I'll find a good time and ask him. When the three-talenter is finished. I'll ask him then.'
13
Marcus was literally put in his brother's place, in the middle of the three sheds at the quarry, with Fabius' leg irons clamped about his own ankles. The other prisoners were astonished when he arrived, and suspicious of his account of himself. He did not much care, and spent most of his first day in prison asleep. The guards woke him around noon, when they chained each prisoner to the next as part of the newly increased security. The sawn- through planks of the shed wall had been replaced even before he arrived, and another two guards now took their place in each shed, at the far end, where they could keep an eye on everything the two on the door might miss. Marcus did not much care about that, either. He did not much care about anything. He supposed he ought to feel glad and excited- it seemed that he might, after all, be a free man again and still live- but he was too exhausted. The sheer effort it would take to adjust to his own people again, even if they didn't kill him, appalled him. He ate the meal the guards brought him and went back to sleep.
He woke with a sensation of being watched and sat up abruptly. Archimedes was squatting at the end of his mattress, hands hanging over knees and an anxious expression on his face. On all sides the other prisoners were watching the visitor with impassive suspicion, and a guard was hovering nervously a few paces away. In the dimly lit shed it was hard to tell, but Marcus thought that it was evening.
'I'm sorry to wake you,' said Archimedes.
'I've been asleep all day,' replied Marcus, embarrassed. He did not know what to say; the other seemed almost a stranger to him. Yet he knew Archimedes as intimately as he knew Gaius: he had watched him grow from childhood to manhood, and they had shared lodgings and short money in a foreign land. But though he had only rarely thought of Archimedes as his master, his own slavery had always defined the relationship between them, and now by Hieron's judgment he had never properly been a slave at all. With that tie cut, he could only flounder in a sea of shapeless emotions.
'I, uh, brought you some things,' Archimedes said, as embarrassed as Marcus. He set a bundle down on the end of Marcus' mattress.
Marcus saw at once that the bundle's wrapping was his own winter cloak. He drew it over and unknotted the corners. Inside was his other, winter tunic, a terra-cotta statue of Aphrodite he'd bought in Egypt with money from the water-snails, and some other small knickknacks he'd picked up over the years. There was also a small leather bag that chinked and a long oblong case of polished pine. He stared at the case, then picked it up and opened it: it held Archimedes' tenor aulos. The hard sycamore wood was darkened about the stops, polished with use. He looked up in shock.
'I, uh, thought maybe you could teach yourself to play it while you're here,' said Archimedes. 'It would be something to do while you're waiting to be exchanged.'
Marcus picked up the flute; the wood was water-smooth in his hands, and warm. 'I couldn't, sir,' he said. 'It's yours.'
'I can buy another. I can afford one, after all. And you have a good sense of pitch; it's a shame to waste it. I don't know why you never learned an instrument before.'
'It's not a Roman thing to do,' Marcus told him helplessly. 'My father would have beaten me if I'd asked it.'
Archimedes blinked. 'Because of all the jokes about flute boys?'
'No,' said Marcus, in a low voice. 'No- he'd say it was unmanly to waste time studying music. He'd say that music is a luxury, and luxury corrupts the soul. He tolerated it at work, or as an amusement, but he always said that the only studies worthy of a man are farming and war.'
Archimedes blinked again, trying to accommodate his mind to this bizarre idea. Greeks too believed that luxury corrupted, but Greeks didn't consider music a luxury. It was an essential: without it men were not fully human. 'Do you not want it, then?' he asked, giving up.
Marcus ran one calloused thumb along the flute, then whispered, 'I do want it, sir'- and his heart suddenly rose. Going back to his own people need not mean giving up everything he'd learned. Why shouldn't he play the flute? He had never agreed with his father anyway! 'Thank you.'
Archimedes smiled. 'Good. I've put three reeds in the case. They should last you a little while. If you're here for a long time, I'll bring more- or you can get your guards to buy some. And when you're able to manage this one, you'll want a second flute. You can decide for yourself what voice it should be. There's some money.' He gestured vaguely at the leather bag.
'Thank you,' said Marcus again. 'Sir, I'm sorry.'
Archimedes shook his head quickly. 'You couldn't abandon your own brother.'
Marcus met his eyes. 'Perhaps not. But I did abuse your trust and put you in danger. I think Fabius would have killed you if he'd realized who you were when you came in. I should never have brought him to the house, and never have given him the knife. So- I'm sorry.'
Archimedes looked down, his face going red. 'Marcus, my trust deserved to be abused. Do you remember when we came back to Alexandria after making the water-snails? How I told you to take all the money back to our lodgings? My friends said later that I was an idiot to trust you with so much, but it had never even occurred to me that you might steal it.'
Marcus snorted. 'It occurred to me!'
'Did it? Well, why not? After all, it would have been freedom and independence. But you didn't. You took it home, and then nagged me for days to make me put it in a bank. And what I meant to say was, I had no right to trust you that far. It was arrogant. I had never done anything to earn that sort of loyalty. As a master I was negligent and careless. Yet I relied on you absolutely, and never considered that you deserved any credit for not failing me. So- I'm sorry, too.'
Marcus felt his own face go hot. 'Sir…' he began.
'You don't need to call me that.'
'I was in your debt for a great many things even before this morning. Music is one of them; mechanics is another. Yes, that is a debt. I don't think I've ever enjoyed any work as much as I enjoyed making the water-snails.
