Since this morning I owe you even more. If I'd been anybody else's slave, I would have been flogged and sent to the quarries. The king treated me leniently because you pleaded for me- you know that as well as I do. I have no way to repay what I owe. So don't burden me with your apologies as well.'
Archimedes shook his head, but did not respond. After a moment he changed the subject and asked, 'Do you want me to show you how to play that flute?'
There followed a short lesson on how to play the aulos: fingering, breathing, the positions of the slide. Marcus played a few wobbly scales, then sat stroking the silken wood. Its touch was a promise for the future, and gave him unexpected hope.
Archimedes cleared his throat uncomfortably. 'Well,' he said. 'They're expecting me at home. If you need anything, send me word.' Marcus opened his mouth, and Archimedes said urgently, 'Don't! You've been a member of my household ever since I was a child. Of course I want to help you if I can.'
Marcus realized suddenly why he had felt so numb. He was losing home and family for the second time in his life.
'Please tell them at the house,' he whispered, 'that I'm sorry. And tell Philyra I hope she will be very happy, with Dionysios or whoever she marries. I wish you all much joy.'
Archimedes nodded and got to his feet. 'I wish you joy, Marcus.' He turned to go.
The sight of him turning away suddenly filled Marcus with an almost panic-stricken urgency. Something between them was unresolved, and the thought of being left with that undigested lump of emotions terrified him. He jumped to his feet with a clank of irons, and called 'Medion!' — then bit his tongue, realizing that he had used the family nickname for the first time.
Archimedes didn't appear to notice the slip. He looked back at Marcus inquiringly, his expression just visible in the growing dark.
For a moment Marcus did not know what to say. Then he held out the flute. 'Could you play me that tune you played last night?' he asked.
Slowly, Archimedes reached out and took the instrument. He adjusted the slide. 'I really need the soprano as well,' he said apologetically. 'It won't be the same without it.' But he set the flute to his lips and at once began the same sweet dancing tune which had filled the courtyard the night before.
Everything in the shed seemed to hold its breath. One of the guards, who had gone to fetch a lamp, came back with it and stood silent in the aisle listening. All around the eyes of prisoners gleamed in its light, drawn into the dance, and then bewildered by the inexplicable grief that crept into the tune. The melody was clearer on a single aulos, the shifts of tempo and mode more precise. There was the same sense of disintegration, and the same almost miraculous resolution. At last the same sad march faded softly into silence. Archimedes stood for a moment with his head bowed, looking at his fingers on the stops.
'And now I wish you joy,' said Marcus, quietly into the quiet.
Archimedes looked up, and their eyes met. The unresolved thing between them solved itself, and the ties severed. Archimedes smiled sadly and handed the flute back to Marcus. 'May you indeed find joy, Marcus Valerius,' he said, stumbling a little on the alien family name.
'And you, Archimedes son of Phidias,' said Marcus. 'May the gods favor you.'
Archimedes walked home from the quarry through the dark streets slowly. He did not want to think about Marcus, so he thought about the tune he had played. A farewell to Alexandria, he'd called it. He did not like the way his mind seemed to be making up itself about Alexandria, without consulting him. Even before Delia. If Delia…
He lost himself for a moment in the memory of kissing Delia, then went on, more grimly. What he needed to know was whether Hieron saw him as an ally or as a valuable slave.
The test was Delia. Hieron might refuse his permission for the match for many good reasons, but if the request was viewed as an affront, he'd do better going to Egypt if he had to slip out of Syracuse in disguise.
In the house there were lamps burning in the courtyard, and the family was waiting: Arata and Sosibia spinning, little Agatha winding wool, Philyra playing the lute, Chrestos sitting in the doorway doing nothing in particular. Archimedes had not been home all day, though he had sent one of Hieron's slaves to the house to tell the family what had happened, and to tell Chrestos to pack up all of Marcus' things and bring them to him at the catapult workshop. He had not wanted to talk to his family: not about Marcus, and not about Delia- yet. Now they were all waiting to talk to him.
Arata, with her usual patience and clear sense of priorities, first asked him if he'd eaten, and when he admitted that he had not, took him into the dining room and sat him down with a plate of fish stew. But Philyra, red-eyed and sniffing, sat with her elbows on the table as she watched him eat, the slaves hovered anxiously, and even his mother was frowning with anxiety. He gave up and started telling them about Marcus after the first few mouthfuls.
'Will he be all right?' asked Philyra, biting at her fingernailsa habit which her mother had striven to break, and which only reemerged when she was deeply unhappy.
'I hope so,' was all Archimedes could say. 'Hieron said he's welcome to answer anything the Roman general asks him. And his brother is there to speak up for him. I would think he'd be all right.' But he was not altogether certain of it. Marcus ought to be all right- but he was so uncompromisingly honest. He had not prayed for the destruction of Rome for a Tarentine mercenary; he would not pray for the sacking of Syracuse for a Roman consul.
But perhaps the Roman consul would not ask it. Marcus would be returned in company with eighty other prisoners, and his brother would, presumably, be in the army to welcome and protect him. He ought to be all right.
'They're barbarians,' said Philyra, blinking at new tears. 'They might do anything to him! Can't he just come back to us? It wasn't his fault- you did tell the king that, didn't you, Medion? I mean, it was his own brother, or he wouldn't have…'
'The king has already been very lenient,' said Arata quietly. 'For your brother's sake, Philyrion. We can't ask more. After all, a man was killed because of what Marcus did.'
Archimedes cleared his throat unhappily, then said, 'When I saw Marcus just now he, uh, said to tell everyone that he was sorry and that he wished us all much joy. And he said he hoped you would be very happy, Philyrion, with Dionysios or whoever you marry.'
Philyra pulled her torn nails out of her mouth and stared, and he realized that he hadn't told her about Dionysios.
'Dionysios only offered last night,' he said defensively. 'I was going to tell you this morning.'
He told her about Dionysios then. There was considerable discussion of the man and his offer, and eventually it was agreed that Archimedes would invite the captain to dinner so that the rest of the family could have a look at him. But when the others went to bed, Philyra sat for a while alone in the courtyard under the stars, playing upon the lute, and it was not Dionysios who filled her thoughts.
'I don't want you to think ill of me,' Marcus had told her, only the night before. 'Whatever happens, please believe that I've never wanted any harm to this house.'
She did believe it; she did not think ill of him. That morning his quiet admission had redefined courage for her. She realized that she no longer thought of him as a slave, and that when she thought of him as a free man, it was as a man she loved. A brave man, honorable and proud, who had- she could see it now- loved her.
'Remember once,' she sang, carefully picking the strings of the lute,
'Remember when,
I told you this holy word?
'The hour is fair, but fleet is the hour,
The hour outraces the swiftest bird.'
Look! It's scattered to earth, your flower.'
She suspected that for the rest of her life, when she remembered him it would be as something that went tragically wrong- an appointment missed, a letter mislaid, a person misunderstood with devastating and irremediable consequences. Already it was too late to retrieve what had gone by; the flower's spent petals were scattered to earth. She played on for a while, then put the lute away and went to bed.
That night a Roman force attacked the Syracusan seawall under cover of darkness. The extra guards Hieron
