'You don't want it to go missing?'
Hieron shook his head glumly. 'He'd realize. I just want to see the reply.' He turned back to his other letters. They were mostly business notes from within the city, but one caught his eye. He held up a hand to check Agathon just before the door-keeper left. 'Note from Archimedes himself,' he said; then, glancing through it, 'He says the three-talenter will be ready in another three days, and he invites me to stop at his house on my way back to the city after the test-firing, either for dinner or simply for wine and cakes.'
'He wants something,' said Agathon flatly.
'Good!' replied Hieron. 'He can have it.' He tapped the invitation against his desk. 'That other letter- delay it, until I've seen what he wants. Tell whoever was taking it to say it was mislaid or forgotten about until he came to clear the ship.'
Agathon looked at his master dubiously. 'Don't you think you're spending more on this man than he deserves?'
Hieron gave him an exasperated look. 'Aristion,' he said, 'think a minute. I was toying earlier with the idea of a naval assault on Messana. If I wanted to do that, I would need to lash ships together and build artillery platforms- each stable for the weight of catapult or they'd come to bits when the shooting started. And I would need counters to the Messanan harbor defenses, which means I'd need somebody to reckon their distance and strength before we reached them. Then I'd need siege ladders- and they'd have to be the right height or we'd have a lot of men dead for nothing. I'd need battering rams that were strong enough to do the job and light enough to move in quickly. In other words, the whole success or failure of such a raid would depend upon my engineer. Now, Kallippos is good, but I wouldn't gamble my whole fleet on his getting it right. With Archimedes, it would be no gamble. Top-quality engineering can make the difference between victory and defeat. No, I do not think I am spending too much on it.'
'Oh,' said Agathon, abashed.
'You and Philistis,' Hieron went on, smiling, 'don't like Archimedes because you think he's been disrespectful to me.'
'And he has been!' said Agathon warmly. 'The other morning-'
'Aristion! If somebody came and arrested you, I'd be disrespectful!'
Agathon, who had not thought of it this way, grunted sourly.
'He has, in fact, treated me exactly as I would wish. And he told me I was a parabola. I think that's the most unusual compliment I've ever been given. I might have it engraved upon my tomb.'
'If you say so,' replied Agathon, who had no idea what a parabola was and remained unconvinced. After a moment he asked, in a low voice, 'And the naval assault?'
Hieron shook his head, turning back to his letters. 'Can't do it without knowing where the Romans are and what the Carthaginians would do if it worked. But it's still true about top-quality engineering. If it hadn't been for our catapults, the Romans would still be camped by the north wall and living off our farmers' lands.'
The three-talenter wish you joy was installed in the Hexapylon precisely on time. Archimedes was not pleased with it. It was heavy to pivot, the loading mechanism was finicky, and the range was, he felt, short of what it could have been. Everyone else was delighted with the machine, however- the biggest catapult in the world! — and at the test-firing that afternoon a great cheer arose when the first massive stone crashed into the field where Romans had died only the week before. The king's son, Gelon, had asked to go with his father to see the spectacle, and his shrill cheer rose above all the others.
All the way back to the city the little boy talked excitedly to Archimedes, leaning down from the saddle of his father's horse to offer his own ideas for improving the defenses of Syracuse. Archimedes, who was sidling toward the moment when he must ask the king for his sister's hand in marriage like a dog toward a scorpion, found the child's chatter both an irritation and a relief. At least it was easier than talking to Hieron. Even if he hadn't been oppressed by the awful imminence of his outrageous request, Archimedes would have found Hieron's company wearing, for the king kept trying to persuade him to borrow a horse. Archimedes regarded horses as large, dangerous, bad-tempered animals that were very likely to throw you off and trample you, and he stayed on his own feet.
The house near the Lion Fountain had been prepared for the royal visit almost out of recognition. Arata and Philyra had been horrified to learn that Archimedes had invited the king to have cakes and wineit had been shocking enough to have such an eminent person turn up at the wake, but at least then there'd been no necessity of providing entertainment proper to the guest's station. Since Hieron could not be uninvited, however, they had set to work to uphold the family honor. The house had been swept, freshly daubed, and garlanded, and all the laundry boards and buckets removed from the courtyard, which looked quite empty and rather desolate. Sesame cakes purchased from the finest confectioner in Syracuse were oozing honey onto the best Tarentine pottery plates in the dining room, and wine from the best vintner trembled darkly in the antique red-figure mixing bowl. The slaves had been provided with new clothes, and when Hieron arrived, they stood scrubbed and uncomfortable by the door to meet him. The king, looking at them, saw that he was going to have to work at it if the visit was to be a success.
He detailed one of his attendants to take his horse down to the nearest public square and look after it, sent the rest back to the Ortygia, and came into the house accompanied merely by his son and by Dionysios, who had been invited to the afternoon gathering in lieu of a dinner party. Arata and Philyra, who were permitted to show their faces at an informal daytime occasion such as this, exchanged stilted greetings with the guests and offered them cakes and wine. There was a move to the dining room, and the slaves hurried anxiously about offering food and drink. Then Hieron said casually to Archimedes, 'I've been hearing more from Alexandria about this water-snail of yours. Could you tell me how it works?'
'I have the prototype,' Archimedes replied, delighted to escape the formalities. 'Marcus put it somewhere. Mar-' He stopped in the middle of the summons and went crimson.
'I think it's in the storeroom,' Philyra said quickly, though she too reddened.
The water-snail was fetched, and the laundry boards and buckets emerged with it to reclaim their rightful domain. Gelon, who'd been silently stuffing himself with sesame cakes, abandoned all thought of sweets and descended upon this new toy as soon as it was set up. He was invited to turn it, and after being corrected and advised to turn it slowly, he watched the water run out of the machine's head with unalloyed delight.
'By Apollo!' said Hieron softly. He crouched down beside his son and gazed at the machine. He had asked about the device to set Archimedes at ease, but now, at the sight of it, forgot that he'd ever needed any reason but his own delight in ingenious contrivances. 'I think that's the cleverest thing I have ever seen in my life,' he said, and looked up at the maker of it with his son's beaming childish pleasure.
Within minutes, all the remaining stiffness was gone. The king of Syracuse, his son, and soon the captain of the Ortygia garrison as well crouched in the courtyard and played with the water-snail. Gelon got wet- something he greatly enjoyed on a hot summer day. Dionysios also got wet, and had to be fetched rags to dry his armor quickly before it tarnished. Philyra giggled at the sight of the scarlet-cloaked captain polishing himself, and he looked up at her in embarrassment- then grinned at the look in her eyes. A plate of cakes was put down on the ground so that the guests could help themselves, and then, inevitably, stepped upon: Sosibia could be heard shortly afterward in the back of the house, scolding Chrestos, who was the culprit. 'Oh, don't be hard on the boy!' Hieron called to her. 'It's our own fault for sitting on the ground.'
When the fascination of the water-snail began to thin, Philyra brought some of her brother's other machines out from the jumble in the storeroom: an astronomical instrument, a hoist, a set of gears that did nothing except turn each other. 'That was supposed to be part of a lifting machine,' Archimedes admitted shamefacedly, 'but when you attach the weight to them, they jam.'
'You built a machine that didn't work?' asked Dionysios, much amused. 'I am shocked.'
'He was only about fourteen!' protested Philyra. 'I always loved them anyway.' Fondly she rotated the top wheel. 'See? They all turn at different speeds.'
'Gelon loves them too,' said Gelon's father dryly, observing the boy's expression of open-mouthed greed.
Archimedes cleared his throat. 'Well,' he said. 'Umm- Gelon son of Hieron, would you like them?'
Gelon looked up at him with shining eyes, nodded, and grabbed the gears.
'Gelonion,' said Hieron sharply. 'What do you say?'
'Thank you!' said the boy, with all the requisite warmth.
