'Look what Archimedes gave me!' he crowed. 'See, you turn this wheel and all the wheels in the box go around, only some of them go that way and some of them go that way, and look, this little one goes faster! Look!'
Delia glanced at it, then looked at her brother. She could tell from Hieron's face that Archimedes had indeed asked his question, but whatever answer Hieron might have given was masked under the usual bright pleasantness. Hieron smiled at her, as impenetrably as ever, then said to his son, 'Why don't you go show that to your mother, Gelonion? I need to speak to Aunt Delia a moment.'
Gelon ran off to show the gears to his mother, and Hieron gestured toward his library.
In the small quiet room, the king lit the lamps, then sat down on the couch and asked Delia to do the same. She obeyed stiffly, still rigid with angry despair at her own impotence. 'Archimedes asked you if he could marry me?' she demanded, before Hieron had a chance to speak.
He nodded, taken aback by her urgency.
'He said he would,' said Delia. She glanced down at her hands, which were pressed against one another tightly, and then looked up and met her brother's eyes. 'I didn't ask him to,' she declared proudly. 'I'll marry whoever you want me to, Hieron. I'll be glad if it's useful to you. I swear it by Hera and all the immortal gods, I'd rather stay a virgin all my life than marry against your will.'
His expression suddenly softened into one of profound affection. 'Oh, Delion!' he exclaimed, and caught both those angry hands in his own. 'Sweetest life, you've always wanted to make yourself precious to me, and never believed that you already are.'
The tenderness when she had been braced for anger completely overthrew her. She began to cry, and drew her hands away to use in a vain attempt to press back the tears.
He made no attempt to retrieve them: he knew her, and knew that she was furious with herself for crying, and didn't want more sympathy. Instead he went on quietly, 'What I told Archimedes was that I would talk to you and make certain that you knew your own mind on this. He seemed to think it was something you wanted too.'
The tears came faster. 'Not if you don't want it.'
'Sister,' he said with a touch of impatience, 'I don't want to marry the man. What I am trying to find out is whether you want to marry him.'
She gulped several times, then got out, 'Yes, but not against your wishes!'
'Leave my wishes out of it for the moment! I want to be sure you understand what it is you could expect from such a husband. You like his flute-playing, but there's more to marriage than music. You know that the man's whole soul is devoted to pure mathematics, don't you? If you marry him, he will regularly get drunk on inspiration and forget everything else, including you. He will never be home on time, or remember to buy you a gift on a feast day, or pick up whatever it may be in the market that you particularly asked him to collect. He will take no interest in your everyday life at all. Asking him to manage your estate would be like expecting a dolphin to pull a cart: you would have to take charge of everything yourself. He will also never notice when you're upset about something, unless you tell him so, and then he'll be baffled by it. He will disappoint and infuriate you, many, many times, in many, many things.'
She stared at him, shocked out of her tears. She could see at once that it was all quite true- indeed, Archimedes had warned her about it himself. And yet, she had seen and heard enough of him to know that it was not the whole truth- that for all his love for the honey-voiced siren, he had a warm nature and an uncomplicated devotion to his family. And the prospect of a thousand petty frustrations in no way clouded that great prospect of living in continual dance upon infinity's edge. She lifted her head and said determinedly, 'He might disappoint me in small things, but never in great ones. As for the Muses, they are great and wonderful divinities, and I worship them myself. And'- her voice rose- 'and I don't need him to manage my estate. I'd like to learn how to do that; I'd like to take charge of things myself. I'd like'- she grasped helplessly at the air- 'not to have to sit and wait all the time!'
'Ah,' said Hieron. 'So you know what he's like and you still want to marry him? Listen, then. Say I was looking to buy Philistis a present. I could buy her an olive press for one of her farms, or a vat for making fish sauce, or perhaps a new vineyard- all useful, desirable things, and no doubt she'd thank me for them. But you know as well as I that if I gave her a silk cloak with tapestry borders, her eyes would light up and she'd kiss me. Now, you could have brought me a kinsman with influence, or one with connections or money, and I would have thanked you. But when Archimedes asked for you, he offered me what his mind could conceive and his hands could shape- and Philistis was never as pleased with a silk cloak as I am with that. Sister, you could not have chosen a man who would please me better.'
She looked at him as Archimedes had, with disbelief that gave way to amazement, and then to joy. Then she flung her arms about him and kissed him.
The announcement of the betrothal, which was made the following day, for a time eclipsed even the Romans as a topic of conversation in the city. It was generally agreed that the king had exchanged his sister for the world's biggest catapults, which the citizens of Syracuse considered very public-spirited of him- though some of the women felt that it was a bit hard on the sister. Queen Philistis was shocked, but rallied quickly, and at once set to work trying to cast a gloss of respectability over the match, and managed to win over the wives of the aristocracy and even her horrified father. Little Gelon was entirely delighted. Agathon disapproved strongly.
In the house in the Achradina, the reaction was one of stupefaction verging on panic. 'But Medion!' wailed Philyra. 'What are we going to do about the house? You can't bring the king's sister to live here!'
Archimedes glanced about the house where he had been born, then said reluctantly, 'We'll move. There's a house on the Ortygia that's part of Delia's inheritance.'
'I don't want to live on the Ortygia!' protested Philyra angrily.
'Dionysios has to,' Archimedes said in surprise, 'and I thought…' He stopped, puzzled, at his sister's glare. Philyra and Arata had both liked Dionysios, and had told Archimedes that he could give his consent to the match at an appropriate time. He did not know what was inappropriate about the present, but both his mother and his sister frowned at unseemly haste.
'Now it's the house itself!' exclaimed Philyra miserably; she was nearly in tears. 'Medion, why did you have to change everything so fast?'
'What was I supposed to do?' he demanded in exasperation. 'Refuse to build catapults when the city needs them? Pretend to be stupid? Ignore Delia?'
'I don't know!' shouted Philyra. 'I don't know, but it's all happened too fast!' And she flounced off to cry.
Arata wanted to cry, too, but refrained, and merely looked about the old house with a lingering sadness. She had been happy here, but she'd known for some time that they would have to move. That had become clear to her as soon as she understood that her son's talents were something kings would compete for. She was resigned to the move, braced to learn a new way of life. She found the prospect of a royal daughter-in-law alarming, but her son was so profoundly happy about the match that she thought the girl must be agreeable when you got to know her. She just wished, with Philyra, that all the changes had not come at once. In June her husband had been alive and she had expected her quiet middle-class existence to go on forever; now it was August, her son was to marry the king's sister, her daughter the captain of the Ortygia garrison, the family was to become unimaginably wealthyand her husband was dead. That last brutal fact still numbed her, and rendered all the other changes almost insuperable.
'I thought she'd be happy if we were all living on the Ortygia!' Archimedes irritably protested to his mother. 'I thought she'd want us to be close by!'
'Yes, darling,' said Arata patiently. 'I'm sure she will be. It just is a lot of changes all at once, and we're all still upset over your father.'
At that her son came over and put his arms around her. 'I wish he were alive to see us.'
Arata leaned her head against the bones of his shoulder and imagined Phidias watching his son's wedding. The image of his passionate delight released the tears. 'He would have been so proud,' she whispered, and resigned herself to going on.
In the Athenian quarry, Marcus was informed of the announcement by the guards.
The men of the Ortygia garrison had at first treated him harshly and looked for opportunities to punish him: they knew that he had helped Straton's killers, and Straton had had many friends. However, Marcus was the only one among the prisoners who spoke really fluent Greek, and his services as an interpreter were called upon dozens
