Carthaginians in Sicily, and to pay a war indemnity of a hundred talents of silver, the payments to be spread over twenty-five years. The latest batch of Roman prisoners were returned without ransom.
The treaty was formally concluded with an exchange of oaths and sacrifices offered to the gods. And its conclusion was celebrated on both sides, with feasting and heartfelt relief. Rome could now concentrate on Carthage, and Syracuse had steered her way through the channel to peace.
When the Romans were dismantling their siege works in preparation for their return to Messana, two men of the second legion went to their tribune and asked permission to go into the city to pay a debt. Since one of them was a centurion of the legion and the other his second-in-command, permission was granted. So Quintus Fabius and Gaius Valerius walked slowly up the long road to the city they had left by night the year before.
It was an August morning, and around them the land baked in the summer sun. The open fields were loud with cicadas, the road white with dust. Fabius tapped his centurion's vine-stem stick unhappily against his thigh as he walked: he had not wanted to come, but Gaius needed an interpreter. He was obliged to Gaius, in an ill-defined, guilty sort of way. He had caused Gaius grief. Fabius' promotions had come rapidly over the past year, and he had taken advantage of them to haul Gaius up through the ranks after him, out of the same obscure sense of obligation.
They reached the Epipolae gate of the fort of the Euryalus, where the Syracusan guardsmen eyed them with suspicion. Fabius explained their errand in his clumsy Greek, and they were allowed to pass, though they were required to leave their arms at the gate. One of the guards escorted them into the city: the peace was still very new, and they were not trusted, least of all at the house to which they were bound.
They crossed the limestone scrubland of the plateau, passed the huts of the Tyche quarter, and descended from the heights into the marble grace of the New Town. They both glanced at the cliff which towered over the theater to their left, the edge of the plateau where the quarries were situated. But their escort led them through the New Town and into the citadel of the Ortygia.
The house they were looking for lay on the north side of the Ortygia, not far from the sea wall. It was a large house, and had been repainted not long before: the front was a crisp pattern of red and white, unfaded by sun and unmarked by dust. The guardsman from the Euryalus knocked upon the pristine door.
Gaius Valerius stood on the sunny doorstep, listening to the guardsman explaining and a boy doorkeeper answering doubtfully, all in the rapid musical language which he could not understand. He had been eager for this meeting, but now that it was almost upon him, he wondered why he bothered. Because of Marcus. What good would it do Marcus? What good would it do anyone? Still, he clutched the small package he had brought with him and asked Fabius, 'What's the delay?'
'The slave says his master's working, and doesn't like to be disturbed when he's working,' replied Fabius. He interpolated a comment into the flow of conversation between the slave boy and the guardsman, and both turned to look at him. The slave blinked, then shrugged, and stood back, opening the door for all three of them.
'What did you say?' asked Gaius, stepping into a cool marble hall.
'That we only wanted to return his master's property,' said Fabius.
The boy walked ahead of them, along a colonnade which enclosed a garden, green and cool after the hot streets, then through a narrow passage, past another, kitchen, garden, and into a workroom which might have been part of another house entirely. The floor was packed clay, and the walls were stacked high with timbers. In the center of the room stood a sinister-looking box more than half the height of a man, formed of wood and lined with lead; sitting on a corner of it was a basin with two large neat holes in it, and scattered about it were oddments of leather, wood, and bone and a blacksmith's bellows. Whatever the device was, however, it had been abandoned, and the only person in the room was a young man who crouched on a low stool not far from it, gazing intently into a box of pale sand and sucking on the hinge of a set of compasses. Gaius had never actually seen his face before, though he had once heard him play the flute, but he knew at once who it was. The magician who could number the sands and make water run uphill, Syracuse's extra army, his brother's onetime master.
'Sir,' said the slave boy, with great respect. He had been purchased only the winter before, and he was in awe of his new master.
Archimedes lifted one hand in a wait-a-minute gesture and did not take his gaze off the pattern in the sand.
The boy looked at the visitors and shrugged helplessly.
Gaius cleared his throat, then called out, 'Archimedes?'
Archimedes made an indistinct reply around the compasses- then suddenly stiffened. His head jerked up, a smile of delight on his face. For a moment Gaius found himself meeting a pair of bright brown eyes that sought his own eagerly- and then the delight faded, and the eyes became puzzled.
'Oh,' said Archimedes. He got to his feet, glanced down at his interrupted calculation, then back at the visitors, questioningly now.
'Excuse us,' said Fabius stiffly. 'I am Quintus Fabius, a centurion of the second legion; this is Gaius Valerius. We are come to speak to Archimedes son of Phidias.'
'You're Marcus' brother!' Archimedes exclaimed, looking at the second man. He could see the family resemblance now, in the wide shoulders and the stubborn line of the jaw, though Gaius Valerius was slighter and fairer than his brother. 'You are welcome to my house, and good health to you! When you called my name I thought for a moment it was Marcus. You sound just like him.'
Gaius just stared. Fabius turned to his companion and translated, which took Archimedes aback: he had somehow expected Marcus' brother to know Greek.
Gaius nodded, then stepped forward and held out a long slim box wrapped in black cloth. 'I came to return this,' he said quietly. 'I think it was yours.'
Archimedes stared at the box, recognizing the shape, and knowing with cold sick grief that something he had hoped would not happen had happened, and happened long before. He did not take the box, even when the translation was finished and Gaius took another step toward him, offering it again.
'Marcus is dead,' he said flatly, looking up from the shrouded flute case to meet the eyes of Marcus' brother.
There was no need for translation. Gaius nodded.
Archimedes took the flute case and sat down on his stool. He pulled at the knots that secured the wrapping, then bit the cords and broke them. He unwrapped the case, opened it, and took out his tenor aulos. The wood was dry to the touch, and the slide, when he moved it, squeaked stiffly. A cracked reed was still fixed to the mouthpiece, and the tarnished clamp had left a green stain upon its dry gray side. He unfastened the clamp and pulled the reed out, then began rubbing the mouthpiece clean on the cloth the case had been shrouded in. His hands knew what they were doing; his heart was bemused and numb.
'I don't play,' said Gaius. 'And I did not want it to stay silent forever.'
Archimedes nodded. He spat on the mouthpiece and rubbed it again, then set the instrument down in his lap. He wiped his face with a bare arm, and realized at that that he was crying. He looked back at Gaius. 'Your brother was an extraordinary man,' he said. 'A man of great integrity. I had hoped that he was still alive.'
Gaius' face convulsed with pain. 'He died last year, the day after your people returned him. Appius Claudius had him sentenced to the fustuarium.'
Fabius hesitated over the last word, unable to translate it. 'To the beating to death,' he supplied eventually.
'Hieron told me that Marcus had offended the consul,' said Archimedes wretchedly. 'He said that he spoke to Marcus before he sent him back, and urged him to tell whatever lies would save his life. But Marcus was never any good at lying.'
'He was a true Roman,' agreed Gaius proudly.
The brown eyes fixed him, uncomprehending and angry. 'Oh? The people who killed him called themselves true Romans. If they were, he wasn't.'
'Appius Claudius isn't a man, let alone a Roman!' exclaimed Gaius hotly.
'You can't disown him that easily!' replied Archimedes. 'The Roman people elected him and followed him. His successors are now obliging my city to pay for the war he and his friends started and forced upon us, the war that isn't over yet. Rome hasn't disowned him, and nor can you! Your people murdered Marcus. Gods! Barbarians!'
Gaius flinched, though Fabius, adding the last phrases to his translation, merely looked contemptuous. Behind
