them, the guardsman from the Euryalus, who had stood watching the two Romans with his spear balanced on guard, grinned. Archimedes looked back down at the flute, trying to calm himself. He fingered the dry wood, and remembered Marcus stroking it. Marcus had never had time to learn it properly. Waste, waste, stupid waste!
'I loved my brother,' said Gaius slowly. 'And I wanted…'
He hesitated. He did not know how to speak to this man. He wished Archimedes had indeed been the white- bearded sage of his imaginings; he would have known then how to conduct himself. This young man, this foreigner who angrily condemned his own people, confused Gaius, muddling his reactions. He remembered the two voices in the dark courtyard of the house in the Achradina: this one, quick, drink-slurred, questioning and commanding; and the other voice, now silenced. He had been unable to tell then, and could not tell now, what connection bound them, what history of emotions they assumed. He took another step forward and squatted in front of the figure on the stool, trying to meet the eyes, silently raging against the need to pause, and wait at each phrase for Fabius to alter his words and render them comprehensible; longing for direct communication.
'I did not have much time to talk to Marcus last year,' he said. 'A little while when we escaped; a little while more before and after the trial. But he did talk a little about Egypt, and about you and your household, and about… about Greek things. Mechanics, mathematics- things I have no knowledge of. I do not know very much about what he was like, the last years of his life. I want to know. I lost him when he was sixteen, and almost half his life is missing for me. Please, tell me what you can. I ask it as a favor, as the brother of a man who was your slave, and for whom, it seems, you had some affection.'
Archimedes sighed, still fingering the flute. 'What can I say? He was, as you say, my slave, and for most of the time I knew him I took him entirely for granted. One does not ask a slave what he's thinking or feeling: one just expects him to get on with his work. My father bought him when I was about nine. We paid a hundred and eighty drachmae for him- it was during the Pyrrhic War, and slaves were cheap. We had a vineyard then, and we needed a worker to help get in the vintage, and a farm- the tenants mostly managed it on their own, but we usually tried to help with the harvest, as one does. So your brother did that, and he did the heavy work at the house, and occasionally helped the neighbors. Marcus hated being a slave- I think I always did know that- but I think apart from that he wasn't unhappy. He lived in the house with me and my parents and my sister and our other slaves. My father was a gentle man and a good master. Your brother didn't seem to dislike his work, and he enjoyed other things. We always played a lot of music, and when we went out to concerts and the theater we usually chose Marcus to carry things, because we knew he enjoyed music. Machines, too- yes, he did like them. I was always building them, and he was always interested in them. He'd help hammer and saw, and he'd make suggestions- tell me that what the next hoist needed was a way to fix it halfway up and so forth, and then when I'd worked out how to make it do that, he'd grin about it. So we liked each other.'
'When I was nineteen, my father gave Marcus to me, and we went off to Alexandria for three years. I was not a good master. Marcus would say, 'Sir, we're out of money,' and I'd say, 'Oh well,' and forget about it, leaving him to sort out how we were to live without it. He was very resourceful and always amazingly honest. When he took money out of my purse- he had to, I never remembered to give it to him- he'd always tell me how much and for what, even though I never paid the least attention, and he always used to remind me who I owed money to. And he used to mend clothes and make sandals himself, and he'd do odd jobs for the tradesmen in exchange for this and that we needed. He never complained. But he never liked Alexandria- at least, that was the impression I had. He was always telling me we ought to go home. But the last year we were in Egypt I designed a machine to lift water, and he told me once that he'd enjoyed building that more than any other work he'd ever done.'
'The water-snail,' said Gaius.
Archimedes smiled at the word, which, being Greek, needed no translation. 'I'm not surprised that he told you about that: he loved that machine. We didn't make them for long. I got tired of them. He was furious with me about it; he kept telling me we could make a fortune with the god-hated things. He never saw the point of geometrynot that he admitted to me, anyway.'
'He seems to have…' Gaius hesitated: told you what to do a lot hovered on his lips, but he was afraid of offending, and changed it to '… spoken his mind to you freely.'
Archimedes snorted. 'He always spoke his mind freely. That's what he died for, isn't it?' He looked back at the flute, and continued, 'When the war started, we came home. He was… unhappy about the war. We didn't know he was Roman- if anyone asked, he'd say he was Sabine or Marsian or Samnite or whatever- but we knew he had some loyalties to Rome. He kept swearing, though, that he would never do anything to harm the city or our house.' Archimedes paused, then added, 'Of course, he would have been even more unwilling to harm Rome. And you know how quickly he decided to help you. But afterward he kept saying that he was sorry he had abused my trust. And he was very sorry over the man you killed escaping- a fine man, and a friend.' He raised his head and looked directly at Fabius. 'If you are the Fabius who was with him that night, he said he was wrong to have given you a knife. And he said that he thought you would have killed me if you'd known who I was.'
Fabius looked back a moment in silence; he did not translate the addition. 'It was our duty to escape if we could,' he said at last. 'As for the other, yes, I would have killed you. We had heard of your catapult-making, and I thought you were likely to cost Rome dearly. As you have. Many men are dead, and the peace we achieved has gained us little, because of you and your catapults. I do not say you were wrong to defend your city, but I would have been right to defend mine.'
'No one was attacking Rome,' Archimedes pointed out coldly. 'Your reasoning puts the bully on the same level as the victim who fights back. I find it fallacious. Nor do I understand how your consul could justify putting a brave and loyal man to death merely for speaking his mind.'
Gaius had been listening to this incomprehensible exchange anxiously, and now cleared his throat nervously. Fabius resumed his translation with the complaint against the consul. Gaius Valerius looked away with an uneasy hunch of the shoulders that reminded Archimedes suddenly and painfully of his brother.
'The consul was a weak man angry,' said Gaius. 'As soon as he found out who Marcus was, he had him arrested and tried. He was the judge and the principal accuser. Nobody would have put Marcus to death for what happened at Asculum. Not even at the time- he was sixteen when it happened, and he'd been in the legion only three weeks! But our father had taught us to expect harsh punishments, and Marcus was always hard on himself: he'd convinced himself that he deserved to die, and he'd expected to. But even Claudius couldn't rely on Asculum after so many years. The big charge he had was that Marcus had dishonored the Roman name. Through accepting slavery, you see, and through saying that the Romans were wrong to attack Syracuse.'
'And he wouldn't lie and say he thought they were right?' asked Archimedes, with resignation.
Gaius nodded wearily. 'I think he meant to. But when it came to the point, he was angry, and he didn't. The consul had accused him of other things as well. Foul things.'
Archimedes looked at him, frowning, and Gaius went on reluctantly, 'Of prostituting himself to Greeks. To King Hieron, and to you, among others.' Archimedes flushed angrily, and Gaius went on hastily, 'Stupid accusations, but he had no way to refute them, except to get angry. So he got angry, and did not tell any lies, and the consul sentenced him to death.'
Gaius reached over to the flute case and took something else from it: a fat black flask about the size of a child's fist, empty. 'I was very glad that he had this,' he went on, low-voiced. 'The legions knew that Marcus was innocent- but since the beating had to take place, the fact that no one wanted to strike only meant that it would last longer. But in the morning, when they went to take him out of the tent where they were keeping him, he was already dead. He had this with him, this and the flute. Your gifts, weren't they?'
Archimedes shook his head. 'Only the flute,' he said soberly. 'That was from Hieron. He told me that he'd given it to Marcus, just in case.'
Gaius looked at him in surprise and doubt, then ran a finger around the top of the flask. 'A gift from the king of Syracuse? I am indebted to the king. But I don't understand how King Hieron knew Marcus, or why he bothered.'
'He knew your brother through me,' replied Archimedes. 'And he wanted Marcus to come back to Syracuse after the war and be his Latin interpreter. It would have been a good position, and Marcus would have filled it very well. Hieron told me about it. Your news will grieve him too.' Archimedes got to his feet, holding the flute carefully in both hands. 'It is waste, and nothing but waste. I don't know what your people will do to the world.'
Gaius rose too, and bowed his head in a gesture that was neither denial nor acceptance. 'Marcus was a Roman,' he said. 'I would ask you, sir, to remember that of us as well. But I don't want to quarrel with you. I am grateful for your kindness in speaking with me, and grateful also for your kindness to my brother while he lived. He
