The Sand-Reckoner

14

Delia was waiting for her brother when he came home.

All afternoon she sat in the first courtyard, where she could hear it when people entered the house. She tried to read, and then tried to play the flute, but she could not concentrate, and in the end she simply sat, watching the movement of the leaves in the garden and listening to the small sounds of the house. A kind of despairing rage built in her as the slow hours wore away. Two men she cared for were elsewhere, deciding her fate and perhaps quarreling about it, and she merely sat helpless, a dead weight upon the earth.

At last, toward evening, the door opened on the sound of Gelon's shrill and excited voice. Delia jumped to her feet and ran across the garden- then forced herself to walk into the entrance hall.

Gelon was showing Agathon his new toy; when his aunt appeared, he at once called her to look at it as well. "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 of times a day. It was difficult for the guards to avoid talking to him, and, after a perfectly ordinary conversation, hard for them to maintain the same pitch of hatred. The announcement of the betrothal helped again: the garrison were as interested in it as the rest of the city, and the opportunity to question Archimedes' slave about it was too good to be missed. Marcus, once he'd got over the initial shock, willingly spoke of flutes and Alexandria, and insisted that catapults had not been the king's first concern. "Archimedes was always going to build as many of them as were needed," he said. "The king didn't need to give him the girl for that. After he built the Welcomer, the king tried to pay him two hundred drachmae more than the price agreed, and he turned it down. 'I'm Syracusan,' he said. 'I won't profit from Syracuse's need.' "

The guards were impressed with this, though one asked cynically, "And what did you think of that?"

"I was pleased about it," said Marcus levelly. "I've always believed a man ought to love his own city."

When the guards had gone back to their posts, Marcus leaned back against the shed wall and smiled over the news. He remembered Archimedes beaming when he received Delia's warning, and thought of Delia applauding madly at the demonstration of mechanics. His own sense of pride and delight was curiously shapeless: it was neither a friend's nor a servant's, and though it had a touch of elder brother in it, it was not that either. As a loyal Roman he should have wanted Archimedes out of Syracuse, but the shapeless delight held no regrets. The boy had done well, and good luck to him!

The following morning, the tours began. Thirty prisoners were shackled together in groups of ten and marched together down to the harbor, where they were shown the sea walls, the merchant ships moored along the quay, trading freely despite the war, and the naval vessels drawn up in the ship sheds. Marcus was brought along to interpret. "If there's danger of a naval assault," the file leader in charge of the party informed the prisoners, "the whole of the Great Harbor can be closed with a boom- but your people don't have the ships for it, do you?"

"Why are they showing us this?" one of the prisoners asked Marcus.

"You understand that, surely?" replied Marcus in disgust. "It's so that you can tell the consul that he can't take Syracuse by starvation."

In the afternoon, another twenty prisoners were selected and taken along the walls to the fort of the Euryalus, where they were shown the catapults. Two of the hundred-pounders were there, and the two-talenter copied from Good Health. "We'll have a three-talenter as well, in a few days," the fort captain told them with relish. "The archimechanic is working on it now."

"I thought it was going to the Hexapylon," said Marcus.

The fort captain stared in surprise, and the file leader murmured an explanation of who Marcus was. The fort captain gave him a resentful look. "The Hexapylon got the first one," he admitted. "But we've been told that ours will be better."

"You should have asked him to do you a two-hundred-pounder instead," said Marcus.

The fort captain hesitated, torn between the proud desire to ignore a slave's comment and the itch to have a bigger catapult than the Hexapylon. The itch won. "Could he?" he asked eagerly.

"He certainly could," said Marcus, "but if he's already halfway through a three-talenter, it's a bit late to ask him."

"Tell them he could do a two-hundred-pounder," commanded the file leader, waving at the other prisoners.

Marcus nodded, turned to his fellow prisoners, and flatly reported that the fort was expecting a three-talenter and asking for a two-hundred-pounder next.

"Built by your former master, the flute player?" asked one of the prisoners.

"Yes," agreed Marcus. "He can do it, believe me."

The prisoners looked at the ammunition heaped beside the fort's towers- hundred-pound shot, two-talent shot- and sagged. "Why are they showing us this?" asked one angrily.

"So that we can tell the consul," said Marcus. "So that he knows he can't take Syracuse by storm."

"And why do they want us to tell him that?"

Marcus stood silent for a minute, looking at the prisoners in their chains and the guardsmen in their armor. "So that he'll offer terms for peace," he said, and knew with a lift of the heart that it was true.

There were more tours the next day: one to the Ortygia, and one to the Hexapylon, where the three-talenter was demonstrated. Not all the prisoners were fit enough to be dragged about the city, but all of those capable of walking were shown the strength and splendor of Syracuse. They discussed it unhappily among themselves afterward, and called on Marcus for more details. When he first appeared, they had suspected him of being a planted spy, but the initial hostility of the guards and his own openness about his sympathies had convinced them that he was what he claimed to be. Like Fabius, they thought he'd gone very Greek, but they accepted that he'd been imprisoned with them because of his Roman loyalties, and believed most of what he told them.

Early the following morning, two guards he didn't know came into the shed, went down the row of prisoners until they reached Marcus, then unlocked the leg irons and told him to get up. Marcus rose slowly and stood silent, waiting for further orders, and one of the men cuffed him. "The king wants you," he said. "Come on!"

He stooped quickly and picked up the cased aulos before he obeyedjust in case he never came back.

The two men marched him down to the gate house, where they locked an iron collar about his neck and fastened shackles to his wrists; he managed to slip the flute case through his belt before they snatched it away. They attached a chain to the collar, as though he were a dog, and tested it by jerking it so hard he staggered. "I'm not going to try to escape," he told them mildly when he'd recovered his footing.

"You don't need to be rough," agreed the file leader in charge of the quarry, who was watching. "He's a philhellene."

Marcus blinked at the title: so, the guards reckoned he'd gone very Greek as well? But the strangers only glared, and one said harshly, "He helped kill Straton," at which the file leader could only shrug.

The two new Ortygians led Marcus out the gate into the street, then turned right toward the New Town. Marcus had expected them to go straight toward the Ortygia, and was nearly jerked off his feet again by the chain. "Where are we going?" he asked bemusedly, but they did not answer.

They passed the theater and climbed up onto the Epipolae plateau, here an unpeopled region of dry scrub, and he realized that they were once more walking toward the Euryalus. He glanced sideways at his guards and decided not to ask any questions. He would discover the purpose of this journey soon enough.

The Euryalus stood at the highest point of the limestone island of Epipolae, a massive castle from which the land dropped steeply on two sides. They entered the courtyard to find it full of soldiers- a full battalion of two hundred and fifty-six men. Tethered near the outer gate was a white horse Marcus recognized, its harness draped with purple and studded with gold. His guards marched him over to the gate tower, then up into a guardroom. King Hieron was indeed there, discussing something with a number of high-ranking officers, none of whom Marcus knew. His guards struck the butts of their spears on the floor and stood to attention, and the king glanced over.

"Ah," said Hieron. "Good." He crossed the room, drawing red-cloaked officers after him like a ship trailing seaweed, and stopped before Marcus. He regarded the shackles with raised eyebrows. "You've been enthusiastic with the chains, haven't you?" he remarked to the guards. "But I suppose it's for the best. Marcus Valerius, how's your voice?"

"My voice, lord?" repeated Marcus in surprise.

"I hope you haven't got a cold," said Hieron. "You look as though you have a fine pair of lungs. Are you usually able to make yourself heard when you need to?"

"Yes, lord," said Marcus. Images of screaming in a bronze bull darted wildly through his mind. He did not credit them, but they were there, nonetheless.

"Good. Your people have just decided to come back this way, and I want a few words with them. Since I don't speak Latin, I need an interpreter. You occurred to me as suitable. Are you willing to translate what I say, as accurately as you can?"

Marcus shifted with relief, and the chains rattled. Most educated Romans spoke Greek; the consul certainly must. That Hieron wanted an interpreter must mean that he intended to be understood by the troops as well as the officers. If the king really meant to return him with the other prisoners, to appear now as a Syracusan interpreter might cause problems. On the other hand, he was in chains, obviously a prisoner, and his people could hardly blame him for merely interpreting what his captors said. Besides, Hieron had treated him with mercy. He still felt little joy at the thought of freedom, but he could now believe that that joy would come in time, and something was owed for mercy. "I am willing, sir," he said.

Hieron smiled. He snapped his fingers and started into the courtyard. Marcus' guards escorted him after the king, and the officers trailed behind, scarlet cloaks flapping and gilded armor gleaming.

The king mounted his white charger, and with a blast of trumpets the gates of the Euryalus were thrown open. Hieron rode out first, followed by the officers in a spearhead formation, and Marcus found himself walking between his guards behind the royal horse, enclosed by the bright splendor of the mounted officers. After him came the Syracusan battalion, marching in close formation to the sweet call of the flute, the points of the long spears on their shoulders glittering in the sun, their shields a moving wall emblazoned endlessly with the sigmas that denoted their city.

Behind a horse and between two stocky guards, Marcus could not at first make out much of the scene before him, but as they descended from the heights, the road bent and gave him a clear line of sight, and he saw that the Roman army had indeed returned to Syracuse. A new camp had been laid out in the flat fertile land to the south of the plateau: a neat rectangle fortified by a ditch, bank, and palisade. A patch of crimson and gold before it caught his eye, and then a horseman only a little way down the hill. Then they rounded the bend, and the view was obscured by the sleek rump of Hieron's horse.

A few moments later the horseman he'd noticed trotted up the hill and fell in beside the king. Marcus saw that he was a herald, his status marked out by the gilded staff he was carrying across his knees, its length carved with intertwined serpents. Heralds were under the protection of the gods, and it was sacrilege to harm one. They could pass freely between hostile armies. This one must have been sent out earlier to arrange the parley.

"He was reluctant," the herald told Hieron, his voice almost drowned by the sound of the march.

"But he agreed?" asked the king.

"He could hardly refuse," replied the herald. "That's him, down at the front there. But he asks that you be brief."

"Lord," said one of the officers, driving his horse closer to the king's, "is it wise to ride right up to them?"

The king turned to him with a look of gentle reproof. "They don't break truces," he said. "That's one of their good points. Claudius may burn to kill me on the spot, but he's well aware that if he did, his own people would punish him for disgracing the Roman name and for offending the gods. They're very superstitious. We're quite safe as long as we keep the truce ourselves." He rode on at an easy walk.

Marcus followed, now feeling distinctly frightened. Appius Claudius, consul of Rome, was reluctantly and impatiently waiting for Hieron just down the hill. Marcus had always resisted any inclination to be impressed by rank, but a consul was the embodiment of the majesty of Rome, which he had been brought up to honor above all else. Being impressed by Claudius left him ashamed of himself. He glanced down at his tunic of unbleached linen, which had not been clean even before he wore it for a continuous week in prison, at his dusty legs and worn sandals. Stubbled from prison and in chains, he was going to interpret for a king before a consul. He looked up at Hieron's purple-cloaked back again, and realized that the king had probably chosen to have him looking as he did, chosen it to humiliate Rome. I am king of Syracuse. Here is a Roman citizen. He should never have forgotten the king's subtlety. Still- something was owed for mercy.

They came down from the hills, and there on the road before them were the horses of the opposing party. Behind the gold and crimson of the consul's party blazed the standards of the legions, and perhaps ten maniples stood behind them, drawn up in neat squares, one behind another as far as the wall of the palisade, which itself was lined with onlookers. The herald lifted his staff and trotted ahead, and the king's party rode unhurriedly after him, drawing rein at last when they were at a normal speaking distance. Hieron gestured for Marcus' guards to bring him forward, and from the king's side Marcus looked up shamefacedly at Syracuse's enemy and his own ruler.

Claudius, like Hieron, rode upon a white charger and wore a purple cloak. His breastplate and helmet were gilded and shone in the sun. To either side of him stood the lictors appointed to carry out his every order, red-cloaked and holding the bunch of rods and axes that symbolized his power to punish or to kill, and behind him on their own mounts sat the tribunes of his legions, cloaked in Phoenician crimson and armored in gold. Marcus gazed at them with a dry mouth. They seemed to him faceless, entirely defined by their own majesty.

"Good health to you, consul of the Romans!" said Hieron. "And to you also, men of Rome. I asked to speak with you this morning concerning those of your people whom we have taken prisoner." He touched Marcus' shoulder with his foot and added softly, "Translate!"

Marcus started, then hurriedly interpreted the king's words, shouting so that they would carry as far as possible.

Claudius' face darkened, and Marcus noticed for the first time what the consul actually looked like- a large man, with a heavy-jowled, fleshy face; only the nose stood out from it, a knife edge of bone. "What's this?" demanded the consul, in Greek, glaring directly at Marcus.

"One of those prisoners," said Hieron. "He speaks fluent Greek, and I have brought him to interpret for me, so that your officers may all understand what I say as well as you do yourself, O consul of the Romans. I have noticed in the past that their grasp of our language does not often equal your own." Again his foot touched Marcus' shoulder.

Marcus began to translate, but Claudius at once bellowed, in Latin, "Halt!" Marcus stopped, and Claudius glared at him for a moment, then said to Hieron, "He is not needed."

"Do you not want your men to understand me?" asked Hieron, in a tone of mild surprise. "Surely you do not wish to keep from them news of their friends and comrades?"

Marcus glanced at the faces behind the consul, and saw there a look of uneasiness and dissatisfaction: the Roman officers might not speak Greek as well as the consul, but they understood enough, and they were not happy that Claudius wanted to keep the fate of the prisoners a secret from the common soldiers. Claudius must have realized, because he scowled, then said, "I have nothing to keep from my loyal followers. Have the man interpret, if that is what you want, Tyrant. But he is not needed."

Hieron smiled. Marcus was all at once certain that Claudius had just made a bad mistake.

Hieron began speaking quickly and clearly, pausing after every phrase to allow Marcus to shout out his translation. "When Fate delivered some of your people into my hands, O Romans, it was my intention to return them to you quickly. I waited for you to send a herald to ask me what ransom I required, but you sent none. Indeed, you left Syracuse during the night, and left your people in my hands. Do you not care for them, O Consul?"

Claudius drew himself straight and glared at Hieron. "When Romans make war, Tyrant of Syracuse," he declared in Latin, "they accept the risk of death, and meet it bravely. Those who do not are no true men, and are not worth ransoming. However, as you may have heard, we have besieged and sacked the city of Echetla, your ally, and if you wish we will exchange the women of Echetla for our own people. The men we have killed."

"What does he say?" Hieron asked Marcus. Marcus hurriedly translated, wondering about Echetla. It lay to the northwest of Syracuse, and was indeed a Syracusan dependency, though to call it a city was to exaggerate the scale of the action: it was a fortified market town, no more, and had had no chance against a large Roman army. The Romans had undoubtedly been angry when they attacked it, furious over their losses before Syracuse and in no mood either to negotiate or to show mercy. He imagined the desperate defense, and the massacre of all the men able to bear arms, and felt sick.

"I had intended to ask no ransom for your people, Consul of the Romans," said Hieron reproachfully. "Like Pyrrhus of Epirus, at whose side I once fought, I would have returned them without fee. Like him, I honor the courage of the Roman people."

As Marcus translated this, for the first time a ripple of whispers spread out through the Roman ranks: men who'd heard what he said were repeating it to those who stood farther back. The mention of King Pyrrhus, Marcus thought, was well made: the Romans respected him more than any other enemy they had faced.

"Then return them, Tyrant, without so much talk!" snapped Claudius. "And we will keep the Echetlans as our slaves."

Hieron paused so that his next words would not be obscured, then replied, "As for the Echetlans, I will ransom them, O Consul, if you will name a price. But as for your own people, your answer has made me hesitate. I have treated my prisoners with all the respect due to brave enemies. They have been well fed and housed, and my own doctor has tended their wounds. Before you left here, though, I saw that you obliged their surviving comrades to pitch their tents outside your camp, and now it seems that you place little value upon the men I hold, since you reckon them equal to slaves. How have they offended you?"

"They lack courage," replied the consul harshly. "They surrendered. We Romans are not like you Greeks. When we fail, we expect to suffer the penalty."

"They lack courage?" repeated Hieron. "The wounds the men in my prison have suffered are the best testimony to their bravery, for few of them are uninjured. But the task they were set was impossible. Two maniples in loose formation without siege equipment were sent out in broad daylight against heavy artillery. They were ordered not to battle, but to execution! It astonished me that they nonetheless obeyed. What they lacked was certainly not courage, but a wise commander."

Claudius opened his mouth, but even as he did so, the spreading whispers turned into a growl, and then a full-throated roar. Behind him the legions hammered their spears against the ground and cheered fiercely for the two slaughtered maniples; the men watching from the palisade rattled entrenching tools against the wall. Claudius' face turned crimson and he whirled on the tribunes and shouted, "Silence! Make that rabble be quiet!"

Hieron's charger fidgeted uneasily at the uproar, and the king patted its neck.

"My fellow soldiers!" bellowed Claudius, when the noise began to die down at last. "My fellow soldiers, don't listen to this man! He is trying to seduce you from your discipline. You, soldier"- to Marcus" stop repeating his lies!"

Marcus remembered Gaius' white face and agonized gasps as he was marched into the city, and was suddenly in a crimson fury of his own. He remembered that moment afterward like a witness remembering a fatal accident, mentally shrieking at himself, No, stop, not that way, you fool! But he could not stop. Because of this man, Gaius had suffered, and he had lost everything. Claudius could not be permitted to slough off the guilt.

"He's telling the truth!" Marcus shouted passionately. He waved with both shackles up the hill toward the Euryalus. "What did you think they had in there- slingshots? Don't you know the standard range of a catapult? Or did you just expect a city that the Carthaginians have besieged with armies ten times the size of this one to crack like an egg? Jupiter! You had no idea what you were doing. It's inexcusable to blame your own failure on the men who suffered from it! If you're a Roman, Consul, accept the penalty yourself!"

There was another uproar. Claudius stared at Marcus in astonishment and rage; Hieron, with uneasiness. "What did you say?" asked the king, but Marcus did not answer. He lowered his shackled hands and stood proudly, glaring back at the consul.

"I hope this man has not offended you," said Hieron, speaking directly to Claudius in a more normal voice. "His brother was badly injured in your assault, and he may have spoken passionately because of it. You must excuse him. I myself have no wish to insult you or your people."

Claudius turned the furious glare on Hieron. "And saying that I am not a wise commander is no insult?" he asked.

Hieron smiled. "You are certainly inexperienced at sieges, O Consul- at least, at sieges of Greek cities which are well equipped with artillery. Wouldn't you agree that when a wise commander lacks knowledge, he proceeds only with caution? If you wish to improve your understanding of what you face, you may come up to the wall, under my protection, and view the defenses. You have underrated us, Consul, and treated us with a contempt we in no way deserve."

Claudius spat. "Your protection is as worthless as your boasts, Tyrant! I credit neither!"

"You are right in saying that they are both of the same value," replied the king. The noise was dying down once more, and Hieron lifted his arms as he began to speak once more to the whole army; Marcus at once began his shouted translation. Claudius tried to protest, but even his own officers paid no attention to him, and the army instantly quieted to hear what Hieron had to say. While the consul fumed, the king's words rode out upon another ring of whispers.

"Men of Rome, I have heard that I am reported arrogant and cruel. Report lies, for I have ever acted with moderation, and honored the gods."

"And that's true," Marcus added, with a defiant glare at the consul. "All those stories about bronze bulls and impalings were made up by the Mamertini to get Roman help."

"There is no citizen of Syracuse who has just complaint against me," Hieron continued. "My lovely city is as united as she is strongand her strength you have all seen. Your own people can vouch for that when I return them. If you wish to receive them with honor, I will return them to you today, without ransom as I promised. If you do not, I will keep them unharmed to give to the first Roman who asks me for their freedom."

"It is a trick!" bellowed Claudius.

"It is offered honestly and in good faith," replied Hieron. "Do you wish me to send them?"

Claudius looked as though he might burst. "You are growing desperate for a peace, Tyrant!" he shouted. "Where are the allies you abandoned at Messana?"

"And you are in a great hurry for a triumph, Consul!" replied Hieron sharply. "You're even willing to trust the Carthaginians to get it- willing to gamble the lives of all your men on that chance that they stay away. Yes, where are the Carthaginians? In your rear? At Messana, sacking it in your absence, and destroying the ships on which you intend to sail home? You've chosen to fight Syracuse instead of Carthage, and forgotten that you offered to fight both. Can you, O Romans? But you haven't answered my question, Consul. I have ninety-two of your people prisoner. Do you want them back?"

Claudius was silent for a long minute, while the whispers spread through his army, the translation almost obscured by the buzz of angry discussion. Then, in a choked voice, the consul said, "Yes. Return them."

"You will receive them with honor?"

"Since you say that they fought bravely, they will be received as brave men," grated the consul.

Hieron inclined his head graciously. "And the women of Echetlawhat price do you want for them?"

"None!" a voice from among the legions shouted suddenly. Claudius spun toward it, but already a dozen other voices had joined it, "Honor to those who honor the Roman people! Return the Echetlans without ransom!" There was a thunder of spears against the ground, and then a full-throated roar: "Honor to the Roman people!"

Claudius looked back at Hieron. Marcus had never seen such a look of bleak vindictiveness. "You shall have them without ransom," he muttered.

"I will have your men brought from their prison and delivered to you here," said Hieron. "It will take perhaps four hours. I take it this truce holds until then?"

Claudius nodded, then, not trusting himself to say more, turned his horse away.

Hieron snapped his fingers, and the Syracusan aulist struck up his marching tune again. The files divided, leaving a space for the king to ride through them. Marcus followed between his two guards; behind him the Syracusan battalion turned about and marched back up the hill.

When the gates of the Euryalus had closed behind them, the king drew rein and looked down at Marcus thoughtfully. "What did you say to the consul?" he asked.

"That what you'd said was true," replied Marcus shortly.

Hieron sighed. "That was unwise."

"It was true."

"It is not usually a good idea to speak truth to kings- or to consuls. I am going to have to return you anyway. If I keep you, Claudius will say that you were really a Greek in disguise, and it will be easier for him to convince his army that he was right after all."

Marcus nodded. Hieron looked at him a moment longer, then sighed again. "You are a true Roman, aren't you? You accept the penalty for your own actions- whether it's justified or not. What's that you have in your belt?"

Marcus' face went hot. "A flute," he said. "My mas- Archimedes gave it to me. He thought I would have time in prison to learn it."

"I pray that the gods grant you a life long enough to become as skilled on it as he is himself!" Hieron snapped his fingers and said to the guards, "Take the chains off him, and put him somewhere shady to wait for the others. Give him something to eat and drink- it's a long walk over here, and interpreting is thirsty work."

The guards led Marcus to a room in one of the towers, a catapult platform with no catapult in it. They took off his chains and fetched him some bread and wine. "With goodwill," said one of the guards, offering the wine. "I should have believed Apollodoros when he said you were philhellene."

Marcus drank the watered wine thirstily, but had no appetite for the bread. He kept remembering the way Claudius had looked at Hieron. The consul would happily have cooked his enemy alive, in or out of a bronze bull. Hieron would be out of his reach behind the walls of Syracuse, but Marcus was going to have to face him again in about four hours.

He wished that he had volunteered nothing, that he had been content to translate Hieron's words and leave it at that. It was not as though Hieron had needed any help. The parley that morning now appeared to him as a wrestling match in which Claudius had been comprehensively beaten. Claudius was clearly a man who liked to find scapegoats for his own failures, and in Marcus he would find in ideal one: a disloyal Hellenizer, a coward who had escaped the penalty due to him by accepting slavery. Claudius could try to discredit the truth by disgracing and executing the man who had spoken it.

But perhaps the consul would prefer to forget about Marcus. A vindictive punishment would only confirm the reputation for callous arrogance which Hieron had just draped him in. Marcus would just have to hope that the consul was intelligent enough to realize that.

Time passed. The guards left him in the tower room, and he waited alone, watching the Roman camp through the artillery port. He could see a drab-colored mass of people assembled by the gate: the women of Echetla, no doubt. He supposed that there had been no way to save Echetla. By the time Hieron's scouts found out that the Romans had gone there, it would have been too late to send help to it. He was still sorry for Echetla.

Four hours, Hieron had said. That would be about right: a rider had to be sent to the quarry to tell the guards to take all the prisoners to the gates, and then there would be preparations- leg irons to be taken off, escorts to be assembled, stretchers found for those men still unable to walk- and then the whole party had to make the long walk up to the Euryalus. Four hours. It seemed to Marcus that four years passed before the sun dipped from the height of noon.

He took out the aulos and began to practice it, as something to do. He had practiced every day since first being given it, and could now play very simple tunes, very, very slowly. He picked his way laboriously through a Nile boat song, then, stirred by an ache for vanished safety, found himself struggling for the notes of a lullaby he remembered his mother singing by the fire at home.

"I don't know that one," said Hieron. "Is it Roman?"

Marcus set the aulos down and got to his feet. He had not heard the door open. The king was alone, and dust on his cloak proclaimed that he'd been riding hard.

"Yes," said Marcus in a low voice. "It's Roman, lord."

"Odd," remarked Hieron. "One doesn't think of your people producing anything gentle. Is there anything left in that flask?"

There was a little of the wine left. Hieron drained it, then sat down. The small tower room had no furniture, so he sat on the floor, crossing his ankles comfortably, and gestured for Marcus to do likewise. Marcus squatted facing him, watching him warily.

Hieron looked back speculatively. "I wanted to talk to you," he said. "I hoped there would be time. I have one or two things I wanted to say."

"To me?" asked Marcus in confusion.

"Why not? You think I spared you for Archimedes' sake, don't you?"

Marcus said nothing, merely looked back with an impassive slave's face.

"Archimedes had nothing to do with it. Incidentally, his friends in Alexandria called him Alpha, didn't they? Do you know why?"

"Because when anybody set a mathematical problem, he was always the first to find the answer," said Marcus, startled. Then, "How…"

"I thought it might be that," said Hieron. "Alpha. Not a bad nickname, and I need one for him. His proper name doesn't slip off the tongue easily enough. No, I spared you because- you must excuse me- I had a use for you. You're the only Hellenized Roman I've ever encountered."

Marcus stared.

"I know. Greek is the first language your people study, though most of them are very bad at it. Your coins, when you do coin silver, are based on ours. Your pottery, fashions, furniture, and so forth all mimic ours. You hire Greek architects to build Greek-style temples and fill them with Greek statues of the gods- often of Greek gods. You worship Apollo, don't you? But it's all shallow, like a film of water over granite. A bit of gloss on your own nature, which is hard, brutal, and profoundly suspicious of imagination. A Roman gentleman may read our poetry, listen to our music: he would consider it menial to write or play himself. Our philosophy is condemned as atheistic nonsense, our sports as immoral, and our politics- well, tyranny is bad, and democracy unspeakably worse. Am I being unfair?"

Marcus said nothing. He was stung, but suspicious. With a man like Hieron it seemed better to find out what the object of the speech was before responding.

Hieron smiled. "I'm glad you can be cautious," he remarked. "Very well, I'll put your people's side of things for you. You are also courageous, disciplined, pious, honorable, and extraordinarily tenacious. There is no hope that we can deal with you as Greeks elsewhere deal with barbarians: pay you off and persuade you to go away. You have taken the whole of Italy, and if you decide to take Sicily as well, there is nothing Syracuse can do to stop you. Carthage, too, is growing too powerful for us." He got up suddenly and went to the open door, where he stood leaning against the frame and looking across the plateau toward the city. "Before Alexander conquered the world," he said softly, "men lived in cities. Now they live in kingdoms, and cities must preserve themselves as they can. I've tried aligning Syracuse with Carthage, but there's not much hope there: the hatred is too old. That leaves Rome. But I find Romans… difficult."

"You managed Appius Claudius easily enough," said Marcus sourly. "Three falls and he was out."

Hieron glanced around, then turned back from the view and regarded him with a smile. "You like wrestling, do you?" he asked. "I was never any good at it."

"You obliged Appius Claudius to speak to you," said Marcus resolutely. "He couldn't refuse to parley about prisoners. You got him to accept me an interpreter- and then you pitched every speech over his head directly to the legions. He's a senator and a patrician; they're plebeians, like me. You slipped your finger into the difference and wriggled it around like a man prying a brick out of a rotten wall. You said he was arrogant and incompetent, and that he unjustly blamed them for failures that were his own. You said he risked all their lives when he ignored Carthage, and that he did it to further his own ambitions. And then you said you were an honest and decent man and that you honored the Roman people. He had no answer to any of it. And the Roman people in arms drank it down and cheered for you. Claudius won't get a triumph, and won't be reelected to command the Roman forces in Sicily."

Hieron drew a deep breath and let it out again slowly. "On the other hand," he commented, "the Senate and people of Rome will undoubtedly decide that they have not sent enough troops to deal with the situation in Sicily. The city of Syracuse is altogether more formidable than they first believed, and Carthage hasn't been touched yet. They will never retreat, will they? So they will send more men, under a new commander. Who? What I want, what I was working to achieve- I admit it- was to discredit the Claudian faction, and get a moderate put in charge of the war. But maybe the Roman people, in their usual indomitable style, will pick another Claudius, or an Aemilius, which I believe would be almost as bad. Would it be?"

"I don't know," said Marcus helplessly. "It's been a long time since I was in Rome. Yes, probably. The Aemilii and the Claudii were always allies, always pressing for conquests to the south."

Hieron nodded. "Even if the next general isn't an Aemilius or a Claudius, the chances are I won't know what faction he does represent, and even if I do, there'll be little enough for me to work on. I don't understand Romans. For example, I didn't expect to get the Echetlans for nothing. Greeks would have asked money for them: honor is a fine thing, but so are ransoms. With Greeks I know where I am. Romans are more difficult- and yet I must understand, if I'm to find a safe passage to peace for Syracuse. So you see"- he came away from the door and crouched to meet Marcus' stare eye to eye- "a Hellenized Roman, such as yourself, is potentially very useful to me."

"Useful as what?" asked Marcus harshly.

"Not as a spy, so put it out of your head! Agathon said you were so bad at lying it was pitiable, and he was right. No. You're different from the rest; your Hellenism isn't just a gloss. Your sympathies are genuinely divided between us and your own people. Uncomfortable for you, no doubt, but if we can get peace, or even a solid truce, invaluable to me. You could explain your own people to me, and help me make them understand us. This is what I would like you to do. Go back to your own people, get a feel for them again, wait till Syracuse is out of this war- and I pray to all the gods I can get her out soon! — and then come back here. I would give you a job as Latin interpreter, at once, at whatever salary you think is right. We are going to be dealing with your people for many years to come, and we need to understand them."

Marcus stared at him for another moment, his face hot. Then he said. "I would like that very much, lord. Only I don't know that I will be alive tomorrow."

Hieron sighed. "That, of course, is the problem. I wish you had been a bit less forthright with the consul. I wish I dared keep you here- but I worked quite hard to expose Claudius, and too much depends on it to allow him a chance to cover himself. But listen- keep what I have said in mind, and if you can, lie. I do not mind in the least if you say I threatened you or maltreated you to make you speak as you did. If cursing Syracuse will keep you alive, curse her. The gods laugh at forced oaths. It would not be treachery."

"I will try," whispered Marcus, "but…"

From the courtyard came a sound of trumpets, and then the sweet notes of an aulos and the beat of marching feet. The other prisoners were arriving, and it would soon be time to go.

Hieron sighed again, then added, in a very low voice, "Try. And if you fail- I have a gift for you."

He reached into a fold of his cloak and brought out a small, fat flask of black-glazed pottery. It was about the size of a child's fist, and it had been stoppered with a piece of wood shoved into a fragment of rag. He offered it to Marcus in silence, and Marcus took it slowly, with hands that were suddenly cold.

"It takes about half an hour to work," said the king. "A third of the contents will dull pain, if it's merely a question of flogging or beating. If it's death, drink it all."

"Lord," said Marcus, "you have twice showed me mercy, and I am grateful."

Hieron shook his head angrily. "I spared you because I wished to make use of you, and this mercy is one I pray to the gods you will not need. Do you have somewhere to hide it? Good. Then I wish you joy, Marcus Valerius, and I hope that we will meet again."

Marcus swallowed and nodded, then said, "Tell Archimedes and his household that I pray for the safety of Syracuse. And thank you."

Hieron touched his shoulder lightly, then rose resolutely and strode from the room.

Marcus set the flask carefully in the flute case, in the space normally occupied by the reeds. He was down to his last reed, and he wondered if he would need a new one. He closed the case and thrust it through his belt.

When he went down into the courtyard, he found that the guards from the quarry had brought along his little bundle of luggage. He slung it over his shoulder and took his place in the line with the other prisoners, who were laughing joyfully over their release. The gates of the Euryalus were opened, the flute struck up the march, and he descended from Syracuse to the Roman camp below.