He followed his own advice and tried to stay out of Eudaimon's way. It was impossible to do this entirely, of course. They were sharing the same workshop and the services of the same carpenters. But Eudaimon seemed as happy to avoid speaking to Archimedes as Archimedes was to avoid speaking to him, and for some days all proceeded peacefully. Archimedes made a trip to the nearer forts on the city wall, looking for a catapult whose dimensions he could copy. He eventually fixed on a fifteen-pounder with a particularly vigorous and accurate throw, and corrected the estimated dimensions of his own machine accordingly. The fact that his original was much smaller than his copy raised a few problems, which he enjoyed solving. The one-talenter would have an eighteen-foot arm span and be nearly thirty feet long; it was too heavy and too powerful to aim or draw by conventional methods, and he had to devise systems of pulleys and winches for it. That was fun.
Eudaimon paid no attention to what his rival was doing until Archimedes had been working on the catapult for four days and was ready to balance the stock on the stand. Then the chief catapult engineer came up and watched in silence as the beam- thick enough for a ship's mainmast, and still only partially finished- was suspended above its tripodal stand by a system of ropes and lowered carefully. When Archimedes signaled the workmen to stop lowering and secure their ropes, however, Eudaimon stiffened. With the beam dangling just above the pin, Archimedes began to thread about it the first of his aiming devices.
"What's that?" asked Eudaimon harshly.
Archimedes glanced at him- a process that involved turning his whole body, since his eye was still bandaged- then went on threading his pulleys. "It's to help it pivot," he said.
"There's nothing like that on the fifty-pounders at the Euryalus fort!" snapped Eudaimon. He sounded affronted by it.
"Isn't there?" said Archimedes, mildly surprised. "How do they pivot, then?"
"Didn't you look?" said Eudaimon.
Archimedes shook his head. Biting his tongue with concentration, he threaded a rope around a pulley set into the stand, looped it through the attachment on the stock, and fixed it back on the stand, to a windlass. Only when he'd made it fast did he realize that Eudaimon hadn't answered his question, and look back.
Eudaimon was still standing behind him, staring at him with a mixture of shock and outrage. "What's the matter?" asked Archimedes.
"You didn't look at the fifty-pounders in the Euryalus?" asked the chief catapult engineer.
"No," said Archimedes. "It's a long walk out there, and I found a machine I liked much closer."
"But they're the closest in size to what you're trying to build!"
"Yes," said Archimedes, "but I'd still have to scale them up, and it's just as easy to scale up a fifteen-pounder. How do they pivot?"
There was a silence. Then the workshop foreman, Epimeles- a big, slow, soft-spoken man in his forties- said, "They don't. To aim them you have get a few strong lads to move the stand."
"Well, that's stupid!" observed Archimedes. He began threading his second pulley. There would be one on either side of the catapult. The operator would turn a windlass on the side required and use a third windlass to adjust the elevation.
He paid no attention when one of the workmen sniggered, but looked up sharply at the sound of a blow and a cry of pain. He was just in time to see Eudaimon striding off and one of the workman clutching his ear. Archimedes dropped his rope and dashed after the chief. Eudaimon stopped abruptly and spun about, his seamed face black with anger.
"You had no business hitting that man!" Archimedes told him furiously.
"I will not be laughed at in my own workshop by my own slaves!" Eudaimon shouted back.
"They're not your own slaves, they're the city's. You had no business hitting him! And anyway, what was it to you? It's not as though you'd made those fifty-pounders!"
"I'm in charge here!" declared Eudaimon. "I can have that fellow flogged if I like. Maybe I do like. Elymos! Come here!"
The man he had struck stepped back in alarm, and the other workmen stared at the chief in horror.
"You don't dare!" cried Archimedes in outrage. "I won't let you!" He turned to the foreman. "You run up the road and tell the regent about this!"
"Do you think Leptines wants to be bothered with a squabble in the workshop?" said Eudaimon.
"He will if he has any decency!" replied Archimedes. "He's in charge, and nobody should allow people to go about flogging people when they haven't done anything wrong!"
"I will tell the regent," said the foreman decisively, and turned to go.
The foreman was as much a slave as the rest of the workmen, but he was a valuable, experienced, and trusted slave, and his word carried some weight even in the king's house. Eudaimon started in alarm and ordered, "Stop!"
Epimeles turned back and looked at Eudaimon levelly. "Sir," he said, "you and… this gentleman are both authorized to use the workshop. If you say Elymos is to be punished, and he says he is not, surely it's for our master to tell us which one of you to obey?"
"I am in charge!" grated Eudaimon.
"In that case the regent will tell us to obey you and flog Elymos," said the foreman quietly.
There was another silence, and then Eudaimon said, "I never gave any such order." He glared at them all. "You all know that! I never gave any such order." He turned on his heel and walked off.
The foreman let out his breath slowly. Elymos gave a whistle of relief and sat down, and his friends thumped him on the shoulder. Archimedes thought of thumping the slave's shoulder too, but refrained: he was aware that the threat of flogging had been made only because of him.
"Are you all right?" he asked instead, coming over.
Elymos nodded and grinned up at him. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I'll remember how you stood up for me."
"You shouldn't have laughed," Epimeles told him sternly, coming over as well.
Elymos ducked his head appeasingly: Eudaimon might order floggings, but Epimeles was the person who was really in charge of the workshop. "Couldn't help it! It was funny!" protested Elymos.
"But it wasn't even his fault that those fifty-pounders can't pivot," said Archimedes. "He didn't build them."
At this Elymos laughed again, more loudly this time. "That makes it even funnier!"
Some of the other workmen laughed as well. Archimedes stared, perplexed, and they nudged one another and giggled among themselves. Archimedes realized that the laughter was directed at himself, and flushed. He went back to his catapult and began rethreading the ropes in hurt silence. People had always laughed, were always laughing, at him. He got lost in his geometry and didn't notice things, or he got excited about things they didn't understand, and they laughed. Even slaves he had defended were laughing at him.
Elymos leaped up and followed him. "Oh, sir, don't be offended!" he said. "It's just a workshop joke, that's all."
"Well, I don't get it!" said Archimedes angrily.
The slave sniggered again, then, at a sharp glance, looked solemn. "Sir, I couldn't explain it. Not to you. Jokes are never funny if you explain them. But please don't be offended, sir. It's just a…a slaves' joke, that's all." He hurriedly took the third rope and tried to thread it around a pulley.
"Not that one!" Archimedes told him hastily. "That goes on top. No- no, leave it! Go fetch me the chalk, if you want to be helpful!"
The foreman, Epimeles, watched for a little while as the massive beam was set down upon the joint pin in its stand. Archimedes had calculated the approximate area of equilibrium and ordered a series of holes drilled along it. The stock was found to balance best upon the middle one: Epimeles smiled. He watched for a minute longer as the huge machine pivoted left and right in response to the windlassesthen sighed and reluctantly left the building. He had a long walk before him.