"Can you really move it?" asked Philyra.
But he was surprised that she could doubt it. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed. "It only weighs about twelve hundred talents unloaded, and I've given myself a mechanical advantage of fifteen hundred. I'll show you!"
The area about the ship was in the process of being roped off to protect it from the crowd, but the sailors doing the roping recognized Archimedes and allowed his party through. He had just begun explaining the system to Philyra when there was a blare of trumpets, and they looked up to see the king arriving. First came a file of guards, led by an officer on horseback. The shields slung over their backs gleamed with color, and their helmets and spear points shone in the sun. Behind them came the king, riding upon a magnificent white horse and robed in purple. He was accompanied by Kallippos, on a tall bay, then followed by trumpeters, and by a covered litter carried by eight slaves. The crowd cheered and applauded, and- eventually- made way for him. Philyra clutched Archimedes' arm with excitement as the royal procession drew to a halt before them.
The litter was set down, and the passengers climbed out: first the queen, purple-cloaked like her husband; then the little boy, Gelon, also in purple and looking hot. Lastly a dark-haired girl climbed out and stood a moment straightening a cloak of very fine crimson cotton worked with gold stars. Archimedes stood up straighter, grinning with pleasure. So Delia had come to see his demonstration! She was even prettier than he remembered. He tried to meet her eyes, wondering how he could thank her for her message. But when he finally caught her gaze, she returned his smile only with a cold flat stare.
Philyra had no real idea who the girl in red was, but she thought she would float up in the air with pride when the whole royal party came over to shake hands with her brother. She was aware of the watching crowd talking about them, pointing Archimedes out to one another as the son of Phidias the Astronomer, the Alexandrian-educated engineer who had offered to do something impossible.
Kallippos shook hands with Archimedes very brusquely, then at once strode off to inspect the system of pulleys, leaving Archimedes glancing nervously after him.
Queen Philistis smiled graciously at Philyra when Archimedes introduced her. "I believe we've met before," she said. "You won prizes for music at your school, didn't you, child? Your whole family is much gifted by the Muses, it seems."
Philyra blushed. She had indeed won prizes for music, and the queen had handed them out, but she hadn't expected Philistis to remember.
Delia merely gave Philyra a look of black-eyed disdain. Under the disdain, she was troubled. When she had first noticed that Archimedes had a girl on his arm, she had suffered a perplexing moment of indignation- followed by relief as she noticed the strong family resemblance between the two, and remembered that he had a sister. Such feelings were, she knew, entirely inappropriate- no, lunatic! It didn't matter if Archimedes had a girl or a boy or half a dozen strumpets. He was nothing to her, and that was how she wanted it. She transferred the disdainful look to him, and he blinked in confusion.
"And that's the ship you're going to move, is it?" asked the king. "Herakles!"
As Philyra had, he surveyed the height and length of it, then looked at the gangling young man beside him. The disparity between the two seemed insurmountable. The king silently approved his decision to have the time of the demonstration posted in the marketplace. If the fellow failed, as seemed likely, the public nature of that failure would make his own forgiveness of it appear more magnanimous, and strengthen his hold on the man. Of course, it would also make the failure more humiliating- but that couldn't be helped, and failure had sharp teeth whether or not anyone else saw it bite.
The little boy, Gelon, also stared at the ship, then at Archimedes. He did not usually like going to public functions with his mother, but when his father had explained what this one involved, he'd been eager to come. "You're going to move that all by yourself?" he asked.
Archimedes grinned and tugged his cloak straight. "Certainly."
"You must be strong!" said Gelon admiringly.
"I don't need to be," said Archimedes happily. "That's the point. There are two ways to move something heavy. One is to be very strong, the other is to use a machine. Do you see those pulleys?"
A spider web of rope ran between the front of the nearest ship shed and the stone mooring posts on the quay: running through pulleys attached to pulleys, reversed around tackle blocks, attached to other pulleys, run about the axles of toothed wheels, reversed again, and attached to more pulleys. Kallippos was standing by the mooring posts, counting them.
"That's my machine," said Archimedes. "Do you know how a pulley works?"
"You pull on it," said Gelon authoritatively.
"That's right. You pull on a rope which travels twice as far as the load moves, so it takes you half as much effort. By using enough pulleys you can move any load with any effort. But maybe we should see first whether strength will move the ship. Lord King, since you've brought along so many of your guardsmen, perhaps they'd like to push?"
Hieron had brought some thirty guardsmen along with him, under the command of Dionysios. (Archimedes looked for Straton among them, but for once did not find him.) The men were perfectly happy to set down their spears, brace themselves against the ship's sides, and push. Faces crimson with effort, feet skidding on the slipway, they struggled for a while without success, then gave up. The watching crowd groaned in sympathy. Archimedes' grin broadened. "Dionysios!" he called. "Can I give you and your men a ride?"
Dionysios looked starkly disbelieving, and the guardsmen shook their heads pityingly. But when Archimedes hurried over to the ship and pulled down the boarding ladder, they hauled themselves aboard. Dionysios went last. He looked at Archimedes, began to say something, then shook his head and climbed in after his men.
"Me too!" shouted little Gelon, running down onto the slipway. When Hieron nodded his consent, Archimedes helped the child onto the ladder. Dionysios caught the little boy's hand when he was halfway up and lifted him the rest of the way. Gelon ran at once to the ship's prow and climbed onto the figurehead to wave to his father and mother.
Archimedes took a deep breath, then went to the thick rope which emerged from the pulleys and fastened it to the ring he had fixed securely to the ship's keel. He gestured for Marcus to follow him and made his way to the place where the other, thinner end of the rope emerged from its long and convoluted passage. He could feel the crowd watching him; closer at hand, the engineer Kallippos was staring at him, face tight with the same indefinable expression it had worn when they last parted. He tried to ignore them all, and took off his cloak; the sweat evaporated from his bare arms and damp tunic with a sudden delicious coolness. He handed the heavy folds of the yellow wool to Marcus.
"Is this going to work?" whispered Marcus nervously.
Archimedes looked at the anxiety on his face, and for the first time felt a quiver of doubt. He looked at the ship, at the spider-web of rope between it and himself, mentally reviewing his mechanical advantage. It was sound, it should work. It should- but what if a pulley jammed? What if a rope thread jammed a wheel, or a tooth on one broke? Things did break. Had he made enough allowance for the weight of the rope itself?
Everyone was watching him. Oh, Apollo, if he failed, with everyone watching him…
"It's going to work," he told Marcus, with all the resolution he could muster. It should. There was a stool he'd sat on while he was working the system out; he went over and pulled it out from the shade of the ship shed, into the bright sun where everyone could see it, and sat down. "Just coil the rope up when I hand it to you," he ordered Marcus, and took hold of the rope.