"Thank you," he said finally. "I've come to help you. I've brought you some things."
"Can you help me get out?"
It was exactly what Marcus had expected his brother to say, and he sighed. "You're better off where you are, Gaius! The king"- he used the Greek title- "wanted prisoners, and that means he wants an exchange for something. You'll be safest staying here until you're exchanged. And your arm's broken, isn't it?"
"My arm and my collarbone," said Gaius flatly. "And three of my ribs. Can you help me escape?"
"Was it a catapult?" asked Marcus unhappily. It seemed ridiculously important to know whether it was his own master's contrivance which had injured his brother.
"Yes, of course it was," replied Gaius impatiently. "May the gods destroy it!"
"What size?"
Gaius started to glance around, then remembered that he should not do this and leaned his head back against the wall. "Marcus, all I noticed was that it hit me! There were catapult stones everywhere, and some of them were enormous. Why does it matter?"
Marcus didn't reply. "I've brought you some money," he said instead. "If you put your left hand up against this crack I'll pass it through. Your guards will probably buy things for you, for a cut. It's twenty-three drachmae."
"Twenty-three!" exclaimed Gaius in a strangled voice. "How did you- Marcus, your master will notice it's missing!"
Marcus remembered suddenly how scarce silver coin was in Rome, remembered with a shock how his family had bartered for almost everything, and used the heavy bronze as for almost everything else. When he was sixteen, twenty-three drachmae would have seemed a fortune. It was plain that to Gaius it still did.
"It's my own money," said Marcus. "I've never stolen yet, though I will if I must to help you. This isn't as much as you think- a month's wages for a soldier. But it may be useful."
Gauis set his hand against the crack, and Marcus fed the coins through. "What are these?" whispered Gaius, watching the silver fall into his palm. "They're… strange."
"They're Egyptian," replied Marcus. "We spent a few years in Alexandria. Don't worry- they're the same weight as Syracusan, and people here will take them."
Gaius said nothing, only stared at the silver, and Marcus remembered a time when Alexandria had been remote as the moon. It had ceased to seem that even before he visited it. At Syracuse one met ships from all over the Greek-speaking world, and he had grown used to the idea of traveling even before he'd traveled himself. But in central Italy people hadn't traveled much. Gaius had never traveledexcept, of course, with the army. He had enrolled in the legions for the Pyrrhic War, and had presumably gone home to the family farm afterward, enrolling again for the Sicilian campaign. Marcus was oppressed by confusion and disquiet. It was quite wrong that he, a slave and coward, should feel superior to his elder brother.
"I have a saw and a knife as well," Marcus said, the confusion adding to the harshness in his voice. "And a coil of rope, but I think they're better left out here. If you decide you want them, I'll hide them." He did not really want to help Gaius escape- he sincerely believed that his brother was safest where he was- and yet he could not refuse to help. Besides, he could be wrong. The prisoners might yet be executed, or murdered by a Syracusan mob furious at some Rome atrocity.
"How did you get in here?" asked Gaius. "How did you get the guards to allow you to bring in saws and ropes?"
"They didn't know I had 'em," replied Marcus. "Though they did take my hammer and chisel. I told them I was on an errand for my master. They know my master, so they let me through. I told them I'm Samnite, too, so that they wouldn't suspect me of wanting to help. Now, listen. I can invent another errand and come again if you need me, but if I do it too much, someone will start to suspect. So it's better if I don't come again soon, and I need to know now: are you going to try to escape?"
"Can you pass the saw in?" interrupted the man on Gaius's right.
"Who are you?" demanded Marcus.
"Quintus Fabius," replied the other. "Friend and tentmate of your brother. He's not going to get out without someone to help him."
"You're safer staying where you are!" warned Marcus.
"We'll get out if we can," said Gaius. "I don't care to find out what the tyrant of Syracuse wants prisoners for."
"There's nothing wrong with King Hieron," said Marcus. "He's cleverer than a fox and more slippery than an eel, but he's not cruel."
"He's a Sicilian tyrant!" protested Gaius in astonishment. "He cooks his enemies alive in a bronze bull!"
Marcus gaped. "Don't be ridiculous!" he exclaimed, recovering a little. "He's never put a single citizen to death, let alone cooked one alive. It was Phalaris of Akragas who had the bull- a man who lived centuries ago and in another city."
There was a bewildered silence, and then Gaius said, "I heard that Hiero"- he used the Latin form of the name- "had a hundred of the wives and children of his enemies impaled on stakes."
Marcus realized that his brother had undoubtedly heard dozens of stories of Syracusan atrocities. The Mamertini would have told some when they asked for Roman help, and more would have sprung up among the legions as they prepared for war. The Senate must have known the tales were false, but had said nothing.
"You heard a brazen-faced liar," snapped Marcus in disgust. "A stinking bandit who wanted an excuse for his own crimes."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Gaius, I live here! I've met Hieron, been to his house! If anything remotely similar had happened, I'd know about it. King Hieron has never killed or injured any citizen- which is more than the people you've come to Sicily to help can say!"
"You've gone very Greek," said Fabius quietly.
"I don't have to have gone Greek to say that the Mamertini are a tribe of bandits!" replied Marcus heatedly. "We put our own people to death for doing what they did- but you've come to fight and die for that bunch of filthy Campanian murderers." He stopped himself, swallowed a lump of anger, and went on, more moderately, "But what I meant to say is, if you think you need to escape because King Hieron's likely to harm you, think again. You'll be well treated until he exchanges you. Things are likely to be much worse if you try to escape than if you stay where you are."
"I mean to escape anyway," said Gaius, "if I can."
Marcus sighed again: it was no more than he'd expected. "I can probably manage to get two out of the city," he said, "but no more."
"Can you pass us the saw?" asked Fabius.
Marcus passed in the saw, though he had to take the handle off to get it to fit through the crack. Fabius tucked it under his mattress.
"With this and your knife and rope we can get out," he said. "Hide them under a rock beside this plank. You wouldn't happen to have noticed how many guards there are, and where they're posted?"
"Half a file," said Marcus. "Six on the gate, two on each of the sheds. Presumably the other six are on the wall, though I didn't see them when I came in. Don't even think of going up the cliff: it overhangs. The spoil heap by the west edge of the wall is probably your best chance: it's high, and it's overgrown pretty thickly and can give you cover while you wait for a sentry to turn his back. If you get out, come to our house, and I'll get you out of the city. All I ask is that you wait at least three nights first. If you come at once, somebody's bound to remember that I was here, and know where to look for you: a few days will give them a chance to forget. And Gaius needs the time to recover his strength, anyway."
He gave careful instructions on how to find the house. "The brick on the left side of the doorframe about halfway up is crumbled," he finished. "You can't mistake it. I'll find an excuse to sleep down in the courtyard, starting in three nights' time, and if you come at night I'll let you in secretly. If you don't come- and I tell you again, I think you'd do better to stay where you are! — I'll come back in ten days with some more money."