"Whose house is it?" asked Fabius.
"You're not to ask for it!" said Marcus. "That would give everything away."
"I just want to know," said Fabius. "Who's this master of yours that all the guards know, who goes to visit the king?"
"His name's Archimedes," admitted Marcus. "He's an engineer."
"The catapult maker!" said Gaius, turning his head to stare through the crack.
"Don't look!" growled Marcus. "Yes, he makes catapults."
"They were telling us about him at the fort. They showed us one of the catapults and said he was building an even bigger one."
Marcus said nothing.
"They said that the next one would be the biggest catapult in the world. They said it was bound to work, because his catapults always work. They said it was no use hoping to take Syracuse by storm, because Syracuse has the greatest engineer in the world. He's your master?"
"If you come to his house," Marcus said suddenly, between his teeth, "you're not to harm him. You have to swear that to me."
Silence. "It would be better for Rome if a man like that were dead," said Fabius slowly.
"You're not coming into the house unless you swear not to harm him," said Marcus. "I'm not having anyone in that house hurt."
Again, silence. "He's treated you well?" asked Gaius at last, with a mixture of bewilderment and shame. Marcus should never have been in the position where it mattered how a master treated him.
"Oh, may I perish!" muttered Marcus. "He trusts me. And- and he ought to exist. Someone like that- there aren't any others like that, not even in Alexandria. He can do anything- make water flow uphill, move a ship single-handed, tell you how many grains of sand it would take to fill the universe. It's not better for anybody when a man like that is dead. It means that there are a lot of things which the human race could do once and suddenly can't anymore." He stopped, utterly sick with confusion. He felt suddenly that he must have died without noticing: the Marcus who had run away at Asculum would never have thought the sort of things that were in his mind now.
Again there was a silence. Then Gaius said resignedly, "I swear that I will not harm him. May all the gods and goddesses destroy me if I do."
"I also swear it," muttered Fabius.
"Then come when you will," said Marcus, "and I will help you as much as is in my power."
11
Archimedes found that it was, after all, possible to understand what a catapult was for and still build it. The trick was to take each step of the construction independently and concentrate on the technical problems, without looking beyond them to the finished machine.
Not that the technical problems were interesting. The increase in the diameter of the bore needed for a three-talenter was only three finger-breadths, giving a proportional increase of three twenty-fifths all around- a laborious figure to calculate with, but not a difficult one. He was aware that if he'd been feeling happier about the work, he would have devised a new pivoting system- but the old one was adequate, and it sufficed.
The most disconcerting thing about working on another, and yet larger, catapult was the way everyone else in the workshop kept grinning about it. Even Eudaimon. The old engineer came up while he was working out the dimensions, shuffled his feet and cleared his throat a few times to attract attention, then asked- very humbly! — for the plans for Good Health, "since the king wants me to copy it." Archimedes found him the notes he'd made and explained a few of them, and Eudaimon nodded and made notes of his own- and then grinned, and said, "I never thought I'd ever build a two-talenter, heh? Make the next one another beauty for me, Archimechanic!" He trotted off, clutching his notes, leaving Archimedes staring after him in consternation.
It seemed that merely recognizing what the king had done wasn't enough to stop it. Archimedes wasn't sure what to do about it; wasn't even sure what he wanted to do about it. His response to his growing reputation depended on whether he was going to Alexandria or staying in Syracuse, and on that question he had not yet made up his mind. There were things to be said on both sides- but the things were different in kind, and he couldn't balance them. He found Hieron interesting, much more so than King Ptolemy- but the Museum was in Alexandria. His family was here, his closest friends there. And the image of Delia kept intruding itself and confusing him. She had not sent him another of her notes arranging a meeting, and he wasn't sure whether to be crushed or relieved. He had even less idea what to do about her than he did about Alexandria. His instinct was to postpone everything. After all, there didn't seem to be any urgent need for him to make up his mind at once. Anything that happened or did not happen with Delia was in Delia's hands, and as for Alexandria, he was obviously not going to abandon Syracuse, his home city, while the enemy was at her gate. The question of Alexandria could safely be left until he had time and energy to spare for it.
The trouble was, other people didn't seem to agree. Two days after he started work on the new catapult, Philyra received an invitation to visit the king's house and play a little music with the king's sister. She went to the mansion in the Ortygia suspicious at this royal condescension- but when Archimedes returned home that evening, it was to find his sister in a rage, with his mother at her side looking quietly resolute.
"The king's sister really wanted to talk about you!" Philyra told him indignantly. "And the queen was there: she said the king promised to make you rich! Medion, what's going on and why haven't you said anything about it to us?"
Archimedes gaped and stammered excuses: he'd been busy, the house was still in mourning, it hadn't seemed the best time. He became aware even as he floundered that the real reason he'd kept the king's machinations to himself was that he knew that his mother and sister would not want to go to Alexandria. He might well decide not to go himself, so why quarrel with them about it? As for Delia- well, they wouldn't approve of that, would they?
"My dearest," said Arata, with a quiet firmness that was much harder to face than Philyra's anger, "you should not leave us to find out such things from others. Ever since you came home from Alexandria, the tyrant has been chasing you like a lover. He's sent people to ask about you; he's invited you to his house; he's offered you large amounts of money; he's dropped compliments about you where other people will be sure to hear them…"
"He might just as well have chalked 'Archimedes is beautiful' up on the walls!" put in Philyra hotly- then subsided at a warning glance from her mother.
"Do you expect us not to notice?" went on Arata. "And when you don't tell us anything, do you expect us not to worry?"
"I'm sorry!" exclaimed Archimedes helplessly. "You've never needed to worry, Mama. I would have told you, if there had been anything to worry about."
"What does the king want from you?" demanded Arata.
"Only that I make machines!" protested her son. "It's just that some of the things I've been doing- I thought they were obvious, and that other people must have done them before. But it turns out that they're new, and the king thinks- well, you see, nobody's ever built a three-talent catapult before, or a system of compound pulleys, or a screw elevator. So I suppose Hieron's right."
"It started before you'd built anything," said Arata suspiciously.
"Well," said Archimedes, "Hieron's a very clever man. He knows enough to realize how important mathematics is for machine-making, and he thought I'd be an exceptional engineer as soon as he heard about me. I suppose he asked for that demonstration mainly to see if he was right. He's a good king- he knows how important engineering works are to the security and prosperity of cities. So he wants me to work for him, and in return he's promised wealth and honor. See? Nothing to worry about."