"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."