The Sand-Reckoner

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Archimedes glanced about the house where he had been born, then said reluctantly, "We'll move. There's a house on the Ortygia that's part of Delia's inheritance."

  "I don't want to live on the Ortygia!" protested Philyra angrily.

  "Dionysios has to," Archimedes said in surprise, "and I thought…" He stopped, puzzled, at his sister's glare. Philyra and Arata had both liked Dionysios, and had told Archimedes that he could give his consent to the match at an appropriate time. He did not know what was inappropriate about the present, but both his mother and his sister frowned at unseemly haste.

  "Now it's the house itself!" exclaimed Philyra miserably; she was nearly in tears. "Medion, why did you have to change everything so fast?"

  "What was I supposed to do?" he demanded in exasperation. "Refuse to build catapults when the city needs them? Pretend to be stupid? Ignore Delia?"

  "I don't know!" shouted Philyra. "I don't know, but it's all happened too fast!" And she flounced off to cry.

  Arata wanted to cry, too, but refrained, and merely looked about the old house with a lingering sadness. She had been happy here, but she'd known for some time that they would have to move. That had become clear to her as soon as she understood that her son's talents were something kings would compete for. She was resigned to the move, braced to learn a new way of life. She found the prospect of a royal daughter-in-law alarming, but her son was so profoundly happy about the match that she thought the girl must be agreeable when you got to know her. She just wished, with Philyra, that all the changes had not come at once. In June her husband had been alive and she had expected her quiet middle-class existence to go on forever; now it was August, her son was to marry the king's sister, her daughter the captain of the Ortygia garrison, the family was to become unimaginably wealthyand her husband was dead. That last brutal fact still numbed her, and rendered all the other changes almost insuperable.

  "I thought she'd be happy if we were all living on the Ortygia!" Archimedes irritably protested to his mother. "I thought she'd want us to be close by!"

  "Yes, darling," said Arata patiently. "I'm sure she will be. It just is a lot of changes all at once, and we're all still upset over your father."

  At that her son came over and put his arms around her. "I wish he were alive to see us."

  Arata leaned her head against the bones of his shoulder and imagined Phidias watching his son's wedding. The image of his passionate delight released the tears. "He would have been so proud," she whispered, and resigned herself to going on.

  In the Athenian quarry, Marcus was informed of the announcement by the guards.

  The men of the Ortygia garrison had at first treated him harshly and looked for opportunities to punish him: they knew that he had helped Straton's killers, and Straton had had many friends. However, Marcus was the only one among the prisoners who spoke really fluent Greek, and his services as an interpreter were called upon dozens of times a day. It was difficult for the guards to avoid talking to him, and, after a perfectly ordinary conversation, hard for them to maintain the same pitch of hatred. The announcement of the betrothal helped again: the garrison were as interested in it as the rest of the city, and the opportunity to question Archimedes' slave about it was too good to be missed. Marcus, once he'd got over the initial shock, willingly spoke of flutes and Alexandria, and insisted that catapults had not been the king's first concern. "Archimedes was always going to build as many of them as were needed," he said. "The king didn't need to give him the girl for that. After he built the Welcomer, the king tried to pay him two hundred drachmae more than the price agreed, and he turned it down. 'I'm Syracusan,' he said. 'I won't profit from Syracuse's need.' "

  The guards were impressed with this, though one asked cynically, "And what did you think of that?"

  "I was pleased about it," said Marcus levelly. "I've always believed a man ought to love his own city."

  When the guards had gone back to their posts, Marcus leaned back against the shed wall and smiled over the news. He remembered Archimedes beaming when he received Delia's warning, and thought of Delia applauding madly at the demonstration of mechanics. His own sense of pride and delight was curiously shapeless: it was neither a friend's nor a servant's, and though it had a touch of elder brother in it, it was not that either. As a loyal Roman he should have wanted Archimedes out of Syracuse, but the shapeless delight held no regrets. The boy had done well, and good luck to him!

  The following morning, the tours began. Thirty prisoners were shackled together in groups of ten and marched together down to the harbor, where they were shown the sea walls, the merchant ships moored along the quay, trading freely despite the war, and the naval vessels drawn up in the ship sheds. Marcus was brought along to interpret. "If there's danger of a naval assault," the file leader in charge of the party informed the prisoners, "the whole of the Great Harbor can be closed with a boom- but your people don't have the ships for it, do you?"

  "Why are they showing us this?" one of the prisoners asked Marcus.

  "You understand that, surely?" replied Marcus in disgust. "It's so that you can tell the consul that he can't take Syracuse by starvation."

  In the afternoon, another twenty prisoners were selected and taken along the walls to the fort of the Euryalus, where they were shown the catapults. Two of the hundred-pounders were there, and the two-talenter copied from Good Health. "We'll have a three-talenter as well, in a few days," the fort captain told them with relish. "The archimechanic is working on it now."

  "I thought it was going to the Hexapylon," said Marcus.

  The fort captain stared in surprise, and the file leader murmured an explanation of who Marcus was. The fort captain gave him a resentful look. "The Hexapylon got the first one," he admitted. "But we've been told that ours will be better."

  "You should have asked him to do you a two-hundred-pounder instead," said Marcus.

  The fort captain hesitated, torn between the proud desire to ignore a slave's comment and the itch to have a bigger catapult than the Hexapylon. The itch won. "Could he?" he asked eagerly.

  "He certainly could," said Marcus, "but if he's already halfway through a three-talenter, it's a bit late to ask him."

  "Tell them he could do a two-hundred-pounder," commanded the file leader, waving at the other prisoners.

  Marcus nodded, turned to his fellow prisoners, and flatly reported that the fort was expecting a three-talenter and asking for a two-hundred-pounder next.

  "Built by your former master, the flute player?" asked one of the prisoners.

  "Yes," agreed Marcus. "He can do it, believe me."

  The prisoners looked at the ammunition heaped beside the fort's towers- hundred-pound shot, two-talent shot- and sagged. "Why are they showing us this?" asked one angrily.

  "So that we can tell the consul," said Marcus. "So that he knows he can't take Syracuse by storm."

  "And why do they want us to tell him that?"

  Marcus stood silent for a minute, looking at the prisoners in their chains and the guardsmen in their armor. "So that he'll offer terms for peace," he said, and knew with a lift of the heart that it was true.

  There were more tours the next day: one to the Ortygia, and one to the Hexapylon, where the three-talenter was demonstrated. Not all the prisoners were fit enough to be dragged about the city, but all of those capable of walking were shown the strength and splendor of Syracuse. They discussed it unhappily among themselves afterward, and called on Marcus for more details. When he first appeared, they had suspected him of being a planted spy, but the initial hostility of the guards and his own openness about his sympathies had convinced them that he was what he claimed to be. Like Fabius, they thought he'd gone very Greek, but they accepted that he'd been imprisoned with them because of his Roman loyalties, and believed most of what he told them.

  Early the following morning, two guards he didn't know came into the shed, went down the row of prisoners until they reached Marcus, then unlocked the leg irons and
told him to get up. Marcus rose slowly and stood silent, waiting for further orders, and one of the men cuffed him. "The king wants you," he said. "Come on!"

  He stooped quickly and picked up the cased aulos before he obeyedjust in case he never came back.

  The two men marched him down to the gate house, where they locked an iron collar about his neck and fastened shackles to his wrists; he managed to slip the flute case through his belt before they snatched it away. They attached a chain to the collar, as though he were a dog, and tested it by jerking it so hard he staggered. "I'm not going to try to escape," he told them mildly when he'd recovered his footing.

  "You don't need to be rough," agreed the file leader in charge of the quarry, who was watching. "He's a philhellene."

  Marcus blinked at the title: so, the guards reckoned he'd gone very Greek as well? But the strangers only glared, and one said harshly, "He helped kill Straton," at which the file leader could only shrug.

  The two new Ortygians led Marcus out the gate into the street, then turned right toward the New Town. Marcus had expected them to go straight toward the Ortygia, and was nearly jerked off his feet again by the chain. "Where are we going?" he asked bemusedly, but they did not answer.

  They passed the theater and climbed up onto the Epipolae plateau, here an unpeopled region of dry scrub, and he realized that they were once more walking toward the Euryalus. He glanced sideways at his guards and decided not to ask any questions. He would discover the purpose of this journey soon enough.

  The Euryalus stood at the highest point of the limestone island of Epipolae, a massive castle from which the land dropped steeply on two sides. They entered the courtyard to find it full of soldiers- a full battalion of two hundred and fifty-six men. Tethered near the outer gate was a white horse Marcus recognized, its harness draped with purple and studded with gold. His guards marched him over to the gate tower, then up into a guardroom. King Hieron was indeed there, discussing something with a number of high-ranking officers, none of whom Marcus knew. His guards struck the butts of their spears on the floor and stood to attention, and the king glanced over.

  "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."

  Hieron smiled. Marcus was all at once certain that Claudius had just made a bad mistake.