She nodded slowly. “Be patient. I know there is much to explain. We will return to Croton in a few days, but now that we have this moment, there are a few things you must know.”
“Like what Hannibal means to you? Why did you let him tease me when I asked to buy you?”
Again she nodded. “It’s all theater. Be aware of that. Even your visit. I had you brought here with a purpose.” She looked around as though the walls had ears, then whispered. “Revealing my private life to Hannibal, introducing him to you, whom he knows I have been looking for since I was kidnapped, increases his trust in me. And as I get closer to him.” Her eyes narrowed, and again she looked around the room. “I can pick up information about the war, perhaps learning something that could help the Romans.”
“But Mother, why should it be you who takes such a risk? Let’s just go back to Croton. Let’s leave this life and this war behind.”
She looked at me sadly. “That can’t happen until Hannibal is gone and the war is over. What I’m doing, if the gods allow, can hasten that.”
“I spent three campaigns with the Roman general Marcellus. I saw the war up close. I don’t want any more of it. For you or for me!”
“No one wants the war, Timon. But I have this chance, and we’re never to speak of it unless we’re alone.”
“What about Lucretia?”
“She knows all.”
I nodded, then asked what I had to. “Has Hannibal bedded you?”
She lowered her head, nodding the affirmative.
“Are you sure you know which side of the war you’re on?”
“I hear the accusation in your voice. Trust me on this, Timon. Hannibal is a man of elevated intelligence and insight. Like no other I have known. Woman are not that important to him. He has a wife and a son. He regularly turns down the young women his men bring him, and on a few occasions, only a few, he has requested—requested not forced—close company with me. I think it’s because we are the same age, and he wants more than the physical in his intimacy.”
“And it gives you a special leverage with him?”
“Please, Timon.” She touched my face, pained by my intimations. “Yes, and I hope to make good use of it. Now never mention it again.”
I didn’t like it, but I agreed. “Answer me this, then. Why did you communicate with me through the Community of Miracles? Who are Caelius and this woman with no name?”
“The community is not what it appears to be.”
“What do you mean?”
She took a moment to answer. “Ennius is a Roman military officer.”
I immediately pictured the crazy poet with the wild hair. “Impossible.”
“He uses Caelius’ network of criminals as the foundation for an underground of spies. Knowing them is what makes what I’m doing possible—and actionable. I have a means of transferring information.”
“And Ennius takes it to the Roman command?”
She nodded.
“Have you been able to help? Have you learned anything important?”
“Did my advice about Marcellus’ signet ring help?”
“Yes, of course. Anything else?”
“No.” She touched my face and looked into my eyes, being as honest with me as she could. “Perhaps you’re right to question what I do, Timon. Maybe I’m fooling myself that I can help the Roman cause. Maybe all I’m really doing is entertaining a man who should be my enemy.”
“So let’s go back to Croton tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow, but soon enough. All of us. But I will come back again. There’s something I am fishing for, something important. Have patience.”
I heard Lucretia’s voice. She came into the outer chamber with Ava. Both of them carried blankets and pillows. I kissed my mother on the cheek. “We’ll talk of this again.” We both stood and went out to the front room to help with the bedding.
CHAPTER 8
We stayed in Metapontum three more days. I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to Hannibal again, but my mother spent part of each day with him, usually in the evening. I saw Sosylus in the garden the second day. He immediately approached me.
“I’m curious about those pieces of glass you demonstrated to Hannibal and me. I went down to the wharf this morning to check on those crates you pointed out. They did contain wine from Corinth. Did you see that through the pieces of glass? Or had you seen what was on those ships earlier and hoped to trick us?”
I had not wanted to show the lenses to Hannibal at all. I had made the offer out of desperation. And after I had learned that my mother was free to come and go, I was relieved that neither Hannibal nor Sosylus had been able to make them work. But Sosylus’ question put me in a pinch. I didn’t want to reveal anything more about the lenses, but I didn’t want Hannibal thinking I had tried to deceive him in any way.
“The lenses work, Sosylus. I did see the writing on the boxes from the patio. Archimedes gave those lenses to me the day he was killed, but they are difficult to use. They can be very frustrating.” As I said this, I knew making them easier to use was something I would work on when I got back to Croton.
“They were certainly frustrating to me. I saw nothing. May I try them again?”
I did not want to show Sosylus the lenses at all, but how could I say no? I got them out trusting that Sosylus, like Archimedes, would not have good enough vision to use them. He took a lens in each hand, then looked up and down and this way and that with no success. Finally he shook his head and gave them back to me.
“If this is some kind of trick, young man, I warn you, be very careful what you do or say in the company of Hannibal. He’s a generous and remarkably thoughtful man, but he doesn’t like being made a fool of. He can be very quick with retribution.”
CHAPTER 9
My mother, Lucretia, Ava, and I returned to Croton, escorted by the same contingent that brought Lucretia and me to Metapontum. Carthaginian officers made periodic stops by our home to see if everything was all right, but it really did seem that my mother was free to do as she pleased.
My mother had been paid extremely well during her time with Hannibal, and there was no pressure on her or me to bring in any income. This allowed me to return to my study of geometry and mathematics on a full-time basis, something I had never been able to do before. Several of my father’s old papers remained in our home, and though someone had clearly gone through them, presumably looking for seditious writings, I used his work to extend what I already knew.
It seemed that mapmaking was destined to be the way I would make my living, so I concentrated on methods of triangulation. I also began to assemble my own writings, which until that time had been little more than diary entries. This was when the first book in my trilogy began to take shape, mostly as a chronology of my time in Syracuse.
Life in our home was almost normal. Of course the absence of my father remained the unspoken hole in the household, but this made me cherish the time with my mother all the more. After six years of wondering where she was, not knowing if she were even alive, seeing her each day seemed the greatest gift I could hope for. Yet all too often my thoughts drifted off to Sempronia. Our last day together had not gone well. I felt awful for my admission about her mother. I had spat it out in a moment of anger. I couldn’t help wondering if Sempronia ever thought of me or if there was any way we could repair the damage we had already done to our friendship.
Life outside our home was definitely not the same as it had been. Croton had suffered only the slightest damage during the change of regimes. There had been no siege, no battle, but the aristocrats had holed up in a citadel overlooking the ocean. Rather than root them out, Aristomachus, working with Carthaginian agents, arranged for them to be given housing in Locri. After a relatively peaceful evacuation, the local Bruttians were allowed to move into the city. Aristomachus acted as the mediator between the Bruttians and Carthaginian officers who imposed martial law. It reminded me of my time in Syracuse during the reign of Hieronymus. I was an out
sider in the city where I had grown up. Nothing felt safe. Often I was stopped in the street and questioned. Early on in my stay, I saw one of the Bruttians who had come to our house the night my father was murdered. It was the man who had stabbed him. I kept my eyes out for him throughout my time in Croton with some vague hope of exacting revenge on the man.
After six weeks of relative bliss in Croton, my mother got another request from Hannibal to come to Metapontum. I had begun to feel like the man of the house and immediately confronted her.
“Say no to him,” I demanded. “Give this up. It’s dangerous and it’s not clear that your efforts will bring any reward.”
“I’m sorry, Timon,” she replied, denying the authority I thought I had gained. “My mind is made up. I’ll be leaving in two days. The arrangements have already been made.”
“Cancel them. If what Hannibal said while we were in Metapontum were true, you can do as you please, and I would hope that my wishes outweigh his.”
“My choices are political, not personal. You were young at the time of the Carthaginian takeover. You couldn’t possibly have understood all your father and I talked about, but he, particularly, was adamant in his resistance to the Carthaginians. Croton had a good relationship with Rome. Yes, we paid a tribute and supplied levies when needed, but with the Bruttians in charge, Croton is a mere shadow of what it was ten years ago. The democracy your father so valued is gone. There is no city council. No forum for the people to voice their opinions. These were important issues to your father, and things I still feel very strongly about.”
“Yes, of course,” I pleaded, “all of what you’ve said is true, but from what I saw, Hannibal has influence over you that is more than information about the war. You told me he’s bedded you. That troubles me and suggests that there’s something more to your leaving than you say.”
“You’re simply wrong about that.” For the first time anger crept into her voice. “I admit that the man can be charming and that I can enjoy his company, even his bed, but I will never forget who he is, what he’s done, and what his intentions are. If I prostitute myself in any way, it’s for a cause—Greek Italy and your future. I am not a brazen street walker. I’m doing something I believe in.”
I shook my head. “You’re fooling yourself, Mother. I can hear it in every rationalization you make.”
My words did nothing but create tension between us. She left two days later with Ava. Lucretia and I remained in Croton.
The time that my mother was gone seemed interminable. I continued with my studies and writing, but I also began to apply myself to the task of building a mechanism that would make the lenses easier to use.
I sought out an old craftsman by the name of Furius whom my father had known and whose shop I had visited as a youth. His mother was Bruttian, his father Greek, and he had been allowed to stay in Croton when others in the city had been sent to Locri. I found him in his shop, down the same alley it had always been. We spoke about my father. He deliberately stayed clear of politics. I asked him if he could make three wooden tubes, with diameters that allowed them to fit one inside the other. He said that he was too busy at the time, but he could give me the instruction, materials, and tools to make the three tubes myself. I enjoyed working with my hands and readily agreed to his offer.
I bored out the tubes with a hand drill and fitted the sleeves as tightly as possible, so that their combined length could be adjusted by twisting them in or out. I mounted the crystal disk at the end of the tube with the largest diameter and the glass bead at the end of the tube with the smallest.
With the perfection of these wooden tubes, I was able to use the lenses for longer periods of time, and with considerably more ease and clarity of vision. The power and value of lenses became more evident, and anyone could use them. The lenses did, however, lose some of their security with the addition of the tubes. If someone had found the lenses in the pouch, using them in combination was not at all obvious. They were hard enough to use even with my assistance. Mounting them at the ends of the tubes gave the secret away. Should anyone find or steal the device, learning to use it was not so difficult to figure out. But the positives outweighed this one negative. The lenses were easily focused by sliding the tubes in and out, and the tubes held the lenses steady and in line, which was so difficult without them. Because of the fantastic nature of its visual effect, almost like looking into another world, I thought of the device as my magic wand, capable of bringing a profound awe to anyone who used it. I kept the device, my “spyglass” as I called it, with me at all times, tucked in the folds of my toga—looking more like a extendable walking stick than a scientific tool.
I felt a greater temptation to show the lenses to others now that they were so easy to use. If the lenses had been mounted in the wooden tubes when I had tried to show them to Sempronia, maybe then she would have understood why I had gone to such extremes to recover them when they were lost. I planned to show the spyglass to my mother when she returned from Metapontum, but no one else, even Furius. For the time being, I would remain highly selective, waiting for the right person and the right time. Hannibal had not been that person, and I knew it. In that instance, I was fortunate I hadn’t made the wooden tubes yet.
CHAPTER 10
My mother returned to Croton after three weeks in Metapontum. I showed her the spyglass one afternoon when we were in the peristyle at the back of our house.
“Mother, do you remember when I showed Hannibal the two pieces of glass?”
“Yes, I do. I had been meaning to ask you about that. I’m afraid I didn’t understand what you were trying to do.”
I nodded. “Afterward I realized I had to do something to make them easier to use.” I withdrew the spyglass from my toga and pointed out the lenses at each end, then demonstrated how the tubes slid in and out. I held it out to her. “Try it. Hold the end with the small opening to your eye. It’s really quite surprising what you’ll see.”
She held the spyglass in both hands and twisted the tubes to get a feel for how they worked, then she lifted the device to her eye. With only the slightest assistance from me, she was able to focus on a distant portion of the city wall.”
“What is this?” she asked lowering the spyglass. “The wall appears so close—and upside down.”
“Ignore that it’s upside down, and try focusing on that guard in the parapet.” I pointed to the man. He was little more than a stick figure from where we stood.
It didn’t happen without some effort, but when she saw the man’s face through the lenses she gasped. “That can’t possibly be the man patrolling the battlements? Can it?” She lowered the spyglass to verify what she was looking at.
“It is, Mother. The lenses were something Archimedes was working on while I was with him. His eyes weren’t good enough to appreciate what he’d made, but mine were. He gave me the lenses the day he died and told me never to show anyone how they worked—unless my life depended on it.”
“But you showed them to Hannibal and now to me?”
“Something happened.” I bowed my head, remembering the day Marcellus was killed. “After holding them in secret for three years, I concluded Archimedes was wrong, so I’ve decided to show them to a few select people. I only showed them to Hannibal because I had nothing else to trade for your freedom. I showed you just now because they are something Father would have appreciated, and I thought you might also.”
She lifted the spyglass to her eye to target another guard on the battlements. After a moment, she lowered the spyglass and looked at me, awed by what she had seen. “Is this some kind of magic, Timon? Is that the reason for the secrecy?”
“No, it’s not magic. It’s applied geometry, nothing more. But you’re not to say anything about the device—to anyone. The secrecy is necessary because there isn’t another one like it—anywhere—and it’s valuable. My experience with the lenses has made me realize that this device, which I call a spyglass, can be highly useful in warfare. It allows a form
of spying that doesn’t risk the life of the asset.”
My mother acknowledged my reasoning, but ignored my not-so-subtle suggestion.
Later that night I took my mother to the roof of our house for another demonstration of the spyglass’ power. The night was clear and the moon nearly full. Even after her limited experience with the spyglass in the afternoon, she had no trouble focusing on the moon’s surface. She was instantly captivated by the details of the lunar landscape, and stared at the cratered surface for so long I had to direct her to other parts of the sky so she could appreciate the vast depth of the heavens.
My mother was an intelligent woman. She had lived almost twenty years with my father and had often heard him expound on the size of the universe and the various planets and their relationship to the stars. She understood the implications of what she was seeing almost immediately. On concluding her brief tour of the heavens, she lowered the spyglass and looked at me. “For all the beauty of what I have just seen, and the marvel of this device, I think I understand why Archimedes wanted you to be so secretive with these lenses. After using this spyglass, I feel differently about who I am. Think how insignificant we must be in so large a universe. And what this suggests about the gods?”
“And why would we bother to fight wars? Why would we as Greeks choose one side or the other—Roman or Carthaginian?”
She knew where I was headed. She shook her head. “Your father and I chose to support Rome because the thing we believed in most was Greek democracy. Rome had learned to stay clear of the business of our senate, but that was the first target of the Carthaginian agents. I believe in the process of a democratic government and hope that one day women will be allowed to take part more actively in politics—and the war. Maybe I can’t be a soldier, but I can help—of that I’m more certain than ever.” She looked out over the roofs of the other houses in the neighborhood. Although no one else was in sight, she lowered her voice. “I have recently gained access to military information with my lyre that even this spyglass could not have discovered.”
Zama Page 5