Athena's Son

by Jeryl Schoenbeck

  “You Greeks are the last race to question the motives of others.” Ptahhotep shot back. “While your people were busy fighting and killing each other, Egypt built magnificent temples that reached to the skies. And that cursed lighthouse of the false king will only draw more of your ilk to Egypt like rats to a cargo ship. That is why I tried to destroy it by claiming it was cursed. It nearly worked, until you interfered.”

  Archimedes stretched his cracked lips in a feeble but knowing smile that did not escape the attention of Ptahhotep. “Laugh now, schoolboy. All of our elaborate plans did not clear the Medjay from the tomb until we took from Ptolemy the one thing he values most.” Now it was Ptahhotep’s turn to give an evil grin, “His beloved daughter Berenike. You can thank your old shipmate Pollux for coming up with that ploy.”

  “No need to thank me, eh, little goat?” Pollux smirked. “Just pay a few coins to a scribe to write a forged note from your merchant friend and we catch two rats in the same trap, you and your girlfriend.” Pollux’s tone turned hostile. “You know all about rat traps, don’t you? Maybe your girlfriend will have to pay for the little joke you played on me.”

  The implied threat to Berenike burned at Archimedes, but he knew he couldn’t do anything, yet. “I always meant to ask you Pollux if you found the taste of rotting rats to your liking?”

  Pollux jumped up and nearly had his knife in Archimedes before Alexander pushed him back onto the crate. “I told you I need this boy alive.”

  “You must forgive my faithful servant Pollux,” Ptahhotep said. “He puts his whole heart into his work.”

  “Speaking of faithful servants, I saw how you pay them back when your devoted scribe Ipuwer was spilling his whole heart on the cold marble floor of the temple,” Archimedes said.

  “A worthy sacrifice for the gods…” Ptahhotep began, but was cut off by Alexander.

  “Quiet, priest!” Alexander heard enough. “Lies leak from your mouth like drool from a baby. You are after the same thing I am—power.” Ptahhotep slunk back into a corner and sulked.

  “As to you, Archimedes,” Alexander said, “It seems everyone’s had a chance to interact with your inventions. Pollux was paid back with your rat trap. You frustrated Ptahhotep with your crown solution. That was me watching you from the temple when you built your cart and I followed you when you demonstrated your machine that blew up the melon.”

  He paced several steps toward Archimedes. “Ptahhotep made the mistake of hiring Egyptian engineers to remove my father’s coffin. I don’t need Egyptian engineers; I need a Greek genius.”

  Archimedes ignored the compliment. “So all you need is to get a dead man back to Macedonia?”

  “Fool!” The crazy Alexander turned on him. “Macedonia is irrelevant. Greece is the past. Egypt is no longer important, despite what this priest would believe. The future is in the west. There is a new power that will outshine Persia, Greece, or Egypt. The future is Rome! I have seen what their legions can do. All they need is a man who can lead them. Who better than the son of a god? Rome will supply the men, horses, and weapons, and I will supply the brilliance of Alexander to conquer all of Europe!”

  Alexander was pacing again, wild in his thoughts of conquest. “Rome and Europe are a large block of stone waiting for a skilled artist to shape it into an empire the world has never seen. It will make my father’s kingdom look like slums of Alexandria.”

  The dizziness passed and Archimedes was able to sit up by leaning against the wooden pillar. “Your father was battle-tested by King Phillip and tutored by Aristotle. Why would Rome’s legions follow you?”

  Alexander scrutinized Archimedes. “Soldiers don’t judge with their minds; they judge with their eyes. They will see Alexander the Great reincarnated before them and that will ignite the unused potential in them; it will be the catharsis to shed their old ways and absorb the power and promise I am offering. I am the god they have hungered for!”

  He grabbed Archimedes by the arm and threw him toward Pollux. “Enough talk! Pollux, bring the boy. Ptahhotep, you know what to do. When I have the body safely in Rome, you can begin your insurrection and topple Ptolemy Pharaoh from his throne.”

  Pollux was dragging Archimedes toward the door but Archimedes shook off his grip and turned to Alexander IV. “Wait. Please. If I agree to help you, will you release Berenike, unharmed? She is innocent and of no use to you.”

  Alexander leaned his face only inches from Archimedes. “You know nothing of leverage, boy,” he whispered. “Berenike’s kidnapping has the Medjay searching all of Alexandria for her, letting us get into the tomb undiscovered. Second, having someone you so obviously care about keeps you honest. I’ve seen your handiwork. I can’t afford to have your clever little mind devising traps for me. You better come up with a better solution for removing the coffin than those incompetent engineers Ptahhotep found or you won’t have to worry about your pretty friend. You’ll both be dead.”

  Chapter 30

  Outside the tomb of Alexander the Great, a small brown-speckled owl swooped down and trapped a mouse grown fat from pilfered grain. The talons tightened around the rodent as the owl turned its dispassionate gaze at three men driving a wagon. It spread its wings, caught the wind after several sweeps of its wings, and took off with its prey still squirming.

  Archimedes, Pollux, and another man got off the wagon and entered the unguarded tomb. Four large murals depicted Alexander’s conquests across Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and India. A pair of life size statues portrayed two of his more famous adventures—taming his horse, Bucephalus, and untying the Gordian Knot. Four slender Corinthian columns stretched up 20 feet to a ceiling with one skylight in the center that allowed the god Ra to sweep his light across the coffin of Alexander the Great. Now the skylight was beginning to fill with the first stars of dusk.

  Archimedes had less than 12 hours to save Berenike. The directive from Alexander IV was explicit: Get the coffin out of the tomb by sunrise or he would kill Berenike. If Archimedes could remove the coffin, it would be loaded onto a wagon and then onto a ship waiting to transport Alexander, the coffin, and a group of minions back to Rome. To help Archimedes achieve that improbable task and at the same time keep him from scheming, Alexander left behind Pollux and another thug from the wharves.

  Although one of the greatest generals in history lay only a few feet away, Archimedes was more interested in the design, weight, and proportions of the coffin. He approached this task like he did the autopsy of the corpse with Herophilos. It wasn’t a dead king or a symbol of some future empire; it was purely a scientific challenge.

  Thoughts of Berenike tried to creep into the recesses of his active mind like tiny spiders, but he blocked them. He had to concentrate on the mechanics and materials required to confiscate Alexander the Great.

  To Ra, Alexander was a fellow god, crowned King of Egypt and preserved in mummification like the pharaohs before him. To Archimedes, he was a weight to be calculated and moved by mechanical force. The Greeks called these Egyptian coffins a sarcophagus, which meant flesh eating stone, because they believed the limestone they were carved out of actually deteriorated the corpse. Fortunately, this coffin was not a massive limestone block, as most pharaohs’ sarcophagi were.

  This one was designed with the clean, sleek design preferred by Greeks. The artisan who created this coffin was inspired by the work of the Greek sculpture Phidias who designed both the statue of Zeus at Olympia and the statue of Athena in the Parthenon. The artist created a likeness of Alexander for the lid and used ivory for the face, arms, and legs and gold for the armor. Like Athena and Zeus, Alexander held a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. The artist did an exceptional job because there was a definite resemblance to Alexander IV.

  The coffin lay on a marble slab about 3 feet off the ground. The Egyptian engineers were right about one thing. The doorway was purposely narrow so the coffin could not be removed from the tomb. Not that it would be easy to even move the coffin. After removing ex
traneous ornaments and supports, it still would weigh just under a half ton. Archimedes lit a torch and it fluttered as he swept the tomb looking for another way to get it out. Was this tomb built around the coffin? He looked back up to the skylight and to the constellations he knew so well.

  He took out his wooden amulet, gave a silent prayer to Athena, and the random stars began to align.

  Archimedes turned to Pollux. “I’m going to need four wagon wheels, strong ones. Two hundred feet of hawser, not any rope, it has to be the hawser from a ship’s anchor. A ladder long enough to reach that skylight. Two stout timbers at least 10 feet long and at least 12 block timbers. Also, wood planks and tools. You can find all the tools and wood at the lighthouse worksite. There should be rounded logs near the stone blocks. Get about 10 of those, too. I don’t care if you or your friend goes, but make it quick, we have to box this coffin up and we don’t have much time.” Archimedes, backed by orders from Alexander, was in charge of this theft, but his real goal was to keep Berenike safe.

  Pollux grabbed Archimedes by the neck. “Alexander may have told me to follow your instructions, but watch how you give them to me, goat.” He shoved Archimedes away. “The only thing keeping you alive is the gold Alexander owes me. But when we’re done here, schoolboy, my knife will slice your belly open like a bloated fish.”

  Pollux turned to the brute from the docks. “I’ll go; I don’t think you could find a hole to fall into. Watch this snake closely. Don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll be back with all the supplies.” He began marching toward the door, but turned and stalked back to Archimedes. Pollux, a previous victim of Archimedes’ carpentry skills, looked down at him suspiciously. “Why do you need to box it up? It would be faster to get the coffin out just as it is.”

  Archimedes was already kneeling to try to look under the sarcophagus. “Think about it, Pollux. How many wagons parade through the streets of Alexandria with the coffin of Alexander the Great on display? That gilded casket would draw the Medjay like flies to a dung heap. As brave as you are, do you really want that kind of attention?”

  After Pollux left, Archimedes used the time to have the brute lever up the coffin with some lumber and begin to shim it off the slab with wood blocks. In just over an hour Pollux returned with everything requested. Archimedes never really doubted that a thief as shrewd as Pollux could steal all the items. He just hoped no one paid with their life in getting them.

  More torches were lit and the work began. Archimedes’ plan was to use a multiple pulley system to raise the coffin through the skylight and then lower it into the wagon. It was simple enough to demonstrate pulleys to Farrokh on the Calypso, but this project involved removing an enormous weight out of a sealed tomb. In effect, he was stealing what many people regarded as Alexandria’s most valuable possession. For Archimedes, it only meant saving something invaluable, Berenike.

  While Archimedes built the box for the coffin, Pollux and the other man carried the timbers and two wheels up to the skylight. Using Archimedes’ instructions shouted from below, they used the block timbers to build elevated supports on each side of the skylight and laid the two long timbers across them. Then they connected a wheel to each timber. The other two wheels were roped to the coffin by Archimedes.

  To reduce the pulling weight, the rope would be wound around each wheel twice. The process began with Pollux tying one end of the hawser to a timber, and then throwing the other end down so Archimedes could wind it around a wheel on the coffin. Then he carried the rope back up to Pollux, who wound it around one of the wheels hanging from the timber, and then threw the rope down so Archimedes could string it through the first wheel a second time. That was repeated for the other three wheels. With eight sections of rope wound around the four wheels, the pulling weight of the coffin would be reduced to about 200 pounds.

  Archimedes climbed to the roof and inspected the pulleys. “Hey, Pollux, tie that statue of Alexander to the rope and send it up. I need a heavy counterweight up here to keep the pulley system from collapsing when we lower the coffin over the side of the building.” Pollux stood confused in the torchlight looking up at the silhouette of Archimedes in the skylight. Frustrated, Archimedes yelled louder, “For the love of Zeus, we need it to complete this job! Send it up!”

  It was twilight; the first faint hint of sunrise glowed in the east. Archimedes had just over an hour to deliver the coffin and secure the release of Berenike. The coffin was crated and loosely tied with hawser to accommodate the two pulleys attached. All that was left was brute force to heft it up to Archimedes who would be directing the operation from the roof.

  After coming down and giving final instructions to his two collaborators, Archimedes began to climb the ladder to get ready to receive the coffin. Pollux grabbed him from behind and pulled him off the ladder. “No tricks now, schoolboy. This tomb has room for one more body.”

  “What can I do?” Archimedes said. “You watched me crate the coffin; you’ll be with it when it’s delivered to Alexander. I can hardly carry it off. Don’t worry. You’ll get your blood money and then you can continue your career of robbing blind orphans.” Pollux swung a backhand at Archimedes, but he knew it was coming. He ducked and scampered up the ladder.

  For the first time the hired brute spoke. “Leave him, Pollux. Let’s get this finished so we can get paid. The Medjay will return at some point and they make short work of tomb robbers.”

  The hawser and pulleys squealed in defiance as the boxed coffin scraped, then lifted, off the marble slab. It swayed momentarily while Pollux and the thug regained their grip. It took a precious and precarious half hour of grunting and tugging, but the box finally reached Archimedes and cleared the roof.

  While Pollux and the thug went out and brought the wagon up, Archimedes tied the pulley system to the counterweight. To move the box across the roof, he used the same round logs that the workmen used at the lighthouse to roll the heavy slabs of stone. He pushed it barely two feet, then took a log from the back and put it in the front of the coffin, where he could give it another short shove.

  It took a while for Pollux to arrive because the horses and wagon had to be hidden some distance away so as not to create any suspicions about a wagon waiting outside the tomb of Alexander. The two men had to go back inside where Archimedes threw the rope back down to them through the skylight. Now their job was to carefully lower the box into the wagon below.

  The pair of muscled work horses nervously raised their heads and pinned their ears back when the box crunched down into the wagon. Pollux and the thug jumped aboard and Archimedes climbed in back.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Pollux asked. “Get off.”

  “Really? I can stay here?” Archimedes said a little too eager. He quickly jumped off and began to walk away. Pollux, after thinking several seconds, changed his mind.

  “Hey, wait, get back here you sneaky snake. You’re up to something. Get back on the wagon.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll wait here,” Archimedes said.

  Pollux pulled out his knife and jumped off the wagon. “Get on the wagon next to your cold friend!”

  “All right, fine!” Archimedes was compliant. “Just don’t hurt me.” He climbed back next to the box. That was almost too easy.

  Chapter 31

  The creaking wagon lurched along a street nearly deserted except for the first few sellers pushing their carts east toward the marketplace. Dawn broke and the orange rays of sunlight cast long shadows in front of the wagon as it headed west toward the waiting ship. Although the trip took only 15 minutes, it seemed like an eternity to Archimedes, whose only concern was Berenike.

  The small ship was docked at a little-used pier in the Egyptian section of the city. The location was a shrewd choice because the pier was farther west than the busy wharves Archimedes arrived at several days ago. In addition, citizens of the Egyptian quarter usually didn’t concern themselves with Greek business, either legal or illegal. The ship itself was sma
ller than the Calypso, only about 50 feet long with one mast. It was a pirate ship, Archimedes guessed, based on the descriptions Farrokh had given him aboard the Calypso.

  Pirate ships were cheaply made and lightweight, making it easier to maneuver than the merchant ships they were robbing and allowing swifter retreats from warships they were evading. The lighter weight also allowed a crew to pull the ship up on shore or row into shallow rivers, where pursuing warships could not go.

  Alexander IV was waiting with a small army of about 20 men of dubious backgrounds. There were sailors, street thugs, and ex-soldiers who looked like they hadn’t held a weapon for a long time. If this mob was the start of his conquest of Europe, Archimedes bitterly thought, he would not only need the body of his deceased father, he would need it to crawl out of the coffin and begin organizing the legions of Rome for him too.

  “You have it?” Alexander asked nervously as he ran up to the wagon. “Were there any problems?”

  Pollux jumped off the wagon. “The boy threw some rope together, but as far as getting the job done, I did most of the work. The runt is good at letting others do the work. I had to do everything from acquiring the materials to hauling the wretched box out of the tomb.”

  Archimedes figured Pollux was working for some kind of raise in his pay. Alexander walked back to the box and ran his hand along the wood lid, as if he were caressing the life back into his father.

  “I’ve done what you asked,” Archimedes said. He stayed in the wagon with the coffin, as if he possessed it as bargaining leverage. “Now live up to your part of the bargain and release Berenike.”