The Siege of Syracuse

by Dan Armstrong

  Laius knocked on the chamber’s huge plank door. There was no answer. Laius knocked again, harder, pounding with his fist. Still there was no response. Laius looked at me. “Archimedes is often deeply absorbed in his work. He’s capable of completely shutting out the rest of the world.” With that, he tried the latch and put a shoulder to the door. It swung open with a creak.

  The chamber that spread out before me was filled with work benches, tools, and curious machines with gears and wheels and pulleys. My somber thoughts and fears receded as I stood spellbound by the wonders of the room.

  Laius spoke out. “Archimedes, it is I, Laius.”

  I hadn’t even seen the man for all the wondrous clutter in the workshop, but there he was, bent over a table at the far end of the room, drawing with a wooden stylus in a tray of sand. He was an old man, with thick white hair above a wide forehead and a long, untrimmed beard that reached to the center of his chest. He didn’t look up at our entry or Laius’ beckoning. Laius moved farther into the room and called out a little louder. “Archimedes! It is I, Laius. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have a gift for you.”

  The old man continued to concentrate on his work. Laius turned to me and said, “He doesn’t hear so well.”

  I nodded, distracted for the moment by a large, hand-hewn wooden screw in a coffin-like box in the far corner of the room.

  Laius walked up to the table where Archimedes sat. Behind him was a stone hearth. I could smell the charred wood smoldering inside. Laius tapped on the table with his finger. “Good afternoon, Archimedes.”

  At last the mathematician looked up. “Laius,” he said, not at all startled. A white cataract clouded his left eye. “Pardon me. I did hear you the first time.” He looked down at the tray of sand. “I was working on something.” Then he squinted out in my direction with his one clear, sea-green eye. “Who is this?” His voice was deep and resonant.

  Laius motioned for me to come forward. “This is Timon Leonidas. He’s a gift from the king for your seventy-second birthday. Hiero has thought for quite a while that you could use a personal attendant.”

  Archimedes stood as I came closer. His face was flushed pink in the nose and cheeks, but was otherwise pale. Bag beneath bag hung below eyes as sad as any hound’s. He blinked and turned his head, focusing his one good eye on me. “Timon,” he said, as though weighing my name. “What bit of ill fortune brings you to me?”

  “The war with Hannibal.” I was so forthright that Laius chuckled.

  He spoke before I could say another word. “I found this talented youth at an auction last week, Archimedes. When the bidders asked what he might be good for, he boldly claimed to know geometry. I thought immediately of you, and Hiero’s desire to give you a birthday gift.”

  Archimedes leaned forward to give me a closer look.

  “And the numbers too,” added Laius.

  The old man nodded suspiciously. “Where did a young slave learn these things?”

  There was that word again!

  “From my father,” I answered though the question was directed to Laius. “And I am no slave.”

  “I see,” said Archimedes, looking from me to Laius. “The king has made me the questionable gift of a spirited youth.”

  “Timon has spent the last week in my home,” said Laius. “I have found him bright and capable. If you have any trouble with him, I will gladly take him back.”

  Archimedes was no longer listening. His attention was on the tray of sand, as though suddenly realizing how to solve the problem he’d been pondering.

  Laius faced me and put his hand on my shoulder. “You have a rare opportunity here, Timon. Make good use of it. I must leave now. Go down to the pantry in the basement. Ask for Hektor. He will help you get oriented.” With that he turned and left.

  I stood there without moving for some time, listening to the sound of Laius’ footsteps receding down the long stairway.

  The moment lengthened. I stood there watching the old man with his head down, scratching in the sand, entirely absorbed in his work. Such was my uncertainty of the situation, I was hesitant to even move, but when the passage of time became interminable, I sat down on the plank floor. A handsome gray cat slipped out from among the apparatus strewn about the workshop and sat a few feet away, staring at me with curiosity. The old man seemed to have forgotten I was there.

  Finally, as quietly as I could, I left the room. I paced angrily on the landing outside the chamber, waiting for my master to notice my absence. It never happened. I gave in to the inevitability of it all and headed down the stairs, one at a time, to the basement pantry to accept my lot as a slave.

  I paid more attention to the layout of the tower on my way down than I did on my way up. The tower was square at the base and narrowed slightly as it rose to six stories. Not counting the ground floor, there were five landings, each with a window and access to one, two, or three chambers. I would later learn that a garrison of militia was stationed in barracks on the island to oversee security. The militia officers lived in the more commodious chambers inside the tower. A single room on the tower’s ground floor served as their headquarters.

  The sentry we’d seen on the way in stood on duty outside the tower. He didn’t notice me when I reached the ground level. I followed a narrow stairwell to a subterranean pantry. It was the same size as the tower’s base, and dark. As my eyes adjusted I could see sacks of dry goods, salted meats, crates of vegetables, and casks of wine. But no one was there.

  I climbed the stairs and dared to ask the sentry where I might find a man named Hektor. The sentry demanded to know who I was. Swallowing my pride, I told him I was Archimedes’ slave. He appraised me, then said, “You’re looking for the cook. If he’s not in the pantry, he’ll be around back in the kitchen.”

  The kitchen was an open shed directly behind the tower, with a large stone hearth, a quern for grinding grains, several large wooden tables, three open fire pits, and two wash tubs. As I would later learn, this kitchen prepared and served food for approximately one hundred soldiers and their officers. It was a fairly large operation, involving three full-time staff and a rotation of palace slaves.

  Several people were at work when I turned the corner of the tower. Two women chopped cabbage and carrots, three others kneaded dough, and another stood before a fire pit, tending what looked to be about fifty rabbits on four skewers. Dinner was being prepared and I was starving. A loaf of rye bread sat on the table directly in front of me. I was leaning over to breathe in its fresh baked aroma when a meat cleaver thwacked into the wooden counter, startling me and cutting the heel off the loaf.

  “Touch that bread and it will be your hand next time,” growled the man at the other end of the cleaver, giving me a look to match the threat. “What are you doing here?” He held a live pheasant by the legs in his right hand.

  “I—I—I’m looking for Hektor,” I stammered.

  The man was Greek, maybe thirty-five years of age, much taller and significantly thicker than I. He had curly black hair and thick eyebrows that met in the center. His face was pock-marked and his grimace ugly as he looked me up and down. “I’m Hektor. What do you want?” The pheasant beat at his thigh with its wings trying to get free.

  “My name is Timon Leonidas. I’ve been given to Archimedes,” I had to work to get it out, “as a personal slave. I was told to come to you for my duties.”

  This prompted Hektor to look me over again, a little more closely this time. “You know Archimedes is a very important man.”

  I nodded.

  “And as eccentric as they come. I’ve been here eight years and have hardly seen him.” He levered the meat cleaver out of the counter. “He’s considered part of the royal family. We treat him that way. He often gets meals directly from the king’s kitchen. You hear what I’m saying?”

  I nodded, but didn’t really know what he was implying.

  “You’ve got big responsibilities.”

  The pheasant became more violent, thr
ashing with its wings. Hektor turned to the butcher block on his left, slapped the bird down, and quickly rid the pheasant of resistance with another powerful thwack of the cleaver and a spray of blood.

  “I’m the master cook. I run the kitchen and supervise the staff. Short of the garrison captain and the other officers, I’m in charge here.” He used a rag to wipe the bright red splatter from his left hand and wrist, then lifted a ceramic cup to his lips for a drink of what appeared to be wine.

  “You’ll find two rooms on the floor beneath your master’s workshop. The larger one is his bedroom. The smaller one will be yours. We serve meals twice a day—at dawn and at dusk. A tray of food will be prepared for your master at those times. A portion of that will be for you. Bring the plates and bowls down afterward and clean them.” He pointed to the wash tubs. “Once a day empty the slop pots. Your nose will direct you to the place to dump them. If you have any questions, come to me.” Then he called out, “Eurydice,” to the women making bread, and lifted the dead bird with his right hand.

  A young woman, very pretty, came across the kitchen to where we stood. “For the captain tonight.” He handed her the dead bird, blood dripping from its severed neck. As she walked away, Hektor put a hand to his crotch and made a comment about the young woman that made me blush enough for the older man to notice. He laughed out loud. One of the other women called him a pig. He laughed even louder, then took another sip from his cup and told me to come back that evening.

  When I turned to leave, he stopped me. “Are you hungry, lad?”

  I nodded.

  He smiled in a way I didn’t expect. “Take the crust,” he said, pointing the bloody cleaver at the heel he’d sliced from the loaf. “That should hold you over until dinner.”

  I took the piece of bread, thanked him, and hurried back to the tower entry. The sentry blocked my path. I told him for a second time I was Archimedes’ slave. He let me pass as if I were a stray dog. When I entered Archimedes’ workshop, the old man didn’t appear to have moved since I had left—or to have noticed my departure. I sat on a stool in the corner and watched the gray cat watch me.

  CHAPTER 7

  As brilliant as he was, Archimedes was absent-minded to a fault. I don’t know if it was because of his age or his concentration on his work or even a deliberate ruse, but he seemed not to notice I was there. Aside from bringing his evening meal, I was given no work of any kind during my first day. I sat in the corner, watching him scratch out geometric proofs in his tray of sand—known as an abacus—and idly looking at, but never touching, the mechanical contrivances scattered around the workshop.

  The gray cat passed in and out of my sight throughout the day. He—I was to learn later the cat was male—was a beautiful animal of some Egyptian strain, lean and tall with a silky, spotted coat and a long, striped tail. Head held high, noble and aloof, he sat across the room and deigned to give me a glance or two. On one of these occasions, I stretched out my hand and wiggled my fingers, hoping to draw him closer. He looked away as if recognizing me were beneath him.

  The cat had lived in the tower for a long time, belonged to no one, was fed by no one, seemed to have a way in and out of Archimedes’ chamber that was not the door, and, as far as I could tell, had no name. He became Plato to me, in memory of my father’s fondness for the philosopher and for the wisdom suggested in the cat’s always serious expression. Plato was a mouser of great capacity who was on the hunt whenever he wasn’t sleeping. I’m sure he considered my presence an intrusion on his hunting ground.

  That night I retired to the small room I’d been assigned. It held a cot and a chamber pot, but had little room for anything else.

  Just before dawn the next morning, I ventured down the tower stairs to fetch breakfast. As I would learn, Hektor and his staff assembled in the pantry each morning after starting the kitchen fires. The kitchen crew would sit in a circle on sacks of grain, drinking kykeon—a beverage made from barley gruel and goat cheese—while planning the meals for the day. Hektor, who had so intimidated me on our first meeting, did have a rough way about him, but was actually more bark than bite, with a penchant for wine, ribald comment, flatulence, and generosity.

  When I came stumbling down the last flight of stairs into the dimly lit pantry, blinking and yawning, Hektor stood and handed me a cup of warm kykeon. “This might help you wake up,” he said with a pleasantness I wasn’t expecting. My mother made kykeon. I didn’t believe anyone could make it better than she did until that first sip of Hektor’s. The morning ritual of drinking kykeon and sitting with the kitchen crew became the highlight of my day.

  As I sipped from my cup, Hektor introduced me to his kitchen staff, all women. The pastry cook, Lavinia, was a short, stocky older woman with a shank of gray hair wound up on her head in a braid and cheeks made ruddy by broken blood vessels. She was kind, but subject to strong opinions and wide swings in mood. Agathe was the second cook. She was lean as a stick with the face of a shrew and a personality to match. Her mode of communication was bound up in warnings and criticism.

  Our kitchen shared slaves with the palace kitchen. Two palace slaves were there that morning, Penelope, who I never saw again, and Eurydice, the young woman I’d seen the day before. She was the youngest of the slaves who worked in the kitchen, and stood out for her beauty. She was an olive-skinned Sicilian, maybe two or three years older than I, with long, lustrous, chestnut hair and a smile that could only accompany a good nature. Everyone liked Eurydice, especially Hektor, who seemed a bit obsessed with her. She tended to be very quiet and spoke only when necessary.

  The tower pantry was connected to the palace pantry by an unlit, dripping tunnel that passed beneath the canal that separated Ortygia from Achradina. Hektor, Lavinia, and Agathe were permanent paid staff. The palace slaves rotated between the two kitchens, often bringing supplies for Hektor or sometimes special delicacies for my master.

  After the introductions, I followed the others outside to the kitchen. Several more slaves were already there, stoking the fires in the gray of dawn. I remember seeing the faces of these women shining eerily in the firelight as they fed wood into the flames. It was a haunting scene I would see again and again and can see now in my mind as though I were there.

  I stood out of the way as Agathe prepared a breakfast tray for my master. When she was done, she handed it to me with a pleasant, “Don’t go dropping this on the way up. We’ve got plenty of soldiers here waiting to be fed. I’ll not be fixing that dotty old man upstairs a second meal.”

  I took two steps and stumbled on the rough ground, all but losing the tray, and gaining an ugly grumble from Agathe. The tray was heavy with a tasty assortment of food—a small loaf of rye bread, two bowls of barley gruel, dried fruit, chestnuts, a wedge of fresh ewe’s cheese, a pitcher of goat’s milk, and a small cup of honey. This would be more than enough until dinner—if I didn’t drop it.

  After a slow, careful climb up the tower stairs, I entered the workshop. Archimedes sat at his desk, sketching, with difficulty it seemed, on a piece of papyrus. As quietly as I could, I placed the tray on an adjacent workbench. He took no notice of the food and didn’t touch it until midday. I wasn’t supposed to eat until he’d taken what he wanted. I nearly fainted from hunger before I got a bite.

  I emptied the slop buckets early in the day, as would be my routine, but did little else. Archimedes made no acknowledgment of my presence nor gave me any other chores. In absolute boredom, I stood before the chamber’s three windows one by one and tried to gain some sense of where I was.

  The windows were large—tall enough for me to stand in and as wide as the span of my arms. Because of the height of the tower, the windows provided a view similar to what I’d seen from the top of the staircase leading down into Neapolis, but from the perspective of the island.

  The tower’s north-facing window looked out over Achradina and across the plateau. Beyond the Hexapylon, the road to Leontini wound along the coast into the distance. Much farther off
, the white peak of Mount Etna poked up over the horizon.

  The east window faced the ocean. Looking straight down, I saw the roofs of the two wooden structures that housed the garrison of soldiers. Farther off was the huge red tile roof of the Temple of Apollo.

  To the south was more ocean and the sliver of land that was Ortygia. The Temple of Athena, commemorating the Greek defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera, stood halfway between the tower and the tip of the spit. Just past the temple was a grotto, called the Fountain of Arethusa, that supplied the island with fresh water. Legend said the water came directly from Greece through an undersea channel.

  There was a fourth window on the tower landing. It faced west and overlooked the Great Harbor. Beyond was an expanse of farmland. Farther off, sat the Temple of Zeus, nestled into the hills.

  Too much of my first month in Syracuse was spent staring out the tower windows and daydreaming of home. I took care of the meals and the slop pots and learned to eat whenever I wanted. Archimedes took so little interest in the food that he didn’t notice if I’d taken something from the tray or not. On two occasions he asked me to deliver a letter, which involved a trip to the palace and the courier’s office. On another occasion I went up on the plateau into the Tyche district to pick up a supply of papyrus. In all three instances, I kept my eyes sharp for Adeon or the man who had bought her.

  Archimedes hardly seemed to need me. I got so bored at times that I would venture down to the kitchen for no other reason than human interaction. Always bustling and busy, the kitchen was a relief after the hours of tedium in the tower. Hektor had his good days and bad, but he kept everyone on their toes with loose talk, laughter, and needling.

  He was an entertainer of sorts. He loved his wine—a half-filled cup was always within arm’s reach—and though married, loved women, in a drooling kind of way. He had worked his way up through the military mess to become a chef of significant stature—the best in all of Sicily, if you asked him. He took to the work like an artist—even when cooking for a hundred soldiers. He was paid well and lived on the island in a big house with his wife and four slaves. His only complaint was that he wasn’t cooking for the king.