With all of this yet to learn, and needing distraction, I went over to the quern to help Lavinia turn the mill stone. It was a strenuous job and took quite a bit of effort for the small, compact pastry chef. The quern had two spoke-like arms to lever it around. Lavinia labored at one; I took the other.
As we turned the stone, Lavinia opened a conversation. “Timon, I believe you have met my husband, Orestes.”
“Orestes? The woodworker.”
“Yes. His shop is in the Tyche district across from the harness shop. He’s taken on several jobs for your master. ”
“I’ve been there twice recently. Archimedes calls him the best woodworker in Sicily.” Lavinia beamed. And it was true. Well, Archimedes had actually called him the only capable woodworker in Syracuse.
“His apprentice, who’s a little older than you,” she said proudly, “is our son, Cales.”
“I’ve seen him there,” I replied, continuing to turn the quern.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Lavinia had purposely brought up her husband with Agathe there and Hektor gone. This was one of their many issues—husbands. Agathe’s husband, Galatus, had volunteered for the militia two years earlier. He had gone to Italy with one thousand citizen recruits and one thousand mercenaries. Providing troops was part of the alliance between Hiero and Rome. The Syracusan company had been at the battle of Cannae.
Galatus lost his left hand and most of his right arm at Cannae. As part of Hannibal’s effort to garner favor with the individual city-states of the Roman Federation, he regularly returned captured allied troops to their homes, instead of selling them into slavery as he did with the Roman prisoners. In some cases, this was more curse than gift. Galatus was not the same man he had been when he left. He’d been dug out of a pile of corpses several bodies deep. After two days in the pile, he’d gnawed at the thigh of one of the dead to survive.
Like Hektor, Agathe lived on the island. She and her husband rented a single room in the tenement housing not far from the Fountain of Arethusa. The once gregarious Galatus now stewed in silence, humiliated by his disability, and rarely left the room. The tension in the household had become so great that Agathe was more comfortable at work than in her home.
Agathe also had a seventeen-year-old son, Phocis. He had recently joined the militia to get away from his increasingly sullen father. Though it would take a long time for me to put all of this together, Agathe hated the war as much as I did. However, I blamed Hannibal, while she blamed the Romans and their continual demand for allied troops. Agathe was perpetually cranky because life hurt. Lavinia, as dearly as I liked her, had taken the opportunity to throw salt in Agathe’s wounds by talking to me about how wonderful her husband and son were.
As I pushed the quern around, I watched Agathe hack at the conger, unaware that Lavinia’s chatter had brought her to a slow boil. Another conger lay coiled in a basket beside the prep table. It probably weighed as much as I did and was as slippery as a slug. When Agathe finished slicing the first conger, she looked down at the second eel like she’d been asked to eat it. Biting back her anger, and all the vile words that were not spitting from her mouth, she bent over and took hold of the eel by its midsection. She got it up about level with the table when it slipped out of her arms. The eel slopped right back into the basket and smacked her in the face with its tail as it fell. Lifting the eel would be an easy chore for two people, but as Agathe was demonstrating, a real trick for one.
Lavinia had not been watching, but the sound of the tail fin slapping Agathe’s face got her attention. I had seen it all. We continued pushing at the quern’s long wooden arms, stifling smirks.
Agathe knew we were watching and dared not lift her eyes from her task. She knelt down, cradled the beast across her chest, and slowly stood. She edged up to the table, about to slide the eel out of her arms, when it slipped from her grasp again—this time with a slap to her other cheek.
Lavinia jammed her fist in her mouth and turned away. I pretended not to notice and stared at the ground. But both of us were watching when Agathe went at it a third time. Full of hatred for Lavinia—and probably all living things—and determined not to show it, she bent down on one knee and laid the eel across her thigh. Then, with both arms around it, the eel pressed to her chest, she unsteadily rose from her knee. Before she could get all the way up, her feet slipped out from under her. She went down on her back with a thick smack, leaving the conger stretched out across her midsection like a spent lover.
Lavinia made a choking sound, then gasped for air and burst into uncontrollable laughter, as did I.
Agathe climbed to her feet and gave us a horrible stare. With her sharp nose, narrow face, and missing teeth, she looked more like a witch than a cook. I would swear black wires of static sparked around her as she stalked across the kitchen toward us.
She swelled up and hovered over us like a hooded cobra. Lavinia backed up and nearly stumbled into one of the fire pits when Agathe began her vile, hissing attack. Her story came out in vivid images of Galatus, her life with him, and the war. But the words were secondary to the heat and power of her delivery. She cursed Lavinia for her insensitivity, then me for not giving her a hand with the eel. I felt so small it seemed I’d shrunk to the size of an acorn. I was so terrified I expected Agathe to swallow me in a single gulp.
But before Agathe could eat us alive, Hektor came around the corner of the tower in a swarm of skittering chickens, carrying two baskets of fresh vegetables. Agathe immediately contained herself, and just sucked all the blackness and anger back in like someone inhaling a cloud of smoke. Shamed, I went over and helped her lift the conger onto the table.
Hektor didn’t seem to notice. He’d been at the market and had seen the aftermath of the demonstration I had witnessed earlier in the day. “There’s trouble brewing out there,” he announced. Agathe and Lavinia exchanged a glare. “I was lucky to get any vegetables at all.” Hektor unloaded the baskets onto the table in the center of the kitchen.
Agathe and Lavinia said nothing. Hektor’s comments reminded me of my encounter with Moira and I was also silent.
Hektor poured himself a cup of wine. “That boy on the throne is playing with fire. He executed someone this morning.” He took a sip from his cup. “This isn’t the same place it used to be.” He scowled, clearly disturbed by what he’d heard, and oblivious to the tense scene he’d walked into.
“Where do you think we’re headed, Hektor?” I asked, more interested in breaking through the icy atmosphere than an answer.
Hektor took another, longer drink from his cup. Some of the wine ran down his chin. “That’s anyone’s guess. But it can’t be good. I don’t recall an execution in this city in all the years I’ve lived here. That wasn’t the way Hiero took care of business.” He took another long swallow and smacked his cup down on the table. “Smells like war to me.”
Though Hektor’s final words temporarily dispelled my thoughts of Moira, the episode with Lavinia and Agathe and the conger stuck in my head. Thereafter I gave Agathe a wider berth than I had before. I also had a new appreciation for this woman I didn’t really like. The disfigurement of her husband tortured her in the same way that the loss of my parents tortured me. We had this in common, and this insight allowed me not to hate her.
The incident also reminded me of the day I had lost control kicking the dog. I recalled how all-encompassing my anger had been and realized that I couldn’t let my anger shape me in the way Agathe’s had shaped her. It was an important lesson. When I look back at this, I think Agathe did me a service. As for Lavinia, she lost a measure of my respect that day by needling Agathe, targeting the most sensitive part of the woman’s life for reasons too petty to acknowledge.
CHAPTER 23
Early the following morning Laius Aufidius knocked on the workshop door and entered. Archimedes was using a compass to turn a circle in the sand. He had been working all morning and had taken no notice of his breakfast or my presence. Laius crossed the room wi
thout looking at me and stood before his friend.
Laius addressed Archimedes three times with mounting frustration before the old man raised his head. Laius immediately plunged into a diatribe against the execution of Thraso and those behind it.
“Brave Theodotus has proven more subtle than tough. Apparently under much less duress than we’ve heard, he told the king’s men just what they wanted—that Thraso was the ringleader of the conspiracy to assassinate Hieronymus. He gave them several other names, also all false. I know this for a fact.” Laius paced back and forth in the center of the room. “Theodotus intentionally implicated innocent men to secure his own release and protect the cadre of assassins that he is part of. Meaning their plot is still alive. I may fear for the Carthaginian influences in our dear city, but assassination is not much better. Mark my words, we’ll hear Theodotus’ name again.”
Laius abruptly stopped and faced the mathematician. “I’m sorry, my friend,” he said. “Once again I’ve stormed into your chambers with no announcement and vented my frustrations. I apologize.” He bowed his head. “There’s just no one else I trust any more.”
“It’s fine, Laius,” said Archimedes, his voice deep and gentle. “As long as you don’t expect me to fix it.”
“No one can fix it. That’s the shame. The city council hasn’t met since the coronation. I know there are magistrates as upset as I am. But with this execution, no one dares to express their feelings in public or even to their friends.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I spoke with Alexa last night about the possibility of our leaving Syracuse. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it may.”
Archimedes nodded his head. I could see that he was distracted. Laius was his good friend, and this information was important. But it was all secondary to his work. Politics was an intrusion on his concentration.
Laius saw this as clearly as I did. He looked around the room uneasily, then moved up close to Archimedes. “Please, my friend. Be alert to these things I tell you. I know you have a grander calling than sorting out the bickering of men. But I worry for your life. With all this intrigue in the air who knows where we’re headed—a confrontation with Rome or mayhem in our streets. That’s why I came here this morning. To tell you to be careful.”
Archimedes nodded again, then looked down forlornly at his abacus. Laius knew it was time to leave. His eyes met mine briefly as he crossed the room. Be careful, they said, be careful.
CHAPTER 24
The death of Thraso sent a shudder of fear through the city. Under Hiero’s rule, Syracuse’s loyalty to Rome had never been in doubt. Now with Hiero’s grandson wearing the crown and Hannibal’s string of impressive victories in Italy, there was a growing split in the populace. The aristocracy, including men like Laius, held out for continued loyalty to Rome, while the general population thought it best to support a winner. What was Rome to them but an outside government that demanded men and tribute? With the execution of Thraso and the suppression of demonstrations in the streets, it appeared that the worm had turned. Adranodorus and his associates had become the boy king’s closest advisors and no one doubted what their intentions were.
Hieronymus, however, was not so easily controlled. With his ascendance to the throne, he had become as willful as a donkey. From what I had gleaned from the kitchen gossip, the king beat his dogs, screamed at his personal attendants, and spat at the feet of his sister and his aunts. So adverse was his personality and arrogant his manner, even his closest advisors could not tell him anything—short of praise—that wouldn’t send him into a rage. Only through manipulation, lies, and deceit could Hieronymus be led in any direction at all. And that was exactly the approach taken by his two uncles, Adranodorus and Zoippos, and his brother-in-law, Themistos—prompted by the matrimonial insistence of Damarata and Harmonia. The three men began by catering to the king’s excesses, drinking with him late into the night, finding women for him, filling the boy’s head with grand plans for the expansion of his kingdom, all to the steady refrain of Hannibal’s certain victory over Rome. Little by little, they began to get into his head, and puppet-like, orchestrate the politics of Syracuse.
Adranodorus persuaded Hieronymus to open talks with Hannibal. The young king sent two ambassadors, Polycletius of Cyrene and Philodemus of Argos, to Hannibal’s camp in Italy to discuss an alliance. Hannibal knew what Syracuse meant to the war. He received the ambassadors with open arms and encouraged further talks, immediately sending three of his own emissaries back to Syracuse with Hieronymus’ ambassadors.
Two of these emissaries, Hippocrates and Epicydes, were brothers. They were born in Carthage of a Greek father and a Carthaginian mother, but had spent part of their childhood in Syracuse. Hippocrates, the leader of the contingent, was one of Hannibal’s generals, a very capable soldier, and a man of subtle intellect and charm. His younger brother, Epicydes, was also a ranking officer, known for his courage and fury in combat. The two of them made a dynamic pair of trained agents—or more accurately provocateurs. The third emissary was another man by the name of Hannibal. He was a Carthaginian aristocrat and the commander of the squadron of triremes that gave offshore support to Hannibal’s army in Italy.
Hieronymus received these men with great inflation of his ego. A few days short of his sixteenth birthday, he had initiated communication with one of the most powerful men in the world. After three days of talk, they agreed to tentative terms for an alliance. The naval commander Hannibal would sail to Carthage with representatives of the king to review the agreement with the Carthaginian Senate. Meanwhile, the brothers, Hippocrates and Epicydes, would stay in Carthage as advisors to the young king.
Hieronymus, who had become quite enamored with the physical presence and bold manner of the two brothers, decided to throw a banquet for the Carthaginians, celebrating both the alliance and his sixteenth birthday. Hippocrates, knowing that one of the world’s greatest scientific minds lived in Syracuse, requested that Archimedes be invited to the festivities.
On the west coast of Sicily, Appius Claudius Pulcher, the Roman praetor in Lilybaeum, arguably the second most important port on the island, got wind of this tentative agreement. It was troubling news to him and even more so to the Roman Senate. The praetor immediately dispatched two envoys to Syracuse to review Rome’s existing alliance with the city-state. Hieronymus responded by inviting them to his birthday party.
CHAPTER 25
Archimedes initially turned down the invitation to the king’s birthday celebration, but Hieronymus’ second request was delivered in such a way that Archimedes felt he could not refuse. This meant that I would go with him, posing as his human crutch, just as I had during the trip to the theater and at Hiero’s funeral. I expected a staid diplomatic gathering. Instead it was a drunken party of misplaced theater and excess beyond my experience and imagination.
The banquet took place during the evening in the north wing of the palace’s great hall. Though we weren’t late, it seemed the party was well underway when we arrived. It was so loud no one heard my master announced. Archimedes put his hand on my shoulder and I led him into the rowdy hall.
Couches were arranged around three sides of a long plank table. About thirty men stretched out on these couches, head toward the table. The remaining side of the table had chairs for the women. Only a few were there, including Damarata, Heraclia, and Harmonia.
The table overflowed with food and drink—two stuffed boars, roasted venison, pheasant, swordfish steaks, a bowl of fresh fruit, an assortment of olives, dried figs, chestnuts, more cheeses than I knew existed, five varieties of bread, a steaming tub of plum pudding—that Lavinia had made in our kitchen—and wine by the barrel. Everyone was going at it with both hands. I stood behind and watched.
The only light in the room came from oil lamps mounted on the walls and ten tall candles set at intervals down the middle of the table. In the flickering light, the faces around the table were all glittering lips and teeth and eyes, lending to the sense that the feast
was taking part in some unstated corner of the underworld.
The boy king sat cross-legged at the head of the table, his face flushed with drink and Hiero’s gem-studded crown tipped to one side of his head. He wore an extravagantly embroidered purple robe with a high collar of white rabbit fur. Countless gold bracelets and rings decorated his wrists and fingers. A massive gold medallion hung from his neck like an ornamental millstone. Reeling with abandon, he swung a goblet of wine in one hand, while cutting back and forth through the air with a half-devoured shoulder of venison in the other hand. More of this and more of that he shouted at the attendants, many of whom I had seen at sometime or another in the island kitchen.
As difficult as the king was to watch, I could barely keep my eyes off him. Whenever a female attendant refilled his goblet, he invariably poked or squeezed her somewhere impolite, sometimes reaching right up under her garment with a pinch or a probe. His manners embarrassed me, but apparently no one else, except perhaps Damarata, who kept a black eye on him throughout the meal.
Damarata sat on the king’s left, across the table from Adranodorus. Her heavy makeup and wig, the canary yellow one tonight, made me uncomfortable. Only a cold, cold heart could reside beneath all that false hair and paint. Heraclia, who still wore funeral black, sat beside Damarata, while her husband Zoippos stretched out beside Adranodorus. Harmonia sat beside Heraclia, opposite her husband Themistos.
Hippocrates, the guest of honor, lounged at the far end of the table, some forty feet from Hieronymus. His brother Epicydes was on his left with Hannibal the Carthaginian naval officer beside him. Other guests filled out the table, none of whom I recognized. Because of his allegiance to Rome, Laius had not been invited.
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