Hannibal's children

Chapter 15

The boat looked like nothing Marcus had ever seen before. If pressed to describe the thing, he might have said that it was like two boats fastened together, with the upper one hull-up, so that the whole thing was shaped like an enormous wooden spindle. Oars protruded from ingenious oarlocks, waterproofed with tarred leather sleeves. A pair of steering paddles protruded from its rear like the legs and feet of a goose. In the upper bow was a small window of thick glass. It rested on a launching slip like the egg of some vast bird. A small crowd of curiosity-seekers stood around waiting to see what might happen.

Marcus stood with Chilo, the head of the Archimedean School of the Museum. Selene sat near them in her elevated royal litter. Since this was not an official function she was dressed informally, in a plain, white gown with a gold-embroidered border. The gown was Greek but her hair was covered with an Egyptian-style coif, the first article of native garb Marcus had seen her wear.

"Do you believe this thing can really travel beneath the water?" Flaccus asked, looking queasy. He was the only member of the Roman party besides Marcus who had come to view the launching. The others deemed it a waste of time.

"Of course," Chilo said. "We wouldn't risk men's lives in it if we did not. The design has worked well when we built miniatures."

"I can make toy soldiers do things that living soldiers cannot," Flaccus said. "It is not natural for men to travel beneath the water."

"You think it's unnatural to travel on the water," Marcus said.

"The boat is watertight," Chilo asserted. "It will hold enough air to last the men inside for an hour or more. What we seek to find out today is how well we can make it move beneath the water, whether we can control its speed and direction sufficiently."

"I think it is most exciting," Selene said. "These men will be doing something no one has ever done before." No other member of the court was present. The pleasure-loving rulers of Egypt found nothing very interesting in the experiments of the Archimedeans. They had expressed only the mildest interest when Chilo had pointed out that his vessel would be useful in salvage operations.

"How can oars work under water?" Marcus asked. "If they can't be lifted free of the water, I would think that the pulling stroke would move the boat forward, then the return stroke would move it an equal distance back."

"The oarsmen are skillful," Chilo said. "You notice that the paddle ends are broad but very thin? Likewise, the shafts are of a flattened oval cross-section rather than truly round. After each pull stroke, they will twist the oars to a perfectly horizontal position and thus will cut through the water with very little resistance on the return stroke."

"We shall see," Marcus said.

A man's head appeared through the open hatch atop the hull. "All is ready," he reported.

"Good luck, Tyrophanes!" Selene cried.

"Then launch!" Chilo called. Slaves wielding sledgehammers knocked the chocks free and the bizarre boat slid down the greased skids to enter the water with a restrained splash. It settled so deeply that Marcus feared that it would sink, but as it lost way it floated with about a foot of its upper surface still above water. With a wave and a grin, the captain of the vessel disappeared inside, pulling the hatch shut behind him. The bronze wheel protruding from the hatch turned as it was tightened from within against its oiled leather gasket.

"Now what?" Flaccus asked.

"Tyrophanes will open the valves in the hull to fill the water skins inside. These will provide enough weight to cause the boat to sink entirely beneath the water."

"How do they come back up?" Flaccus said, his face a little pale.

"There are screw-presses to expel the water once more and then the boat will rise," Chilo explained.

"Something about that just doesn't sound right," Flaccus protested.

"The principles of buoyancy were articulated by Archimedes himself," Chilo told him. "It is all quite elementary." But his own face was somewhat pale and grim, belying his confident words.

"There it goes!" Selene said.

While they watched, the boat subsided slowly beneath the surface of the lake. Some in the little crowd cried out, then there was only a low muttering. All stared out at the calm, unruffled waters of the lake, saying very little. This silence held for perhaps fifteen minutes.

"Well, that's that, then," Flaccus said finally. "The poor buggers have all drowned."

"There!" Selene shouted, jumping to her feet in her excitement. She was pointing to the east and everyone looked in that direction. Perhaps three hundred yards away the boat had surfaced. The hatch flew open and Tyrophanes leaped out and clasped his hands overhead like an Olympic victor. The crowd cheered as if they were at a chariot race.

"You see?" Chilo said. "I told you!" But sweat streamed from his brow and he looked as if he hadn't breathed the whole time the vessel was beneath the water.

The boat returned to the slip, running on the surface this time. Tyrophanes and the brave scholars who had taken the ride with him were cheered and congratulated. Even the slave rowers received applause.

"All right, it works," Flaccus said with poor grace. "Now how do you propose to sink an enemy ship with it?"

"That will take some work," Chilo said, beaming. "This is merely an experimental vessel, not a warship. That would have to be much larger. A ram would be the most efficient weapon."

"Ramming makes even a galley spring leaks," Marcus pointed out.

"We've been thinking more along the lines of a great iron saw on top of the vessel," Chilo said, "to rip the enemy ship open."

Marcus turned to Selene. "See if you can get the shipyards to build a diving warship to Chilo's design," Marcus said.

"I think I can do it," she said. "I have my resources."

"Excellent," Marcus said. "Now, Chilo, how about one of those flying machines you've been telling me about?"

Flaccus rolled his eyes and groaned but no one paid him any attention. Marcus, Chilo and Selene had their heads together in earnest discussion.

Marcus Scipio spent every hour he could spare at the Museum, in the newly expanded facilities of the Archimedean School. He had prevailed upon Selene to divert all the funds she could to advance the school's research into new weapons for use in the upcoming war with Carthage. She exerted herself splendidly for the best of reasons: Marcus assured her that, when the time came and Carthage was destroyed, Rome would make her true Queen of Egypt. Life was a high-stakes gamble in the Ptolemaic family and she deemed the prize worth the risk.

He no longer had to explain things or justify his actions to the rest of the Roman delegation because all had left save Flaccus. They were eager to take part in the upcoming wars and had no taste for pseudo-diplomatic service in Egypt. Pleading that they had done all the useful reconnaissance they were going to do, they had taken their leave, some for Carthage, others for Italy. They wanted in on the reconquest they knew was to come and considered Marcus Scipio and Flaccus utter fools for plodding along at this civilian work.

Marcus was certain that his work here was far more important to the future of Rome than any service he could perform as a commander of legions. He knew himself to be a fine soldier, but the legions were full of fine soldiers. Here, he could alter the course of history for all time to come.

As for Flaccus, he cared nothing at all for glory, but he liked the easy life and luxury of Egypt very much indeed. "I don't care if I never see Noricum again," he told Marcus. "As for Italy, it won't be a fit place to live in for a good many years to come. So if you like, I'll stay here and write up your dispatches for you. Just don't expect me to go back with you when you leave."

An endless stream of designs poured from the school, some of them logical, some clearly impractical, all of them intriguing. The improved catapults and ship-killers were the most prosaic. The chemical weapons were as dangerous to the experimenter as to any enemy. Chilo did not like them anyway as they did not involve his beloved principles of Archimedes.

"Mere apothecary work," he sniffed when a young man named Chares demonstrated an astonishing new explosive. Marcus was not so contemptuous. Quietly, he told Chares to continue his researches.

Work proceeded on the submersible vessel. Tyrophanes reported that the maiden voyage had not proceeded as perfectly as it had appeared to observers. When the ballast skins were filled, the vessel had descended as predicted and there was no serious leakage. The oars had worked well as propulsion. Other things had not gone so well. Controlling depth had been a problem. The plan had been to cruise at no more than a few feet beneath the surface, but more than once the vessel dived and struck the mud of the lake's bottom. Direction had been a difficulty as well. Visibility through the small port had been no more than a few feet in the murky water and steering had turned to guesswork. It had transpired that men working oars used up the air far faster than men at rest. Foul air had forced Tyrophanes to surface when he did and he then found that he was nowhere near where he had thought himself to be.

The scholars were already at work on these problems. Marcus admired their near-Roman ability to define problems and seek solutions. Most foreigners simply didn't think that way.

The man responsible for designing the oars thought he had a solution for the depth control problem: If vertical steering oars could make a ship move right or left, might horizontal steering oars not move it up or down? Chilo set him to designing such oars.

A young man from Cyprus who loved to experiment with mirrors and lenses said he could design a device that would allow the steersman to see above the water while the vessel was submerged. Marcus thought this sounded like magic, but Chilo told the boy to proceed with his experiments. This was a problem that would have to be solved if the submersible vessel was to be of any use.

"I'm not satisfied with the oars," Chilo said one day when they broke for lunch. "They work, but not well enough."

"What else is there?" Marcus asked. "Under water you don't have wind to move you, so how can you move without oars?"

"I keep thinking about the Archimedes screw," Chilo said. "The master devised it more than a hundred years ago to raise water. I think there must be some way to adapt it to move the boat. My thought is this …" He moved his hands in characteristically Greek gestures as he tried to articulate his thoughts. "As it is used, the screw is fixed in one place. When it is turned, water is forced to rise along the screw's channels until it drains from the upper end."

"That is clear enough," Marcus said. "I've seen them at work many times."

"Well, if we could fix one or more such screws onto the boat and turn them, they would exert the same force against the water. Perhaps by forcing the water backward in relation to the boat, the boat itself would be propelled forward."

"Work on it," Marcus told him.

A few days later they stood before the workshop where the young Cypriote carried out his experiments. His name was Agathocles and he had the high-strung enthusiasm Marcus had come to associate with Museum researchers, especially the younger ones. He had also noticed that it was almost invariably the young ones who came up with the most outrageous concepts, and it was they who were not afraid to question long-held beliefs.

"You see," the Cypriote said, "a mirror will reflect an image before it faithfully. Everyone knows that."

"Such is the nature of mirrors," Flaccus agreed.

"Quite so. Well, a mirror will also reflect another mirror." At his gesture two slaves each took a plate of polished silver. One stood before the two Romans, one behind them. They saw their faces reflected and also the backs of their own heads, these two images repeated endlessly until they curved off into the distance.

"An amusing sight," Flaccus commented.

"But observe what happens when the mirrors are tilted in opposite directions."

Their reflections slid away and they saw a distorted view of the courtyard. It was disorienting and they looked away, slightly dizzy.

"How do you intend to apply this principle?" Marcus asked.

"By angling the mirrors very precisely," Agathocles said, "I have invented a device for seeing around corners or over walls and, I believe, to see the surface of the water from below it."

"This I don't understand," Marcus said. "I will have to see it demonstrated."

"Then come this way." He led them to a corner of the courtyard where a wing of the Museum complex ended. Here stood a framework of wood, one end of it protruding just beyond the end of the wing. Agathocles indicated a small mirror of silver set behind a bronze plate at eye level. There was a slot cut into the plate. "Look through this slot. It is important that the viewer's eyes be at optimum distance from the reflector."

Marcus stepped up to the contraption and put his eyes to the slot. In the mirror he could see a small fountain in the image of a dolphin with water gushing from its mouth. He had the disconcerting feeling that he was seeing through the wall before him. He stepped to the corner and looked around it. There stood the fountain. He went back to the bronze plate and gazed once more through the slot. "Amazing," he said. Just two angled mirrors, he thought. Like so many of the wonderful things he had seen here, it was so simple that it seemed somebody should have thought of it before.

Flaccus and Chilo had their turn at the slot. "Of course, the principle works just as well vertically," Agathocles informed them. He led them to a low wall at the far end of the courtyard. Another such device had been erected against the wall, which was a foot or two taller than head height. This time they could see men exercising in the palaestra on the other side. A ladder was provided to demonstrate that what they were seeing in the mirror was real.

"An excellent application of logic," Chilo commended. "Adapting it to the submersible boat may prove challenging."

"The mirrors will have to be fixed into a waterproof casing," Agathocles said. "Preferably, it should be of bronze. The upper mirror will have to be set behind a window. This must be made of highly polished glass or purest crystal."

"Can glass be made so transparent?" Marcus said. "All the glass I've seen distorts what you see through it."

"I have the finest glass from Babylon," Agathocles said. "It's quite pure and can be polished so that there is very little distortion. However, it is brittle. Crystal is more expensive and is difficult to find in large pieces, but it can be polished until it is as transparent as air, with no distortion."

"Keep working on it," Marcus told him.

Titus Norbanus sat in a curule chair atop the walls of Carthage. Behind him stood a line of lictors dressed in their military uniform of red tunic belted with bronze-studded black leather. They leaned on their fasces as they gazed out onto the waters of the harbor. The Senate had conferred upon him the dignity of a propraetor, despite the fact that he had held only the offices of quaestor and aedile. This breach of custom was part of the price the Old Families had to pay for his father's support, and it would last only for the first phase of operations, while the legions operated as part of the Carthaginian army. The legions marching into Italy were to be commanded by proconsuls and men of consular rank would command the legions in the real war to follow, the war against Carthage.

Still, Norbanus reflected, it felt good to have true imperium. And the reconquest and future wars would last a long time; plenty of time for him to return to Noricum, or Rome itself, and win election to the offices of praetor and consul. Then he could return to command the legions as proconsul. The offices would be his for the asking, as Rome's newest hero. The future was bright.

And where was Marcus Scipio? Dallying among the decadent Egyptians and, if reports were accurate, taking an almost traitorous interest in the defense of Alexandria. The fool's career was over and if he dared to return, he would be lucky to get exiled. Beheading was more likely. Not for the first time, Norbanus regretted that citizens could not be flogged and crucified, however serious their offense. It was the only blot upon his otherwise flawless happiness.

"I think we are ready to begin," Zarabel said. A ship was being rowed into the center of the harbor. She was finally going to demonstrate the burning-mirrors she had shown them on the first tour of the walls.

The rest of the Roman advance party stood along the parapet. The demonstration was for their benefit, Hamilcar wishing to impress the Romans with the invincible might of Carthage. They conversed in low voices, most of them highly skeptical of the upcoming show. The other machines were impressive, but this sounded ridiculous to them.

The ship was an old galley past its useful years. Its black-tarred hull was scarred with the marks of old battles and old storms. It had been stripped of anything useful and even its paint was long faded. It was worked into position by no more than a dozen oars, and when its anchor was dropped, the oarsmen jumped into the water and swam for shore. This did not leave the ship uninhabited, however. On the deck were chained at least a hundred men and women: felons condemned to death for varying offenses. Carthaginian law listed a great many crimes meriting death.

Zarabel signaled with her fan and the great reflectors ranged atop the wall, shining with new polish, began to swing toward the ship like the heads of malevolent gods. The Romans watched in fascination as great disks of light moved across the water like runaway suns. One by one they converged on the old galley. The wretches in chains screamed and winced and averted their eyes from the glare.

Slowly, the tarred wood began to smoke. Amid frantic screaming from the condemned and wild cheering from the Carthaginian crowd gathered on the wall, the smoke grew dense. Abruptly, the whole ship was enveloped in flame from one end to the other, as if ignited by the fiery breath of a monster from myth. The screams stopped within seconds and there was no sound louder than the crackling flames and the still-cheering mob. With amazing speed the vessel burned to the waterline and soon was nothing more than bits of blackened, smoldering wood floating upon the water. Of the condemned criminals there was no sign at all.

"It works after all," said one of the Romans.

"I don't believe it," said someone else.

"You just saw it!" Norbanus said. "Don't deny the evidence of your own eyes."

"The rowers probably set the fire before they jumped overboard," said Lentulus Niger. "The rest is just mummery to gull us."

"Do you think the Carthaginians consider us worth an elaborate charade?" Norbanus demanded. They were speaking in Latin. "The thing works, and it's just one of their weapons."

Niger made a rude and contemptuous noise. "So what? When the time comes, we'll just attack before dawn." The rest laughed.

"Or on a cloudy day!" said another.

Zarabel frowned. She did not understand their words, but their tone was clear enough. These Romans were hard to impress.

“This situation must not be allowed to continue,” said Bacchylides of Samos, the mathematician. "The Museum's reputation has been glorious for more than two centuries, since the time of Ptolemy Soter, as a seat of purest learning, of philosophy unsullied by the work of mere mechanics. This expansion of the Archimedean School will make us the laughingstock of the Greek world. Philosophers at Athens and Rhodes, at Pergamum and even Syracuse will say that the Museum has become a mete factory!"

"I agree," said Polycrates, chief of the academic philosophers of the Museum. "But do try to restrain your agitation. As philosophers, calm, dispassion and detachment are enjoined upon us no less than avoidance of the physical manipulation of matter."

"I apologize to you all," Bacchylides said. "It is just that I perceive this matter as an assault upon the Museum no less destructive than the Carthaginian attack soon to be borne by our beloved Alexandria."

"Quite understandable," said Doson, head of the school of physicians and priest of Asklepios. "This disruption of our accustomed serenity can cause overproduction of bile even in the system of a philosopher. But is their physical research truly so scandalous? Hippocrates had little objection to his students actually touching, even manipulating his patients."

The rest brooded. In truth, some of them secretly thought that physicians, concerned as they were with the everyday world and the problems of the body, should not be classified as true philosophers at all. At least, since the days of Plato, no physician who valued his reputation actually laid hands on a patient. He simply directed his slaves to do all the necessary manipulation.

"They may be somewhat disreputable," said Memnon, the astronomer, "but that school has devised many wonderful instruments for measuring and calculating the angles of the heavenly bodies, and for timing their movements. There is a young man at work there now who believes that an arrangement of lenses and mirrors can actually magnify the bodies of the night sky and make their details ponderable."

"A good pair of human eyes has always been enough for astronomers before now," Bacchylides sniffed.

"And as a result we have learned very little that is new in the last five hundred years," Memnon pointed out.

"The duty of a philosopher is not to discover new things," Polycrates said. "It is to ponder upon that which is known, or thought to be known. We should leave exploration to ship's captains and caravan masters."

The heads of the various schools sat at the high table of the great dining hall. It was midday and they could speak freely because the Archimedeans hardly ever came here at such an hour, preferring to work through their meal.

"Artificers," said an aged Sophist, "have their place. But is their place here, in our beloved Museum? Rather, they should be contractors like other artisans. It is absurd to class them among true philosophers just because they sprang from the School of Archimedes. That man would never have acknowledged them. He only undertook to construct his engines because his city was at war and needed the defenses. He regarded himself as a pure mathematician. Should bloody-fingered surgeons be classed as physicians just because they follow the healer's calling?"

From one end of the table came a nasty laugh. All of them winced. Archelaus the Cynic was going to speak.

"The Archimedeans are going to keep expanding and using more of the Museum's resources and there isn't a thing you can do about it. You know why?" He didn't bother to wait for an answer. "Because they're backed by Queen Selene. She's taken a fancy to that Roman and he wants these grotesque machines. Does anybody here want to get afoul of the queen?"

There was an uncomfortable silence before Eunus the Librarian, the overseer of the Museum and Library, answered. "Queen Selene, of course, is our most generous and revered patroness. None here, I am sure, would ever speak a word of disapproval concerning her."

"By no means," said Bacchylides, all too aware that the Museum and Library existed at the sufferance of the Ptolemies. The Library was in effect a huge book factory that earned great revenues for the government, but the Museum proper, where teachers and philosophers lived at public expense and produced little of monetary value, was a luxury the court might dispense with at any time. The king's court had little interest in it and the scholars depended heavily upon the queen's beneficence, as they had in the past upon many another of her queenly ancestors.

"But might we not speak with the king?" Bacchylides said.

"You mean the king's ministers surely?" said Archelaus, reminding them all of the boy-king's incompetence, a thing no one dared voice. The Cynics were tolerated, although they were by far the most disreputable school. Their founder, Diogenes, had been a philosopher of undoubted merit, as unpleasant a man as he was. The Cynics' devotion to truth and virtue could not be denied, although their sneering way of admonishing their fellow men and their unkempt appearance made them hated. They were tolerated at the Museum in the same manner fools and freaks were tolerated at royal courts.

"Perhaps we might speak with the Prime Minister and the First Eunuch," said the Librarian. "They are not-how shall I say? — not inclined to scholarly pursuits. Yet they cannot be indifferent to the prestige of the Museum, one of the glories of Alexandria. Perhaps, once informed of this outrage, they might gently dissuade the queen from this unseemly course of action."

At these words Archelaus the Cynic laughed out loud.

Alexandros the Prime Minister sat in council with the First Eunuch and Parmenion, the marshal of the royal armies. These three men or rather, as Parmenion thought of them, these two and one-half men, were the de facto rulers of Egypt. The king was a boy and the queen could not lead in time of war, so power fell naturally to these three. The Prime Minister headed the government bureaucracy, the eunuch represented the court, and the marshal controlled military power. The three sat at a long table in a spacious room occupying a wing of the palace devoted to government work. Like many such rooms, this one had three walls, the fourth side being open to a broad terrace and shaded by a portico without. Its curtains were open to admit a cooling breeze from the sea.

Alexandras was a small, fine-featured man who had worked himself up from the lowly post of Grain Office scribe to chief bureaucrat through superior ability and boundless ambition. Vain and arrogant though he was, he had the self-made man's inevitable insecurity. He knew that, without noble birth and the protection of a pedigreed family, he could be cast down with far greater swiftness than he rose, and none would stir a finger to aid him.

"The armies are assembled at the Libyan border now," Parmenion said. He shoved a handful of tablets and scrolls down the table toward the other two. "Here are the latest reports, just in today by fast messenger. I will go to join them tomorrow or the day after."

Parmenion was not an Alexandrian like the other two. He was a Macedonian who had served in the royal forces since his days as a junior officer. Since the time of Alexander, young Macedonians had gone out to serve in the armies of the Successors throughout the Greek-speaking world. Like the Spartans they had gone from being a nation of conquerors to being a nation of mercenaries. He was wealthy and had estates and titles granted to him by the king and queen's father, but the years and luxury had not softened him. He was hard-featured, scarred and burned dark by the desert sun.

"You have made sufficient provision against incursions from Syria?" asked Eutychus in his piping voice.

"Two myriads under that Spartan bastard Ariston. No fat Syrian army is going to get past him. The Parthians almost have Antiochus eliminated anyway. One more push and they're in control of most of the old Persian Empire. They are going to be our big problem, and soon. We must deal with Hamilcar, and swiftly, so I can take my forces back east to face them."

"Are they really so formidable?" the eunuch wanted to know.

"They're real men," Parmenion told him. "They fight on horseback, so they move far faster than any land army. If they decide on an attack and manage to keep quiet about it, they can be on top of us before we have any warning. They use bows from horseback. It could be hard on any foot-army caught in the open. You can't come to grips with them and you just have to endure their arrows. It can break a man's spirit."

"Let them take care of Antiochus first," Alexandras said. "They will be occupied for some time gorging on the Syrian carcass. While they are doing that, we will treat with them. Primitive barbarians are always amenable to the corruptions of wealth. We will send rich presents to their leaders. The process of softening is easily begun and it spreads quickly."

"That will be the best course," Parmenion admitted. "But they might also decide that the easiest way to secure more of that gold is to come to Egypt and take it by force. I want to build a chain of new forts in the Sinai, and subsequent lines of them all the way back to the Delta: defense in depth. You can't take fortified positions with mounted, missile-armed troops. For that, you need infantry and engineers. It will blunt the force of a Parthian incursion and rob them of their most formidable weapon."

"Very sagacious," said the eunuch. "And the idea has economy. Forts cost little, and we will have at our disposal the forces already raised for the coming war with Carthage."

A secretary entered the room and told them that a delegation from the Museum awaited without.

"What do they want?" Alexandras wanted to know.

"They told me they have already spoken to the First Eunuch and he has permitted them an audience."

"I spoke with Eunus the Librarian yesterday," Eutychus informed them. "They are upset by certain activities in the Museum."

"I'll be on my way, then," Parmenion said. "I have preparations to make."

"And I as well," said Alexandras. "The Library and Museum are court business, not state."

"I believe their complaints may be of some interest to us all," the eunuch said. Something in his tone caused the others to settle back down.

Three men in the robes of philosophers came onto the terrace, passed beneath the portico and entered the room. Two were men of great dignity and fine demeanor, their clothing simple but immaculate, their hair and beards dressed with care. The third shambled barefooted like a rustic come to town. His robe and tunic were old, shabby and stained, his beard and hair a frightful tangle.

"Allow me to introduce Eunus the Librarian," said Eutychus. The eldest of the three bowed very slightly and very solemnly. "And Polycrates the academic." The other fine-looking man bowed likewise. "And this is Archelaus the Cynic." The unkempt one gave them a crooked-toothed grin and nodded insolently.

"Good day, gentlemen," said Alexandras. "How may we be of service to the distinguished scholars of our revered institution?" His tone was dry but not sarcastic.

"My lords," Eunus began. "Recently, certain developments have taken place that have upset the tranquil life of the Museum. Under the urging of an interloping Roman visitor, Marcus Cornelius Scipio, the Archimedean School has expanded its activities enormously and given our Museum the aspect of an arsenal. We find this most disconcerting."

"The visitor to whom you refer is not a Roman," Alexandras commented. "He represents the nation of Noricum."

"Of course, Excellency," Eunus said. "The modalities of diplomacy sometimes escape us. Let it suffice that he calls himself a Roman and claims to represent that extinct nation."

"I have heard something of these activities," Alexandras said. "I believe they demonstrated a boat capable of navigating under water. While I can imagine no use for such a thing, surely these dabblings in mechanical curiosities are harmless?"

"Hardly harmless, my lords," said Polycrates, all but quivering with suppressed, unphilosophical wrath. "They ignore the basic strictures laid down by divine Plato more than two and one-half centuries, ago: Philosophers are not to sully their hands by manipulation of physical matter, but are to devote themselves only to pure thought."

"I believe I remember something of this," said Alexandras, his tone growing even more arid. "He hoped that, by doing no useful work, philosophers would be classed as aristocrats. His rival, Socrates, was not ashamed to make his living as a stonecutter, I believe."

"Your Excellency is pleased to make light of the issue," said Eunus. "Yet it is-"

"The queen's behind it," Archelaus interrupted rudely.

"I beg your pardon," Alexandras said. The eunuch kept a bland expression and twiddled his fingers. Parmenion did not hide his boredom.

Eunus winced. He had wished to approach this matter obliquely. He had definitely not wanted the crude Cynic along on this mission. He had come anyway and the others had been able to find no way to stop him.

"The queen has taken a fancy to the Roman and he's got her to put her support behind the Archimedeans," Archelaus told them. "These two will take all day getting around to telling you and I think your time is more valuable than that."

"For that I thank you," said Alexandras. "And just why do you believe the queen's little hobbies, of which we have all been long aware, should be of any concern to us?"

"They devise great, outlandish new weapons of war," said Polycrates. "All day long the Museum rings with the noise of hammers and the terrible clatter as they test these machines."

The Prime Minister's eyes narrowed slightly but his tone did not change. "But Egypt is soon to be at war with Carthage. Surely this military research is patriotic in nature?"

"I've heard something of this activity," Parmenion said. "Gentlemen, one of the oldest facts of warfare is that when amateurs take a hand in it, they love to play with warlike toys. They are easily persuaded that if they just have some ridiculous machine, they can bring the war to a speedy and economical conclusion. They do not understand that only high-quality soldiers, strict discipline and superior tactics win wars. These things are not glamorous and therefore of little interest to amateurs. Military hobbyists, often of royal rank, are the bane of professional commanders."

"I quite concur," said the eunuch. "Let the queen play with her military toys and socialize with this would-be Roman. He is a man with no real standing and report has it that his countrymen are sending soldiers to take Hamilcar's pay. Perhaps we may build a facility for the Archimedeans outside the city, where they will have space and will not disturb peaceful citizens with their noise." He let out a high-pitched giggle. "Who knows? They might even produce something useful."

"We would prefer that such a facility not be associated with the Library, Exalted One."

"Gentlemen," said Alexandras, "we have heard your petition and shall give it due deliberation. If you will now give us leave, we have much to attend to."

The philosophers bowed their way from the room and the Prime Minister turned to the others.

"What is she really up to? Eutychus, I take it this is what you wanted us to hear."

"Oh, yes. Underwater boats and so forth are harmless pastimes for a royal lady, but military researches in company with a foreign soldier are quite another. It suggests to me that she has ambitions to supplant His Majesty and rule in her own right."

"How?" Parmenion said with a sour expression. "I don't care if they build a machine bigger than the 'City-Taker' of Demetrios Poliorcetes. It's no good in a court intrigue, and that's the only way she's ever going to take power."

"Still," Alexandras said, "as long as she fancies that she represents a threat, then she does in reality, no matter how self-deluding she may be. It might be simplest to eliminate her."

"Never!" Eutychus shrilled. "She is His Majesty's only living sister and the only fit wife for an Egyptian king. We've done away with the others already. For the dynasty to be secure, he must reach an age to breed an heir on her. After that, he may do away with a troublesome sister-wife the way most of his ancestors have."

"Then get rid of the Roman," Parmenion advised.

The other two nodded silently.

Outside, the philosophers spoke as they made their way back to the Museum.

"I had hoped for a more sympathetic hearing," Eunus said. Polycrates nodded sad agreement. Archelaus favored them with a sardonic smile.

"We got the message across. Let them take it from here. You may now resume your detached, philosophical impassivity." He laughed raucously while his colleagues fumed.