Fires of Alexandria Page 6

  Chapter Six

  Plutarch announced his entrance with a dutiful cough. Heron was hunched over the drafting desk with an ink tipped quill clutched in her hand. Errant ink smears littered her tunic. Sheaves of parchment marked with neat lines, cylinders and other geometric shapes, annotated with tiny lettering, lay across the surface haphazardly. An ornate box filled with a pale violet powder sat on the corner of the desk.

  The workshop foreman waited at the doorway and adjusted his tunic, waiting for Heron to notice. He coughed again and her head bobbed up.

  "Apologies Master Heron," said Plutarch. "You have a visitor. He says his name is Agog."

  Plutarch stepped aside and the northerner ducked through the doorway into the workshop.

  Lost in the designs of the moment, Heron couldn't remember why he was important. Then she recalled the coins, nodding to Plutarch to leave the barbarian with her.

  The foreman stepped close to her and whispered, "Can I bring you a meal or drink? The dark circles around your eyes are worse than normal."

  Plutarch glanced at the ornate box. Heron frowned.

  "The gods be damned, you know well I do not eat or drink while I'm working. Go be a wet nurse to someone else and leave me be," said Heron.

  Plutarch paled and left swiftly, glancing again at the box. Heron regretted her words after he was gone, but she dared not show weakness before a client and Plutarch knew that. She would apologize later.

  Heron tried to focus on the barbarian, but spots formed across her eyes. Stiff-legged she leaned against the desk and lifted a small silver spoon from the box and placed it against her nose, inhaling the lotus powder.

  The spots retreated, and she could once again focus on the barbarian in her workshop.

  From the spy hole in the temple, his size had been evident, but standing in the same room with him, she appreciated his presence even more. Even though he carried no weapons, Heron could imagine Agog with a great two-handed sword in his hands, hewing his enemies in half with ease.

  Heron was familiar with the hair knot tied on his head, but she couldn't recall the name for it. The knot reminded her of the tails on the Persian horses, except his was black and flecked with gray rather than brown.

  As she studied him, he studied her with his impenetrable green eyes. She was not at all surprised when he spoke in fluent Greek.

  "What is that powder?" said Agog. He ended his words with a click of the tongue, punctuating his question.

  "Medicine," she answered, putting the spoon back into the box and closing the lid. "Your coin made the most fortunate and awkward entrance last night."

  "I wanted to ensure I acquired the services of the best miracle worker in Alexandria," he said.

  The lotus powder made itself known with a shiver zipping up her spine. Her face flushed with fever.

  Heron indicated the workshop behind her with a sweep of her hand. "You've acquired all the talents my humble workshop can offer."

  Agog stepped forward, clearly reviewing the contents of the grand workshop for the first time. He bent his neck at the half-finished falcon head on heavy timber scaffolding.

  "That will go to the Temple of Horus when it's complete," she said smiling, even though word had come that morning that the Horus Temple had pulled its contract. The down payment, and more, had already been spent on materials.

  "Those orange lights through the archway are the fires from our foundry. Punt, our blacksmith, knows no equal," she explained.

  Agog nodded, studying the Horus' head intently. "Have you made war machines before?"

  Heron turned to hide her disappointment. "Why yes, we have made palintonon stone-throwers and cheirobalistras. Trifling easy to make, though we do get orders now and then from the Roman army."

  Agog ignored her comment and went over to a two-wheeled cart with a box on it. The back of the box was open revealing a series of connecting sprockets.

  "What is this?" he asked, clicking his tongue again.

  "An odometer," she said. "It tells the distance it has traveled. I improved on an idea first presented by Archimedes in his later writings."

  Agog grunted. "The Claw of Archimedes. He was a worthy war engineer."

  "Archimedes did much more than make war machines, though in the end it did little to protect him from being speared by a Roman soldier," she argued.

  "Is it true he made a heat ray that could ignite ships with the reflected light of the sun?" Agog asked.

  Heron swallowed the words she wanted to say. She wanted to denounce the barbarian and send him out of her workshop. While she could make devices for war, it was not what made her mind sing. But with the Alabarch's threat looming over her and Sepharia's heads, she had no choice but to engage the barbarian.

  "His writings indicate as much, though I was unsure if he'd ever carried it out," Heron said.

  The northerner moved to a separate table and indicated a bronze cast ball suspended above a pot. Two angled tubes jet from either side of it.

  "An aeolipile," she said. "A toy that spins."

  Agog spun the aeolipile lightly with his finger. It rotated a few times and then settled to a stop. "It seems more than a toy."

  "Nothing I can determine," she said. "A remarkable toy, but its practical uses have escaped me."

  The barbarian wandered around, poking the metal and wooden contraptions strewn across the workshop. She added explanations at times, but mostly stayed silent, glancing impatiently at the work on her desk.

  "How did you make the statue lift in the air and move across the temple floor?" he asked.

  Heron sighed. So this is why he had come to her, she thought.

  "Simple physiks and sleight-of-hand," she said. "We were constrained by the architecture of the temple, or it would have been more spectacular."

  Agog raised an eyebrow. "So you meant to bring the temple down around their heads?"

  She thought he was serious until a wry smile, lifted the corners of his lips.

  "A meddling priest was the source of the disaster," she said.

  "Not a god-sent curse?"

  "So you've heard the rumors and still came to me for work?" she asked.

  Agog nodded. "I find the gods less interested in our daily lives than we give them credit for. Mostly I find the priests are the ones interested in our daily lives."

  Heron eyed the barbarian warily. "I've never met a northerner before. Are you all this philosophical?"

  Agog ignored her comment, and indicated a table filled with stoppered vials and jars full of colored powders. "Are you an alchemist by chance?"

  "I've dabbled," she said. "Nothing but wasted coin for my efforts."

  The barbarian went to the table and shook a few vials. A detailed parchment lay underneath a ceramic plate. Agog moved it and began to study the writing.

  "Just because you've paid me coin does not give you the right to poke through my things or writings," said Heron, pulling the parchment away from his view.

  "So you've determined how to fool Archimedes' Principle?" said Agog.

  Heron scoffed and tucked the parchment into a pile on her desk. "One cannot fool a Principle."

  How the barbarian knew of such writings and interpreted her sketches so quickly baffled her. She steeled her face, lest she give away her concern.

  "The story of Archimedes and the Golden Crown is a favorite of mine," he said. "I hope I can prove that clever should I be assailed by a dishonest goldsmith, or at least have someone that clever in my employ."

  "It's a good story," she said.

  Heron moved to the ornate box and put her hand gently upon it. The formula of silver and lead she'd determined, in theory, could replace an equal weight of gold without upsetting its density. Thus making it impervious to simple tests to verify its quality.

  Heron had never attempted to test the formula and thought it would fail regardless. And the barbarian couldn't have memorized the formu
las so quickly, so she felt her theory was safe.

  "So about the war machines," he said.

  "What about them? We haven't discussed any, save in passing reference," said Heron.

  Agog put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "I saw a statue of a Roman soldier that could move on its own and spit water from a sword. I would like to have an army of those, except the size of the Nekhbet statue and that could fight. I would pay you all the coin you need to accomplish this task."

  If it weren't for the bag of coin she'd already taken from him and handed over to Lysimachus, she might have laughed in his face. After all the intelligent questioning and referencing of Archimedes and his Principle, she wasn't prepared for him to ask for an army of giant fighting automatons.

  "What you ask is impossible," she said, shaking her head and trying to keep herself from shouting. "I can make statues move using a complex series of ropes and pulleys. I can make doors open and close as if by the whim of the gods. I can give life to a foundry's bellows with wind power. I can even count the number of lengths from here to Rome with unerring accuracy."

  She spun the aeolipile toy. "But I cannot do that," she said incredulously. "I would not even know how to start. You ask the impossible."

  Agog not so much as blinked during her tirade. He smiled softly, almost gently, which Heron found unnerving because it seemed he was almost patronizing her. An absurdity, considering he was a northerner and she was the greatest inventor and mathematician of her time.

  "The impossible stays impossible when one won't even try," he said.

  Heron crossed her arms across her chest. "Next you'll be telling me the gods wish it so, so it will be done."

  "The gods care nothing for my request," he said. "I ask only that you try and I will fund you generously if you do."

  The northerner threw a small bag of coin onto her desk. Heron eyed it suspiciously.

  "To get you started, since my last payment went toward your debts."

  Heron turned away to hide her shame, leaning heavily against the desk. She had hoped to hide that from him. It worried her that he had contacts in the city already.

  "Plato have pity, I don't even know where to start," she said. "I don't even know how I would power the damn thing, or how to get them to take orders."

  Agog shrugged. "Start wherever the beginning is. Just as long as you start."

  She grabbed her own hair and pulled lightly. The request was madness. She felt the fool for even thinking about taking it. But she had no choice if she wanted to keep Lysimachus away from Sepharia.

  Heron picked up the bag of coin and when she turned around, the barbarian was gone. She never even heard him leave. Heron shuddered. Everything about the man made her wary.