One holy day, Zopyros crossed the bridge to Ortygia and approached the Arsenal, which was deserted save for a single sentry outside. He meant to examine his catapults and to think up ways to speed the work. At one end of the building, under the gallery, piles of ship's stores had been cleared out to make room for his completed catapults. Zopyros strolled down the rank of deadly war engines, twanging a bowstring here and working a lever there. He felt the sort of pride in these contrivances that he supposed a poet felt when he saw his completed epic reduced to papyrus and ink.
As he neared the end of the row, he noticed something odd about one of the catapults. There were several thin yellow streaks on its timbers, at right angles to their long axes, as if freshly painted with a fine brush. When he looked more closely, his heart almost stopped beating. The lines were the kerfs of saw cuts; the yellow color, that of freshly exposed wood. A small pile of fine sawdust, lying on the floor under each of the cuts, confirmed his suspicions.
The damaged catapult stood third from the end. Zopyros hastily moved to the last two. They had also been sawn; in fact, these cuts were more numerous and ran deeper into the wood than the first cuts he had observed. It was as if the saboteur had tired or been frightened away before he finished his work.
Wild with fury and excitement, Zopyros ran all the way to the Ortygian house that Archytas shared with several other single engineers and foremen. In response to Zopyros' knocks and shouts, his friend appeared, draped in a blanket, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
"By the Dog of Egypt!" he said. "Can't a man sleep late even on a holy day?"
"Come quick! Some abandoned sodomite has been at my catapults! Three have been ruined!"
"Zeus almightly! One moment till I dress."
Half an hour later, Zopyros and Archytas returned to the Arsenal, accompanied by Pyres, Lithodomos, Philistos, Dionysios, and the tyrannos' bodyguards. They examined the damaged catapults.
"Zeus blast the dung-eating rascal!" growled Dionysios. "Has anybody searched the Arsenal yet, to make sure he is not hiding behind a coil of rope?" When the others said they had not, Dionysios turned to his bodyguards. "Search every digit of this building, you two! Telesinus, take the ground floor; Vertico, do the balconies!"
"But, sir—" began one guard.
"Never mind my safety!" snapped Dionysios. "Hop to it!" He turned to Philistos. "Carthaginian spies, don't you think?"
"Could be," said Philistos.
"I know who done it!" said Lithodomos. "It's those fornicating Punic engineers you hired, boss. Why don't you drown 'em all?"
Dionysios said: "I will, if they deserve it. What is your evidence, Lithodomos?"
"Everybody knows what treacherous bastards these men are, and naturally they'd sympathize with Carthage. They've got motive and opportunity. What more do you want?"
"I should want a lot more before I condemned them; good engineers are too precious to execute on mere suspicion. Did you see one of them sawing away?"
"No, but I know they done it. It stands to reason—"
"Did you even see one leaving the Arsenal with a saw in his hand? No? And suppose one of them is guilty; how about the others? There are ten of them. If all ten had been working at the job, they would have done much more damage than this." Dionysios stood silent for a moment, then resumed: "Let us speak of things we know about at first hand; amid too much wrangling, truth is often lost. Zopyros, how has your assistant conducted himself?"
"Abdashtarth? He couldn't be better. He doesn't like Carthage any better than you do, because the Carthaginians squeeze tribute out of his native city."
"What would you say of the others, Pyres?"
Pyres shrugged. "They're like all engineers. Some are better than others, but they all turn in a good day's work. I have no grounds for suspecting any one of them."
"Bugger that stuff!" cried Lithodomos. "You're a bunch of babies! You know cursed well they're only waiting a chance to burn down the Arsenal, or the shipyards, or the whole city. If they haven't been caught at treason yet, it's because they're too clever. By holding off, they hope to make us overconfident and careless. This is just a taste of what they'll do if we let them run around loose. Drown the whoresons, I—"
"You'll drown my assistant over my dead body!" cried Zopyros.
"Sure! You stand up for him, because you're not a real Hellene yourself. You're part Persian, so you take the barbarians'—"
"O President!" said Zopyros. "If you really want to win your war, get rid of the man who's done more to hinder the work of this Arsenal—the man who has cost us more production—than all the spies and saboteurs put together!"
"Who is that?"
"Lithodomos!" Zopyros pointed. "He's been driving all of us crazy ever since you appointed him Arsenal master. You know he got that Babylonian stargazer in here and fouled up the work for a ten-day. He tried to force me to choose one catapult for production when I knew another model was better. Everything one can do wrong, he does wrong, and spends his spare time sneering at us engineers because we're not stupid illiterates like—"
"Why, you dog-faced, temple-robbing—" yelled Lithodomos, and launched a long swing with his right fist. In an instant they were slugging toe to toe, cursing and panting. Zopyros had the advantage of reach and age; but the burly Lithodomos gave as good as he got.
"Separate them!" said Dionysios to his guards, who had just returned from their fruitless search of the Arsenal. Dropping their spears, each guard seized one of the fighters from behind, pinioned his arms, and pulled him away from his opponent.
"That'll cost each of you two clays' pay," said Philistos.
As Zopyros and Lithodomos, panting, continued to mutter insults, Archytas said: "O President, may I speak?"
"Go ahead, Archytas," said Dionysios. "You seem to have a cooler head than many."
"I just wanted to say that this talk about who's the saboteur is idle chatter, because it could have been one of many people. True, it might be a Carthaginian spy, or a Phoenician engineer. But it might also have been a Greek engineer jealous of Zopyros' success. It might be a workman, trying to assure himself more employment.
It might be some citizen of Syracuse who doesn't want to fight the Phoenicians or who doesn't like your rule, sir. We may never learn the truth, unless you believe in oracles."
Dionysios smiled. "I find it politically expedient to let each man think I believe in him and all to think I believe in the gods. Now, have our bold Hector and fleet Achilles cooled down enough to be turned loose?"
The soldiers released Zopyros and Lithodomos, who stood silently, rubbing their bruises.
"Since you two are so eager to fight," continued Dionysios, "you shall have your chance. I appoint both of you to my staff for the coming campaign against Motya. Lithodomos, you shall be quartermaster, responsible for seeing that the men are fed. Zopyros, you shall be my adviser on engineering questions, especially those having to do with catapults. Each shall have the rank of captain. You will draw uniforms from the armorer. Part of your pay will be withheld to pay for the armor. Now, Zopyros, how does the damage to these catapults affect your production schedule?"
"I can patch up the third one, sir. The others will have to be scrapped for salvage. Luckily the saboteur didn't damage the cross-heads, which are the hardest parts to make."
"Can you have your fifty completed by the end of Mounychion*(*Approximately April)?"
"I'm sure I can reach forty, sir. I'm not certain about the rest. But, at the present rate of production, the number of catapults won't be the limiting factor."
"What do you mean?"
"We shall be short of wagons to haul them in. At the rate the wain-wright is going, I doubt you'll have twenty-five of those special wagons by the end of Mounychion."