"Oh, I know he's your friend; but he's too fat and sleepy to be of much use in a brawl."
"You'd be surprised, if you ever saw him in a brawl."
"Well then, why don't you take us home to Messana until the war is over? At least I should be among my own people."
Zopyros frowned in thought. "I know you'd be happy there. But— have you ever taken a good look at the city wall of Messana?"
"I've often walked along it. Why?"
"Haven't you noticed how ruinous it is?"
"I did once sprain an ankle on it."
"And it's of obsolete brick, not up-to-date stone. Even if it were of stone, it's too low and too narrow for an effective defense. Under modern conditions of war, you might as well camp in the open fields as to count upon the wall of Messana to protect you. You would flee the ashes to fall into the coals."
"But Messana isn't at war with anybody ..."
They argued far into the night. Zopyros flatly refused to send Korinna and the child to Messana, and she likewise refused to promise not to go thither if her father sent for her. Thus, for several days, a certain acerbity entered their relationship, since, despite their ardent love, each was a person of strong will and opinions.
At the next engineers' banquet, when the time came for awards, Dionysios' voice boomed across the halclass="underline" "You all know Zopyros the Tarentine, the brightest star in our crown of inventive genius. I had thought that the invention of the catapult were triumph enough for one lifetime. But no, he has now surpassed himself. His latest godlike inspiration is an infallible method whereby a ruler can detect all spies, saboteurs, and conspiracies against the government." Smiling, Dionysios let his gaze rove slowly over the audience. "Naturally, I cannot reveal the precise method. Suffice it to say that the device is so simple that any of you would kick yourselves for not having thought of it. O Zopyros, stand forth and receive from me, Dionysios, one pound of silver—one hundred freshly minted drachmai!"
As Zopyros, his face carefully composed, made his way forward, Dionysios loosed the cord at the mouth of a bag he held. Dipping one hand into the bag, he brought out a handful of silver coins and allowed them to trickle back, jingling, into the bag. They glittered in the lamplight like a metallic waterfall.
Although the applause was adequate, Zopyros sensed a slight constraint about it. In fact, more than one engineer turned his head this way and that, staring with manifest unease at his neighbors.
The following day, an officer of the mercenaries, followed by four soldiers, came through the Arsenal. The officer stopped to question every engineer and foreman in turn. When he came to the catapult section, he asked Zopyros:
"Have you seen Alexis the Velian today?"
"No."
"Did you see him after he left the engineers' banquet last night?"
"No."
"Has he said anything to you lately, indicating that he might be leaving?"
"I haven't spoken to the man. What's this all about?"
"I can't tell you that," said the officer, moving on to the next section.
Later, Zopyros sought out Archytas, who as usual was a mine of the latest gossip. Archytas said: "Absolutely, old boy; he's gone. He must have scooped up his money and his most precious possessions as soon as he got home last night and bolted, letting himself down from the city wall by a rope. I guess that settles the question of who sawed up your catapults."
"So he kept his grudge after all, despite his pleasant words?"
"Evidently. As I reconstruct the events, they went like this: Dionysios, I hear, refused to authorize any more superwarships, because the two that Alexis built did not show enough advantage over the standard trireme to justify their extra cost. Much disappointed, Alexis brooded over the unfairness of your success. One night, getting a little drunk, he determined to do something about it. It was no trick to slip into the Arsenal, with only a single sentry to dodge ..."
"Many good-bys to him! I wonder where he's gone?"
Archytas shrugged. "He'll probably turn up in Carthage, or Athens, or the gods know where, full of bright ideas and prepared to give a good kick in tire balls to anyone who stands in the way of his rise. He's shrewd enough to avoid the places where Dionysios could lay hands upon him. Why, are you nursing a grudge, too?"
"Not I! I was furious at first, of course. But he did me no real harm, and I can't be bothered with such people. I care much more about carrying out my projects and saving up my pay. I have no time for enemies."
"What, no implacable hatreds or lifelong feuds? What kind of Hellene do you call yourself? If all Hellenes felt as you do, we should rule the world!"
Flowers still bloomed along the roads that wound among the fields and groves of western Sicily, when Captain Zopyros cantered up to the Bay of Motya. He approached the bay by the road from Akragas and Selinous. He had ridden along the southern coast, where huge limestone crags, eroded into fantastic shapes, stood up from the plain like the half-buried skulls of long-dead monsters.
Since much of Zopyros' work was done on horseback, he wore a horseman's high leather boots. His cuirass, worn over a padded tunic, was made up of several layers of linen canvas, molded on a form and glued together. If less effective in stopping spears and arrows, such a defense was much lighter than a foot soldier's bronzen corselet. His sword was longer than a foot soldier's, too. Behind him cantered two mules, one of them bearing a hired servant and the other his shield and baggage.
On Zopyros' left, the bay's calm waters opened out; beyond the bay, the dunes and scrub of the Aigithallos Peninsula lined the horizon. Along the mainland, where Zopyros rode, hundreds of tents were ranked. They stood in clumps, with gaps between the groups where Dionysios had drawn off most of his forces to ravage the Phoenician lands of western Sicily. The bay swarmed with hundreds of tubby merchant ships, some moored, others moving slowly under sail and oar as they brought in supplies to Dionysios' army or departed to fetch other loads. Drawn up on the beach were rows of triremes, each one chocked and braced lest it tip or slide.
The island of Motya rose on the left, in the midst of the bay. Nothing was visible at this distance but its frowning walls and the tops of its towering apartment houses. Northward, where a narrow spur of land reached out towards the island, Zopyros saw the coming and going of antlike specks. As he rode on, the specks grew into men bearing burdens to and fro. The Motyans had torn up most of the causeway linking them to the shore. Now, a detachment of Dionysios' troops patiently carried baskets of stone and dirt out to the broken end of the causeway, dumped them, and went back for more.
At last Zopyros reached the big headquarters tent at the northern end of the bay. Back from the shore, a horde of carpenters, with a great din of hammers and saws, were assembling ram tortoises and belfries—movable siege towers. Engineering troops dug trenches in their search for the leaden pipe that carried fresh water under the bay to the island of Motya. Zopyros found Leptines on the shore, watching the rebuilding of the causeway. He delivered the tyrannos' orders:
"... he wants the triremes launched as soon as possible, sir, to meet Himilko's fleet. He also plans to put every man available to work on the causeway, to make it several times as wide as it now is, so that he can move his siege engines upon it. He wishes you to supply each man with a basket or other container for carrying earth."
Leptines, who looked much like his brother Dionysios, smiled. Zopyros had always found him kindly and good-natured, without Dionysios' drive and cold passion for power and authority.
"Well done, Zopyros," said Leptines. "It's too late to start launching the ships tonight. We'll get at it in the morning. As for baskets, I don't know where I could get so many on short notice."