"Virtus," Marcus said. "Those qualities becoming a man. So this woman is an Amazon?"
"Of sorts. She is also quite adept at using her feminine allure. I noticed that many men here found her bizarre aspect stimulating, and she took advantage of that."
"Do you think she's capable of manipulating Hamilcar?" Flaccus asked.
"I don't know Hamilcar," she said. "But from what I've heard of him, from you and from others, he sounds like a weak man masquerading as a strong one. He surrounds himself with forceful men, but can't bring himself to dispose of his troublesome sister. I think he is secretly in awe of women. He is easily bored and has a taste for the outlandish. Yes, I think he is exactly the type that a woman like Teuta could bend to her will. He will tell himself that it is fitting that he listen to her, because she is a reigning queen."
"He is vain," Flaccus said. "How can this sit well with his vanity?"
"She is both clever and subtle," she said. "By the time her ideas have lodged in his head, he will think that they were his ideas originally."
"I see," Marcus murmured, wondering if this was exactly what Selene had been doing with him.
They were distracted by a series of unearthly shrieks coming from the direction of the Museum. The sound was so hideous as to make the hair stand and teeth grind together.
"What is that?" Flaccus gasped.
"Someone at the Museum," Selene said through tight-clenched teeth, "has succeeded in drilling a path to the underworld and has let all the tormenting demons out."
They hurried from the royal apartments and across the courtyard that separated them from the Museum. They were not alone in doing so. A knot of philosophers from the respectable schools stormed toward the source of the noise, hands over their ears.
"Majesty, this is intolerable!" shouted Bacchylides the mathematician. "The incessant hammering and clanging is bad enough! How are philosophers to go calmly about their work with this cacophony?"
Now the noise began to vary. Instead of a single, eerie, wailing note, other notes, just as loud, joined in an almost musical progression, rising and falling, until it was making a recognizable tune.
Following the noise, they entered one of the smaller courtyards. In its center towered an arrangement of vertical pipes of varying length, like the pipes of Pan upended, made of metal and of a godlike size. From the pipes shot streamers of white steam. Marcus recognized the thing. It was the great water organ from the Hippodrome. Ordinarily, teams of men worked pumps to maintain the pressure of the water in its reservoir. When the organist pushed its keys, water pressure forced air through the pipes. In the Hippodrome, its music was clear and mellow. Here it bellowed like an ox in a mud hole, only a hundred times louder.
Now there were no men working pumps. Instead, the thing was connected to one of the bronze boilers by a long pipe. A slave shoveled wood chips into the furnace beneath the boiler, watching the color of the coals closely, all too aware of the fate of his predecessors. The inventor himself danced excitedly before his creation, punching his fists in the air, hair and beard swirling like some ecstatic priest of a mysterious Eastern god. The organist-a woman, as was the custom-was just as enthusiastic, swaying her bottom from side to side as she smashed down upon the keys with hammered fists and sang along with her incredibly amplified instrument.
"Stop this!" Selene shouted, but no one could hear her. The philosophers were waving their arms, wailing in protest. Guards and slaves were gathering from all over the Museum, Library and palace to find out what the noise portended. Some caught the organist's enthusiasm, and impromptu dances broke out over the courtyard.
Selene pointed at the man shoveling wood under the boiler. "Marcus, you have your sword, don't you? Go kill that man. Maybe that will make it stop."
Instead, Scipio went and spoke to the slave, who nodded and began to shovel hot coals out of the furnace. Gradually, the hooting of the pipes grew less intense, then faded quickly. When she could be heard, Selene shouted to the crowd.
"This is not a festival day! All of you return to your duties!" Disappointed, the soldiers and servants filtered back into the buildings, leaving the philosophers, the Romans and, she now saw, those itinerant Greeks, Zeno and Izates.
Half-dazed, the inventor turned around to see who was spoiling his fun. He seemed amazed to find that he had attracted a crowd that included Queen Selene. "Er, Majesty," he said. "What brings you here?"
She stared at him, astonished. "What brings me here? The most hellish racket ever heard in Alexandria, that's what! What's your name?"
The man gathered his wits together and bowed. "Euphenes of Caria, Majesty. And today I stand before you as the discoverer of the most important principle ever known to mankind!" He drew himself up, eyes blazing with a demented light.
"And what have you discovered?" Selene demanded. "A new way to make people go deaf?"
"Steam!" he shouted. "I have learned to harness steam!"
"Majesty," Flaccus said, leaning close to her, "we have so many philosophers here. I think we can hang this one without suffering any great loss. It might encourage the rest to keep the noise level down."
"No, let's hear what he has to say first," Scipio cautioned.
"Steam," Euphenes began, "is simply water in another form. Raise its temperature high enough and water, which is matter in a liquid state, is transformed into a gaseous state."
"Every housewife knows that water will boil away," Selene said impatiently.
"Yes, but since this occurs in open vessels, those housewives, and everyone else prior to my own researches, did not realize that a given volume of water, once heated sufficiently, is transformed to a much larger volume of steam!" Blank looks greeted this ringing pronouncement. He waved his hands, seeking the right words to get his concept across to these clearly nonphilosophical people. "It is like harnessing the wind! Wind is powerful, is it not? Wind drives ships. In great tempests, it uproots trees, tears the roofs from temples, drives the sea up onto dry land. What I have done is to confine the power of Boreas and Zephyrus within closed vessels, from which I may direct it in any direction I desire by means of pipes and valves."
"What can you do with it?" Marcus asked.
"Do with it? I shall develop innumerable uses for this power, of course. I have only just now proved the truth of my theory."
"You had better come up with something better than a loud noise," Selene said ominously.
"Majesty," said Zeno. "Might I speak?"
She looked at him. "Zeno, isn't it? Of course you may. You struck me as a man of good sense, and I could use some just now."
"Majesty, this, great instrument makes an intolerable noise here in this small courtyard that is almost adjacent to your palace. But it strikes me that, in the immense space of the Hippodrome, its volume will match the scale of the greatest building in the world. Huge as it is, when it employs conventional water power it can barely be heard by distant spectators. I think if you let it be played there with the new steam power, it could prove a great hit with the crowds."
"What?" said Euphenes indignantly. "I did not do this to produce some trivial toy to please the mob! I simply found it an elegant way to prove my theory of the ratio between the volumes of water and steam-ow!"
The organist had joined them and now she trod on the philosopher's toes to shut him up. She bowed almost double. "Majesty, I am Chrysis, chief organist of the Hippodrome. If you will permit me to play my organ at the next games with the new steam power, I can promise that it will be a sensation! The crowds will adore you as never before. Nothing like it has ever been heard before."