The Arrows of Hercules
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Arrows of Hercules». Краткое содержание книги:
“Exciting and quite believable adventures.”—Classical World
“Rousing piece of fiction...pace is rapid and unrelenting.” —The Arizona Republic
"This is beside the point; I did not call you here to lecture you on foreign policy. I am sending a recruiting expedition deep into Punic territory—to the Punic cities of western Sicily and to Carthage itself. This expedition shall comprise these two men and yourself. In soliciting such people, you will of course say nothing of our preparations for defense. Stress the peaceful aspects of your work—the architecture, the waterworks, and the like."
Zopyros' jaw dropped. He had been rehearsing his request for leave to visit Messana, and now he was to travel a hundred leagues in quite a different direction! He started to utter a hot protest but softened it in the telling. "Why me, sir? I thought my present work was urgent."
"I have my eye on your present work, Zopyros. For one thing, your carpenters wll need only minor supervision until they complete the full-scale model. For another, amongst all my people, you three are the only men who speak Punic fluently. Although you could not pass for authentic Phoenicians, your knowledge of that tongue will make you more effective in explaining the rewards of working for Dionysios."
"O President! May I not wait—let's say a ten-day—to take care of some personal business?"
"No, you may not," said Dionysios in a voice like a well-honed blade. "Autumn is upon us. Even a day's delay might strand you in Africa when the shipping lines close down for winter."
"Why must three go, sir?"
"Because of the hazards of recruiting in a hostile land, I would not send one man alone. Evnos has the most experience in travel and in delicate negotiations. Therefore he shall decide on your routes, sailings, quarters—everything to do with travel—and he shall make the first contacts with the local people wherever you go. Since you know the most about engineering and can thus judge the worth of the men you solicit, you shall have the final choice of men. And Segovax is a seasoned warrior who, if it comes to swords' points, can best lead you in cutting your way out. Hence he shall be your leader in battle or flight. Besides"—he smiled faintly again—"with three men, if an accident does befall, at least one of you might get away to tell me the outcome."
As Dionysios spoke, while Zopyros was still boiling with suppressed rage over losing the leave he had promised himself, an idea struck him with blinding brilliance. If he were sent to recruit in the Punic lands, he might—Fate willing—snatch young Ahiram from his father after all! He covered his exuberance by a slow, deep draft of wine. When his mind stopped its dizzy spin, Zopyros raised his goblet, saying:
"To a rich harvest of Punic engineers! When do we start, sir?"
Five – CARTHAGE
They sat around a table in the courtyard of Evnos' house in Syracuse. On the table stood three small piles of coins, and Evnos held a bag of coins in his lap. He was placing a coin from the bag on each of the three piles in turn, round and round. At last he said:
"There you are! Your pile must last you the journey. The total ships' fares shouldn't come to more than five drachmai, and three oboloi a day will feed you if you don't demand peacocks' tongues."
Zopyros, counting his pile, asked: "What does one do if there is money left over at the end of the voyage?"
Evnos grinned at Segovax. "Isn't it nice to meet a man so young and unspoilt? To answer your question, my boy, somehow there never is any left."
Zopyros asked: "When do we leave, and where do we go?" Evnos: "We leave as soon as I can buy passage; we sail for Carthage itself."
"Why don't we try the Phoenician cities of Sicily first? They're closer, and if we had good luck in them we might not need to go to Africa at all."
"There are, true, a few engineers in the smaller Phoenician colonies, like Panormos and Utica and Tunis. But why waste time in these little places when we can strike for the big prize? Engineers are not like landowners and priests and politicians, tied to one place by their interests. Able engineers go where the big money is, and in the Phoenician world that means Carthage. There we shall find more engineers than in all the other cities of New Phoenicia put together."
"But"—Zopyros in desperation became insistent—"the Phoenician cities of Sicily are on the way to Carthage. Why don't we take a ship to Messana, then one west to Panormos and Motya? Thus we should make a clean sweep of them. That's logical."
"No. I have made up my mind. If we don't find enough good men in Carthage, it will be time enough to try the other cities."
Zopyros frowned in thought. He did not want to quarrel at the outset with Evnos, who had been given authority over travel plans. Yet he had to find some argument to persuade the Karian to stop at Motya so that he could see how things stood in Elazar's home.
"Evnos!"
"Yes?"
"I know of a man in Motya who might be able to shorten our search."
"Who? How?"
"He's a big building contractor, named Elazar. He would know all the leading engineers of New Phoenicia."
"A house builder? I doubt it. Such men work from a few standard plans by rule of thumb. They never bother with engineers or architects."
"From what I hear, Elazar is more than that. He's had experience with things like harbor works and city walls."
Evnos stared at the pile of silver before him. He scratched a flea-bite, flipped a tetradrachma, caught it, and flipped it again. At last he said:
"All right, you win. Most ships plying between here and Carthage put in at one city or another of western Sicily anyway. We'll see if your contractor knows a technician from a tadpole."
At the western tip of Sicily, a long, irregular peninsula, the Aigithallos, curved down from the north to inclose the wide, shallow Bay of Motya, ten furlongs from east to west and forty from north to south. In the midst of this bay stood Motya, an island as round as a Boiotian loaf and four furlongs across. A long causeway ran north from the island and joined it to the mainland near the base of the Aigithallos.
To the east and south, the green Sicilian coastal plain spread far and flat, checkered with fields and groves. To the northeast, five leagues away, the towering crag of Eryx broke the level horizon. To the west, the three isles called Aegates lay low in the sea.
A wall of massive limestone blocks, twenty cubits high, surrounded Motya. Twenty tall square towers rose from the wall at intervals. As their ship approached, Zopyros saw that the type of masonry varied in different parts of the wall. Some stretches were made of smoothly dressed stones, while in others the stones had been left rough on their outer surface. The size of the stones and the evenness of the courses also varied, showing that the wall had been built and rebuilt over the centuries. Greek mercenary soldiers walked the wall and guarded the gates.
The skyward-thrusting houses of the city loomed over the wall. Surrounded by water, Motya could not expand outward as its population grew. Hence it grew upward, into apartment houses of four and even five stories. Zopyros thought of Tyre. There was the same ponderous stonework, the same air of plain, graceless, severe, inartistic efficiency.
The ship docked at the south side of the island city, where a ledge of rock had been trimmed away and built up to make a wharf, between the wall and the waters of the bay. Nearby, a gap in the wall gave access to the cothon or inner harbor. Through the gap, Zopyros glimpsed a number of triremes crowded together. A raised portcullis, like that of Dionysios' stronghold, guarded the cothon and its massed ships of war and commerce.
They hired a porter to carry most of their gear and, after a few inquiries, set out for Elazar's house. As they walked down the street, Segovax craned his neck to gaze uneasily upward at the towering apartment houses on either side.