The Lion's Slave (2 page)
That gave him an idea–some maths idea I’ve never understood. Anyway, Archimedes jumped out of the bath and ran down the street calling out the news.
Archimedes running down street.
He forgot about simple things like that. And I reckon it was his brilliant brain that got him killed.
He thought everyone was as excited by his inventions as he was. He forgot that people have feelings. Feelings of revenge.
If he’d been as stupid as me then he’d still be alive today.
It all started when the Romans came to Syracuse…
“You are stupid, Lydia, stupid,” Archimedes told me. “I don’t know why I hired you. You must be a very cheap servant.”
“I am more than cheap, you don’t pay me anything at all,” I reminded him.
“Then how do you live?”
“I eat a little of the food I cook for you and I sleep on a straw bed in an attic room.”
“Huh!” he grumbled. “Then I still pay you too much.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
And on that day, the Romans arrived to attack us. Their ships lay in the cool, blue sea off the shore of Syracuse. Soldiers stood on the decks, but didn’t dare to land just yet. Our soldiers on the walls would have shot them with their arrows.
“Will the Romans kill us when they land, sir?” I asked.
“Stupid child,” Archimides said. “You, Lydia, are a young and healthy girl. They will not kill you. You are not worth it. They will take you away and make you a slave. But then you will not have a kind master like me, will you?”
“No, sir,” I said.
Archimedes’ house stood on the top of a hill.We could look over the garden walls and down over the city walls to see the Roman fleet shimmering in the heat. The sun beat down on us and I wished I could swim in that cool, blue sea.
“I would like to smash those ships,” Archimedes said.
“You could throw rocks at them,” I suggested.
He looked at me and mopped his bald, sweating head with a cloth. “Stupid girl,” he said.
“Can you do something about them?” I asked.
“Perhaps I could … I could invent something,” he said.
I clapped my hands and jumped on the dry, brown grass. “That would be marvellous, sir. You are a wonderful inventor. You invented a way to raise water out of a river and into the fields.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “They call it Archimedes’ screw.”
“I’m sure you could invent a machine to fire big rocks at those ships,” I said.
My master shook his head. “Find me a rock and I’ll show you why it’s not possible.”
There were no rocks in the garden because I kept it weeded and full of flowers. But there were some large ones in the field outside the garden wall.
