Steam Legion (10 page)

Cassius began to make his way from the eastern watch Garrison, back toward the center of the city where the Great Library was located.

****

Dyna was pouring over large papyrus scrolls when he arrived, leading Cassius to roll his eyes and wonder why he’d ever been worried about her in the first place.

“My Lady, you should be sleeping,” he urged gently from where he had come to a stop to watch her.

Her reaction startled him almost as much as his voice appeared to startle her. Dyna didn’t
quite
shriek, but she did jump and twist in his direction as her hand went to the sword she still wore belted to her waist.

Or, just perhaps she’s more affected than it appears at first glance
.

“Cassius.” She breathed out, visibly getting ahold of herself and willing her body to relax.

“That was my name yesterday morning when I awoke,” he told her, smiling easily. “Now, do you recall your own?”

She shot him a scowl, ignoring the question as she turned back to the scrolls. “I am working, Cassius.”

“Yes, I am able to see that, my Lady,” he said. “The question I is: on what?”

“On our defenses.”

Cassius blinked, cocking an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Cassius, you could not be unaware of how few we have to defend the city if you were a fool, and I know that you are not.” Dyna scowled. “However, Master Heron’s work last night has given me an idea…a concept, if you will.”

When she smiled, fatigue was clearly visible in her features, but Cassius was surprised by how alert and aware she actually appeared.

“It was my first real eureka, Cassius. I will not leave it to rest yet.”

“Dyna, my Lady,” he sighed. “I admit that those automatons of the Master were impressive, but they were only useful in a very limited fashion.”

“No, not those…” she said, then paused and frowned. “At least, not yet. No, I’m thinking of something else.”

He walked around the table to see what she was reading and frowned at the title.

On Sphere Making
.

The name of the author, however, was enough to give him a start of recognition, even if the title of the document itself meant nothing to him.
Archimedes of Syracuse.

“What is this?” he asked.

“One of the most valuable scrolls in the Library, Cassius,” she said, “This is Archimedes’s treatise on navigation, timekeeping, and various other mechanisms he and others of his peers designed.”

The scroll, in addition to neatly scrawled Greek, was filled with sketches of devices and such that made no sense at all to Cassius. He shook his head slowly. “And this has what to do with the defense of the city?”

“Manpower is what we need, yes?”

“Yes, but I believe that we’re agreed that you won’t be building it from wood and metal,” he chided her, smiling a little to take any sting from the statement.

“No, we can’t magically create men,” she said, eyes drifting as she did. “Yet, at least.”

Dyna visibly shook herself, coming back to the present and staring at the papyrus again for a time without speaking until Cassius nudged her into the moment again.

“What? Oh, sorry. I…I’m tired,” she admitted, finally.

“I know, I can see,” he told her. “And you will be sleeping soon. Still, tell me what you have in mind.”

She looked at him for a moment, almost confused, then blinked and her eyes widened. “Oh! Of course, sorry, Cassius. No, we are unable to conjure men from the sand…or even from our forges, but we can do so much more with far fewer men than you will ever believe.”

“How?”

She tapped a device on the paper. “With this. We have one here, but we shall need to build more. Many more.”

“What is this?” he asked, looking at the oddly spikey collection of circles, all nested within one another.

“It is a navigation planetaria, built specifically with the mile markers in mind,” she said. “We have one of two that were commissioned. The other was lost at sea off the coast of Antikythera some two centuries past. It was being delivered to Caesar, part of a military project that was quickly forgotten.”

“What sort of project?”

“Coordination of military movements over considerable distances,” she said. “An interesting problem, but not the one I’m considering at the moment. We would need at least two to perform any of those sorts of coordinated maneuvers, but with one, there are many things that I believe we can make happen all the same.”

“What?” he asked, shaking his head. “What could we do?”

“As you said, we cannot build automatons for battle,” she responded. “They do not move well and would be easy to avoid, but what if we built automatons of our siege devices?”

He stared, not quite comprehending what she meant. “You mean…make a scorpion dance like those play soldiers of Master Heron?”

“I believe that onagers would be more effective, though I would wish for the steam cannon,” she said seriously. “Unfortunately, the cannon may yet be too complex, but for onagers we could control as many as we like from a single one of these devices. We would need only three trained men to staff them. The rest of the work, such as loading the weapon, could be left to slaves or citizens, Cassius.”

He stared, not quite believing her. Three men to man as many onagers as needed? Alright, even if they needed slaves for some work, it would still save them a great many men.
Or allow us to field far more weight of arms than we currently could hope.

“How?”

“One man to spot the target and signal the Commander, the Commander calculates the required trajectories with this,” she said, tapping the device sketched on the paper, “and one to supervise the adjustment of the weapons through Master Heron’s device. It can be done, I swear it.”

He nodded slowly. “I believe you, my Lady. Can it be done
quickly?
”

Now she hesitated, uncertain. “For one wall…I believe so. Days perhaps, with the workers we have.”

“One wall?”

“Ideally, you would have a Commander and device at each wall, perhaps more than one,” she admitted. “However, we have only one device.”

Cassius considered the situation and then shrugged. “So, build one emplacement.”

“I can?” She appeared surprised.

He decided that she must be near to dead-tired to be looking to him for permission and gently touched a hand to hers. “My Lady, until the Legion or a representative from Rome comes, you are the highest noble in the city. Greek you may be, and Spartan at that… Yes, I know how deeply you dislike how your people have been treated in recent years, but you are still the highest authority in Alexandria today. If you wish to commission a project of the Library, I, for one, will not gainsay it.”

She nodded, face a peculiar and amusing mix of shock and fatigue.

“Enough for the moment,” he told her, however. “For now, to bed with you.”

“But there is work to be done…”

“My Lady, the work will be there when you awake.” Cassius beckoned and a slave appeared. “Escort my Lady to her rooms and see to her comfort.”

“Yes ,sir.” The woman looked to Dyna. “My Lady?”

Dyna shook herself, prying herself physically from her workplace. “Let no one touch my work!”

“It will be sealed, my Lady,” the slave promised, gently taking Dyna’s elbow. “Come, you’re tired.”

Cassius watched the slave lead the Spartan lady away, his attention coming back to the notes and calculations Dyna had left behind. He looked them over, not really understanding what he was seeing but his mind considering what she had said.

If it worked, it would be miraculous. Three trained men to do the work of dozens, perhaps hundreds. Still, he would not count on it until he saw it operate. As a Centurion assigned to Alexandria, he had often heard boasts of this device, or that idea, that would certainly change the Empire and, with it, the world. Few, if any, in his experience, were worth the breath it took to speak of them.

Still, if she can do it…
He smiled wistfully as he left, two slaves coming in to seal the room and place notices that it was an active workspace.

Chapter 9

Dyna tiredly stumbled as she entered her rooms, the slave girl catching her arm before she could tumble to the floor and cause herself some serious harm.

“Thank you,” she said, blinking now to try and clear her eyes.

“I am yours to command, my Lady.”

Dyna nodded, extending her arms so the girl could undo the laces that secured her Laminata armor. She barely felt the nimble fingers dancing across her body as the armor was loosened, but Dyna let out a groan as tension she hadn’t even been aware of was released from her body when the armor came clear.

“Thank you, Via,” she told the slave. “I did not realize how constricted I felt.”

“You have been wearing it all night, my Lady,” Via told her in a mildly scolding voice. “This armor was not tailored for you, and you are not habituated to it.”

Dyna nodded as the girl pulled the rest of her clothing off, undoing her boots as well and setting everything aside before leading the nude Lady to the bath.

“We bathe you first, my Lady. Then you sleep,” Via said in no uncertain terms.

“I just need sleep, I can bathe later,” Dyna objected.

Via was having none of it. “Bathe first.”

The slave girl firmly steered Dyna to the bath, not letting her get off course. Dyna scowled, not realizing how much she looked like a petulant child at that point and likely too tired to care anyway.

“Undoubtedly, the men don’t have slaves ordering them to bathe before sleep.”

Via shrugged. “Those of the nobles do, my Lady. I have done it many times for Commanders of the Legion.”

Dyna looked at her in surprise, now allowing herself to be settled in by the tub as two male slaves brought in heated water. She hissed deeply as the near-scalding water splashed over her flesh but made no moves as Via set about scrubbing her down.

“You will sleep better when we are done,” she said as she worked. “Have faith in me, my Lady.”

Dyna was already halfway to Morpheus’s domain by that point and barely managed to murmur her response. “Faith…yes.”

Via glanced up to see her current mistress practically gone already and quickly continued with her job. She scrubbed the Lady down, clearing the sweat, grime, and blood of the night’s tasks and rinsed her down again with hot water. She knew that her Lady was not one to indulge in specious comforts idly, so she took the opportunity to indulge her when Dyna would not object and had the male slaves fetch oils from the Library stocks.

When they returned, Via bade them carry Dyna to the bed and lay her out before dismissing them. She then proceeded to oil her mistress down, particularly around the chafed areas that had obviously been building for weeks or months. The bruises on her breasts from the pressure of the armor would be bad come morning, Via knew that for certain, and there were numerous pinches and cuts visible where the armor had not moved correctly for Dyna’s body.

Via shook her head and rolled her eyes. For one so intelligent, her Lady was terribly simple by times. She forgot to care for herself, or sometimes seemed to think that taking such care was in some way hedonistic. Via was not as intelligent as many of those she worked with, but she shared one thing in common with the likes of Dyna and the great Heron himself.

She was the best at what she did, and she was quite aware of that. It irked her to no end when those she was charged with serving were intent on self-destructive behavior to the point of ignoring those such as herself who knew quite well what they were doing and might be able to at least limit the damage. When her Lady was oiled down, muscles massaged out, and generally lost to the world for the next several hours, Via laid a light linen across her body so any chill would be prevented.

When she was done, Via left and closed the large double doors, leaving orders that the room not be disturbed until the Lady called for them.

Nobles,
she thought, shaking her head as she walked away.
Like spoiled children, all of them. Even the ones who try so hard not to be.

****

Heron had done a great many things in his life. He’d attended parties with Emperors, invented wonders to entertain the masses, and created horrors to kill them. He wasn’t a complicated man, however, despite all belief to the contrary.

Of his simple joys, the purest was simply seeing his inventions in operation.

As he watched the sun climb into the sky, Heron reflected on what he had seen the night before. The magnificent cannons devised by Archimedes had worked as designed. At closer ranges they were so much more powerful than anything else in the armory. However, even he recognized that they were too complex to be utilized by common soldiers.

Archimedes’s design was predicated on certain common factors, primary among them being the availability of a multitude of highly skilled hands. In Syracuse that was no great difficulty, not for Archimedes. The man had nearly unlimited resources when applied to the defense of his homeland, as his many great weapons and many dead invaders could attest.

Here in Alexandria, too, they had that resource. Men of the most brilliant of minds, and women too.
One woman at least.

Educated hands, skilled and motivated. These were things that the Legion did not have aplenty, and certainly not enough to waste. As amazing as the cannons were, they were too fragile and complicated to survive as Legion tools.

Good enough to defend the Library, which is something of note, but what can be done to make them easy enough for a common Legionnaire?

Feeling younger than he had in decades, Master Heron of Alexandria set to work. He knew of men in the city, not of the Library but well respected nonetheless, who might just be able to help.

“Andri,” he called, beckoning to a slave waiting near the far door.

“Yes, Master Heron.”

“I want all craftsmen of significant skill summoned to the Library,” he ordered, “in my name. We have work for them to do.”

“Yes, Master Heron,” the slave said and left to post the announcement.